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!

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.

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.

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….

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.

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!

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.

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!

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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!

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ARCANE SCENERY

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:

NEVER MIND THE BILL HOOKS!

You can find all the Vallejo Model colour paints here. If you don’t want to browse, just enter the paint number into the shop search bar;

VALLEJO PAINTS

You can find Gamers grass here:

GAMERS GRASS

If you need Milliput or other fillers, click here:

FILLERS

Happy Modelling!

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:

http://camisado1500s.blogspot.com/2018/02/irish-chieftan-and-noble-cavalry.html

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!

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.

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:

1. Irish Cavalry were in the main made up of the minor nobility and their personal retainers.
2. The riders did not use stirrups
3. They sat on cushions/pillows that appeared to be decorated.
4. They used their lances or spears overarm rather than in the ‘couched’ position.
5. 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.
6. The targes were painted and decorated with metal pins or nails to form a pattern.
7. The helmets were generally conical with up-turned nose guards. Some had plumes.
8. The riders wore legging and shoes although some may have been bare legged.
9. A cloak or ‘brat’ was worn by some of the riders – particularly the lords.
10. 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!

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.

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I had long admired the Piers the plowman set issued by Foundry Miniatures and finally acquired it at the Partizan show that was held last March. As well as the plowman set, I also picked up a set of Red Deer. The plan is to add both sets to my WOTR collection, preferably as part of a collection of scenery that I am working on.

The Red Deer are painted and you can see them in a temporary scenic setting in the pictures above. As you can tell from the bases, I still have to decide how to finish them – the idea is to make a small vignette that will serve as battlefield ‘decoration’.

So it was on to the plowman set. There are two parts to it really. A Tax collector and two guards confronting a hapless peasant family, obviously asking for more, as tax men are inclined to do. Then there is the Plowman, his plow and oxen team. It was a straight forward task to paint the Peasant and his wife and children. I had to smile to myself, the little girl looks a bit fierce and defiant compared to the rest of the family – she must take after my daughter!!

Having started with the two easy subjects it was then on to the Tax collector and his men.

As usual, I block painted the figures , shaded them with ink and then re –highlighted with the original colours.

I worked on these figures in sub sets. The taxman and guards first and then the plowman and plow.

Then final stage was to base the figures. The individual figures were very straight forward. The plowman needed a bit more thought and I used the Vallejo textured earth to create the plowed base – simply drawing a sculpting tool through the paste to create the furrows.

So they are now finished for the time being. I have plans to create a home for the Peasants, a nice Medieval Carriage for the tax collector and a much larger plowed field for the plowman. They will all drop into ‘sabot base’ positions on the larger scenic pieces but for now, I’m calling them done and as well as adding these to my collection, I have achieved my aim of painting everything that I have bought at shows before the next show arrives!

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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.

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