TtS! 1066 Online Tournament- the Final Results!

Congratulations to Andy Lyon, our new Bretwalda,  who won the TtS! 1066 online tournament, and commiserations to Antony Spencer, who came second, after a very closely fought battle last night. 

Here's a shot from late in the game (above). Antony subsequently broke Andy's centre, but the heavy casualties he took doing so, and Andy's mercenary Normans taking his camp, led to a Scottish victory (below). 

Andy wins the Harald Hardrada victor's trophy. I think the mini was painted by James Morris- I still need to flock the base.  There will be modest prizes for the runners-up, including Wyatt Traina who came fourth (I came third)- I'll post them out tomorrow.

Thanks very much to everyone who participated in the tournament!. It's been great fun meeting new players, and all very good-natured. I've played way more games than I expected I would, this year! We played 59 games, in total- almost as many as are played at the TtS! Worlds in Chalgrove.

There will be another tournament starting in 3-4 weeks time- on the theme of the Italian Wars. It'll run for a longer duration, but with people playing a single game (or at most two) per week, which I hope will benefit those players who have busy jobs. It will also have what I hope will be an interesting campaign background, running in parallel with the tournament. I'll let you know more about it as we get closer to starting.

In other news, we are in the last few days of my current sale and I have rules, bases and even some mats marked down. Parcel postage prices to the USA will increase from Sunday, so it's a particularly good time to buy if you are American.

Coustilliers II

Last night, I couldn't resist starting to base most of the finished coustilliers up with their knights. Here are a couple of quickly snatched photos. In the front are two units of 18 Venetian knights/coustillers, each, and, at the back is the front rank of a unit of Florentine knights, as yet lacking supports.  Hopefully, when I add my Milanese, I'll eventually be able to form seven units of 18 knights, and four units of light cavalry.

I'm mounting most of the minis for these armies on the FK&P6 base (my personal favourite). I can fit all 15 bases into a single 7L Really Useful Box.

Coustilliers

I've not been painting much, recently, but am just getting back in the saddle. Here are some minis painted my chum Shaun McTague for me, that I've just done a wee bit of additional highlighting, and inked. Most will serve as the coustilliers (rear ranks) of my Venetian knights, and the rump will be join my projected Florentine army. They are mostly Perry WOTR light cavalry; superb little models. The mounted crossbows are Perry metals on plastic horses; they work better than the plastic crossbowmen, I think, because the plastic crossbows look too large for mounted use.

In other news.... the Midsummer Madness online tournament is going from strength to strength! So far we've played over 40 games, and will likely have played over 60 by the 24th, when it ends with a Grand Final. It's probably the only big battle tournament running in the World, just now.

Here's a shot from the end of my last battle with Simon Purchon, which I narrowly won when my brave Anglo-Saxons braved the Welsh arrow-storm to chop up his Combrogi with their Dane-axes. It's been a lot of fun, and a great success- so I very much hope we'll run another tournament, later in the summer.