Battle of Shrewsbury 1069; Anglo Danish Huscarl Unit Planning

When I am planning a unit to fit a certain rule set or more accurately to fit a number of different rule sets I like to plan or map out where each individual miniature is going to sit. This is not always necessary, for example Hail Caesar has a very loose guide to how your miniatures should be situated on a base which is great and as long as your miniatures are roughly 20mm wide, the rest really doesn't matter.

That said I do like my armies to fit as many rule basing conventions as possible for reasons that are obvious, especially to a wargamer who has had to re-base an army once or twice! So, with this idea in mind I have planned this unit so they will fit Hail Caesar, Swordpoint, WAB 1.5 and with luck, a number of other rule sets that I might find myself playing.

As the title of this post suggests the miniatures on the bases below will be forming the front ranks of the Anglo Danish Huscarl unit. For anyone interested the miniatures are a mixture of the new Matthew Bickley sculpts by Footsore Miniatures, Saxon Miniatures and Gripping Beast. As far as 11th Century Saxons go these companies are by far my favourites. I do like and own some of the Matthew Bickley sculpted Late Saxons by Wargames Foundry miniatures but I have refrained from using any in this unit.

Here is the second set of bases that will rank up nicely behind the bases above. It was a little fiddly getting the miniatures to fit temporarily on the 40mm x 40mm bases as one has to take into account that shields, swords and spears will be added. Not to mention that for the unit to look convincing in a shieldwall formation one really has to aim at getting 4 miniatures per base. I will probably make a little more wiggle room with a casualty or two. Also, before cleaning and base coating the miniatures I will be cutting down some of the base sizes in order to make it easier to move them around after painting and to rank up a little better.

Lastly, here's the Eadric the Wild Command base. It is sized for Swordpoint and to be honest, the bigger the command base the better as it allows for much more leeway in terms of artistic license. I guess it is a natural inclination of a rules writer to think more about the mechanics of the game and less about aesthetics. 

Next, I'm going to be re-basing my existing Anglo Danish Huscarl unit as well as the Ceorls. Prepare for some choice Anglo Saxon language as as well as pics! 

Spanish Knight and Almoravid Horse Archers- On the Painting Table

The On the Painting Table posts will be primarily unfinished painting or conversions. I just thought it to be a good label to have on my blog as it nice and descriptive and thus speaks for itself.

So...... on the painting table I have, one unfinished Spanish Knight for my Late 11th/Early 12th  Century Spanish Reconquista project. He was actually from a unit that has a full compliment of knights minus one as I made a bit of a horrible miscalculation when cleaning up and under coating a unit earlier which is now complete! The mini is roughly half way to completion. His mail, cloak, fabrics and 'turban' have been completed but I have yet to paint the steel helmet and sword and finish the shield. I will add the various base colours, highlight up and then give the mini a last look over to see if anything needs muting, dampening down or highlighting up.

I also have nine half finished Almoravid Horse Archers sitting in front of me. Almoravid armies did not have home grown horse archers. It is more likely that these somewhat noteworthy soldiers were Ghuzz or "Turkomen" who had migrated westward on a small scale, certainly in very small groups. definitively seen in Almohad armies (1172-1212) where they are recorded as receiving higher pay than that of a regular soldier as they were prized for their skills on horseback with the composite bow. Despite there being no direct evidence of their presence in the earlierr Almoravid armies I have made the assumption that very small numbers of these warriors might well migrated West across Northern Africa to seek their fortune in Morocco and Spain.

These miniatures are almost there. I just have to add the final base coats of paint and highlight up. I'm a bit concerned that they look a bit pastel in tone so I might have to rework some of the larger areas in a darker colour. As a final touch I'm going to be adding some basic patterning to some of the fabrics to help break up the large areas of colour.

New Assault Group Italian Personalities!

I have been making an effort not to post pics of miniatures that are about to be released but these sculpts from Nick Collier are just too exciting to ignore! High on their heals are some Spanish Personalities according to the TAG Facebook page. Ramon de Cardona per chance?

These characters could be used to create pretty much any Italian Commanders of the period from 1495 (Fornovo) up to and around the Ravenna era (1512) and have great purpose for the vignette style basing that I love to put together.

I have already had multiple ideas for vignettes pop into my mind (beware the wargaming butterfly syndrome!), the main one being that of Machiavelli, Cesare Borgia & Da vinci acting as advisors to various commanders and planners,but in particular and perhaps obviously, Da Vinci as master of artillery.

I'm going to let the pictures do the talking:

Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, his Father, Duke Ercol d'Este & staff:

Alfonso I d ' East I:

Alfonso I d ' East II:

Duke Ercol d'Este:

Machiavelli, Cesare Borgia & Da vinci:

The Florentine:

The Genius:

The Prince:

Footsore Anglo Danes

These little fellas popped through my letterbox the other day. They are Anglo Danish Huscarls by Footsore Miniatures and are beautifully sculpted by Matthew Bickley.  These are very lively action packed belligerent sculpts and they really do look the business.

The castings I received were very clean and crisp. There was minimal flash if any. They came with an assortment of round shields some of which had sculpted wooden planks on the front and back(!) of the shield; this is plainly not the sort of equipment a well armed Huscarl would have carried. Perhaps a lowly Ceorl who could not afford anything of quality but not an elite warrior. A shield made purely of lindenwood ("Lindenwood" is the wood of the linden tree) would not have lasted more than a minute in combat. Quality shields of the period were lued together with a glue made out of cheese(!) but what really have the shield its strength and durability was the convex construction and the leather stretched and glued over the lindenwood. Also, by this period it is most likely that a large proportion of the high status Northern European warrior class would be using the classic French (and Norman) kite shield as this shape offered added protection to the lower limbs. The kite shield was not just a mounted warriors piece of kit. In fact, it is not beyond the bounds of reason that the army Harald Hardrada arrived with in 1066 would have a had a proportion of their elite warriors carrying kite shields. After all, keeping up with the best battlefield kit was a warriors best chance of staying alive on any given battlefield.

So then, it would have been nice to get a few kits shields with these excellent models and that is something I am going to remedy by adding some kite shields from Crusader Miniatures and Gripping Beast. I was going to order some from Footsore but they don't seem to have the early variety available at present. To make up the numbers in the Huscarl units I'm going to be adding mini's from various other ranges as well. The one's in the pictures are from Gripping Beast and Saxon Miniatures, great sculpts that as well as making up the numbers will add more drama to the bases. Cloaks and straps will be added where applicable with ProCreate and Greenstuff.

A Closer Look: