15 mm Russian Medieval Heavy Cavalry (Essex)

The four units are intended as armoured Boyars which are heavy cavalry bow in Art de la Guerre (ADLG). Sadly many of the Essex miniatures don't have bow cases so I'll just have to use my imagination:

15 mm Russian Medieval Camp For ADLG

No army is complete without a camp so here is my medieval Russian camp. Like many things with this army, details are scare. Therefore I've used a somewhat generic approach:

15 mm Russian Medieval Crossbow (Essex)

It's been a long time since I painted any Eastern European crossbowmen. Many years ago I painted quite a few for my medieval Polish army. So it was nice to paint two Art de la Guerre (ADLG) units for my now completed medieval Russian army:

Russian Medieval Flags

My Russian medieval army is nearly complete.  I've only the basing to do on the final eight elements.  In fairness I've a few odds and sods to do, mainly command elements but these are for a bit of fun painting over Christmas.

No medieval army is complete without an abundance of flags so here are the flags I have used for my heavy & medium cavalry.  These are in addition to the two sets of flags I've placed online already.

15 mm Early Medieval Polish Knights (Essex)

This post features something a little different: rebasing & reworked figures.  Normally I don't do either but since my work on my Wars of the Roses archers in January I've become more open to all sorts of rework.

These two bases (units in Art de la Guerre speak) are intended for my Feudal Russian army.   The ADLG list contains just two units of Polish Knights.  This is handy as I have quite a few spare from the days when I played DBMM and built a Polish/Lithuanian army with all the options.

15 mm Medieval Russian Levy (Fighting15s)

These two bases (units in Art de la Guerre speak) mark the last of the core infantry for the medieval Russian army I'm working on. After this I've only some cavalry to do.

They are from two packs of FE031 Peasants with pole weapons from Ian at Fighting 15s. Ian has re-moulded these excellent, late period, Josef Ochmann sculpts and the detail is incredible. I don't often get the chance to paint eyelids!

15 mm Medieval Russian Archers (Essex)

I continue to make steady progress with my Medieval Russian army for Art de la Guerre (ADLG). This batch provides all the medium and light archers I will ever need for ether the Feudal or Muscovite variant of the army.

The next figures for this army will be some peasant levy followed by some medium cavalry. When they are done I'll have completed my first list.

15 mm Medieval Russian Spear (Essex)

Somehow I've ended up assembling a medieval Russian army for Art de la Guerre (ADLG). I've already done a few generals, some hand-gunners and some light & heavy cavalry. However, these were all really intended for use with my Polish & Litnuanian armies. Now I've decided to do a full army as a spin off.

So far I've used figures from Roundway but for the spear (& archers in progress) I've switched to using mainly Essex with a few Roundway figures, where possible, for extra variety. For those interested I've listed the figure codes below.

First Game Since November 2018

On Sunday, 18 July 2021 I travelled from Warrington to the Wirral to play Art de la Guerre (ADLG) with Gareth Jones. This was to be my first game of ADLG since November 2018 and my first game with the new version released earlier this year.

After a hot & sweaty 30 minute drive I arrived at the Wargame Store, Brimstage. It's in a complex of converted farm buildings very close to junction 10 of the M53:

15 mm War of the Roses Commanders - Redux

This is another post showcasing another set of command bases for my Tudor army at Bosworth.  I already have a second set of mounted commanders based for Art de la Guerre (ADLG) but I felt the need(?) for some commanders on foot.  Any excuse to re-use the flags I created.

I chose Essex Miniatures for the commanders to be based on 40 by 15 mm bases because I wanted some bases with flags upright but I also wanted to experiment with the "new trend" in ADLG command bases with a 40 mm round base.

Henry Tudor consulting with John De Vere and his retinue commander.

What I Have Painted Recently

I haven't written a post like this for a while but recently I've been having a bit of fun working through some odd packs from my lead pile and even a few new figures. So I ended up with quite a few finished items from different armies and periods.

First up are some Bedouin light horse using RKMA4 from Roundway with a mixture of Roundway & Donnington horses:

15 mm Wars of the Roses Archers Review

Mixing figures from different manufacturers is a perennial problem for wargamers; both height and heft can vary as can sculpting style.  With this project I ran into all of these issues as well as the thorny issue of historical compatibility.

This picture shows how three 15 mm manufactures compare:

From left to right: Essex, Feudal Castings, Donnington "New Era".

Essex & Feudal Castings

When I started the project my twenty year old bases mixed both Essex and Feudal Castings figures on the same base.   As you can see the height and heft are close enough and the sculpting styles don't clash.

But, and it's a big but, they are clearly dressed & armoured very differently.   More to the point I was no longer happy mixing them.

15 mm Wars of the Roses Archers (Part 4/4)

at last!  The final batch of re-based and repainted archers is done.  This fourth batch uses the same Feudal Castings figures as batch 2 only this time there are three figures to a base to represent irregular levy archers.

15 mm Wars of the Roses Archers (Part 3/4)

This post, the third in my "massive" re-basing & repainting project, involves neither re-basing or repainting.  This is because it features thirty two brand new "New Era" figures from Ancient & Modern (Donnington).

When done I aim to have three, easily distinguishable, types of late medieval archers: retinue (superior/elite), regular (ordinary), and levy (irregular).  These are destined to be levy (irregular) not least because they have a distinct Hundred Years' War look about them.

15 mm Wars of the Roses Archers (Part 2/4)

This project draws ever closer to a conclusion with the completion of eight bases of levy archers.  They are four to a base to represent the more organised levy of the period and are easily differentiated from the irregular levy (three to a base) in part 1.

15 mm Wars of the Roses Archers (Part 1/4)

This project began in January when I decide to re-base my archer command bases and add new flags.  It then got out of hand when I decided to re-base all of my levy archers: all 36 bases of them! 

When done I aim to have three, easily distinguishable, types of late medieval archers: retinue (superior/elite), regular (ordinary), and levy (irregular) with the re-based levy archers forming the last two types.

I have now finished three of the four batches and here's the first batch to be fully based. They are: eight bases of levy (irregular) with a brand new command base complete with a livery flag for Rhys ap Thomas:

Mission Creep

This is quite a long post with only one picture. It chronicles how a small rebasing and re-flagging project mushroomed into a major piece of work. Many of you will have experience of similar projects and may recognise the "mistakes" I've made and issues I've tackled.

The Story So Far

In early January I began what I thought would be a small project: rebasing some of my Wars of the Roses archer command bases. At first I had a few issues with removing figures from the bases but eventual settled on a simple enough method.

Fully aware that this sort of thing can get out of hand I finished six bases by the end of the month complete with new laser printed livery flags.

I limited myself to:

"In addition to rebasing I .. repainted [just] the faces and most of the legs and shoes as they were damaged during removal from the original bases. Wherever possible I kept as much of the original paintwork as I could; it's over twenty years old after all."

A Step Too Far?

Next I decided to convert some of my (three to a base) levy archers to regular (four to a base) archers so more re-basing and touching up old paintwork. The logic behind this was simple. When done I would have three, easily distinguishable, types of late medieval archers: retinue (superior/elite), regular (ordinary), and levy (irregular).

This is when things started to go awry.

15 mm Wars of the Roses Archer Command

This is the first part of my mini-rebasing project. In addition to rebasing I have repainted the faces and most of the legs and shoes as they were damaged during removal from the original bases. Wherever possible I kept as much of the original paintwork as I could; it's over twenty years old after all.

In addition I stripped and repainted the two figures third and fourth from the left as I wanted to switch their livery colours. I also added new livery flags and in doing so I replaced the standard bearers with new Feudal Castings figures from my lead pile.

ADLG: Yuan Chinese Super Army?

In 2018 and 2020 I used the Art de la Guerre (ADLG) results database to probe the perennial question of super armies.  My starting definition of a super army was an army that, in the hands of almost anyone, will deliver an above average number of victories.

In ADLG games the number of variables involved in determining the outcome is huge; player skill, list choices, terrain deployment etc etc.  So to get to the influence of the army list alone I looked at a very large number of games to avoid the perils associated with small data sets.

Then last week I received an email from Mike Guth politely disagreeing with my conclusion and he sited the success of Yuan Chinese armies at the World Championships from 2016 to 2019.  

This piqued my interest.  Is there something special about the Yuan Chinese in a two list competition like the World Championship?  I began to dig.

Rebasing Thoughts

One of my mini-projects for 2021 is to refresh, and re-flag, the command bases for my War of the Roses retinue & levy bowmen. This involves a total of six bases and lots of the "new" livery flags I produced back in 2018 like this one:

The plan was to remove the figures from the old bases, replace the standard bearers, add a few new command figures, add new flags and do as little re-painting as I can get away with.

Surprisingly, this plan is still on track but the amount of work involved has been more than I'd bargained for.