As a retailer of model paints, I’m not sure that I should be sending my customers off to the local DIY chain, B&Q, but as a hobbyist, I like to share the tips that I have picked up over the years. I’ve mentioned before that I use DIY type emulsion for the bases of my figures. My particular favourite being Dehli Bazaar, which is a nice greeny brown colour, or as my father would have said, ‘shitty coloured dim’. I was coming to the end of the tin of the Dehli Bazaar emulsion and the dregs were getting too thick to use, even with thinning, so it was time to get a new tin.
Paint samples and the originals
I also decided to try out the in-store colour matching facility at B&Q. Whilst I was replacing my usual basing paint, I thought that I would see if I could get some emulsion pots pots of the two other colours that I most frequently use when basing; Vallejo Chocolate Brown 70872 and Iraqi Sand 70819. I just brushed some samples of each paint onto a scrap of paper and off I went to the local B&Q. The young lady behind the counter did warn me that the colours may not be an exact match as they were using Valspar Emulsion as opposed to Vallejo pigments but she would do her best. The sheet above shows that the two vallejo colours are a bit ‘off’ and on the light side but close enough for me. After all, I will be using these for basing, not to replicate a uniform colour.
B&Q sample pots next to Vallejo for size comparison.
The process took about ten minutes but here’s the best bit. The cost was £3.00 a pot! Each pot contains 263mls! So for £9.00, I have enough paint to keep me basing for the next couple of years. They even kept my details on file so when I need another batch, they can just make a batch up from the details on file. Brilliant!
The beauty about using emulsion for your bases is that it is water based paint and can be thinned with tap water; you can wash your brushes in water and it seems to give great coverage over sand and basing material, even when thinned. If you need to you can mix it with with Vallejo or other actrylic paints – I often add a small amount of White to the last highlight to get a final dry brush highlight on my bases.
Gordon Highlanders – These are just about ready for basing
So, with my new basing paint purchased, I’m ready to finish off my next Battalion, the Gordon Highlanders. As you can see above they are just about ready for basing. I need to touch in the green squares on the hat bands and tidy up any obvious errors. You can see that the back packs are all done and waiting to be fixed on. Then it’s just fixing the flags, which I have ready to go.
Portuguese Artillery
Next up, Portuguese Artillery! The painting goes on!
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Well, the recent deluge has caught me out and I was unable to continue with my WOTR cavalry as the next six models were yet to be undercoated. Mrs W made it quite clear that spraying indoors was unacceptable, even in the garage, which is accessed through the kitchen door. So I have had to wait for the weather to brighten up before continuing.
The six completed cavalry.
As you can see, I have now completed six of the heavy mounted men at arms, so I have made some progress. I’ve also mounted the riders for the next batch on the temporary holders ready for spraying, so I am good to go once the rain stops.
Let us Spray…knights ready for undercoating.
Despite this hitch, I always have something on the work bench and so I continued with the batch paint of the Highlanders that will make up the balance of the 92nd Gordon’s. The beauty of the batch paint approach is that you can keep a unit progressing and know exactly where you are in the process, even if you have to pause to do something else.
Batch painting highlanders
So a bit more progress in a slightly different direction. The decision I have to make now is whether to crack on and finish the Highlanders or once I can get the Knights undercoated, go back to them. I’m under no real pressure to do either at the moment as I now have sufficient troops to fight club battles in both Napoleonic’s and WOTR. I am favouring the Highlanders though as now that I’ve started them, it would be good to finish them. In reality, I’ll probably do a bit of both, depending on the time I have, after all, nothing like a bit of variety to spice things up! So long as I don’t end up with tartan on my WOTR knights all will be well….
White cross straps and lacing next!
So a short blog for me – besides there’s a break in the rain – I’m off to do some priming!
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The next additional to my WOTR army is to be a unit of Cavalry. From the little that I know about the battles in the War of the Roses, it seems that the cavalry were used as a shock unit to punch through already demoralised troops or to cut down those that were retreating. The power of the long bow and the defensive blocks of troops with Pikes or Halberds were usually able to hold Cavalry at bay. I am also told that there were very few, if any major cavalry versus cavalry engagements.
However, no WOTR army would be complete without a unit or two of light and heavy horse prowling around the flanks, looking for the opportunity to sweep away those on foot in a glorious charge!
The obvious choice for my army was a box of Perry Miniatures Mounted Men at arms. I wanted to go for the ‘Heavy’ option first. To be truthful, I thought that painting armoured horses would be the easy option! As with all of the Perry Sets, assembly was fairly straight forward, with plenty of choice when it came to weapons and poses. There are seven different horses heads and the horses sides are interchangeable. There is also a choice of armour for the horses. I went for the fully armoured option in most cases, with only two of the horses, lightly armoured.
The assembled Mounted Men at Arms
As you can see, most of my Knights will be armed with lances! At this stage I decided to paint the riders separately from the horses, so they are not yet fully attached! Despite the amount of armour, I undercoated the horses in black primer and then painted the armour with Army Painter plate mail.
Horses primed ready to paint
The next stage was to paint the armour in Army Painter Dark tone.
Armour washed with dark tone ink
I then dry brushed the armour with plate mail, followed by Vallejo Silver. In the picture, you can see that I have over done this – I was trying a new dry brush out and wasn’t careful with how much paint was going onto the models! I then started to under coat the horses. I use Vallejo Chocolate brown as a base.
Starting to paint the horses.
I use three shades of Brown to paint the horses but I’m quite happy to mix things up a bit. The colours are ‘wet brushed/dry brushed’ on from dark to light and I use a light ink wash to tie things together. So the list of colours used are Chocolate brown, Flat Brown, Flat Earth, Mahogany Brown, Orange Brown, Cork Brown, Green Ochre and strong tone ink to wash. I don’t use all of those colours on one horse – just take three and layer them on. When it came to the details , I went a bit OTT with the colours. I was inspired by some pictures of miniatures that I found on the web and I have attempted to copy these. I thought that the brighter colours would look good on the wargames table, so I cannot vouch for any degree of historical accuracy!
Horse flesh done, stating to block in the details.
I’ve also added a bit more shading onto the armour with a light wash of dark tone ink. The next picture shows another two horse in progress. I decided to embellish the armour on one of the mounts with gold and add some ‘socks’ to these horses for variety. I’ve also painted the horse shoes and teeth – a bit OTT but I understand that the horses like to get involved in the fighting, using these as weapons!
Another two war horses!
With three horses done it was time to get some Knights done! I temporarily mounted them on wire and used blu-tack to hold them in plastic tube ready for priming.
Knights ready for priming
To prime them, I used Army painter Plate mail spray.
Knight primed!
I then gave them a good wash of Dark tone ink, before dry brushing them with Plate mail and then again with Silver.
Knights after dry brushing
Once again, I went for a ‘pretty look’ rather than do any real research and I have been free and easy with the few colours that are used on the knights belts etc. I’ve also copied an idea to make the lances stand out and used a spiral design on them. I stress, I have no idea how accurate this is, I just thought it looked good!
Mounted Knight completed – basing started
I used Expo 2mm flexible masking tape to get the spiral effect. If you look closely, there is some bleed on the painting as I simply brush painted the blue over the white base. The next two Lances that I painted were better as I became used to using the masking tape. It really does do what it is supposed to do – It’s flexible and it masks well without taking off the bottom coat of paint!
Three knights ready for basing
You can see that I have started to base the figures using my usual method. The figures are attached to the Renedra base ( I tend to use plastic bases for plastic figures) and then I cover with Vallejo Dark Earth Textured paste and press a few small stones into it.
Basing on the Knights completed – well, nearly!
Once the paste is dry, I paint over it and dry brush with successive layers in a lighter colour to bring out the texture and show off the rocks. It’s then just a case of adding scatter. I will be adding some Gamers grass tufts to finish things off but will wait until all of the figures are done and complete this final task for the complete unit.
So my first knights are ready to take to the table. They are perhaps a bit more suited to a Jousting tournament but I think that they will look imposing on the wargames table once all twelve are completed!
THE COMMERCIAL BIT
Nearly every thing that I use in my modelling projects comes from the Arcane Scenery shop. We supply post free to most worldwide locations!
I have some offers running on the Perry Miniatures WOTR range so that you can build an army similar to the one that I am working on. To see the range of Perry Plastics for WOTR, click here:
My gaming groups foray into the War of the Roses continues as we play test the rules set that Andy Callan has developed. As you can see from the title, there is a nod in the direction of the Two Fat Lardies style of play. The WOTR rules that we are using have morphed from our ‘Rules for Old wargamers with short memories’, which we used for our Napoleonic skirmishes, also written by Mr Callan. Andy has a long history of rules writing and tinkering. Indeed, his rules set ‘Loose files and American Scramble’ originally published in Wargames Illustrated back in the ’80’s (and incidentally, the only article to be republished in the magazines history) has often been copied and they are still in use today. More recently, Andy has collaborated with Peter Dennis on the ‘Paper Soldiers’ Project, with Andy writing the rules for many of the books.
Andy Callan’s rules set are included with the book.
The battle report that follows is a run through of the latest manifestation of the ‘Never mind The Billhooks’ rules. As usual, I was playing, so the report will inevitably be biased and one sided, which makes it totally authentic when compared with accounts of the actual battles in the War of the Roses as written by the chroniclers of the time…
The Battle of Bingham Fields – the set up.
The initial set up allows the players to deploy their troops as they see fit, with the army being commanded by a number of officers or characters. In our battles, the commanders are all fictitious, with my commanders named after Tottenham players, Harry Hotspur being the leader.
Sir Harry Hotspur makes ready to advance.
The Commanders are activated by drawing cards and once activated, they can give orders to the appropriate units within their command range. To speed the game up, at the start, players are able to freely move their units, one at a time, until either the first contact or shooting action. At which point the game is then controlled by drawing the cards. This allows the players to manoeuvre before battle is joined!
Skirmishers!
Skirmishers are semi independent of the control system, in that they are activated by their own card but can also be given orders if they are within range of a commander.
My cunning battle plan – go right!
My cunning battle plan was to send my cavalry (out of shot in the above picture) and one unit to the left as a feint, whilst switching the main attack to the right. This would allow me to bring the bulk of my archers to bear against Lord Binghams force. In the game, Archers have a limited arrow supply, so it is important to choose your target carefully. You can see that I had one gun to provoke the enemy into moving. Whilst Artillery isn’t too effective in the game, it does wear the enemy down if they don’t get out of the way!
Archers Loose!
With my archers screened by both the woods and skirmishers on the flanks, they were free to unleash an arrow storm on Lord Binghams forces whilst the Men at Arms advanced in the centre.
Irish Kern attack!
There was a moment of consternation when a band of Irish Kern skirmishers burst out of the woods and hit the flank of my archers. Lord Bingham had also finally managed to move his archers around the other side of the wood to threaten my flank.
Lord Bingham’s Archers – down to their last two shots!
However, The Cavalry, commanded by Lady Ravenshead were able to halt the enemies advance and Sir Harry Hotspur chased off the Irish to secure the left flank.
Hold the flank!
Meanwhile, Sir Eric Diehard had closed with the enemy, and true to form, was giving them a good kicking (you need to be a Spurs fan to appreciate the tactical nuances…), pushing Lord Bingham back.
Captian Eric Diehard secures the right flank
With Harry Hotspur now able to join his loyal Captain in the push, Lord Bingham’s force began to waver.
Harry leads his forces to Victory!
With numerical superiority established on this side of the battlefield, numbers began to tell and as casualties mounted, Lord Bingham was forced to withdraw from the field. In fact, Lord Bingham was forced to retreat across a turnip field to make his escape! He would be back to fight again once he had cleaned up his armour!
Victory for Harry!
Not quite a resounding victory for Sir Harry but a victory nonetheless!
The battle was a good run through of the rules and many lessons learnt. To be fair, my opponent, Pete, had not played this particular version of the rules before, so I was at a slight advantage. During the post battle discussion, Andy has since come up with some amendments that will allow the battle to flow more easily. As usual, with rules writing, there is a conflict between allowing the rules to reflect some of the character of the period whilst allowing the game to flow. I think that we are getting there. I haven’t described the effect of some of the ‘special cards’ that can be introduced into the game that allow for say, an arrow resupply or for a commander to waver or even change allegiance. The method of calculating a units morale is still quite cumbersome and will be refined.
I particularly like the idea of naming your characters and using them consistently over a series of games. I have found that they can take on a life of their own and add extra fun to the play. Once we have a settled rules set, with Andy’s permission, I will publish a PDF for download.
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Back in February, I picked up a Trebuchet and some other bits and pieces from Iron Gate Scenery at the Robin Show in Nottingham. Although it was a ‘generic’ model, more fantasy than an accurate scale model, it looked great and I thought that it would make a nice objective for my WOTR army.
Iron Gate Trebuchet!
As my current focus is on completing my WOTR army, I thought that I would have a break from painting figures and get on with completing the Trebuchet. I had also just picked up a copy of the latest ‘Painting War’ magazine that covered the Holy War in the Middle ages. There was a nice tutorial in this issue that showed how to paint siege engines and I decided to follow this guide to complete the Trebuchet.
The latest ‘Painting War’ Magazine
So here is the stage by stage process that I followed.
Trebuchet primed with black spray.
The first job was to prime the model using Army Painter Black spray primer. This gives a good base to work from and if I miss any of the difficult parts to get to, the black undercoat will look like shadows.
Next coat – Chocolate brown
The next stage was to paint everything in Chocolate Brown, Vallejo 70872. Use the biggest brush that you feel comfortable with. At this stage I was using a sort of ‘wet brush’ technique, to make sure that the paint covered everything and got into most of the deep cracks.
Trebuchet Stage 2 – Flat Brown
Stage 2 was to use a heavy dry brush of Vallejo 70984 Flat Brown. I covered most of the model but the dry brushing technique meant that some of the Chocolate brown was left in the recesses.
Trebuchet Stage 3 Flat Earth
Stage 3 and another dry brush with Flat Earth, Vallejo 70983. This was a lighter dry brush than before and I was careful to take nearly all the paint off of my brush before starting the technique. I found that the edges of the model picked up the paint quite quickly – a bit more care was needed on the flat surfaces.
Trebuchet Stage 4 Orange Brown
Stage 4 was to dry brush with Orange Brown, Vallejo 70981. Again a lighter dry brushing technique was used. Had I not been following the article in the magazine, I might have stopped at this stage! But onto to stage 5.
Trebuchet Stage 5 Yellow Ochre
Stage 5 and another light dry brush with Yellow Ochre 70913. I would not have chosen this colour without the guidance of the article but it certainly brought out the detail and looks very realistic.
Trebuchet Stage 6 – Basic Skin!
Stage 6 and the final dry brush with Basic Skin Tone Vallejo 70815. I would certainly never have thought of using this colour as a highlight on wood! To be honest, at first, I chickened out and only gave the model the lightest of dry brush highlights with this colour. However, I think that it works well and I have learnt something new!
Trebuchet nearly completed
The next stage was to wash the whole model with Army painter strong tone. I watered this down very slightly but the effect was to tie all the dry brush coats together and to add shade and depth to the model. I then went back and used the driest of dry brush coats with the Basic Skin to bring out the detail again. You can also see that I have picked out the iron work in Plate mail and then washed this with Army Painter Dark Tone Ink. I’ve also painted the leather pouch holding the stone with a coat of Leather Brown, Vallejo 70871. I then dry brushed this with Orange brown and a mix of Leather Brown and yellow ochre. The whole thing was then washed in Army Painter Strong Tone.
Trebuchet – almost battle ready!
Two other points to note. The stones were painted with Stone Grey, Vallejo 70884 ( currently my new favourite colour…), washed with Army Painter Dark tone and then highlighted with stone grey and a mix of stone grey and white. The string that I am using is just some parcel string that I had in my ‘spares box’. It is slightly thinner than the stuff supplied with the kit. To make it less white I dyed it in some tea…Yes, standard Yorkshire tea from the tea pot!
Trebuchet ready to fire!
The final task was to add the ‘rope’ to the trebuchet. I have taken a few liberty’s here. The model doesn’t allow for a practical firing mechanism and a close look will show that if it was fired, the stone would never release. There is also no clear firing mechanism or a convenient way of recovering the firing arm once it is released. I made my own attachment for the windlass to the firing arm from a small piece of plastic tube. That all said, it’s a wargaming piece not a museum model and I am happy with the final result.
Trebuchet ready!
Finally, an apology to any one reading this blog on a tablet or phone. I am having problems with displaying some of the pictures in the correct format. They all look fine on a desk top but for some weird reason, the portrait pictures lay on their side on other devices…. I’ll keep trying to resolve this but I hope that you can still make sense of the post!
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I now have about 100 figures completed for my WOTR army. Actually, completed is not strictly accurate, as six need basing and I want to revisit some of the Men at Arms to add some detail. The Foot Knights will form the core of my army and they are made from a box of Perry’s Foot knights that I have almost completed. Of the 36 knights in the box, 24 are in ‘plain’ armour and so were quite straight forward to paint. A further 12 have tabards over their armour and it was these that initially slowed me down when it came to completing them. Assembly was straight forward enough, although with one exception, I decided to go for ‘sleeved’ tabards, which reduced the choice of poses and weapons available.
Knights with tabards, assembled and ready for priming.
Incidentally, in the background of the picture above, you can see that I have also assembled the final 2 of the 38 figures in the Perry’s set – Richard III and his standard bearer – they may not make it into the army but I will complete them. Painting the figures was fairly straight forward, it was deciding on the colours of the livery that caused me a problem. Despite doing a degree of research, I reminded myself that I was initially building a generic WOTR force for our club games rather than a specific order of battle. This did simplify things in my mind and so I went with a fairly limited set of colours for the livery and I haven’t worried too much about what or who the livery represents at this stage.
Basic colours blocked in.
I followed more or less the same procedure for painting the armour. I used Army Painter plate mail, gave this a heavy Dark Tone Ink wash and then re highlighted by dry brushing with Plate mail and then Vallejo Silver. The Tabards were just block painted, although I did use soft tone ink and red ink to do some shading.
Tabards painted and figures based.
The picture above shows three of the finished figures. You can see that I attempted to paint Warwicks badge on one of the figures…It just about passes from a distance but I decided that I would leave the others without a badge until I can find suitable decals. Besides, my eye’s were at the limit of their endurance!
Foot Knights ready for action!
The final six Foot Knights are almost complete. I just need paint some of the details, add some washes and finish the basing.
The final batch on the work bench.
With the core of my force completed, we have already started to test our rules set and have played our first game of ‘Never mind the Billhooks’. The rules have been written specifically for generic WOTR battles by Andy Callan and played well on the first game. Once we have knocked them into shape, with Andy’s permission, I’ll put them up on the blog as a free PDF download. We plan to fight a series WOTR battles using our own House retinues over the coming year. Sir Harry Hotspur being the leader of my band. No doubt, Lord Bingham, Sir Peter of Woodborough and Lady Jasmine of Papplewick will be just as capricious at choosing allegiances as the real participants of the War Of The Roses!
Of course, my retinue is far from complete. I need a few more skirmishers and badly need some cavalry support, so I will add these in over the next few weeks. For now though, let battle commence!
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We carry the full range of Perry’s Plastic sets. You can see the WOTR sets here:
We have a huge range of paints and basing products in stock. We carry Vallejo Model Colour and the Army Painter range. Also in stock is the full range of Renedra bases. Even better we post free to most worldwide locations!
I often read articles that are bemoaning the lack of youngsters coming into our hobby. I dont think that there is very much truth in this – if anything, thanks to the power of the internet, the hobby is growing. I’ve been reading the same old stuff since I was a youngster myself, with the same complaint occuring some 50 or more years ago. If anyone doubts me, I have the original issues of Wargames Illustrated and Miniature wargames Magazines and you don’t have to look far in the letters page to find evidence. Like all hobbies, it is either in your DNA or not. Wargaming is never going to be a mainstream hobby, it is a niche at best and I suspect that in itself is part of the attraction.
I will concede that Historical wargaming is now, I believe, a minority part of wargaming itself, with Fantasy and Science Fiction taking the larger share and certainly attracting the younger player into the hobby. Many will stay with this side of the hobby, a few will stray into the historical thread. In terms of introducing my children into the hobby, I have been largely unsuccessful. They did take an interest for a while, particularly my son, who was attracted to Orks in particular and 40K in general but alas, the hobby didn’t stick and he has taken up golf…. My daughter quite enjoyed the the painting and crafting side of the hobby for a while but she too is more interested in sport, specifically scuba diving and swimming. I’m not sure where they got the activity bug from – I like sport but prefer watching it these days! As for golf, I’m happy to agree with the sentiment that it is a good walk spoilt. That said, I do like a game of crazy golf at the seaside!
However, another generation comes along and so the opportunity comes along to try and convert the grand children into willing opponents! Emily is now 6, about the same age that I was when I started making models, so when she stayed over at Easter and asked if she could sit with me while I had sneaked off to the garage to do some modelling, I was pleased to have her company. At first she was happy to watch me working on my WOTR project and we had a nice chat about the ‘Cousins War’. She was intrigued by the story of the ‘Princes in the Tower’ and that a major battle, Stokes Field, took place just down the road from her school.
Memorial stone at East stoke Church
It didn’t take long before she asked if she could have a go and so I looked through the ‘lead pile’ and found a figure primed and ready to paint that might be suitable. In the past, I have been quite protective of my paints and brushes but I decided that if Emily was going to try and paint something, she would be better off using the correct tools for the job! So with gritted teeth, I gave her my best brushes and we started to paint a Japanese Peasant lady.
Emilys’ first model
I was surprised at just how good she was. Of course, you have to explain how to hold the brush, how to thin the paint, how to use the point of the brush, how to draw the brush over the bits that you want to paint, how to hold the figure. Gosh! I had forgotten just how much I had learnt but in teaching Emily, I remembered just how much technique there is to learn. When it came to the colour scheme, I let Emily choose which colours she preferred – I actually quite like the combination that she came up with – I’ll be using that again!
Overnight, I did the basing for her, in that I super glued the figure onto a base and added the texture. Superglue and kids are a dangerous combination! The next day, Emily added the scenic bits and to finish the figure off, we used some washes and did a bit of highlighting and dry brushing. Again, once I explained the techniques, Emily was happy to apply the washes and paints. The result is not too bad and I am thinking about what figure Emily can do on her next visit!
Catan, Ticket to ride and Camel Up!
At six years old I think she is too young to start wargaming but she has already mastered Junior Cluedo and Camel Up so we are not too far away from a more complicated board game – say Space crusade. Another year or so and I think that I might just try her out with a simple wargame. I think a good skirmish game such as Test of Honour or Lion Rampant will be a good place to start. I may yet ensnare her into the hobby….
My journey into the complications of the War of the Roses continues with a visit to the King Richard III Visitor Centre at Leicester. I have had it on my list to visit the museum ever since it’s creation and with Leicester being just a 30 minute drive down the A46, it wasn’t to much of a journey. I had closely followed the search for Richard III’s remains at the time the story was breaking. Apart from the historical significance of the story, I had spent a very happy part of my career working and living in Leicester and very much like the city and the people there.
Statue of Richard III outside the visitor centre.
As you would expect from such a new facility, the Visitor Centre is very clean and beautifully presented. I can certainly recommend the on site café for it’s quality of food and value for money – the cake was delicious!
Replica weapons on display
The centre of course, focuses on Richard III, how he came to power, his demise at the Battle of Bosworth and the search for his resting place. There is plenty of information to absorb and although I am familiar with the story of Richard III, it is still a fascinating tale of dark intrigue and betrayal. The centre covers how Richard came to power, the tale of the Princes in the Tower, his reign over England and Richard’s last desperate charge at the battle of Bosworth to hold onto his crown. Of course, with Richard now interred at the Cathedral across from the centre, the city of Leicester obviously feels an affiliation to Richard and the museum rightly asks the question as to whether Richard III’s reputation as a ‘bad guy’ is fair and justified. Having asked the question though, it leaves it up to the visitor to make their own judgement.
More weapons on display in the Battle Time line.
A large part of the exhibition is devoted to how the archaeologists tracked down Richard III’s burial place and recovered his remains. It is a superb piece of detective work and fascinating in it’s detail. The forensic ‘post mortem’ of the remains is intriguing, if somewhat gruesome. There’s no doubt that Richard III came to a nasty end, deserved or not!
Richard III Skeleton , as it was discovered.
If Shakespeare had intended to vilify Richard III for the sake of his Tudor masters, then over time, I suspect that this has not quite worked out the way that that he intended it to. I think that many of todays public will know of Richards last words as spoken by Shakespeare for him ‘A horse, a horse, my Kingdom for a horse’. Even more will remember him as the King that was found in a car park!
Yet more weapons! It is pretty obvious that these displays caught my attention!
I would definitely recommend a visit to the King Richard III Museum. It will take only a half a day at the most and you can spend the rest of the day as Julie and I did, browsing around the Leicester City Centre and it’s shops. If you are unable to get there then a visit to the web site is well worth a few minutes of your time. The 3 minute video is an excellent introduction to the centre – the link is below.
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You can visit the King Richard visitor centre official web site here:
My War of the Roses project gathers pace once more and before I update you with my latest progress (and explain the quote in the blog title – not WOTR, I know!), I would like to say a special thank you to Martin Stephenson and Vexillia. Martin has very kindly helped with my research into the heraldry and in particular, the livery colours that I should be using on my troops. His web site Vexillia, is great source of reference and if any one else is embarking on a similar project, they could do no better than to visit Vexillia. I also bought three lovely little reference books from Vexillia. They are packed with information and well worth the money. Even better the service from Vexillia was first class, with both of my orders being sent out in a day and received very promptly. Thank you Martin.
Three invaluable references from Feezy Water Publications, available from the Vexilia web store.
I was also intrigued to note that two of the books have been co-authored by Dave Lanchester. I know Dave from having a stand right next to him at the Partizan shows at Newark and I had not realised how involved Dave was in the Lance and Long Bow society. I suppose the clue should have been that the Lance and Long Bow stand is usually situated right opposite us at Partizan and Daves Partner is often on the desk….Doh! I will be having a slightly different conversation with him at the next Partizan show. Instead of bugging him about books on the subject of Napoleonic Warfare in the Caribbean, it will be nice to chat about WOTR in between customers!
Harry Hotspur fly’s the flag!
One of the joys of my hobby is the historical research into the background of the characters and battles that took place. However, much as I take this seriously and spend a great deal of my leisure time reading, visiting battlefields and museums, when it comes to the painting and modelling, I am happy to take a less rigorous approach. My collection of figures are painted to the best of my ability to represent a generic force from the period that I am interested in rather than a specific unit or army in a specific battle. I’m just not into button counting and although I do like to get the detail as correct as my research allows, I am happy to go ‘wildling’!
You’ve given us the wrong armour and livery!!!
The figures above are a case in point. I have recovered them from the bottom of my lead pile and repainted them to be part of a siege force that will include a trebuchet model that I recently acquired. I suspect that the armour is more suited to a period earlier than the WOTR. The livery colours are a nod in the direction of Warwick (EDIT! whoops! just rereading my books after I wrote this post and I’ve actually used Talbots livery…. Ah well, it will still do as I like the red and black!), for no other reason than there is a superb working replica of a trebuchet that I have seen in action at Warwick castle!
Another batch of Men at arms ready for basing.
Meanwhile, I continue to work my way through the Perry’s Foot Knight set, with another 6 Foot knights completed and waiting for the basing to be completed and six more foot knights well underway.
The final 6 foot knights in armour – just the detail to complete.
In the back ground of the above picture are the 12 foot knights that have tabards over their armour. Completing these will mean that I will have finished the boxed set and added 36 foot knights to my retinue. It was painting the tabards that had made me pause and do some research on WOTR livery. I have decided to paint these in a mix of colours, White and blue, Red and Black and Red ( Murray) and Blue. This should give some variety to the look of my force, now 90 strong!
The army groweth!
If all goes well over Easter, my main force should be complete and ready to take to the table to fight against Sir Andy of Bingham, Sir Peter of Woodborough and the Lady Jasmine of Papplewick! And so to my own army, led by Harry Hotspur. If you haven’t already guessed, yes, that is the Tottenham Hotspur flag that my standard bearer is flying. At some point, as the army grows, I will add some more authentic standards to the force but for now, it’s a good day to be a Tottenham fan!
THE COMMERCIAL BIT
As I have mentioned above, if like me, you are starting out on a WOTR project, you could do no better than to visit the Vexillia site here:
We have the Perry’s plastic range in stock and at the time of writing we post free to most worldwide locations.
I have also created a new category for the blog, War Of The Roses, and gathered all of my other articles that are relevant under this category. This includes a few Lion Rampant battle reports and my visits to Stokes Field and Warwick castle, as well as how I have painted m some of my figures.
I wrote the following article for Wargames Illustrated sometime ago. It’s still relevant to me – the techniques I discuss help to keep me focused – to a degree – and it seems appropriate to revisit it in my blog now as I am torn between my Naploeonic project and my growing WOTR army.
CLIMBING THE LEAD MOUNTAIN
A fairly frequent conversation that I see on social media and often have at the club with my wargaming buddies is how to avoid ‘painters block’. I think that we all get bogged down in never ending projects from time to time or just loose enthusiasm. I am fairly relentless, although somewhat slow, when it comes to painting my units for gaming but I too suffer from becoming jaded. I have a couple of strategies that help. Writing a blog is one of them. It’s very useful to document what you have achieved and what you plan to do and it was part of a business strategy that I was taught when working at WHSmiths. If you want to achieve a goal, there are four steps to work through.
Lady Butlers painting of the 28th at Quatre Bras – an inspiration for wargamers!
STEP 1 – See it
First picture in your mind what you would like to achieve. Visualising your next project is a powerful way of getting you started. There is plenty out there to help you do that. Just pick up the latest copy of Wargames Illustrated for a start. Go to a Wargames show, visit a model shop – even an online one will help…Arcane scenery is great! BUT don’t think about the unmade product itself, focus on what it will look like when painted and finished and even better on your war games table! Check out your friends collection. The library is often overlooked these days – they may not have the exact book that you want but it’s surprising what you can find just by browsing. Talking of browsing, a morning spent in the man crèche otherwise known as Waterstones can be very rewarding. And of course there is Pandoras box, the Internet. Google images is simply an amazing source of reference and inspiration, as are the forums, facebook groups and other peoples blogs. One of the most useful sites that I have found is Pinterest. I’ve rambled on about this site before but it’s worth repeating again. If you haven’t used it, you are simply missing out on not just an amazing collection of images but the opportunity to organise your own collection. Even better it’s free!
Demo games are a great source of ideas!
So no excuse for not having a clear idea of what you would like paint, model or collect for your next project. The point is though not just to look at other peoples stuff but to visualise in your own mind how your models will look. It’s OK to dream!
STEP 2- Say it
It might sound daft but talking about your next project whether to your mates or your family is a really important step on the road to completing a project. It does help if you are talking to someone that’s interested in the subject but believe it or not, it is not essential. There are a number of helpful reasons for talking about your next project. If the person has any knowledge of the subject, you can be sure that they will be happy to share it with you. Now this can backfire…I’m sure we have all been in situations when we have started a conversation at a wargames show that has become a one sided lecture in the minutiae of a subject that barely relates to your original statement. You know, you started to talk about the fact that you were going to build an Artillery piece and have to listen to 10 minutes on the chemical composition of gun powder in the 18th century!
So strangely, talking to someone who isn’t in the hobby is often more useful than you might think. The very act of explaining to someone what you intend to do helps to organise your thoughts and will help you to plan. Even better, friends wont deflect you or put barriers in the way. Sometimes I have found that my non wargaming buddies or family have been the most helpful. They have also been great cheer leaders. Just the simple question,’how is that painting project going’ is enough to spur me on if I am flagging. It’s also nice to keep your partner informed so they have some idea of what you are specifically doing rather than just disappearing off to ‘play with toy soldiers’… One word of caution when dealing with those outside the hobby and talking about your project – watch out for eyes glazing over – you don’t want to be that guy talking about the chemical composition of gun powder!
My British Napoleonic Artillery park is still growing!
So ‘it’s good to talk’ but now it is important to move to the next step.
STEP 3 – Write it down
Once you commit your thoughts to paper your project starts to become a reality not a dream. I am sure that explains the popularity of blogs on the internet. The truth is that many are writing for themselves as much as any desire to let the world know what they are up to. You don’t have to start a blog though. Just getting your thoughts down on paper is good enough. And we are not looking for JK Rowling standard manuscript here! A list of things that you need to finish the project, a very rough diagram of how the diorama that you are planning might look is enough to clarify your thoughts. A list of units in a brigade that you would like to paint will keep you to your project even if you are diverted by something else. Even some post it notes marking a reference in a book will help to record that you are about to embark on a new project.
My project notebook.
The other useful point about writing details down is that you will have a record of what you have achieved and how you did it. I cant tell you how often I go back to my reference’s for the first cavalry unit that I painted. I wrote down some ‘recipes’ for various horse colours and I refer to them all of the time. My own written notes mean more to me than going back to the original sources because as I read my own notes, I can remember exactly what I did. You will also become your own cheerleader – reading back through past projects will encourage you to get on with your new one!
Paint recipes for horses!
So write it down and you will be ready for the final step.
STEP 4 – Do it!
Now buying another batch of figures or model does not count as doing it! You are just adding to your lead mountain and actually I would say that the act of purchasing a new pack of soldiers is really only part of step 1 – Seeing it. In fact, if you want to be hard on yourself, take a look at your lead mountain. The bigger it is, the bigger the dreamer you are. Harsh, I know but for me ‘doing it’ starts when the model is on the work bench, out of it’s packaging. Just start somewhere. Scrape off a few mold lines, stick some bits together, spray the model with primer, put the figure on a temporary base, just do something that starts the process. Don’t focus on the end result at this stage just on the first step that you need to take in the process. Remember, you already have a plan. You have imagined what the model will look like when it is finished, you’ve told your mates that you are working on it and you have a rough plan written down as to what you need to do.
It’s a long way to go to finish three regts of highlanders but it’s a start!
That’s why I like to batch paint my Napoleonic units. Painting 24 figures is still quite daunting for me, even after years of painting. The thought of painting an army would stop me before I even started. But I know that I can paint the shakos of 12 figures in 30 minutes. Then I do the faces, then the back packs, then the water bottles….you get the idea. Over time, I now have an army. So ‘do it’ doesn’t mean do the whole thing in one go. Life isn’t some Nike advert where you are suddenly transformed into a painting and modelling god! It means start and once you do, you will get it finished.
My WOTR army is steadily growing!
So that’s it. See it, Say it, Write it down, Do it. Four steps to achieving your next goal. I hope that it works for you – it’s a technique that I use and I know that it helps me with my hobby. I hope that you find it useful too.
THE COMMERCIAL BIT!
If you need help with your project my shop, Arcane Scenery has a huge range of products from tools to paints and of course scenery and much, much more. Even better, we post free to most worldwide locations!
I have been thinking about building a War of The Roses Army for some time now. I have a Lion Rampant Retinue that would serve as the core of the army. I just need to expand it so that I could field a much larger force and perhaps try a new wargaming rules set. It is a bit of a distraction from my Napoleonic project but sometimes a change is required to prevent painting fatigue and I was feeling the need to try something different.
Pike men on the work bench close to being finished.
I’ve also had six assembled and undercoated Pike men on my modelling board for well over a year. They were left over from my Lion Rampant Retinue and were not needed at the time and so not finished. I had also recently bought a lovely Trebuchet that perhaps would form a nice centre piece or objective for a Lion Rampant game. The final piece in the push, was that following our recent display game at The Bingham Napoleonic Days, Andy Callan offered to revise our Napoleonic rules to make them suitable for WOTR.
The Trebuchet is also primed and ready to be painted.
So, with all this in mind, the first job was to finish the pikemen and then decide what to add to the army. I decided that I needed to expand the core of the army – the men at arms. The Perry’s make a lovely set of English Foot Knights for the period. A box of these would give me 36 Foot knights in heavy armour, as well as a couple of Command figures. I also thought that they would be nice and straight forward to paint. I had no intention of doing any really serious research on colour schemes. The box art of the Perry’s set, Pinterest and the couple of books that I have on Medieval Warfare would do for now. I just wanted to get on with the figures and as I have commented in the past, too much analysis leads to paralysis!
Foot Knights assembled
As four of the torso’s on each sprue of the Foot knights are modelled in full armour, research on colour schemes, could wait. I would leave the Foot Knights with Tabards for last and get on with painting! Assembling the Knights was fairly straight forward, although a bit fiddley. I could have done with a bit more guidance in the instructions but on studying them closely and looking at the box art, I soon had the hang of it and assembled my first six figures. There is little flash or mould lines to remove and to be honest I wasn’t sure that some of the mould lines were actually edges to armour plate!
Knights ready for priming
I then blu-tacked the figures to my spray board ( an old piece of Hardboard). The picture shows how you can tilt the board and the figures stay in place whilst you spray! This means that you can get to all the places on the figures, even underneath.
Primed! Army Painter plate mail primer.
To prime the figures I used Army Painter Plate Mail sprate. Any good silver primer will do the job but the Army painter range all works well together, so I prefer to use it. Once primed, the figures are taken off of the spray board and mounted on temporary bases. Blu-tack is used – it is fine for both metal and plastic figures and I have been using the same ‘lump’ for some years now – so is good value for money!
The foot knights on their temporary bases.
I then gave the figures a good wash with Army Painter Dark Tone Ink. The picture above shows the contrast achieved, with the figure on the left being inked.
Foot Knights after washing with Dark Tone Ink.
Once the dark Tone ink is dry, the next stage is to dry brush with Army Painter Plate mail paint. It matches the original primer and starts to highlight the figures, bringing out the detail.
First Plate Mail dry brush coat.
The next stage is to dry brush the figures with silver. In this case I switched to Vallejo Silver as it was what I had on the work bench. The Army painter version would work just as well.
Silver Dry Brush added
I tend to use a very light dry bush for the silver but repeated it a couple of times. I think this actually helps to ‘polish’ the top areas as the paint dries.
Time to start picking out the detail.
I then picked out the detail using vallejo ‘New Wood’ for the weapon shafts, Flat earth for the leather strapping, Leather brown and saddle brown for the scabards and other leather wear. I also picked out the flesh and used off white for the trousers (hose) that show at the back of the legs. Finally, the swords and scabbards were detailed with Brass and black where appropriate. As a final touch, I washed some of the areas ( Faces and leather straps) with soft tone ink and touched up any obvious errors that I could see and the figures were ready for basing.
Foot knights ready for action!
With six Foot Knights and the Pikemen added to my Lion Rampant retinue, my army is starting to take shape. I’ve sent off for a book on WOTR colours, so when it comes to painting the figures with tabards, I will have a better idea of how to approach the subject. With 18 more Foot Knights in full Harness to complete, I’ll have time for a bit of research!
The Retinue gathers.
THE COMMERCIAL BIT
As always, most of the models, paint, basing and tools that I use come from my shop:
At the time of writing, we still send out post free to most worldwide locations. Here are some direct links to just some of the categories that we have.
Of course, if you have a facebook account, you can follow me here by ‘liking’ my page. I regularly post pictures of what I am working on and you can see what is new in the shop.
Our small war games group have started to mix things up a bit recently. The winter weather has meant that some of the venues are not particularly comfortable, as they are in cold garages. At our age, cold bones are a bad idea. So we have started to play board games in the comfort of the house to give ourselves a break from ‘traditional wargaming’ every other week or so.
Catan, Ticket to ride and Camel Up!
Initially, we started to play some of the more ‘recent’ games that are popular on the board games scene. ‘Ticket to ride’, ‘Settlers of Catan’ and ‘Camel Up’ are most enjoyable. It is fairly easy to pick up the rules but the games are cleverly designed with a great deal of depth to them.
Campaign and Risk – ‘classic’ games!
That then prompted us to dig out some of the games that we played in our Youth. Risk was the first, closely followed by Campaign. Two classic games that I spent hours playing as a teenager. I then suggested a game that I played with my kids and had great fun with. It was the closest that I got to involving my children into wargaming – ‘Space Crusade’!
Space Crusade.
For two of the group, Space crusade was a new experience, as was the idea of gaming with Science Fiction figures. However, the game is brilliantly designed and soon had them absorbed in the game play. In fact, the game did what it was supposed to do when initially released. It fired up their imagination and we were soon all talking about how we could customise it and have our own Space Marine Chapters and perhaps designing different versions of the board. Of course it is also classic ‘Granddad material’ to play with the grand children once they reach about 8 or 9. Granddad will of course be the Alien player, springing nasty surprises on the kids, just like we did with our own children. I can still remember the squeals as a Gene stealer appeared as a result of a Alien Event card being turned over! Happy days!
Space Crusade Board set up.
The game takes a bit of time to set up, about 20 minutes or so but once done so, the game play is very smooth, with each marine player taking it in turn to move onto the board. The marine players are in competition with each other to achieve a mission but can of course co operate against the Alien player. The Alien player has a variety of troops at his disposal and deploys them onto the board, initially as ‘blip tokens’. It is only when a Space marine has line of sight on the token that he will know what he is facing!
Gretchin!
Gretchin are at the bottom of the Alien food chain. They are numerous and in the main, ineffective – but you never know when they will get a lucky shot off!
Space Orks.
Next up are the Space orks. A bit tougher to kill and dangerous in combat.
Andriods!
The Andriods pack quite a punch. They are slow to move but tough to kill and are more than capable of taking out a standard Space marine.
Chaos Space Marines – the baddies!
The Chaos Space marines are the Bad Guys. Not quite as tough as Standard marines but dangerous if they get the first shot off.
Gene Stealers from the Kult of the Living Flesh!
The gene stealers only appear on the turn of an Alien Event card. They are fast and vicious and can even badly damage a Space Marine Captain in their hit and run attacks. I painted these figures for Space Hulk – another classic game. They are from my Gene Stealer cult, the Kult of the Living Flesh, or KLF – guess what I was listening to at the time….
Alien Chaos Dreadnought
The Alien Chaos Dreadnought is perhaps the toughest character on the board, excepting the Space Marine Captains. When he appears, you better take cover and come up with a good plan of attack!
The Ultramarines are ready to board the Space Hulk.
The Space Marines in the game are equipped with some very hard hitting weaponry that will take down most of the aliens that they will face. The Captain has 6 lives or wounds, so he is quite tough. In addition, the marines have a number of equipment upgrades, that if played at the correct time, will get them out of trouble or take down that cursed Dreadnought!
We have now added Space Crusade into our portfolio of games to play when we meet. I suspect that we will work our way through the mission book! Playing board games through the winter has been a great way to keep the group together and keep us gaming. It has also been a welcome change from our usual activities and sometimes a change is as good as a rest. We will still keep wargaming and as summer approaches, the campaign season will start!
THE COMMERCIAL BIT
Space Crusade is long OOP so you will have to resort to eBay to obtain a copy, although the price is pretty steep these days. Better still, add it to your list and check out the local charity shops or car boot sales – you may just get lucky!
For all your other gaming needs, particularly when it comes to wargaming, painting and modeling, check out our shop. We send post free to most worldwide locations at the time of writing!
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