War Of The Roses – Page 4 – Steve’s Hobby Blog

Bill Hooks BASH part 1- Overview

The first Bill hooks BASH was held at Boards and Swords Gaming venue in Derby on Saturday September 4th. The event was organised by Peter Harris and 14 gamers signed up for the event. The rules writer Andy Callan was in attendance to advise and help resolve any rules queries. Dan Faulconbridge of Wargames illustrated also attended to cast his eye over proceedings and to wish the participants a good days gaming!

Making up the goodie bags at Arcane Towers!

Tickets were just £15 and as well as unlimited tea and coffee, an individual pizza ( Dominoes!) of the players choice was provided for lunch. In addition, Wargames Illustrated and Arcane Scenery teamed up to provide a Goody bag for each player to take home. The contents included the current issue of Wargames Illustrated with a free Perry miniature medieval frame, a new set of 20 dice, two DeeZee Dogs and thanks to a last minute generous contribution from River Horse games, the Terminator Rules book plus 4 character miniatures and a frame of resistance fighters.

A sample of Mikes Painting – Figures are by Front rank. The basing is superb as well!

The plan was to play three games during the day with players declaring their allegiance to either York or Lancaster. In addition, a prize would be awarded to the best painted army, as voted by the participating gamers. That was as competitive the day was designed to be. The emphasis was on just enjoying the game and helping the less experienced players get to grips with the rules. A number of the players had made great efforts to attend. John had traveled from Bournemouth by coach! ( his home is in Hungary!) Mike, had made the trek from Bristol and Robbie had traveled from Durham. My trip from Bingham was much easier!

Mike Peters wins the award for the best painted army.

Mike Peters deservedly won the Painting competition with a near unanimous vote for his beautifully painted and based army. His army also featured hand painted banners as well as some superb brush work on the command figures. I’m not sure that my photographs do his figures justice – perhaps Dan can do a photo special in the future!

The gaming proceeded to plan with all games being fought in great spirit. The background noise of laughter, cheers and general kind hearted banter added to the friendly atmosphere. At the end of the event, York were declared the Winners with a total of 10.5 victory points to Lancasters 9.5. The 0.5 points came from a drawn game where both army commanders were killed simultaneously in the same melee! A first for Bill Hooks as far as I know. As for how individual players did, they kept their own scores and I hope like me they will have plenty of ‘war stories’ to tell their mates.

To see how Mike painted this banner visit his Blog – link is below in the ‘Commercial section.

The day ended on time at about 5.00pm. I made my short trip home feeling tired but that I had had a fantastic days gaming and met with some really great wargamers who clearly enjoyed playing for the love of the hobby! I hope to see them at future events. I’m not sure whether the rules bring out the best in players or whether the players brought out the best in the rules. I suspect it was a bit of both and the result was a most enjoyable day.

An Irish contingient courtesy of Robbie all the way from Durham!

Finally, a big thank you to Peter Harris for organising the day. Boards and Swords did a great job hosting the event and I heartily recommend this venue to any gamers that live in the area or are planning a visit to the ‘Lead belt’. And of course, thank you to all that attended, including of course Andy Callan, who was constantly on call to sort out any rules queries and save us the time of looking them up!

The Spanish Inquisition attached to Pete’s Army…that was unexpected!

In Part two of this article, I’ll cover how my battles went and of course add in some more pictures of the armies that I fought.

THE COMMERCIAL BIT

I hope that you all enjoy your hobby as much as I do – remember that our web site will have much of what you need! Click here to see our shop:

ARCANE SCENERY

We also have a category devoted to Never Mind the Bill Hooks:

NEVER MIND THE BILL HOOKS!

To visit Mike Peters blog and see his master class in banner painting, click here:

THE MINIATURE WORLD OF WILGUT

To visit the Boards and Swords website for directions and details of the venue, click here:

BOARDS AND SWORDS

Happy Modelling!

More Reinforcements for my WOTR army!

This blog is a bit of a catch up on some of the side projects that I have been working on. First up, I inherited some old foundry WOTR figures from a very good friend. They were unbased, a bit chipped and some of their spears had broken off. That said, they were beautifully painted, complete with hand painted standards. I thought that they deserved a bit of TLC so that they could return to the table top once again!

Foundry on the left, Perry plastics on the right

The Foundry figures were sculpted by the Perry’s so they are obviously very similar to my existing Perry Plastic army but a bit on the short side. I remedied this by re basing them on thicker MDF bases and used the basing texture paste to give them a bit more height. I then touched up any obvious paint chips, re painted the helmets to give them a bit of shine and re attached the spears. Once they were in their new movement tray they looked fine next to the newer Perry Plastics – as you can see from the photograph.

Whilst I was working on this unit I also thought that I would add some extra flags to my units. Pete Harris had kindly given me a sheet of Freezy Water Yorkist flags. Rather then leaving them languishing in a folder unused, I cut them out and attached them to 100mm spears that we sell at Arcane Scenery. I had to cut the spears down as they were a bit long. Be careful if you do this. I was using my Xuron cutters, that will go through the steel pins with ease BUT the off-cuts fly all over the place, so make sure that you protect your eyes! Once the flags were mounted, I painted the edges of the flags to cover any white that shouldn’t be showing with approximately the matching colours and then drilled the back of my movement trays to add the flags.

Extra Flags added to the movement trays adds interest to the units!

Now purists should sit down now. I didn’t worry at all about what flag should go with what unit or even who the flags should represent. So long as the colours were close to the livery of the figures, I added them to the tray. Should I decide to re fight a specific battle of the WOTR in the future, it is a simple matter to remove the flags and find the correct ones, but for now my units look prettier on the table!

Whilst I was in the mood to finish things off and get figures off of the lead pile, I decided to complete the three last figures that I had left over from a Perry’s Plastic WOTR command frame. I decided to give them heads from the mounted men at arms. I was influenced by Pete Harris ( the other one… yes, there are two Pete Harris’s that I game with and I thought that everyone in wargaming was called Dave) and my memories of the Crescent knights that I had as a child..

The final figure that I painted was a limited edition Cry Havoc’ Games Workshop figure that I had acquired years ago. I realised that he was based on a Landsknecht and thought that he would make a good ‘Martin Schwartz’ should I ever get around to adding a German contingent to my army! He is a bit on the tall side but will make an imposing command figure. So despite ‘finishing’ my WOTR army, I keep finding excuses to add to it. It has now grown to well over 300 figures and there’s more to paint!

THE COMMERCIAL BIT

I hope that you all enjoy your hobby as much as I do – remember that our web site will have much of what you need! Click here to see our shop:

ARCANE SCENERY

We also have a category devoted to Never Mind the Bill Hooks:

NEVER MIND THE BILL HOOKS!

Please have a look at our tools section to find the Xuron clippers

EXPO TOOLS

Happy Modelling!

Round and Round the Mulberry Bush!

I had been thinking that we were playing too many games of Never Mind the Bill Hooks where we just lined up the armies and set to. I shared the thought with my gaming buddy, Pete, and he quickly came up with the following very simple but effective scenario.

The initial deployment of the main ward and commanders

The set up is very straight forward. The table is clear of scenery apart from a large wood right in the centre. The wood will effectively block line of site across the table and be impassable to all units except skirmishers. Both sides must set up their Commander in chief and his ward in the middle of their deployment zone right opposite the wood. Your second ward of infantry must be left off the table and will only enter the game on the second turn – more on this later.

The view across the table. Skirmishers and Light Horse deployed. Not Artillery on the flank.

Each player now throws a D6. on a 1,2 or 3, you must move your commanders ward to the left of the wood when activated, both in the manoeuvre phase and card phase ( You can choose not to move at all…) A 4,5 or 6 means you must move to the right. This results in either both players moving to clash on one side of the wood or going around opposite sides of the wood, chasing after each other….

Once you know which way your main ward is going, you then roll a dice to see which order you set up any remaining skirmishers, Artillery and other units. Of course, the dilemma that you now have is whether to support your main ward or to go the opposite way around the wood…..

On the left, the reserve ward has deployed and engages with the enemy to slow them down!

Now back to the second ward. On turn two, they will join the battle on a roll of 5 or 6 on a D6. If they dont turn up, subsequent turns need a 4+, 3+, or 2+. You must get at least a 2+ after turn 5. A 1 is a fail regardles of how many times you have tried to bring the ward on. Just to add to the confusion, If your ward successfully throws to come on, you then throw a D6 to see which flank that they arrive on. a 1,2,3 it’s your left flank ( anywhere on that side of the board) – a 4,5,6, it’s the right hand flank.

Lord Callans Archers were my reserve ward. They managed to hold off Lord Woodborough despite the odds!

As you can guess, it’s not the sort of scenario that allows you to plan a grand strategy, so if you are of a controlling disposition, this is not for you. However, if you like the challenge of having to react to reverses of fortune or enjoy watching your opponent doing so, then it will be great fun. We have played the scenario through twice now with different outcomes and different problems to overcome.

Kern are extremely useful for driving off other skirmishers!

Just for fun, we also used identical armies as follows:

Commander in Chief, Level 2 with ward of two bows, one bills and one Men at arms – 60points

Second commander, Level 2 with ward of one bows, one bills – 29 points ( 5pts for extra commander)

Third commander, Level 2 with ward of Light horse – 17 points ( 5 pts for extra Commander)

One unit of skirmishers with crossbows and pavises – 9 points

One unit of Skirmishers – Kern 6 points

One Artillery piece- 9 points

An Artillery piece is useful if deployed on the clear flank – but unsupported artillery is vulnerable!

You can of course choose to use whatever forces that you prefer. Have fun!

THE COMMERCIAL BIT

I hope that you all enjoy your hobby as much as I do – remember that our web site will have much of what you need! Click here to see our shop:

ARCANE SCENERY

We also have a category devoted to Never Mind the Bill Hooks:

NEVER MIND THE BILL HOOKS!

Happy Modelling!

A Visit to Castle Rising

The pandemic has not just curtailed my wargaming over the last 18 months but prevented me from getting out and about to visit historical sites. Any spare time out of lockdown has been used to meet with Family and Friends. However, recently, the missus and I managed to sneak away for a weekend across to Norfolk. The primary aim of the weekend was a visit to Sandringham, the Queens personal home. We had a really excellent day there, made all the better by the fantastically helpful and pleasant staff. I would thoroughly recommend a visit. It certainly far exceeded my expectations as a place to visit. However, Sandringham wasn’t on my radar as a historical site. As far as I knew, it wasn’t involved in any sieges or battles, other than the occasional fallout between Andrew and Fergie or even Charles and Diana but I’ll leave all that to fans of the TV series, the Crown….

The Gate House and entrance to Castle Rising

Just down the road from our accommodation on the edge of Kings Lynn, was Castle Rising, a proper fortified castle with a long history to go with it. It was this site that interested me. At the time, I was unaware of the part that Castle Rising had played in history. I had not heard of it before my trip. I was not to be disapointed. Although the castle is now essentially a ruin, it is set in the most impressive defensive earthworks and looks everything like a castle should look! The entry fee was just £2.50 per person as there was no access to the upper ruins. Even so, I was happy to spend a couple of hours wandering around the place imagining how it would have looked in it’s prime.

It was originally built around 1140 by William d’ Aubigny primarily as a demonstration of his wealth and power. I’ve provided some links below to the official history and guides to the castle. It seems that the main claim to fame for the location is that it became the ‘prison’ of Isabella of France. She was the wife of Edward II but after attempting to take control of the crown with Roger Mortimer, Edward III, her son, placed her in house arrest here once he had toppled Mortimer.

Story board – A brief history of Queen Isabella

Although a most formidable fortress, Castle Rising came to be of more use as a hunting lodge and was known as a prestigious location in the 15th and early 16th centuries. The castle’s military defences were mobilised in 1461 by Henry VI in the Wars of the Roses but as far as I am aware no fighting took place in the immediate area.

I have since learnt that the castle had another role in the Wars of the Roses. On June 24th 1469, Richard, Duke of Gloucester ( later Richard III) was staying at Castle Rising. From here, he wrote to an unknown correspondent asking for a loan of £100. The Duke, who was on his first campaign, had left London in such a rush that had not had time to ‘purvey’ sufficient money for his own expenses.

It seems that castles played a limited role in the War of the Roses but I suspect that they were used as ‘safe havens’ throughout the war. Although there were no great set piece sieges, it seems that Castles were still important as a means of projecting power and threatening the local area until such time as the protagonists eventually met on the field of battle. I guess that other point is that neither side really had the resources for prolonged sieges and no doubt there was little point in laying waste to a castle that you hoped to inherit!

I find Castles both fascinating and inspiring and my imagination is usually in overdrive as I wander around these places. One day I really am going to build one for my gaming table! I hope that you enjoy the pictures and perhaps have a chance to visit for yourself.

The view of the Keep from the surrounding ramparts

The official links can be followed here:

CASTLE RISING WIKIPEDIA

CASTLE RISING ENGLISH HERITAGE

CASTLE RISING CASTLES FORTS AND BATTLES

THE COMMERCIAL BIT

I hope that you all enjoy your hobby as much as I do – remember that our web site will have much of what you need! Click here to see our shop:

ARCANE SCENERY

Happy Modelling!

Kern Skirmishers

The War of the Roses rules set ‘Never Mind the Bill Hooks’ allows you to take Irish Kern as a skirmisher option. They were included as a nod towards their involvement at a couple of battles, notably the battle of Stokes Field 1497, considered to be the last battle in the War of the Roses. The inclusion of Kern was less of a historical requirement and more of an opportunity to add a bit of colour to players troops choices, as well as giving players a slightly different tactical problem to use/deal with.

On the face of it, a band of 6 Kern skirmishers are hardly likely to change the course of a game. But they can add to the fun and cause a great deal of mischief. Even if you don’t include them in your main list, it’s worth having a band in reserve, just in case the special event card is drawn that lets you deploy an extra band of Skirmishers anywhere on the table hidden in terrain.

Kern are pretty fragile. They only save on a 6 against shooting and they can only shoot ( throw Javelins or darts) a maximum of 6 inches themselves, so why take them? Well, where they come in handy is that they can move into hand to hand combat against other skirmishers. As they have the same movement as skirmishers, it’s unlikely that your opponent will be able to evade, so you will catch his skirmishers and then you will be fighting, rolling one dice for each kern against his 1/2 dice per skirmishers. So they are great at mopping up opposition skirmishers. They are also able to hide in cover, moving 16 inches regardless of the terrain, to attack any exposed flank or rear of a carelessly positioned unit. It’s unlikely that they will beat your average Billmen unit or for that matter, Men at Arms but they will upset your opponents plans and help to disrupt their battle line.

There is another risk to using these fierce warriors. Kern will pursue a beaten enemy, even if that means they go off table. They also ‘bounce’ off a unit if they dont daunt or rout the unit that they are attacking. This can be a mixed blessing as they will not stay locked in combat and can run away from a superior unit having caused their mischief. All in all well worth having a band just for the fun of it!

I used a pack of Crusader miniatures for my Kern. There are 8 in a pack, so although that is two more than needed, the other two figures will come in useful as additional levy or as part of a larger Irish contingient.

My research seemed to show that Irish Kern often dressed in yellow tunics. Painting yellow can be fraught with difficulties as it is not heavily pigmented as doesn’t cover well. Whilst chatting to a colleague about this problem, he told me that the best colour to paint over was pink. I decided to prime the figures in flesh and to test the theory. Priming the figures with Army Painter Flat Flesh would also save a bit of time as the figures are bare legged.

I then painted the tunics with Yellow ochre. It’s a good yellow to use as it’s not too bright. I didn’t want my Kern to look as though they were wearing High Viz jackets! I then picked out the other featuresl – hair, belts, tunics in a variety of colours – see the picture for detail. The tunics were washed with soft tone and when dry, highlighted with yellow ochre again and then pale sand as the top highlight. The flesh was highlighted with flat flesh and then basic skin tone.

I used dark tone to wash the leather and other areas, then highlighted with the original colour and then added Iraqi sand to get the top highlights. Bows and weapons were painted with Vallejo old wood.

Detail added – tunics painted dark prussian blue and Burnt red to add some colour.

I did some research for the shield designs but decided that they wouldn’t have anything too sophisticated, so I hand painted the basic designs shown. I did consider painting a portrait of Phil Lynott on one of the shields, just so that I could sing ‘The Boys are back in Town’ when ever they charged out of cover into attack but decided my painting skills weren’t up to the job!

I also made a minor conversion to one of the Kern. I thought that one figure with his foot on an opponents head was enough, so I removed the head on the second figure with a pair of clippers and added in an appropriately sized rock!

So another unit is added to my army. Am I finished now….? Well not quite. The next project will be to paint a couple of ‘rabble’ or levy units. I’m in no rush though, there’s plenty in the painting queue!

Almost all of the paints, miniatures, bases, basing materials and anything that you are likely to need for your hobby are available from my shop here:

ARCANE SCENERY

You can see the range of Crusader miniatures that we think are suitable to for the Wars of the roses, along with the rest of out 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

Happy Modelling!

Landsknechts!

Wargames Illustrated issue 383, September 2019, came with a free sprue of Landsknechts. At the time, I had a quick look at the figures, decided that it was unlikely that I would ever paint them and they were tossed onto my ‘leadpile’. Fast forward to April 2021 and I was looking for my next batch of figures to paint and I ‘rediscovered’ them. As you will know, I am currently working on my War of the Roses army and although these these troops were not really around at the time, I thought I might get away with using them!.

The nearest that I could get to Landsknechts appearing in England were the German and Swiss mercenary force under the command of Martin Schwartz, who fought at the battle of Stokes Field in 1487. According the the Wikipedia article, the German mercenaries were equipped with the latest handguns. By chance, my sprue of six Landsknechts were missile troops with the option of either hand guns or cross bows. That was good enough for me, I would complete the troops as a group Handgunner skirmishers and they could make a colourful, albeit, unlikely addition to my War Of The Roses collection and ‘Never Mind The Bill Hooks’ Army.

I cleaned the figures up, assembled and primed them and then thought about how I would go about painting them. I am definitely getting lazy in my old age, when it comes to research. In the past I would have looked at countless references and articles to get an idea as to how to paint these troops. As it was, I used an earlier guide to painting Landsknechts in War Games Illustrated 129, written by Michael Perry. I also checked out a you tube video by Pete the wargamer and of course, used the painted figures on the Warlord site as my references.

Initially, I started with one of the simpler figures to paint and went for a straight forward red black and white scheme. Based on this test figure, I decided that a batch paint job was never going to work. Although I intended to keep things simple, even where the figures shared the same colour – on the guns, shoes, belts, sword scabards etc, the complexity of the colours on the rest of the figure made it difficult to paint these areas as a batch. So apart from the flesh, each figure was painted separately.

The next five primes and flesh blocked in

As I painted each figure, I became a little more adventurous with the colours. As always, yellow is a very difficult colour to paint as it just doesn’t cover well. I had the same problem with orange. In fairness, I think that my priming coat of grey was not such a good idea. White would have worked better. Still it was good fun in choosing the colour combinations. I particularly liked the purple and orange. I can’t remember the last time that I used either of these colours on wargames figures!

I was able to base the group as a batch and followed my usual basing procedure using Vallejo Dark Earth textured paste to blend the figures onto the base, added some ballast and then painted and highlighted with brown emulsion and Iraqi sand. I finished the basing with some woodland scenics coarse scatter and some gamers grass tufts. I couldn’t resist adding a few flowers to the bases – as if the figures weren’t bright enough!

I have no doubt that when these figures appear on the table that my gaming buddies will take great delight in targeting them and they will no doubt finish the game looking like the German mercenaries at Stokes Field. To quote Jean Molinet, historian to the Burgundian court, writing c1490

“…when it came to the joining in battle (they) could not withstand the shooting of the English archers, especially the Germans, who were only half-armed; and although they displayed great bravery, as much, indeed, as their small number and substance allowed, they were routed and defeated, shot through and full of arrows like hedgehogs.”

I dont think that I will be painting any more Landsknechts but that might change when Bill Hooks volume two is released. Both the Swiss and Burgundian armies will be covered, along with the Italian wars at the time, so I may yet be tempted!

THE COMMERCIAL BIT

Almost all of the paints, miniatures, bases, basing materials and anything that you are likely to need for your hobby are available from my shop here:

ARCANE SCENERY

Perry’s WOTR plastic range are here, including some nice army deals!

PERRY MINIATURES

You can see the range of Renedra Accessories here:

Renadra Scenic Accessories

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

Happy Modelling!

Basing the Bombard

In my last blog I had painted the crew and the actual bombard. It was now a question of basing the models so that they will be ready for battle. I had already planned to use a Sarrissa terrain tile for this purpose. The idea being that should I decide to add to the siege or gun line, the Sarissa tile system would enable this. I also thought that the thicker base would give the Bombard a bit of elevation in respect of my normal troops.

I usually use Milliput for making the ground works on my bases but I had a pack of airdrying Daz clay that I found in my scenery materials stash and I decided to give this a try. I’ve not used this material before for this purpose but I have seen it used in many tutorials and my gaming buddy, Peter Harris uses it to great effect and has created some fantastic effects with it. So without any hesitation or preparation, I slapped it onto the Terrain tile. I then pressed the Bombard into it, carefully making sure that I had lined it up along the centre of the base. The next step was to place the figures onto the base and to cut out ‘sabot’ cavities for the ones that I wanted to remove. I also pressed the Gabions and boards for the mantlet into place.

Base in progress – Daz clay ground work completed and stuck to the terrain tile!

So far so good…except that when the Daz dried, it pulled away from the tile and came free. The tile had also warped. This surprised me as I had thought that MDF was pretty warp resistant. I suspect that when using milliput on MDF, there is no problem because there is no shrinkage and of course, no water. Once the tile dried out, the warpage disappeared and I simply glued the now dry airclay terrain piece back onto the tile with PVA glue. Problem solved – for now. In future, I will prime the MDF first!

I had not glued the bombard into place, so it was easy to get on with the next stage of the ground work. I used Vallejo Dark Earth Texture paste to cover the clay to give the base some texture and to blend everything into place. I had also filled the gabions with sand using a big blob of PVA to hold the sand in place. As the texture paste was drying, I placed the cannon balls onto the base and also placed some renedra barrels to leave an indent. It was at this stage that I noticed that the bombard was not quite centrally aligned on the base…When I had glued the clay back on to the base, I had obviously not quite centred it. My inner OCD now chipped in and I started to think about re making it all. However, I decide that I could live with it being slightly off centre and it would be OK. Phew!

Is that gun off centre? It’s staying put now!!!

The next step was to start to paint the items that I would be adding to the base. I painted the cannon balls in grey rather than black. I’m not sure if guns of this size used granite ‘gun stones’ but I thought that it was likely that stone would be used rather than cast iron. As an aside, my Brother has an allotment on the Isle of Wight in the shadow of Carrisbroke Castle and he regularly finds small ‘Gun stones’ that were either quarried nearby or test fired from the Castle. The renedra barrels were painted using the same colours and methods as the woodwork on the bombard. I also added some sacks to the base. I have a stash of these that I have made from Milliput. Whenever, I have some spare milliput left over from a project, I use it to make these sacks. I’m too frugal to throw anything away and they are very simple and quick to make!

The model is taking shape – ground work done.

You can also see that I had painted the Textured earth paste using an emulsion paint, ‘Delhi Bazaar’, highlighted with Iraqi Sand. I’ve also started to add the first layer of vegetation, Woodland Scenics Blended green turf.

Sacks and Gunstones – I’m not sure that health and safety will approve…

Once the base was coated with the turf scatter, I added some Static grass. this gave me the chance to test my ‘Static King’ applicator from woodlands scenics that I had been given as a Christmas present. The results were OK, but it’s fair to say that I need more practice. I spent more time snagging my fingers with the rather fierce crocodile clip and giving myself a buzz of static than I did in getting the grass to stand up! The good news is that what hair I have, is now slightly straighter than before! The static grass added another layer of texture and I finished of the base with an assortment of tufts and a few flowers to add some interest.

I also thought that it would be fun to add some arrows to the Gabions, to make it look as though the enemy were nearby. I made these from scratch using thin Evergreen plastic rod (30/000) and some scrap 10/000 plasticard for the flights. Finally, I added some weathering powders to the bottom of the mantlet and added some black weathering powder to the front of the gun to represent the powder and smoke that would have come from firing the gun.

So my Bombard is now ready for the table. There are a couple more details that I will add. I have a bucket and open cask of water to add, as well as a sledge hammer and rammer on the work bench in the final stages of painting. Andy Callan has suggested that I christen the gun ‘Little John’, so Little John will be making his debut in a battle soon!

The Completed model, the the extra barrels and tools added

THE COMMERCIAL BIT

Almost all of the paints, miniatures, bases, basing materials and anything that you are likely to need for your hobby are available from my shop here:

ARCANE SCENERY

Perry’s WOTR plastic range are here, including some nice army deals!

PERRY MINIATURES

You can see the range of Renedra Accessories here:

Renadra Scenic Accessories

The Sarissa Terrain Tiles can be seen here:

TERRAIN TILES

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

Happy Modelling!

Bombard in Progress

I continue to add to my War of the Roses army and the latest project is a Medieval Bombard from Perry’s. It’s a big old beast at nearly 140mm long and so basing it was always going to be a challenge. I have decided to use one of the Sarissa terrain tiles for the purpose. Although it is a bit on the thick side, the irregular edge will help it blend in to the wargames table. I also have vague ideas of adding siege works to either side of the bombard at some stage in the future. The terrain tiles will work well, should I actually do this!

I decided that I would paint the crew in Edward IV ‘s retinue colours. I thought that only a King would have the finances and resources to bring such a large piece to a battle or seige. Just to be clear, I haven’t done any specific research on this! I just fancied the colours and thought that having a ‘sun in splendor’ motif on the manlet would look cool! Oh! and the fact that I could probably paint the sigil free hand, given my painting abilities…

The only reference picture that caught my eye was the art work for the Zvezda version of the bombard. I’m not sure how accurate this is but there were a few details that I thought that I would add to my model. The first thing that I noticed was that the bombard was mounted on an earth work slope rather than flat on the ground as most of the other models that I had seen. After much thought and debate with friends, I decided that I would go with a fairly flat piece of ground. The Bombard in the Zvezda model was clearly being used in seige work and I wanted my model to be used in a set piece battle. I did like the idea of adding some extra protection for the crew in the form of some Gabions. I also liked the idea of the ‘special tools’ used to load the guns and of course the sacks and barrels lying around so I had it mind to add these.

I also noticed that the Mantlet has small wheels allowing the crew to push it forward to facilitate access to the gun barrel for cleaning and loading. So I would add some timbers for the mantlet to run on. The last consideration was whether to make the crew removeable to facilitate game play in Never Mind the Billhooks. The two guys pulling down the Mantlet would have to be fixed but I would make ‘sabot’ bases for the rest of the crew to allow them to be removed if casualties.

Andy Callan has come up with some instant rules for using the Bombard:

“Huge Bombards fire only straight ahead (no arc of fire) and only on alternate turns but both 5s and 6s are kills. 15 pts inc. crew. Only 3 crew count towards firing dice.”

I think that this early version may be altered to take into account the protection that the crew have and that although only three crew count for dice, there are more to absorb wounds!

Top down view of Bombard and crew before basing

As regards the painting details, the crew were painted in my usual style but I have used Army painter inks rather than the quick shade that I sometime resort to. As regards the Gun and wooden block work, I followed a ‘recipe’ that I have used before for siege engines. You can find the detail in another of my blog articles here:

https://arcanesceneryandmodels.co.uk/trebuchet/

The pictures through out this article show my progress so far. I hope that over the Easter break I will have this model finished and I’ll publish a follow up with a bit more information on how I went about making and painting the base and accessories.

THE COMMERCIAL BIT

Almost all of the paints, miniatures, bases, basing materials and anything that you are likely to need for your hobby are available from my shop here:

ARCANE SCENERY

Perry’s WOTR plastic range are here, including some nice army deals!

PERRY MINIATURES

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

Happy Modelling!

When is an Army complete? More Bill Hooking!

My first objective was to build a small War of the Roses Army, with just enough units to play a game of Never Mind The Bill Hooks. Then I thought that it would be useful to have enough units to allow two people to play, just in case a guest arrived and fancied a game. Now I just keep adding bits and pieces because I can! The release of the limited edition ‘Lord Callan’ figure from Wargames Illustrated, prompted me to start work on a small retinue for him. A unit of Veteran Bills and Bows would look good and in WOTR, you cant have too many bows and bills! I also liked the Black and Red Livery that the real Andy Callan had chosen ( I suspect that there is a nod in the direction of a certain football team).

Lord Callans Veteran Archers

Lord Callans Archers with Livery badges added

With the billmen completed (see my previous Blog ‘Lord Callans Retinue’ ) it was onto the archers. I had enough plastics to make 6 veteran archers. I would finish the unit by ordering a pack of metals from the Perry’s. I also wanted to add a livery badge to the archers as unlike the billmen, most of them were wearing tabards rather than brigandines or gambesons. I had intended to paint the badges but I was reminded that a decal would save a great deal of work. Veni Vidi Vici, who I have used before when building my Samurai army, make a really nice range of Decals and the 15mm scale just about work as Livery badges.

Organ Gun and crew under construction

I also acquired a multibarrelled organ gun from none other than Andy Callan himself. When Andy isn’t writing rules or wargaming, he is scouring charity shops for bargains. He came across an Old GW Hell blaster volley gun. With a bit of filing and cutting, he created three organ guns and passed one on to me. So whilst not strictly historically accurate, it fills a role and adds to my artillery park. I used the last three Perry’s plastic figures that I had to make the crew. If you look carefully, you will see that I have used some spares from the Victrix British artillery set to equip them. Again, a bit of a stretch when it comes to historical accuracy but hey, I guess ramrods and buckets didn’t change too much over the centuries! Rather than paint them in Lord Callan’s Livery, I went for Burgundian colours. They then fit in with my hand gunners and crossbowmen skirmishers, expanding my mercenary contingent.

Crew and gun painted ready for basing

As you can see, I went for a rather colourful scheme for the gun itself. I have no historical basis for painting the wheels in such a bright scheme but I just fancied something different. Who’s to say a Burgundian gun captain wouldn’t think the same. There’s no way he is going to lose his gun in the artillery park!

Gun and crew now based – just the tufts to add.

So, will this complete my army? As ever, there are still yet more units that I would like to add. As well as sending for the extra bowmen, I added the Bombard. It’s a big gun but will look nice as a feature on the table. I have ambitions of creating a nice little diorama. And then there are the Irish that appeared at Stokes Field. Although I have some Dark Ages Irish Warriors that would do as Skirmishing Kern, it would be nice to add some of the Perry’s Irish to my collection. I also have a sprue of Landsknechts that came free with an edition of Wargames Illustrated. Although a bit late for WOTR, they would make a nice unit of Handgunners, so why not get them painted?

The organ gun completed and ready for action!

I’m also on the lookout for some ‘rough looking’ peasants to represent a few units of levy. There’s plenty to keep me busy over the next few months and that’s before I even start on scenery….

Lord Callans retinue takes it’s place in my army.

THE COMMERCIAL BIT

Almost all of the paints, miniatures, bases, basing materials and anything that you are likely to need for your hobby are available from my shop here:

ARCANE SCENERY

Perry’s WOTR plastic range are here, including some nice army deals!

PERRY MINIATURES

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

Happy Modelling!

Lord Callan’s Retinue

A blog is a great tool for keeping me motivated and recording my various hobby projects. It can be a bit of a double edged sword. Two weeks after my last ‘Workbench update’ and I have very little progress to record!

Lord Callan’s Retinue – first three figures

My main focus has been to start on Lord Callan’s retinue. I did have the retinue assembled and they are now primed and painting has started.

Before I write any more of this blog, I must acknowledge the influence of a certain ‘Captain Blood’, AKA Richard Lloyd. You can see most of Richards work over on the Lead Adventure Forum and I provide a link below. Richard combines some very clever conversion and modelling work with superb brush work and a choice of colour and livery that is simply sublime. Add to the clever way he has blended actual historical retinues to some of his own and it’s fair to say that he has produced the best units that I have seen. Oh and his basing work is pretty damned good as well.

Lord Callan with the first of his retinue.

So having painted the ‘Lord Callan’ model from the Wargames Illustrated Giants in Miniature collection, I thought that I would give him a small retinue of Bills and Bows to lead into battle. Having seen the way Richard has produced his units, I have done my best to take some of his ideas to give Lord Callan’s units a slightly different feel from the rest of my army.

The next three figures on the bench!

Lord Callan’s Colours are black on red and his main Coat of Arms being a white lion over a golden wheatsheaf. In case anyone is interested in the provenance of this Livery, it is based on the two best pubs in Bingham, The White Lion and the Wheatsheaf! I decided that I would give Lord Callan the White Lion as his main Sigil and just use the Wheat sheaf on the Banner when I get to it.

Rear view of the W.I P.

The three figures above are very much a work in progress with their faces and bases still needing to be finished! You can see that I have stolen some of Richard’s ideas, with the pole of the halberd in House colours and the helmet and buckler also painted. I’ve also done quite a bit of swapping of heads and arms from the various Perry sets to get a ‘Veteran’ look to the unit, allowing me to claim an upgrade in the Bill Hooks game.

More of the retinue in progress

And the final three makes twelve!

Once the Billmen are completed, the plan is to add a unit of Veteran archers and at least one more banner man to stand along side Lord Callan, although I may use the horn blower below…

The next batch on the work bench

As you can see, I also have some other distractions that I am working on. The sharp eyed reader may have spotted three genestealers….

Gene Stealers!

They wont be making the retinue! I found them half completed in the loft when getting down the Christmas decorations, so decided to finish them ready for the next time we play Space Hulk….but that’s another entirely different subject!

If you would like to have a look at Captain Bloods original work on the Lead Adventure forum, here’s the Link:

CAPTAIN BLOODS LEAD ADVENTURE FORUM THREAD

If you are not on the Nevermind the Bill Hooks face book page you can see some very inspiring work here as well:

NEVER MIND THE BILLHOOKS FACEBOOK PAGE

THE COMMERCIAL BIT

Almost all of the paints, miniatures, bases, basing materials and anything that you are likely to need for your hobby are available POST FREE at the time of writing, from my shop. The Links will open in another tab on your device.

ARCANE SCENERY

Perry’s WOTR plastic range are here, including some nice army deals!

PERRY MINIATURES

You can see our Woodlands scenics range, including water effects, here:

WOODLAND SCENICS

Gamers grass tufts can be found here:

GAMERS GRASS

Vallejo plastic filler and Milliput is available here:

FILLERS

MDF bases can be found here:

MDF BASES

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

The full Sarissa range can be found here.

SARISSA PRECISION

Happy Modelling!

Workbench Update 24 November 2020

I continue with my steady output of models during lockdown. Over the last fortnight or so, I have been working on a number of projects, none of them particularly connected to each other.

Whilst discussing how I might adapt the ‘Never Mind the Bill Hooks’ rules for use in a fantasy setting, I decided to dig out my Lord of The Rings Magazine collection. These were published weekly by Deagostini in conjunction with Games Workshop and each magazine came with a free sprue of plastic figures or a free metal miniature from the GW LOTR range.

goblins!

After 20 or so years of these being hidden away in my wardrobe, I decided to paint the figures that came with the first magazine, 12 Goblins of Moria. It was a nice break from my usual subjects and using only the magazine as a painting guide, I soon had them finished. Quite what I will do with them is another matter. For now, they are in my figure cabinet and issue 2, complete with a set of Elves and Men of Gondor is ready for me to paint, should I have the urge!

Bren Team and commander

I had also ordered some more units for my BEF force. I really liked the look of the new releases from Curteys 1st Corp and ordered myself a bren team, Officer set and a Matilda mark 1. The models are lovely and extremely well sculpted and produced. I was particularly impressed with the quality of the Matilda 1. The bren team and officer were painted up in a batch using the technique I have covered in my previous blogs. I left a link below if you would like more information.

Matilda Mk 1 and tank commanders

As well as the bren team, I also painted three tank commanders, one for the Matilda and one two for future tanks!

Matilda Mk 1

As for the Matilda, I am still in the process of finishing this model. I just need to add the markings and a flag for the aerial and touch up a few details. I have decided to use a slightly different colour scheme to my Vickers Mark IVb. Although the dark green on the Vickers tank matched the references that I have, The pictures that I have for the Matilda show a lighter green in the camouflage, so I went with this. I suspect purists will recoil at the mis match but I know that one of the two will be about right! I am at the age now that I would rather get on and paint a model rather than spend endless hours researching and never actually get anything finished.

Matilda Mk1 and Vickers MkVIb

That said, I do find myself revisiting projects and re- touching or adding bits as I think of something else or find a new piece of information. A case in point is the Medieval Church that I have been working on.

Sarissa Church

Back of the Church!

I have been working on this church on and off for some time now. There are still bits to do. I have plans to add a few graves and improve the ground work – I have asked Santa for a static Grass applicator. I also want to do something fancy for the windows. I have mounted it on the Sarissa terrain tiles – this will enable storage as I can remove the church from the tiles. I have grand plans of creating my own Medieval village and the tile system will let me ‘grow’ the village, building by building.

Winston Churchill goes to Church!

Lord Callans Merry Band!

On my conveyor belt of things to do, is the next unit for ‘Never Mind The Billhooks’. I had half a box of Perry’s WOTR infantry left over and decided customise them to produce a mixed unit of Billmen as a unit for Lord Callans retinue. All being well, I’ll cover these in a separate blog in the future.

I’m keeping busy during the lockdown and I think that the key to avoid getting stale or losing interest in a project is to keep a bit of variety on the work bench! It might seem that I spend forever out in the garage but I tend to work in short bursts of no more than a hour or so. What has increased my output has been to do something every day. I hope that you are having as much fun!

If you would like to see a step by step guide to how I paint my British World War Two Infantry, click here:

PAINTING WW2 BRITISH INFANTRY

THE COMMERCIAL BIT

Almost all of the paints, miniatures, bases, basing materials and anything that you are likely to need for your hobby are available POST FREE at the time of writing, from my shop. The Links will open in another tab on your device.

ARCANE SCENERY

Perry’s WOTR plastic range are here, including some nice army deals!

PERRY MINIATURES

You can see our Woodlands scenics range, including water effects, here:

WOODLAND SCENICS

Gamers grass tufts can be found here:

GAMERS GRASS

Vallejo plastic filler and Milliput is available here:

FILLERS

MDF bases can be found here:

MDF BASES

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

The full Sarissa range can be found here.

SARISSA PRECISION

If you are struggling to find an item, use the shop search bar! For example, type Church to see all the churches that we carry….

CHURCH

Happy Modelling!

Making Medieval Tents!

This weeks blog is a bit different – it’s supposed to be a picture tutorial as to how I made my Medieval tents for my Never Mind The Bill Hooks army. The idea of the tents, is that you store your army morale tokens in them during the battle. This means that the tents have to have removable tops and I wanted something that was fairly durable. I came up with the idea of using Pringles tubes as the core of the tent but needed a way of making the tube look more tent like! Having done a bit of research on the internet, I found a plan for a full sized Medieval tent on Pinterest, complete with dimensions. When I scaled the dimensions down to 1/48th scale ( a bit on the large size but I can handle the maths easier than working with 1/56th!), it turned out that Pringles tubes were ideal for the job!

Plan for Knights Tents – Dimensions are for a full sized tent.

I also found a superb youtube video showing how to make Medieval tents for Dungeons and Dragons. The video link is at the end of this article. I was all set to go but first I need to gather the raw materials and tools. I jumped right in and built the first tent in about an hour but wasn’t entirely happy with the result, so I moved onto the second tent. This took a bit longer as I was more careful with the measurements and I made some improvements to the structure. If you would like to have a go at making you own tents, you will need the following tools and materials.

Glue Gun – you can just use PVA but a glue gun is ideal for most of the work here.

Cocktail sticks

Tissues ( kleenex type)

Cardboard or Foam card.

Compass or compass cutter

Sharp knife

Clippers.

Ruler and pencil.

Set Square if you want to be precise with your measuring ( I used the markings on my steel ruler as a guide.)

Step one

Get your Pringles, any flavour, although I like the plain and the sour cream and onions, and eat the contents.

Pringles tube! First task is to empty it!

You may need some lubrication to help with the Pringles. Beer seems to work well, my current favourite is Shipyard!

You may find that you get thirsty eating Pringles!

Cut the base of the Pringles tube off ( the end with the metal base.) using a sharp knife. It’s tricky getting a straight cut around a tube. I used a felt tip pen blu-tacked to my work board, exactly 5cms from the side and holding the tube firmly against the edge, rotated it so that the pen marked a guide line around the tube. I then cut through the tube using my scalpel. Dont worry if you dont get an exact straight edge to your cut, the top will hide any errors.

The first tube cut down. The height of the cut is 5cms – you can make this smaller if you prefer.

The next task is to cut out two circles. One at 11 cms in diameter will be for the base of the tent – I used a compass cutter for this task on the second tent rather than a compass and scalpel that I used for the first tent. The other circle is the same width as your pringles tube – just draw around it. The tent base is made from cardboard. The top is foam card. You could use cardboard for the top but I wanted to give the top a bit of strength.

Circles cut out – note that I have marked out the centre and divided them into eight segments with pencil lines.

Next glue the pringles tin to the base, making sure that you have it centred as best as you can. Using the pencil marks as a guide, glue eight cocktail sticks to the base and tube as shown below.

Cocktail sticks added to form the structure

I used my flush cutters to clip off the excess length of the cocktail stick. I then took the top disk of the tent and glued a cocktail stick through the exact centre. You need to leave about 5cms of this cocktail stick as the centre pole. Using my clippers. I then cut eight more cocktail sticks( at a slight angle on one end) and glued them to the centre pole at 3.75cms up the pole and again, used the eight pencil marks as a guide.

top of the tent in place – dont glue this – you need to be able to remove it!

The next part of the process is both the trickiest and the most messy! I used standard three ply kleenex tissues cut roughly to size and dipped in watered down PVA to clad the base of the tent. I left one section opened and used two pieces of tissue to make the open door.

Tissue covering the main structure – complete with tie backs on the ‘door’!

There’s no doubt that this is the trickiest part of the operation. I did find that it was easier to place the tissue on the structure and using a large brush, ‘paint on’ the PVA. With hind sight, I think that Crepe paper or perhaps kitchen towelling would have worked better as these products are stronger and less likely to rip when wet. Also, for some reason, I felt the need to explain to my wife why I was going out to the garage with a box of tissues, pringles and my iPad….

Tent with tissue added to the roof.

The whole structure was left to dry for at least 24hours. I then spray primed the tents with Army Painter skeleton bone and dry brushed them with white.

The two tents primed and ready for painting.

The tent on the right was my first attempt. I’m not entirely happy with this one as I got into a bit of a mess with the tissue and I’ve used some filler to try to hide mistakes – if you look closely you will see that I haven’t been too successful! I only used six ‘poles’ for the structure rather than eight. I’ve also added a decorative edge to the top.

The painted tents

I then painted alternate segments of the tents – Prussian blue for one and Burnt red ( my new favourite colour) for the other.

The tops are removable so that you can store your army morale tokens:

Storage section revealed! Big enough to get your hand into pick out the tokens.

The final touch was to add a bit of dry brushing to the colour panels and to add some flags. Here are the finished tents on my wargames table.

The finished tents.

I’ll be honest, they do look better from a distance than close up. I have learnt a few lessons whilst building these and in the future, I may add a few more tents to my scenery – perhaps trying crepe paper rather than tissue. But for now, they serve their purpose and function as a place to store the army morale tokens. Talking of learning, here’s a couple of really useful videos.

The next video shows where I ‘borrowed’ the idea of using tissue to make the tents. There are some amazing ideas here and I will be stealing a few more of his tips to make some different style tents in the future. The guy who makes these videos has a whole series of fantastic terrain videos that are well worth your time if you enjoy building scenery.