Battle of Shrewsbury 1069; Watchtower Interval!

The Normans within the Motte and Bailey at Shrewsbury in 1069 were safe and sound from the excesses of Eadric the Wild and friends. As added protection and to give early warning of any oncoming attack I am going to include a watchtower on then hill. The piece is too nice not to utilise! Though an imaginary scenario it is not inconceivable that in the three years since the Norman invasion, with much of England only nominally under control of William I of England that early warning outposts would be built to keep one eye open for potential trouble makers. In other words that's my excuse and I am going to use it anyway! :>)

The tower will be under the control on Eadric's Anglo Danish force and manned by his Welsh allies under Kind Bleddyn and Rhiwallon. More on the history of the revolt in a future post.

The tower was painted up in the usual way. The upright wooden superstructure and outer structure of the pieces were painted using a craft paint that is more or less the equivalent of Vallejo Model Colour German Cammo Black Brown (perhaps a little lighter) and highlighted up using craft paint creams and finally with Vallejo Model Colour Ivory. This time I tried having a darker tone on the thatch as I wanted some contrast between the 'painted' wattle and daub and the actual thatch. The wattle and daub is just Miniature Paints Earth (I don't know if they are still around[?]) and highlighted up with Ivory. The spikey bits on the parapets are Vallejo Model Colour Beige highlighted up again with Vallejo Model Colour Ivory.

Hopefully I will have a terrain tile ready at some point to sit these pieces of terrain up in a decent setting.

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: