Thursday, 21 February 2019

Knights to Chalgrove!



Last night, I finally managed to finish the basing of my army for Chalgrove, the To The Strongest! World Championship, on Saturday. I've photographed all eleven units.

Above are the Famiglia Ducale Elmeti, the household of the Duke of Milan. All minis are Perrys, the above were by painted myself and Lionel Béchara, with the flags from Pete's flags on eBay. N.b. all photos will enlarge if clicked.


Here are some Italian later knights, again by Lionel, who did superb barber-shop lances.All the bases are my famous magnetic wobbly-edged BatBases.


More later knights, again from Lionel. I gave these deeper bases to protect the lances.


Above, yet more later knights, painted by Richard Hampson-Smith. The standards are for the Bande Nere; I suspect that there may not have been many (or even any) such knights, but the standards are too good not to use.


Here is Giovanni delle Bande Nere, himself, with the last (fifth) unit of later knights. Interestingly it appears that the famous black bands may only have been so-named after his untimely, cannon ball-related demise.


Mounted crossbowmen ex Richard. The various lights will likely screen the advance of the knights.


More mounted crossbowmen, ex Richard.


Even more mounted crossbowmen, ex Richard.


Metal light infantry crossbowmen, from a chap in Sweden. 


Plastic crossbowmen, ex-Richard.


Formed crossbowmen; again re-touched and re-based minis, originally painted by Richard. I'm not quite sure what I'll do with these, yet; possibly a refused flank for the knights.


My favourite unit- Venetian spearmen painted by Richard Hampson-Smith, Shaun McTague and myself. These are raw, and likely to be used to garrison the camp. I'm aware that I need to separate the tails on the flag.


Above is the army list; it's not an especially subtle army but should do well-enough in a dead-on clash. As the army is entirely newly-painted, and I've not had time to play a game since November, I am not especially optimistic about my own prospects, but I aim to have fun!

Finally, here's a bonus unit, of Bande Nere pikemen. Unfortunately I didn't have enough points to use them, this time, but I plan to add supporting arquebusiers, post-Salute. I love the grim look of them.


So there we are, all done!

Can I take this opportunity to wish safe journeys to all forty-odd players who are attending the tournament, especially the brave Belgians and Howard who is coming down from the Scottish Isles! May none of your cards be Aces (except when playing me, that is.  ;-)  ).

Wednesday, 20 February 2019

Flocking day!


With the Worlds on Saturday, I am making the final push on finishing my army. Here it is, pre flocking; I decided to lighten the base tone before covering most of it with flock (go figure!!). This morning I am sitting in a sunny dining room, with Lynyrd Skynyrd blasting in my ear, applying flock. Life is good!

Tuesday, 19 February 2019

Larger laager


Not the best photo, but this is finished. This gives me four foot of wagon laager for my Salute Mancetter battle. I'd like eight foot, but four will have to do for now! You can see the rest of the laager, which was painted in 2015, here.

Sunday, 17 February 2019

Celtathon IV


I've made good headway this week with the Mancetter 61 CE project, for Salute. I now have 70% of the required minis on the new-style bases. The main outstanding requirement is for three more trays-worth of the warbands (above, front). I have 2/3 of the 310 required minis painted and Shaun McTague is plugging his way through the remainder. The image above doesn't show the chariots or the wagon laager, which are largely complete. I think I am broadly on-target- although there's a heck of a lot of grouting and flocking to come! There should be rather more than 800 Celts by the time I am finished, 12' of warbands and 12' of light troops.

Below is a shot of an earlier incarnation of the Celtic army, with their Roman opponents in the distance.


I'll be running the large Mancetter "To the Strongest!" participation game at Salute. If you'd like to play in one of the two 2-hour sessions, please email me at the address (above, left) and I'll book you in.

Wednesday, 13 February 2019

Celtathon III


Last night I decided to make a start on the main basing effort for Salute- the warbands. Here are the first six. These first units will be relatively quick wins because I'm re-basing my existing Celts onto larger bases- each unit will eventually have c.24 minis on the front base, and c.12 on the rear base- I've not yet put the rear rank miniatures on the base. The bases are from my 20cm set, the TtS!20F and the smaller TtS!20G that fits behind it. Since each unit will be on only two bases, they will be quick to deploy and easy to move.

The process is to slice the top layer off my current cardboard bases, carefully, with a sharp craft knife, and then stick this layer (grout and flock intact) onto the prepared bases (chamferred edges, with fitted magnets and primed).

Next I'll fill in the rear ranks and get another three units on bases. After this, the task becomes harder as I still have minis that need finishing and they are all singles. I hope that I will have enough minis to build 17 units, altogether- around 11' of frothing warriors!

Tuesday, 12 February 2019

Laager extension


I wanted to add a short extension to my Celtic laager, which will be the backdrop for the Britons in my Mancetter Salute game, bringing it to 4' wide. The wagons are from Irregular and, I think, Redoubt. The minis are from various sources painted by both Shauns with others from eBay. It'll look great when based!


Thursday, 7 February 2019

Celtathon II


I've mentioned that I'm building a huge British army for Salute. Here are the light troops, part-based - the Britons will advance up the hill, screened by a mass of raw slingers. The 45 slingers on the left have been re-based onto my BatBases for the 20cm grid, but need extra grout and flock. Last night I found myself musing that I'm re-basing some of these minis for the third time. :-/ The 45 to the right are new minis, based and recently grouted with my patent BigRedBatGunk. 

Below are the light cavalry. Eight newly-painted minis have joined 12 veterans to form two units of ten. These will be in the game but may not see much action, since the Roman wings are screened by forests. Still, they look good! :-)


Of the rest of the army, I now have roughly 530 warriors painted, with 90 more out with Shaun McTague. I'll need to get my skates on to finish, in time!

If you are coming to Salute and would like to play in the game in one of the two sessions (AM/PM), please drop me an email (the address is on the left of the page). If you are able to help me run it, please mail me- I have a couple of spare entry tickets!

Wednesday, 30 January 2019

Condotta rearguard


There's a mandatory unit of spearmen on the Condotta list, and I've managed (with Shaun McTague's help, and some minis from Richard Hampson-Smith) to field a unit that to replace the pikemen that were originally going to proxy for it.

Unfortunately Perry don't do an Italian spearman, so I have had to cut down pikes and use pavises in place of shields, but they do the job. The colours are Venetian. Again the flag is from Pete's Flags, on eBay.

These will be raw spearmen and, at Chalgrove, I do not expect very much of them! I might leave them to guard the camp. I need to get started on flocking...

Friday, 18 January 2019

Italian Condotta


Here are my Italian Condotta for Chalgrove. Last night I grouted the bases, and now just need to flock and tuft them. I am tempted to replace the pikemen with some spearmen that Shaun McT is painting, and add some tents for a camp, but other than that they are mostly done, which is just as well since I'm a little behind with my Salute preparations! The bases are currently raw umber which seems like an appropriate base colour. :-)

These are on FK&P5 and FK&P6 bases; I really like these because they are a good fit for both 15cm (2 bases)  and 20cm (3 bases) grids.

Tuesday, 15 January 2019

Celtic Shields IV


Shields finished (bar the backs- but no more photos, I promise!). The final stage was to paint and ink around the bosses. I'm really pleased with them- LMBS designs are stunning and, mixed in with freehand shields for variety, should look rather splendid.

Putting my commercial hat on... I've imported a limited number of rivers and tracks from Deep-Cut. They are printed on mouse-mat material, 28mm scale and ideal for quickly rolling out on top of one of the cloths I sell. You can find them here.


Monday, 14 January 2019

Celtathon 1


I've mentioned that I'm putting together a large army of Britons for my Mancetter 61 CE game at Salute. Here are the first of (hopefully) two groups of reinforcements, fresh from the brush of Shaun McTague.

I have around 300 painted and based warband minis already, and these c.150, with 50 from my loft-box of "reserves", give me around 500 minis. My plan was to add another 100 Black Tree minis, to increase the variety of poses, but I've been waiting for these for 7 weeks and am very nervous about whether they will arrive in time for Shaun to paint them- or, indeed, at all. :-/  If anyone has any unpainted (or painted) Black Tree Celts that they are prepared to part with, please drop me a line!

Once all the minis are finished and married up with the shields that I've been working on since Christmas, I plan to re-base the entire army at 16 units on my new-style wobbly-edged bases. I don't have very much spare time, so it'll be a challenge! I also need to base around a dozen units of slingers and some light horse.

Friday, 11 January 2019

Celtic Shields III


It may not look especially different to the last image, but I've painted in the edges on all the shields- it took me three paint sessions- well worthwhile I think. Lots of careful colour matching. 

Next I need to paint some of the shield ribs (I'll leave most white) and after that the 130-odd shield bosses. Then there's inking, varnishing and the shield backs- perhaps another four sessions, in all. I suppose including cutting and preparation there will be around 15 evenings work to produce 150 shields - it'd take a lot longer if I was doing one pack at a time.

Monday, 7 January 2019

Celtic Shields II


Here are the shields from the last post with the LBMS transfers applied- I love LBMS transfers! I've found I can apply around 20 an hour, whilst watching TV.

A couple of learning points that people might find useful:

  • All sculpted metal shields are asymmetrical, to some extent, so take plenty of time checking that the transfer is the right way round. There is always a right way and a wrong way!
  • A clay-shaper is a really useful tool for gently pushing the transfer into contact with the shield around the boss.

Next I need to paint the edges and backs of the shields, the ribs and the bosses- perhaps a week's work. These should be sufficient for the expansion to my Celtic army for Salute, which will be a theme on this blog for the next three months. 

Saturday, 5 January 2019

New Year- new project.


I prepped these over Christmas for my Salute project (filing, priming, spray white, gloss varnish). Celtic transfers can be quite time-consuming to apply, what with the fiddly boss and ribs to be cut out, and the edges and rim matched. I am hoping that by doing a big lot together, there will be economies of scale. My favourite shields are the above, from A&A, and I'll be using the excellent LBMS transfers. I'll come back later with more details of what I'm up to.

For Millsy, here's my army list for the To the Strongest! Worlds at Chalgrove. I've not played with knights since play-testing, some 5 years ago, and am really looking forward to using them. I am guaranteed to have plenty of spare time between games, one way or the other!


I'm trying to get as many of the Chalgrove lists in as possible, as soon as people have them ready, because it spreads the load for Tim (who is kindly checking them) and helps us to know the number of attendees. So if you are coming, and have a list ready, please fire it over to Tim!

Tuesday, 1 January 2019

Happy New Year!


Last night, twixt haggis, mulled wine and spectacular London fireworks, I finished and added flags to the final element of my Chalgrove army. These Perry later knights have the banners and colours of the house of Sforza of Milan, from the excellent Pete's flags, which I cannot comment too highly. 

Below you can see the completed (but not fully based) army. In an ideal world I'd love to have more Milanese units, replace the pikemen with spearmen, and the crossbowmen with pavise-less crossbows, but I'm really pleased to have these ready for basing, as I urgently need to embark upon my Salute project. I think this is the first time I've managed to produce an army specifically for Chalgrove. I have lots of other minis ready for basing and plan to return to the Medieval/Renaissance periods after Salute.


If you are coming to Chalgrove on Feb 23rd, please get your army list over to Tim ASAP so that he can check it- he's very good- he spotted two minor errors in my submission. For your interest, I'll publish my own army list, tomorrow or Thursday.

Can I take this opportunity to wish everyone a Very Happy 2019! At first glance, prospects for the year ahead appear challenging, but I am confident that we can rise above them. I have ambitious plans for various gaming and publishing projects...

Sunday, 30 December 2018

Last knights


Some more Perry knights have arrived from chum Lionel in Paris. I've decided that I want these to be in the livery of Milan (yellow and white, mostly) so am changing the plumes and painting three more to join them (on the left). When these are finished, I'll have all the troops I need for Chalgrove in February. I have some lovely "Pet's Flags" banners to go on these... Hopefully I'll have them on bases for New Year, since other projects beckon!

Yesterday Andrew Brentnall drew my attention to this excellent podcast review of For King and Parliament. It is most entertaining; the authors really seem to have "got" what we were trying to achieve. :-) ` https://hobbyknockout.podbean.com/e/episode-9-for-king-and-parliament/``

Friday, 21 December 2018

On the ninth day of Christmas...


...it's a Christmas miracle! Two more units on bases. Above are a unit of Bande Nere pikemen- mostly minis from Richard Hampson-Smith. Below are some formed crossbowmen. In both cases I've re-based, because I like a high density of miniatures and wanted to use my wobbly bases. I highlighted and washed the minis with a matt acrylic varnish. I am still loving Pete's flags- these ones, again, feature demons. I'll take proper pictures of the units next year, when the basing is complete.


At Chalgrove, the above two units will have to proxy other troop types. The tough-looking pikemen will represent raw spearmen, and the crossbowmen will represent pavise-less crossbowmen.

And here is the army. The final, missing, unit is a bit of a problem- I am awaiting reinforcements and probably won't have them until late January. 


I'm delighted how quick it was to finish and re-base the units- just over one evening per unit. 

Tomorrow I'll finish and publish my army list (here) and send it to Tim Thompson. Could those coming to Chalgrove please send their lists to Tim, if complete, I want to get as many in as possible before the holidays.

I'm really taken with these Perry minis. I think there's the makings of a really great campaign in this era, with players representing city states and condottieri.

Wednesday, 19 December 2018

On the eighth day of Christmas


....OK I hear you say "It's three days since his last post", but who's counting? Yuletide preparations have taken precedence. That said, last night I managed to finish two more units of knights, The first (above) is Giovanni de Medici, and the second, below, are some knights for the Bande Nere, the Black Bands of Giovanni, which confusingly appear to have post-dated his unfortunate encounter with a cannon ball.


Both units are plastic Perry minis from the small army I recently bought from Richard Hampson-Smith, highlighted and inked. All the flags are from Pete's flags- and rather lovely! You can find them on eBay. The stands of knights with banners will be the command stands.


You'll see I have only three units to go; one more lot of knights, some scruffy spearmen and some formed crossbows. I don't have any of these minis, exactly, but I have others that can proxy for them and I'll see if I can get some more on bases before Christmas!

Sunday, 16 December 2018

On the seventh day of Christmas...


...six more barber-shop knights a'lancing. The six new ones at the rear were painted by Parisian chum Lionel and I merely did a little inking and highlighting.  I haven't stuck them down, because I might want to add some "socks" to a few of the horses.


Seven down, five to go. Tomorrow, instead of painting, I shall try to publish the army list. The remaining units look likely to take a couple of days each to finish, so I probably won't finish by Christmas; but you never know!

If you are coming to Chalgrove, please get your army list over to Tim Thompson by Christmas, if at all possible. If you aren't booked in, but would like to come on February 23rd, please drop me a line!

Saturday, 15 December 2018

On the sixth day of Christmas....


...we have the final four mounted crossbows, a skirmishing.Again, Perry minis from Richard Hampson-Smith that I have highlighted; still loving the yellow and black.


The great thing about this FK&P6 base size (above left), is that I can use two elements for a unit on a 15cm grid, or three on a 20cm grid, so I can use the minis for both competition and for larger display games. There's a double-sized element (FK&5, right), too, with twice the footprint that will help me to keep the overall number of bases to a minimum, which will save time when deploying the army.

I love to recycle basing material; it saves time, money and (in a tiny way) the environment, so I'm reusing material salvaged from Richard's bases.


Here's the army to date. This is the most organised army build that I've every managed! :-)

I was going through my loft today and I keep finding more units of painted WOTR and Burgundian minis; I must have two or three hundred of them!