Stirrings and rustlings

My interest in gaming fell by the wayside a couple of years ago when real life intruded. Coupled with that a projected foray into the Palestine theatre of the Great War came to a crashing stop only a few weeks after I developed an interest in it, for obvious reasons. I turned instead to noodling with railway modelling, but gaming was never far from my thoughts.

Cut forward to earlier this month, and a find at the local library book sale...

1215: The Year of Magna Carta.

This neat little book by Danny Danziger and John Gillingham covers the sociopolitical, military and economic aspects of the decades immediately before and after the signing of Magna Carta. It doesn't go into great detail on everything - that'd take a much bigger work - but it does at least provide an overview of the era.

Enough to get some gaming ideas fermenting again. Perhaps a small, limited campaign set around a castle held by one faction or the other, which the opposing side needs to gain control of. It'd be a chance to dust off my First Barons War collection, and get my peasant rabble on the table at last. 

We'll see...

Painting Peasantry - 1

I've made a little progress on the peasantry for Lion Rampant. Given I have sixty figures to paint up I am breaking them down into batches of twelve.

A slightly blurry image of progress so far.

I prefer to use a mid brown undercoat for most figures these days, as it's more subtle than black especially for irregular troops like these with mixed coloured clothing. 

As usual I painted in the faces and hands before moving on to blocking in the clothing. Thanks to my archaeologist daughter's expertise on historical fabric dyes I can get something approaching the authentic garb our ancestors wore.

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.

First, strip your figures...

Hauling the figures off the lead pile the other day made me look again at the collection of Minifigs 15mm medieval stuff I was given years ago. I now think they're far more appropriate for the First Barons War of 1215-1217, when King John refused to abide by the terms of Magna Carta, sparking a revolt in the Kingdom. This is a good thing because it means more actions were fought than occurred during the later war, and the abortive French involvement gives scope for another faction. 

The only issues I have with these is they will need broken spears and lances replaced (an unfortunate fact of life with Minifigs), and the existing paint has to be stripped off. The replacement is going to be a bugger, involving trimming off the broken parts and drilling out the hands to accept wire spears and lances. A look online turned up many different methods for stripping old paint off figures, but soaking them in isopropyl alcohol for a couple of days seems to be the easiest and cheapest for me to use.

Rules-wise, I read good things of Lion Rampant. The collection I have now is adequate for a couple of core retinues, and I'll only need some mounted sergeants and a few more crossbowmen to have a diverse force to choose from.

A touch of the 13th Century

I think we all have those odd figures in our collections or lead piles. They're the ones that make you wonder 'why did I get these?' Often enough they're the result of a passing fancy or unexpected gift. In this case it's a small heap of 13th century men at arms and knights, and I have a vague recollection of a guy gifting me these years ago as he was getting out of the hobby.

They're all 15mm and (I'm pretty sure) Minfigs. There are about a hundred or so figures, about half of which are painted, and some are stuck to flimsy cardboard bases.

Although a few are painted up to a reasonable quality I'm not keen on the general look of the paint job. The guy looks like he used gloss for a lot of the cavalry for a start. I'm researching online for the best environmentally friendly method of stripping the paint off them.

From little clues here and there I think the collection is intended for the Second Barons War, when Simon de Monfort challenged the autocratic power of King Henry III, only to get his head served to him on a plate after the Battle of Evesham by Henry's son, the future Edward I.

A few of the figures look like they might be Crusades-specific. I'm not sure the turbaned helmets and round studded shields saw much service in England. If they were I'll be happy to be educated.

I can use them for a small scratch force for both Royal and Baronial factions, although if there are shield transfers/decals available I'd love to know where I can get them, since the thought of painting heraldic devices in this scale is already making my eyes water.