Following on from my last blog post. Here is a rough guide to how I batch painted my Landsknechts. I am using Warlord Games plastic Landsknechts. I assembled them in batches of 12 models and once assembled and cleaned up, I primed them in Army Painter Uniform grey. I had thought about using a white primer, which would have given the colours a brighter base to paint over but decide to stick with grey as I find it more forgiving if you miss a bit of painting on a figure!
Once primed, I painted the flesh with Vallejo flesh 70955.
I then picked out the armour plates, chain mail and spear tips in Army Painter plate mail. There was one exception, The figures on the far right of the back rank was left as I intended to give him painted armour. I’ve no idea whether this is historically accurate but I had seen some pictures of helmets painted in this way.
At this point, I decided that a batch of twelve wasn’t going to work for me, so I took three figures, painted the hair and then started to block paint the first colour – in this example 70950 Black.
Next, I added the red, 70957. It looks a bit messy at this stage but I tend to tidy up as I go. There’s no plan that I’m following – I just paint the block colours in as the mood takes me!
I’ve now added a third colour to the figures – 70917 beige.
The fourth colour is off white 70820 – we are nearly done with the block paint!
The belts ( front and back) and the shoes are painted 70871 leather. I used this on all of my figures regardless of the colour scheme chosen.
The pikes are painted with Panzer Aces Old Wood 310.
The flesh is now given a wash using Game Ink 72093.
The Black, Red, Plate Mail and White ares are washed with Army painter dark tone – I thin this down slighty with water to make it a bit lighter and easier to flow.
The beige and hair is washed with soft tone.
The next stage is to re paint over the washes with the original colours ( including the flesh) where needed, leaving the wash in the recesses as shading. This gives the colours that nice bright look that I like. If you prefer a more weathered look you could ignore this stage. However, it doesn’t take as long as you would think and if you dont retouch everything it doesn’t matter.
I added some detail by painting the belt buckles and the decoration on the armour with gold 70996 and retouched any errors that I’ve spotted.
I’ve started the basing process. I just spread vallejo dark earth texture paste 26218 and added some fine ballast for extra texture. I’ve covered my basing process in many previous blogs. It’s now just a question of painting, dry brushing, and adding some scatter and tufts.
The next three figures are painted using the same process but I’ve used 70901 Pastel Blue instead of Black and the floppy hats are painted with red leather 70818 and varying the hair colour. By changing up the colours in this way, you get a variety of finishes.
With these three figures I used a very simple yellow, Black and white scheme. the yellow was first painted as Yellow ochre 70913, shaded with Soft tone and then repainted withy yellow ochre before being highlighted with 70915 deep yellow. The imperial eagle is hand painted. It looks a bit rough up close but from a reasonable distance will pass!
Another colour combo in progress. this time 70965 Prussian Blue with 70814 Burnt red and beige and white as background colours. There’s a multitude of choice when it comes to colour combo’s but I think that by limiting the colours for each batch, it makes painting faster and easier but the end result is still very colourful and varied.
Here is the finished block of twelve prior to final basing. I hope that this is useful to anyone starting out or thinking of painting a Landsknecht force. It’s not a fast project but they do look nice, if I say so myself!
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I have been steadily painting a Landsknecht force for ‘Never mind The Billhooks’. I first painted some of these colourful troops back in 2021. I had a sprue of gunsmen that were given away with Wargames Illustrated 383 back 2019 and they had been consigned to the lead pile until I thought that it would be a good idea to add them in as skirmishers to my WOTR army. The truth was that I just fancied painting something different for a change and six figures didn’t seem like a big investment in time. You can see the original blog here:
Having painted 6 Gunsmen, I thought that that would be it. However, I bought another couple of sprues from Warlord in the sale. My ‘excuse’ was that I would use them for crew on my galleys in ‘Nevermind the Boat hooks’. While I was at it, I also added some Doppelsoldiers armed with the Zweihanders- again as crew for my galleys. Thus my Landsknecht army gradually expanded!
However, the push that I needed to commit to making a full Landsknecht contingent came from an off beat source. I have been reading the fantasy books by Joe Abercrombie. If you haven’t read these books, I recommend that you do! The characters are superb and the action and dry humour is just top class. One of my favourite characters in the books is the mercenary captain, Nicoma Cosca. In my imagination, he is the perfect Landsknecht captain, first of all leading the mercenary band the Thousand Swords and then the smaller but no less ill disciplined and deadly mercenary unit, ‘The Gracious Hand’.
In an exchange with another character, Nicoma Cosca is getting dressed to lead his men into battle. He asks;
“How do I look?”
“Like a pimp lost his mind in a military surplus store”
“Exactly the look I was going for!”
Well, that sort of sums up Landsknechts for me! The final push was the publication of the expanded NMTBH’s rule book, Billhooks Deluxe, which covers the periods of the Burgundian- Swiss and Italian wars and of course, includes rules for using Landsknechts.
As for reference, I fell back on the tried and trusted Osprey series, as well as a number of articles in Wargames Illustrated. Of course, the internet provided plenty of reference, from pictures on Pinterest, various blogs ( once again, Camisodo is a superb reference – I used him to help with my Irish army). I wasn’t overly concerned with specific colours, I just wanted to create a really different and bright looking army.
When it came to choosing the figures, in the main, I have used the Warlord Plastic sets. I prefer plastics over metals for the main army as it makes transport and storage easier and the plastics tend to be more durable on the tabletop and easier to repair if broken. The other aspect that I liked about the warlord figures is that the crisp molding and clear representation of the various types of ‘uniform’ make it easy to pick out and paint the details. Having painted the plastics, I tried my hand at some metal figures, notably the Artizan range and now that I understand how the various frills, slashes and armour all work together, I found painting the metal figures more straight forward than had I started with them. Incidentally, the Artizan figures are superb and entirely compatible with Warlord and Perry figures.
One down side of the Warlord figures is that they are all very similar and a limited in the poses available. I varied how they looked with a few head swaps from the Perry sets. I also mixed up the arms and heads supplied to get a good mix.
As I became a bit more adventurous, I tried a few simple conversions. The easiest was to have a Landsknecht holding his hat – the figure in the middle below, looking remarkably similar to Rick Priestly, is my first attempt! Incidentally, the head is from the Fireforge Northern Folk Rabble set!
When it came to painting, I did some batch painting but eventually gave up and just painted three or four figures at a sitting using a limited pallet of colours. In my next blog article I’ll show my step by step approach and the colours that I used. Although I wanted a really bright and colourful army, I also wanted some similarities to the figures to try and tie them together. So all of the pikes were the same colour, as were the socks, shoes, belts and in the main, the feathers.
As you will have noticed, I haven’t finished basing most of the figures in the pictures. I’ll show you the completed units in the next blog – as I write this, I am just four figures away from completing three pike blocks!
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It seems that every blog post that I’ve written recently starts with an excuse as to why I haven’t published anything in the last couple of weeks. Well, I’ve out done myself now and it is a couple of months since my last blog.
In that time, I’ve had a nice holiday to Santorini, where as well as sampling the local wine and food, I did manage to visit the Archaeological site at Akrotiri, an ancient village consumed by the volcanic eruption back in 1700BC. The site is huge, with most of the village or town, being preserved by the covering of ash from the volcanic eruption. Incidentally, it is this eruption that is thought to have caused a massive tidal wave that overcame Crete, thus prompting the legend of Atlantis. If you would like to know more, I attach a link to the Wikipedia article and a visitors guide:
As well as the visit to ancient Akrotiri, I also explored the local castle above the modern Akrotiri village, built by the Venetians to guard the settlement from attacks by pirates and Barbary Raiders. The history hit was most enjoyable but didn’t inspire me to start any more new projects!
I am still very invested in ‘Nevermind The Billhooks’ and it’s various spin offs. Whilst lounging on my sun bed I did manage to read Dan Jones ‘The Hollow Crown’, a very readable and entertaining history of the Wars Of The Roses, If you haven’t read this, I thoroughly recommend it as a very good overview of the period.
As well as recharging my batteries, I have been steadily assembling and painting a Landsknecht force for the next Billhooks BASH at Derby. The event is due to take place on 2 September and it will be a close run thing as to whether my force will be ready. I now have two pike blocks of 24 Landsknechts finished, together with 18 Gunsmen. This means that I will need to get another 24 pikes finished, together with some artillery and a unit of cavalry.
Here’s a shot of the army so far.
And the next batch that will complete the two Pike blocks..
Heres a close up of the commander of the ‘Vorhut’ block – Lorenzo de Pala.
My intention is to publish a guide on how I went about painting these but dont hold me to this….I’m too busy trying to get the army finished in time for the Billhooks BASH event!
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The subtitle should be ‘where did that month go’! If you were to talk to my wife, she would confirm that I have spent as much time as ever out in the war room painting but somehow, I don’t have quite as much to show for the time. I think that I know the answer, I can sum it up in one word: Landsknechts! More on these later.
I have completed a rather odd trio of personality figures. In the middle is Irena Sendler or as she is sometimes known, Irena Sendlerowa. The figure was given out at the recent Partizan show and in keeping with my resolution not to add to my lead pile, rather than putting ‘her’ to one side, she was promoted to the painting desk. I needed to find out who exactly Irena was and why she was being sculpted at all. This wiki article will tell you all you need to know:
Suffice to say, she was a Polish hero that fought the Nazis in WW2, rescuing many Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto and I am glad that researching the figure gave me the opportunity to read her story. I decided to place her on a renedra paved base, surrounded by debris as a nod towards the conditions in which she was working. I’m not entirely pleased with the ‘finished’ result – I’ve made a bit of a hash with her eyes, which confirms why I usually dont bother! I may have to go back and have another attempt!
The other two figures are from the ‘Battle Games in Middle Earth’ magazine. I am gradually working my way through the series and with these figures, I have now reached issue 31.
King Theoden was the most challenging to paint. I’m very happy with the result and he is now safely in the display cabinet.
I’m also quite happy with the Uruk-Hai berserker. A much more straight forward paint job than Theoden but a nice addition to the collection. I must at some point have a round up of all the figures that I have painted in this collection just to show them off. Perhaps a project to mark when I reach issue 50!
The project that is taking most of my painting time is my Landsknecht unit. I have decide to branch out into the Italian wars for ‘Never Mind The Billhooks’ by painting a Landsknecht contingent. I’ll need about 96 figures and at the rate I am painting, I should have them done for the autumn!
As you can see, I have 12 Dopplesoldiers more or less complete and 6 pikemen well on the way. I hope to do a full article showing how I have approached the task of painting them. It’s certainly a challenge but they do look nice when they are done! Like everything, the more you do the easier it becomes as you learn that there are some quick wins. So that’s it for now.
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I wouldn’t want anyone to think that I am an expert when it comes to Medieval Ships in wargaming. However, I do have some experience of boat building. My model ship building almost predates my involvement in wargaming and in my younger years, I was a competent sailor of Marblehead yachts and a member of the Gosport model boat club. In an effort to improve my knowledge on the topic, I do spend my lunchtimes perusing the internet searching for information and it would seem to me that there is much that we don’t know about the development of ships in the Medieval period.
I found this piece to be quite interesting:
At the beginning of the 15th century the big seagoing sailing-ship had one mast and one sail. Fifty years later she had three masts and five or six sails. Unfortunately this great change comes just at a time when we are very badly off for pictures or descriptions of ships. English inventories of 1410-12 have been published and these give little light on the first stage of the change, but after that comes darkness. Other inventories of about 1425 are known to exist, but they have been not yet copied and printed. The documents of 1410-12 show that one ship in the English Royal Navy – and only one- had more than one mast; she had “I mast magn.” and “I mast parv.” – in other words, one big mast and one small mast. The latter may have been in the top as a topmast. We are not told which, but the reference is very important as being the first evidence of a second mast in Northern waters. It must be noted that this small mast was found in a ship called the “carake” and a carrack was by origin a Mediterranean type… The name ‘carrack’ was not new. It occurs in Spanish documents before the end of 13th century, and there is an account of the capture by Spanish galleys in 1359 of a large Venetian carrack; but it is in the 15-th century that the carrack was in her prime, and we see her then as a three masted ship developed by the southern nations from the Northern one-master and then taken up all over Europe. Genoa was the chief port… There were Venetian carracks as well, but usually the vessels from Venice were galleys,… designed and equipped for long voyages and cargo-carrying. … From the book : A Short History of the Sailing Ship by Romola Anderson , R.C. Anderson
Some of the information above seems to be out of date. we know that the Grace Dieu, Henry V’s warship was launched in 1418 and she was a massive ship ( literally a Great Ship) with three masts but it serves to show what little detail that we have of vessels in this period. We also know that Grace dieu had a number of escorts – smaller ships of similar design, or Carracks.
So when I was very kindly sent a kit of a medieval cog by George Antioch, a follower of the facebook ‘Never mind the Billhooks’ page, my first thought was to make an escort for my version of a Great ship, ‘the Sun In Glory’ ( shown above, cruising past the toaster!)
George had designed his kit as a cog but I felt that it was sleek enough to convert to a carrack, by adding the extra masts and building up the two castles. The first task was to assemble the hull.
Using the mast to ensure everything was aligned and the temporary square lugs, fore and aft, I used PVA to hold the hull pieces together and clamped it whilst it dried.
With the hull assembled and the decks of the fore and stern castles in place, I thought that I would add some planking to the card formers that made up the hull. I was too lazy to cut out the individual strips of paper and came up with the idea of using my paper shredder to produce instant planking by running a sheet of good quality paper through it! It was an easy job to apply the paper with PVA to get the effect of planking on the hull.
Once the hull was dry, I added the stern castle and forecastle using balsa – I used the card pieces supplied by George as a template but wanted them to be a bit taller than those from George. You can see that I’ve also added the two extra masts and a bowsprit. The masts are of doweling, the bowsprit is a ‘posh’ barbecue skewer, so I didn’t even have to sharpen it! The fighting top is made from two round 40mm bases with evergreen strip ( pack 159,) cut to size and glued into place.
The next stage was to paint everything. I used my standard process of a mixture of browns, finishing with a highlight of yellow ochre. I’ve added the links to my earlier blogs so that you can see this in detail if you need to. The checkerboard pattern was marked out using a black biro. With hindsight a pencil would have been better as correcting mistakes was difficult. The effect is OK but don’t look too closely! Yellow is a bugger to paint at the best of times!
Once I was happy with the painting, I added the spars and furled sails, ladders and anchor. I also modified the fighting top by adding a band of half round evergreen strip ( pack 243). It’s not as straight as it should be, the blooming clamps slipped as it was drying but I was too impatient to correct this and it just about passes!
Here’s the ‘George’ accompanying the ‘Sun in Splendour’ on the floor of my wargames room! I now have quite a fleet to fight using the new ‘Never Mind The Boathooks’ rules set – watch out for my next battle report!
Here are some useful links to my previous blog articles – there are others but these, I think are the most useful:
You can get hold of the rules for ‘Never Mind The Boathooks’ by purchasing issue 426 of Wargames Illustrated. As well as a free supplement with the rules, there are some useful boat building articles! It is available while stocks last here:
Well we’re halfway through May, so an April Round up is somewhat overdue! As with March though, there has been no real focus to what I have been doing other than to continue to work through the lead pile and also to complete anything that I have acquired. To be fair, that process is not quite as random as it sounds. I have a ‘program’ of ten hobby threads that I am following that give some continuity to my hobby and it is these that have shaped the projects passing across my workbench in April.
One of those threads is to paint all of the models in the DeeZee range. Above is DZ20, Young Bison, which I completed at the beginning of the month. There are 40 lines in the DeeZee range. I have personally painted about 30 of them, so I am gradually completing that little project.
Another thread is to paint all of the figures and Scenery that came with the magazine collection Battle Games in Middle Earth. There are 91 issues of the Magazine and by painting Haldir ( above) I have now reached issue 28!
Another long term project is to build a medieval village. I’m building it on the Sarissa bases module system so that it can grow as I complete each subject in what ever random sequence I choose. Andy Callan recently gave me a laser cut Stocks set, so I converted a ‘victim’ to go in them.
This gave me an ‘excuse’ to purchase the Footsore Welsh Minors – a set that I really liked when they were first released. I thought that they would look great tormenting the poor guy in the stocks!
The pictures above show the finished scene. At some point, it will form part of the Village green of my village!
Of course, I am still busy painting subjects for ‘Never Mind The Billhooks’ and having finished my Irish army, I’m slowly working on a Landsknecht contingent. I have 18 handgunners already painted, so next I’m working on 12 Zweihanders. The first six are complete, although I will add some grass tufts.
The last item is my Naval Collection, which of course incorporates, the forthcoming ‘Never Mind the Boathooks’ rules set. This latest addition to my Medieval fleet was kindly sent to me by George Antioch, who is based over in Canada. Although designed as a ‘Cog’, as it was fairly narrow in the beam, I thought that it would make an excellent Carrack and sister ship to my Great Ship ‘The Sun In Splendour’. So with a few modifications to George’s design, the ‘George’ is taking shape. I intend to write an article showing how I constructed and modified the ‘George’ in a future blog.
So that’s about it for April. May has been a bit quieter on the modelling front, although I have attended a fantastic event down in Bristol:
On top of that, I had a long weekend away visiting Blenheim Palace, Shakespeare’s Stratford on Avon and Kenilworth castle! So enough of a history hit to inspire me to get back to the workbench and get some more done!
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I spent a very enjoyable Saturday at the fourth ‘Bill Hooks BASH’ organised by Peter Harris at the Boards and Swords venue in Derby. I must thank Peter for organising the event – there’s a good deal of work that goes into the admin, from collating all the entries, sorting the tables and scenery and keeping things running on the day. Peter has managed to create an event that as well as being well organised, is played in the spirit that most wargamers would appreciate. It’s great to meet up with like minded people in the hobby and spend a day in such pleasant company. The games are played with a wry sense of humour rather than a competitive edge, with good fortune and bad met with the same amused resignation and acceptance!
I must also add that I am very impressed with the venue ‘ Boards and Swords’. The staff were just great keeping us supplied with endless cups of coffee and making us all feel very welcome. I’ve added a link below to the venue. If you are in the area please drop in and support them.
Finally, before I get to the battles, the roving Umpire on the day was Andy Callan. You cant get better than the author of the rules being available to sort out any queries that come up in the heat of battle!
And so onto my day, where I fought three battles, one with a typical English WOTR army, led by Lord Harry Hotspur, the other two with my new Irish Army led by Brendan Fitzmaurice. As usual with my battle reports, I apologise for the one sided nature of the reports. Like all good (and bad) Chroniclers, only the highlights are included. The other problem that I have is that as I get more involved in the battle, I tend to forget to write down what actually happened, so like most accounts of the WOTR, the accounts are written long after the battles were over, although at least I can claim to have actually been there….
Battle number one vs Colin Bright’s Lancastrian/Tudor Army – The Lancastrian soft Centre
As Colin was relatively new to ‘Bill Hooks’ I was fighting with my standard WOTR Yorkist army commanded by Lord Harry Hotspur. The idea was to give Colin a play through as an introduction to the day and to get used to the flow of the game. In the initial set up, my light cavalry out scouted the Lancastrian force as they had no light cavalry or skirmishers.
Hotspur holds the centre as Sir Eric (on the left) does his best to provoke the Lancastrians into advancing!
Turn 1 saw the Lancastrian Army advance in a determined effort to bring the fight to the Yorkists and drive them from the table. Colin had deployed his two MAA units on either flank and looked as though he was going for a pincer move on my position. I immediately sent out my Skirmishers and light cavalry to the flanks to slow the advance and my cannon opened fire to good effect, causing attritional casualties amongst the enemy. Hotspur held his ground in the centre. To be precise, his card wasn’t drawn but it sounds better if it seems like some sort of cunning strategy!
Colin’s Tudor Bow and Bill block
Turn 2: With the armies now closing, and both Hotspur and Sir Eric now pushing forward, a fierce archery duel opened up, with the Lancastrian forces having the better of the encounter, remaining relatively unscathed themselves whilst Sir Eric Diehard and Lord Hotspur took heavy casualties. Out on the flanks, the skirmishers and light cavalry were doing an effective job of keeping the MAA at bay whilst continuing to inflict ever growing casualties. The cannon remained effective, and although a few scary double ones occurred, the gun remained intact.
Another of Colin’s beautifully painted units – look carefully! They’ve even got bow strings!
Turn 3: Lord Hotspur had closed with the Lancastrian Centre and although taking further heavy casualties from archery, almost wiping out the Yorkist archers, Hotspur was able to charge home with his MAA on the opposing Bill and bow block. Although the first round of combat did not force the Lancastrian unit to break, Hotspur inflicted 6 casualties on the Bills for the loss of just one MAA.
The Lancastrian MAA – isolated on the flank.The battle is finely poised – Hotspur is about to strike!
Turn 4: The flanks were still a problem for the Lancastrian army. Their units were being pinned by the skirmishers and cavalry and they faced the dilemma of trying to come to the aid of the centre without exposing themselves to a flank or rear attack from the cavalry. The cannon was still intact but with a fouled barrel, was becoming less effective. Meanwhile, in the centre Hotspur had won his ongoing melee on the drawing of the first bonus card, causing the Lancastrian bill and bow block to become daunted and fall back with their commander. This put Hotspur in a dominant position in the centre and as his card was drawn, he was able to charge into the next Lancastrian Bill and Bow block. This time, after another short but bloody encounter, the Lancastrians failed their morale test and routed from the battle field. Their route spread panic in the other retreating Lancastrian units and they fell back again to the table edge. At the turn end, the Lancastrian Commander was unable to rally his troops and so failing their morale test once again, they retreated from the field. Victory for Lord Harry!
Battle 2 My Irish Vs David Grummitt’s Lancastrian Army – The luck of the Irish
For my second battle, I used my new Irish army. I had only used them once before, against Ian Callan’s Welsh and they had proved to be fast but brittle. I made a couple of changes to my order of battle. I used mixed wards of Gallowglass and formed kern rather than having them in separate wards. I also split my cavalry into separate units, one activating on the skirmish card as skirmishing cavalry, with Lord Kildare in command of the other unit. As usual, my ability to game and record the action turn by turn started to fail as did my picture taking ability!
The Lancastrians started with an aggressive push in the centre which once again was met by the Irish centre holding steady, whilst the skirmishing kern and the cavalry pushed out around the flanks, threatening to get behind the Lancashire lines. This unsettled the Lancastrians, their skirmishers were put to flight and the Kern started to make mischief, distracting the Lancastrian archers and bill blocks. The Lancastrian Commander, Lord Somerset ( I think) was made of sterner stuff and pushed on, smashing the first unit of formed kern and sent them running from the field.
Somerset surrounded!
However, The Lancastrian lord found himself isolated and surrounded by the Irish Kern Skirmishers, with Cavalry to his rear and Gallowglass to the flank, things were looking sticky!
How do I get out of this mess?
Somerset was in no mood to wait on the Irish and once again charged forwards into the next unit of formed kern. It was a brave strategy that would of worked as the MAA made short work of the kern. However, the Irish Commander had found a four leafed clover and lady luck came to his aid in the form of a special event card allowing a free flank attack! Fitz Maurice led his Gallowglass charging into the flank of Somerset and with 18 dice plus his leadership the Lancastrian casualties began to pile up!
Last man Standing!
With Somerset bravely urging his men to turn and face this dastardly flank attack, the melee was decided when the other Gallowglass unit turned and charged into the rear of the melee. Although in disarray, the front rank was enough to tip the balance and Somerset was slaughtered along with his men. Victory for Fitzmaurice and the Irish!
Battle Three. Irish vs Richard Marriotts Lancastrians – Stokes Fields revisited!
By now my chroniclers energy was exhausted and I am sorry that I did not take more pictures of Richards victory ( Oops! there should have been a spoiler alert there.) Richards army was slightly unusual in that he had taken mounted knights rather than men at arms. I had always considered that although they are dangerous, they are an expensive luxury in a battle of this size. Well after all the games I’ve played it seems I still have plenty to learn!
I used my well worn plan of trying to use my skirmishers and cavalry to dominate the flanks and pull the opposing army out of position. The battle started well for the Irish. Richard opened hostilities by firing his cannon, only to roll three ones and blow it up! Oh how the Irish laughed at this new technology…However, the smile was soon wiped off of their faces as the Lancastrian skirmishers made short work of the Kern on the left and the Knights advanced menacingly on the right holding the Irish back and keeping them out of the way!
I think that Richards commander had been trained by the grizzled Veteran, Oxford, who so competently disposed of the Irish at Stokes Field. The flanks were secured by the skirmishers and a unit of bows and bills on one side and the Knights on the other. One by one, my kern skirmishers and cavalry were destroyed, daunted or just pushed back. Meanwhile in the centre, the archers were causing havoc and the desperate charges of the Irish were met with a resolute defence. My commander, Lord Fitzmaurice was slaughtered in a last charge, his Gallowglass unable to break the Lancastrian Bills
The final melee – Fitzmaurice is vanquished!
So the day ended with a loss but as with all Bill Hooks games played todaqy, there were enough laughs and ‘if only’s to convince the players that next time, victory will be theirs! I enjoyed using the Irish and have learnt a great deal. They remain a fragile choice but their speed and the way that the skirmishers activate can cause a few problems for the opposition. However, if caught in the open, they don’t stand up to arrow storms very well – they definitely need a bit of luck to succeed!
Just one example of Mike Peters superb painting skill – Yes, the banners are hand painted!
To round up a fantastic day, I managed second in the painting competition, with Mike Peters winning. Mike is a fantastic painter and modeller, all of his banners are hand painted and he has created some superb vignettes for his command stands. Watch out for an article in a forthcoming Wargames Illustrated mag showing you how to paint banners. Mike is also the official Bill Hooks BASH scribe, so you can read all about the day and see some of the fantastic armies on show in the next WI. As if he isn’t clever enough, Mike is working on a skirmish version of Bill Hooks. This will enable you field a small retinue of your own design to take part in various adventures from pillaging your enemy, hunting down outlaws or fighting off rivals trying to pillage you! There’s even talk of Pirates!
Once again, a big thank you to Peter Harris and Boards and Swords for organising and hosting the event; a very big thanks to my opponents, Colin, David and Richard for being such sporting and good humoured opponents and of course a big thank you to all the attendees for making the day so much fun. Next up, it’s Bill Hooks at B.I.G. down at Bristol – check out the NMTBH facebook page for details if you would like to go!
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Having completed my Irish Army, I dont really have a ‘big’ project on the go at the moment, except a secret one that I’ll show you at the end of this entry….
I’ve been working on a number of 1/48th scale subjects. These include an Airfix Snatch Landrover, a SMER 1/48th scale Swordfish, and a couple of Blitzkrieg models, The Firefly and an AEC armoured car. The Firefly is pretty much done, although I will be adding some extra stowage. Here’s a couple of pictures of the Firefly.
The Blitzkrieg Firefly – I think that I will add some stowageThe Firefly with the Sherman V
In between writing this blog and publishing it, I actually finished the extra stowage as well as the AEC armoured car. I was pleased with the AEC car. Even though it is resin, a few extras, stowage, wing mirrors, the drivers screen and a commander have brought it to life. The drivers screen was added by simply cutting an old blister pack down to get the clear plastic!
Firefly with extra stowage1/48th AEC armoured car from Blitzkrieg Miniatures
As far as my WOTR collection goes, I have already painted the Richard III figure that was available at Hammerhead 2023. The figure is a bit fat in the face for Richard, but he will make a nice addition to my collection and he’s in the cabinet rather than the leadpile!
I’m also working on a small vignette. Andy Callan gave me a set of stocks for my medieval village that is progressing at glacial speed. It seemed a shame not to have a subject locked up in them so I’ve converted a Wargames Factory Celt to fit. There’s a bit more work to do, as you can see.
If you are happy and you know it clap your hands…..
So on to the secret project! Andy Callan has been working on another spin off of Never Mind The Bill Hooks. This time it is Bill Hooks Fantasia or Never Mind the Warlocks – a fantasy rules set using the basic Bill Hooks game engine. Andy had written a fantasy version some time ago for his Grand kids to play. However, Bill Hooks had moved on and the rules never made it to the table. There has been a lot of back and forth between Andy and some keen Bill Hooks players as the new rules were added.
A company of Men face off against a mob of Orcs!
So it was time to put the rules to the test. I’m not going to go into specifics but I’m happy to report that we had an excellent game, full of cinematic cliff hangers. The Riders of Rohan pulled of a spectacular charge, repulsing a horde of angry goblins. Tony the Troll went walkabout in the woods, although we did test his effectiveness in combat. The wizard was a bit of a damp squib and the heroic infantry did what heroic infantry are supposed to do against the baddies!
Riders of Rohan prepare to charge!Orcs can form a pike block!Tony the troll does battle!Riders of Rohan breakthough and rout the ‘baddies’ A certain wizard looks on helplessly!
With the first play test out of the way and some re-assessment of the troop types and the new introductions, we are ready to go again. The next stage is to widen the player participation and see how the new mechanics will work. Watch this space!
the ‘seige’ Uruk Hai completed
So this has inspired me to get on with my LOTR painting project. I am now on issue 27 of the magazine and this came with a sprue of ‘seige Uruk Hai’. I actually have tackled two sprues as another sprue was given away later in the series. So another 10 Uruk Hai are added to my force!
Also on the wargaming front, we played another epic game of Never Mind the Boat Hooks. There an excellent battle report on the ‘Bill Hooks’ facebook page, written by Austen Kime, chief chronicler and co commander.
Following on from my last blog, I have now completed 12 of my Irish Cavalry – the armoured warriors or lords. You can see how they look in the picture above. The next stage was to complete the 4 unarmoured ‘horse boys’ or Kern that would ride with them. I needed a figure in a tunic rather than mail shirt as a base and after a hunt through the lead pile I found a box of very old, now discontinued Wargames Factory Celt cavalry. The detail on these figures is fairly ‘soft’ so adapting them looked like a straight forward option. However, I wanted my horse boys to be bare legged. Some major surgery was required!
Leg transplant in progress!
Once again, a dive into the lead pile turned up some old Lucid Eye Jaguar warriors with bare legs and feet. It was just a case of snipping off the plastic celts legs and replacing them with the Jaguars legs. My trusty Xuron cutters were ideal for this as if used the right way around, you get a pretty much perfectly flat cut, even through the metal. It was then a simple task to super glue the legs onto the torso. I didn’t need to pin them – my favourite thick expo super glue is well suited to this and a quick spray of accelerant ensured a fast bond.
First kern completed
I also found a ‘kern head’ in my spares box – I had removed it from a Perry’s Irish kern when converting them to give a bit of variety to my Kern units. The arms are from the Wargames Atlantic Goth set and the Celt figure, The shield is a Jaguar shield with the rim filed off and the horse is a Warlord Games Civil war horse with all the saddlery filed away. Once again I didn’t change the bridle and tack on the horse – a step too far for me! I did add a cushion from green stuff and tried to model his tunic using the same material.
the second mounted kern
I used the same procedure to make the second Kern but having no more Irish heads, I reverted to a perry’s WOTR head (from the light cavalry set, I think). I pushed my sculpting ‘skills’ to the limit and tried to sculpt on the long sleeves that you see on Kern. The result was not quite what I wanted. It’s fair to say that I wont be putting the Perry’s out of business any time soon….
The first two ‘horse boys’ are painted
They looked a bit better with a coat of paint but when it came to the next two horseboys, I chickened out of further attempts at sculpting the shirts or léine and left them in tunics.
The last two horseboys ready for paintingThe painted models – just the basing to finish
So with the horse boys completed, I now had my two units of Irish cavalry ready for battle. There was just one problem – they didnt have a commander! So it was back to the Goth cavalry to make a suitable leader for my units. I decided that the commander should look different to the rest of the troop, so I made a slight change to his head gear, giving him a helmet without the nose guard but adding a plume, similar to ones that I had seen in John Derrickes pictures ( see my blog – Researching Irish Cavalry). I also wanted the commander to be wearing an Irish Brat or cloak, so it was back to the green stuff!
My new commander of the Irish Light Horse!Rear view, showing the added cloak or Brat.
As you can see, I’ve also added some Irish Wolf hounds to the base – it seemed that a Lord would take his dogs on campaign even though I couldn’t find any particular references to dogs being used for warfare. The wolf hounds are from Footsore miniatures. The cloak was, I thought, too long, so you will see that I went back and shortened it for the final model.
The completed Irish Commander with his dogs!The rear showing his Brat. I’m not sure about the plaid or tartan cloak – it’s not quite what I had in mind!
When it came to painting the Irish commander, I went for a black horse, just to make him different. I also painted the helmet black and used quite a bit of gold rather than plate mail for the accessories. I have painted the Cloak in a Plaid style. As I write this, I’m not really that pleased with it – it’s a bit too fussy. I may go back and repaint it in a simpler style but for now, I’m calling it done. The Irish are ready to take to the battlefield!
You can see the range of miniatures that we think are suitable to for the Wars of the Roses, along with the rest of our Never Mind The Bill Hooks range here:
Following on from my last blog, here are some notes as to how I went about modelling my Irish Cavalry. I am producing units for use in the game ‘Never Mind the Bill Hooks’, Specifically, the Hibernian section. I already have an Irish army but it was a bit light on points – I needed 120 points of troops to fight in the Bill Hooks BASH day coming up in April. My infantry contingent consists of 96 points of Kern and Gallowglass, so two units of light cavalry, at 12 points each, would give me a nice looking fast moving army. In NMTBH’s, Light cavalry come in units of 8 figures. Irish cavalry are allowed to ‘skirmish’, but also to dismount and form a 6 figure unit of Gallowglass, or with two cavalry units, a unit of 12 Gallowglass. The spare riders are assumed to be holding the horses.
A unit of Gallowglass emerges from the wood!
That gave me the idea that I would build 6 armoured figures in each unit and then have 2 ‘horse boys’ or Kern that would act as the horse holders. This reflected the nature of Irish Cavalry, although in reality, I suspect that there would have been more ‘Horseboys’ supporting the lords in the unit – they were tasked with supplying replacent javelins and if necessary, remounts. All that said, there is evidence to suggest that the ‘horse boys’ weren’t mounted but ran along side the cavalry or were simply the boys that looked after the horses back at camp. Regardless, I decided that I would have some ‘kern’ types mounted on horses!
I had already settled on using the Gripping Beast Goth Cavalry as being a close match to the later Irish cavalry. They are equipped with long mail shirts, conical helmets and there are no saddles on the horses.
Goth Noble Cavalry
With 12 figures in the box, this would give me just enough to make two units, if I could find a way of making the horse boys or Kern.
The sprue from the Gripping Beast Noble Cavalry
As I have previously said, The heads supplied with the Goth Cavalry look just like Goths….and not like Irish Lords. In addition, they all had flowing Plumes, not at all in the Irish Style. However, the heads in the Wargames Atlantic Goths set looked much better for my purposes. I am lucky enough to have a small group of gaming buddies who are happy to swap up their spares and Andy Callan kindly gave me a couple of sprues from the Wargames Atlantic set that was sitting in his lead pile.
I chose the heads without the plumes and shaved down the nose guards and replaced them with a upturned guard that I had made from bending a small strip of Evergreen 0.25mm x1.00mm around a paper clip to get the curve. Plastic card that is this thin is easy to bend, particularly if you gently warm it first. It is a fiddly operation but it works.
Goth Warrior modified with nose guard
The nose guard is probably exaggerated and I did cut them down a bit more when the glue had dried. I thought that I might as well have it as an exaggerated feature rather than it not being seen. I removed the leggings with a scalpel and sanded them down. The reference pictures show the ‘Lords’ in leggings with spurs on their shoes. The cushion was simply a ball of green stuff pressed into place.
Six Irish Lords ready for painting!
I varied the head gear by including some heads from the Perry’s WOTR sets. I tended to use what I thought were the older style of helmet that seemed to match some of the other images that I had seen on the internet. I also mixed up the shields. The references that I had seen referred to ‘targes’ or shields made from ox or deer hide over a wooden base and decorated with nails or painted with a basic design. To be fair, none of the references showed a shield with a large boss. However, when I google ‘targe’ there were a number of examples of targes with a boss. Most of these were definitely of Scottish origin, but as I have previously noted, there was a great deal of Scottish influence on the Irish troops. Again, although most of the references showed the Targes as being quite small, there were other pictures that showed a larger targe in use. I had also been told that the Irish used Wicker shields. I could only find one reference to this and it seemed to be regarding an earlier period and in respect of the lower ‘caste’ of warriors, not the Lords, so I discounted their use for my troops
The ‘Rambling Kern’ explains all you need to know about Targes in Ireland!
The video above will give you a great deal of information regarding the Irish Targe and for those of you interested in wider Irish history, I would thoroughly recommend that you have a look at his channel.
Irish Cavalry on the painting desk
So the three photos above the video link show the first six of my Irish Lords assembled and ready for painting. The picture above shows painting in progress. I decided to paint the horses as either ‘greys’ or light brown. This was a nod in the direction of the Connemara pony, which are descendants of the smaller Irish Hobby pony, around at the time of the WOTR. However, the real reason that I chose these colours is that I wanted the units of Irish Cavalry to look very different to my standard WOTR light cavalry. It also is an indication of my poor sense of humour – they really are Light ( coloured) cavalry. Incidentally, the horses are probably a bit too large but I wasn’t going to try to source smaller ponies!
The first three figures are finished – just the basing to complete
The Riders were fairly straight forward to paint. I used army painter plate mail for the armour and helmets. I tended towards Yellow Ochre for the under shirts and the shields were painted in Burnt Red, Reflex Green, Red Leather or Dark Blue and ‘dotted’ with either gold or silver for the designs. I went a bit mad on the cushions, painting a diamond or tartan design on them just to add even more colour to the figures.
Six Irish Lords are ready for battle!The rear view showing the posh cushions!
The basing was completed using my usual method – I’ve covered this in many of my previous blogs. So with six cavalry finished, I needed to get on with the next six lords and the four ‘horse boys’ that would support them. I then realised that I would need a Leader…. You will have to wait for the next installment o see how I solved these challenges!
THE COMMERCIAL BIT
I hope that you all enjoy your hobby as much as I do – our web site will have much of what you need! Click here to see our shop.
You can see the range of miniatures that we think are suitable to for the Wars of the Roses, along with the rest of our Never Mind The Bill Hooks range here:
Having painted an Irish War of the Roses Infantry force, I decided that I needed to add some cavalry to complete the army. I had originally intended to use my existing English Light Cavalry but after some thought, I decided that I wanted a ‘pure’ Irish army. My first port of call was google, in order to research the nature of Irish Medieval Cavalry. This image caught my eye. Captioned as a ‘IrishHobelar’, I thought that a unit of these would look great!
As it turned out, research seemed to indicate that this style of Hobelar had disappeared by the time of the War of the Roses and it was based on the ‘Anglicized’ version of the Irish light horse. I would have to think again. My research did lead me to read the Osprey Men at Arms book #256, ‘The Irish Wars of 1485 – 1603’ as well as finding a rather good blog (Camisodo), both of which explained how Irish Cavalry had developed ( or not!) by the time of the WOTR and into the Renaissance period. The link to Camisado ‘s blog is here:
It’s a very good read and the author has done a great deal of work digging up references. I thoroughly recommend that you read it!
A contemporary illustration of an Irish Cavalry man Circa 16th century
In brief, it would seem that Irish cavalry were in the main, small groups of the Irish nobility and their sons, mounted on light ponies or Hobbies (the Connemara Pony being the modern version). The Irish tended to wear mail shirts rather than plate armour and used their lances or spears in an overhand style rather than in the couched position that the English preferred. This differing style may be because the Irish did not use harness and saddlery but were sat on cushions. The result was that they were easily knocked off of the horse in a collision with a heavier rider firmly sat on a saddle. That said, they were usually nimble enough to avoid the collision in the first place and if knocked off, quick to remount the smaller ponies that they were using. There is also a hint that the spears used were more like a javelin or dart as there is at least one account of a lord retrieving his ‘spear’ from a wounded enemy using a wrist strap.
Woodcut from the book ‘The Image of Ireland’ by John Derricke 1581
In the picture above, the English, or Irish/English cavalry are shown on the left, pursuing the Irish cavalry on the right. A few other details can be made out from this image. The Irish had strange, upturned nose guards on their helmets, the cushions that they sat on were quite decorative, the helmets were generally conical and they were carrying shields or ‘Targes’. The shields are shown as being worn on the back (riders on the far left) and held ( downed rider in the foreground). I felt that I had enough information to go about making a unit or two of Irish Light cavalry and enough information to justify making them look a bit different to standard English WOTR light cavalry.
One final recurring item of interest was that the Irish seemed to be very much influenced by their Scottish connections rather than the English. Of course, the Gallowglass warriors were originally from Scotland and there are the ‘Redshanks’, Scottish mercenaries from the Highlands and Western Isles that were contracted to fight in Ireland. Although in widespread use in the 16th Century, they were first hired in 1428 for the siege of Carrickfergus castle. This Scottish connection would give me an excuse to use a bit of licence when it comes to painting my troops.
Despite this research, I feel the need to issue a disclaimer. I am building a wargaming army, not a museum exhibit. Nor am I trying to write a treatise on the history of Irish Cavalry, so please excuse any inaccuracies. I am well aware of the liberties that I may be taking! For a start the limited picture information that we have is dated well beyond the period that my troops are operating in and the pictures are of course, artists impressions, not photographs, so they may be as inaccurate as the models that I am making.
In summary, what I have learnt from my limited research is that:
Irish Cavalry were in the main made up of the minor nobility and their personal retainers.
The riders did not use stirrups
They sat on cushions/pillows that appeared to be decorated.
They used their lances or spears overarm rather than in the ‘couched’ position.
They carried Shields or Targes of varying sizes. The targes appeared to be made from leather skins (deer skin or ox hide) over wooden frames.
The targes were painted and decorated with metal pins or nails to form a pattern.
The helmets were generally conical with up-turned nose guards. Some had plumes.
The riders wore legging and shoes although some may have been bare legged.
A cloak or ‘brat’ was worn by some of the riders – particularly the lords.
The were attended by ‘horse boys’ who had spare mounts and additional/replacement spears.
So how do I replicate these details on my cavalry? I wont go through my entire decision process, but I wanted plastic figures rather than metal and I thought that the Gripping beast Goth Noble cavalry were very close to the look that I was looking for. All that was missing was the cushion that the riders sat on. I was happy to ignore that some of the strapping/harness on the horses was slightly incorrect and I would sand down the leggings on the riders to remove the leg bindings. The only other issue for me was that the heads looked a bit too ‘Gothy’ which is great if you are building goths….Strangely, the solution was to use the heads from the Wargames Atlantic Goths.
They had helmets without plumes and the features were not so pronounced. And of course, I had the option of using the Perry war of the Roses heads, of which I had plenty spare!
Now that I had my base figures, it was just a question of putting everything together. I will cover assembly and painting in my next blog but here’s a picture of my first attempt!
Irish cavalry – Work in progress.
I my next blog, I’ll detail how I went about modelling and painting my Irish Cavalry. In the meantime, here’s a picture of the first three finished figures.
Not quite finished. The basing is still to be completed
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I hope that you all enjoy your hobby as much as I do – our web site will have much of what you need! Click here to see our shop.
I had wanted to add a couple of units of peasants to my ‘Never Mind The Bill Hooks’ army for some time. I thought that they would come in useful as levy troops and also I had a vague idea for a scenario involving an attack on a village where the villagers rise up and fight back.
Front of boxRear of box
The Fire forge Northern Folk Rabble looked as though they would do the job although I had a couple of misgivings. First of all they are not really medieval peasants ( not that I am any sort of expert in Medieval peasant dress) and secondly, they are a bit on the ‘chunky’ side. That all said, they certainly looked like an angry mob of peasants armed with agricultural implements rather than swords etc. I decided to ignore my concerns and bought a box.
A sprue from the set – there are three in a box.
I guess it’s worth pointing out that the figures have clearly been designed on a computer as some of the detail is a bit coarse. But that’s the last of my gripes. You get 18 figures on three sprues. There are 12 men and 6 women with a huge variety of ‘weapons’ and a choice of 15 different heads. The flail is particularly useful if you are intending to build a Hussite army.
The ‘Flail Man’ – ideal for a Hussite army!
I started by putting six figures together – there is just a bit of a mould line to scrape off, otherwise, the figures are straight forward enough to assemble. The arms holding the larger two handed implements are a bit tricky to put together and some problems were encountered in getting them to ‘sit’ correctly. I think the issue was me trying to pose them how I wanted them, rather than getting the best fit. If you use plenty of glue (polystyrene, not super glue!), a bit of patience, you will get a fairly good fit. The other thing that I missed on the first figure that I made is that the small wiggly bit at the top right of the sprue is actually part of one of the figures’ hood – the other three pieces below, being pony tails for the women. Incidentally. it was apparently not the done thing for medieval folk, particularly women, to go without some sort of head covering. However, when you are angry enough to rebel against your Lord, you might just forget to put your hat on….
The first six peasants completed.
Having completed one sprue, I moved onto the next one and was pleased with how easy it was to get plenty of variety in the figures. It was also apparent that I was going to have plenty of spare bits for my bits box! I decided not to use the flaming torches, I just wanted my villagers to be armed with sharp objects! The torches will be useful should I decide to build a bonfire party!
The revolt is growing!
When it came to painting, I just went through my different browns and greens for the men and used a few brighter colours for the ladies! I used a mixture of inks for shading and then re highlighted with the original colours where I thought it necessary. I had intended to make up the shortage in numbers for the final unit by mixing in some Perry’s but decided that this didn’t look right – the difference in sculpt style and size didn’t work for me. So I bought another box, having come up with a cunning plan to use the extra figures.
I decided that I would make two units of 12 peasants and one unit of skirmishing archers ( making 30 figures). I would then make a leader – ‘Jack Wood’ with his standard bearer, ‘Jill’ leaving just 4 spare figures. As it was, the two spare women were made up as working peasants for my village (under construction). Another spare was donated to my Granddaughter for a project that she was working on, leaving me one spare man who will end up in the fields at Little Bingham!
The archers as a skirmishing unit.Two units of 12 angry peasants!My Granddaughter Emily’s Sarrissa Caravan Diorama. Emily is aged 9!
To make the leader, Jack Wood stand out, I decided to give him a big dog from the DeeZee range. I also changed his bill hook to a big sword that I had in the spares box from making up the Perry Foot knights. It’s actually a two handed sword but it looks about right in Jacks big hands! I thought that a trouble maker like Jack would be an ex soldier! To make Jill’s standard, I simply stuck two of the larger handles from the longer implements together and trimmed them into shape.
The peasant commander ‘Jack Wood’ and ‘Jill’ his standard bearer – the dog is called Cuddles….
The banner was based loosely on a Wheafsheaf design (inspired by a pub in our village) and hand painted on paper. I keep practicing my free hand and whilst I wont be winning any competitions with it, it does save on buying decals! I painted the dog as a Rottweiler- I doubt that the breed existed in the middle ages but he conveys the idea that you would be a bit cautious about petting him! The dogs chain was from my bits box – originally an anchor chain for a boat. I also gave ‘Jack’ a wrapped bow from the Perry Light infantry set and Jill has an arrow bag from the same set. The idea was to convey that they are a team!
I’ve obviously taken a few liberties from an historical point of view. The whole project is a figment of my imagination, based on an imaginary uprising in the Village of Little Bingham! I now have a decent ‘ward’ of Levy or angry peasants for my ‘Bill Hooks’ collection, I just need to get them into battle!
THE COMMERCIAL BIT
I hope that you all enjoy your hobby as much as I do – our web site will have much of what you need! Click here to see our shop.
You can see the range of miniatures, including the Fire Forge Folk Rabble, that we think are suitable to for the Wars of the Roses, along with the rest of our Never Mind The Bill Hooks range here:
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