Anglo Danish Huscarls/Fyrd Unit Five

Continuing with the painting momentum created with the completion of the Italian Mounted Arquebusiers unit a few days ago, and after a week of waiting for the gloss coat to to fully cure before matting down, I have completed yet another unit, this time for my Anglo Danes army, which now, excluding command bases, Shieldwall markers casualty and contains 120 miniatures. With another unit of Huscarls/Fyrd, a unit of Viking Mercenaries and two skirmishing units to complete the end finally seems in sight.

The Anglo Danish army of the 11th Century, arguably the best infantry in Europe at the time has always fascinated me. How could such a steadfast an object as Harold Godwinson's royal army lose at the Battle of Hastings? It is a mystery. Were they doomed from the start following on from Harold's forced march from  being exhausted after the fight at Stamford Bridge? Then to march down the spine of the country to face William? Or, was Harold too eager for battle and neglected to rest his army and more importantly, build it up into a larger force, which he had time enough to do? Or, maybe it was pride or dishonour as William ravaged his Harold's personal landholdings, that forced Harold into a hasty battle?

We will almost certainly never know, but to speculate is the way of the wargamer.

So, onto the completed brushwork. Again I have mixed things up with the choice of miniatures with Footsore (Matthew Bickley), Footsore (Bill Thornhill), Saxon Miniatures, out of production Gripping Beast, (later) Griping Beast and Wargames Foundry (Matthew Bickley)!

Italian Mounted Arquebusiers Single Base Close Ups

I managed to make some time to take some pictures of the close ups I had planned for the single bases of Italian Mounted Arquebusiers. 

It would be remiss of me not to mention the colour scheme was "borrowed" from the black and red colour scheme of Black Band of Giovanni de' Medici used by the chap who does the College of Kings Blog. The Black Bands of Giovanni de’ Medici post is HERE.

In my last post I neglected to mention the idea was is try to arrange the miniatures in a kind of Caracole/Cantabrian Circle on the bases which, with just the bases complete out of six is a little hard to visualise, so I'll do a very short update when the unit is wholly complete.

Italian Mounted Arquebusiers

After quite some time away from the painting desk due to illness I am very happy to say that I am back! It was very hard to make a start for a couple of months but I pushed, stalled, pushed again and I'm now back into a decent rhythm with my painting. From zero to three projects resurrected; The Italian Wars, Early Byzantines and Anglo Danes are back on the menu. These will be punctuated by some of the beautiful castings for the Seven Years War from Claymore Castings which is promising to be a very special and extensive range. I've always been slightly put off with the Seven Years War as most of the miniatures on the market were very stiff and in advancing poses only. People who are regulars to my blog will know that I much prefer to see dynamic and varied poses in my armies and the Nick Collier Claymore sculpts tick that box and then some.

OK, so here's the first three bases of what will eventually be six bases of Italian Mounted Arquebusiers. They were actually completed quite some time ago, left painted but unvarnished in a cupboard! It wasn't until recently that I have felt like I have had the energy to finish them off. For varnishing I followed my usual method of a solid coat of Humbrol brush on Enamel Gloss followed a week later by Winsor and Newton Professional Matt varnish.

With no0t being into my normal rhythm, I forgot to superglue the magnetic sheets to the bases so there has been a little warpage, but so be it, I'm just happy that I have completed half of this unit.

I hope you like them. 

I'll take some close up pictures of the individual bases ASAP and post them up.

Swordpoint Rules MASTER Class. *COMMANDERS* ADDED 18-10-2022

In an effort to learn the Swordpoint rules, without being able to play any games (threat to my life by presented by Covid has sadly prevented this), this is a dream come true.

Very much looking forward to part 2 of the Movement Rules. Open Order Movement I wonder?

Swordpoint Rules MASTER Class -A guide by the Author. Part 1 - Movement

Swordpoint Rules MASTER Class -A guide by the Author. Part 2 - Shooting

Swordpoint Rules MASTER Class -A guide by the Author. Part 3 - Combat

Swordpoint Rules MASTER Class -A guide by the Author. Part 4 - Commanders