1st Earl of Winchester's men

A snowy day, and more progress on the First Barons War project. The 1st Earl of Winchester's retinue joins the growing host for Lion Rampant.

Saire de Quincy was 2nd Baron de Quincy of Bushby and 1st Earl of Winchester. He was one of the authors and guarantors of the Magna Carta, and as such became a prime target for King John’s notorious malice in the First Barons War.

I've almost completed the first batch of foot serjeants. They only need basing up. I may tackle a mounted contingent of men-at-arms next. Mounted figures are not my favourite when it comes to painting.

And now for something not entirely different... I found this meme on Twitter and had to smile, since it applies to so many of our gaming and modelling community.

A narrow squeak

I really do need to spring clean my Man Cave. Yesterday a teetering pile of... stuff... slipped and drove my painting block right off the table. Several archer figures and men-at-arms nearing completion were unceremoniously detached from the nails and scattered on the floor. Thankfully no spearmen were involved, otherwise I'd be looking at having to replace several broken spears.

 

 

Thankfully damage was limited to a few bent bows which were easily and carefully straightened out. I've now stuck the figures onto bases instead of the painting block nails since they only need a few more touches of paint. The men-at-arms are finished. These represent the Earl of Chester's men. I call this type of figure 'Kennies' after the kid on South Park, because that's who they look like with their chainmail coifs pulled tight around their faces.

 

I have a handful more men-at-arms to do then it's on to the mounted figures. 

 

Archers and Yeomen

Slow but steady progress on the Lion Rampant retinues this past week. The first batch of archers are finished, and the foot yeomen need their base work completed. I'd just about finished them when one figure's spear decided to part company with the rest of the casting, so requiring some tedious cutting and filing to replace it with a wire substitute. I'm afraid I might need to do the same to others as this project progresses.

It's a bit difficult to determine what the figures bottom-left are wearing. From one angle they're un-armoured, equipped with a nasal helmet and a jerkin over some kind of tunic. From another angle they could be wearing chainmail. I painted them up as un-armoured foot yeomen, but equally they could be foot serjeants. 

Immediately behind them is a row of undercoated figures including three foot serjeants. These do have clearly defined chainmail. Behind them again on the painting block is a batch of foot men-at-arms halfway through the painting stage. I do like 15mm figures, as I find they and 10mm figures are easier to paint than larger or smaller scales.

Once the foot are done I'll turn to the next batch of mounted men-at-arms. The Early English retinue list shows two such units, two foot serjeants and a unit of archers. The French list has two units of mounted men-at-arms, one each of mounted and foot serjeants, and a unit of crossbowmen. It's entirely up to the gamer how the forces are composed, though, but I have enough figures of all types to stick to the lists.

A Batch of Mixed Knights

My Lion Rampant project is making headway. Today I finished basing up the mounted and dismounted  men-at-arms in service to Hugh Bigod, 3rd Earl of Norfolk, along with a unit of French and one of mixed English men-at-arms on foot. I have a dozen or so archers to base up, before returning to paint another batch of men-at-arms. Normally I dip figures in Future/Clear floor polish then follow with a coat of matte varnish. In this instance I thought just gloss alone would give them a nice bright 'larger than life' look on the tabletop.

The basing is vinyl tile adhesive smeared over plastic card with sand pressed into it. Colouring was done using green acrylic ink diluted with floor polish before a wet brush of light green acrylic paint.