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:

My Favourite Hobby Podcast

During the UK Lockdown I've been listening to the Madaxeman Podcast which is part of Tim Porter's burgeoning media empire.  If you like Tim's madcap battle reports then this may be the wargaming podcast for you.

What's It All About?
There is a format, which has evolved somewhat over time, within which Tim & his six wargaming friends prattle on about all things wargaming.  My wife refers to it as "Wargames Wittering".

The podcast focuses on ancient, medieval and renaissance periods but covers all periods such as WWII and Napoleonics.  It is released weekly during Lockdown.

Flag Types During the Wars of the Roses (*)

Or know your standards from your liveries!

Edmund Tudor's heraldic flag.

Lockdown Update (Doesn't Time Fly?)

I've just realised that it's two months since my last post.  In the UK we are half way through week seven of our first COVID-19 lockdown.  But that's only a small part of the reason why I haven't posted anything.

It's mostly down to lots of fiddly jobs around the house, painting display models for Fighting15s, and dealing with the year-end accounts for my wargames business.  Not to mention the April weather; it was marvellous, atypical and didn't exactly encourage sitting indoors.

The one thing I did finish was Volume II of the Hobilar Archive for the Lance & Longbow Society.  I started this project in 2016!

15 mm Italian Wars Artillery

I've just completed another mini-project.  This time it's a couple of artillery pieces for my Italian Wars army.  When I saw these figures I was struck by how characterful they were so they've jumped a good few places in the painting queue.

What I Have Painted Recently

I've finally got around to photographing my latest unit.  It's a group of late medieval or early renaissance mounted hand-gunners:

I apologise in advance for my poor photography skills.  Clicking on an image will bring up a much larger version which will look much better.  Even so I seem to struggle with depth of field and I don't think the dark colour scheme helped either, but I wanted a scheme that reflected the end of the era of "white harness" and the beginning of blackened armour.

What I Have Painted Recently

In the past six weeks I've been busy working on quite a few new hobby projects.  Unusually for me I now have lots of projects underway; normally I only have one or two.  This means I've not yet finished any of them. Typical wargamer I hear to say.

I have however made a lot of progress.  I've nearly finished: my Bosworth commanders, some late medieval mounted hand gunners and some Russian mercenary cavalry for my Lithuanian army.  Plus I have made a start replacing the War of the Roses heavy infantry I sold last month.

In these circumstances what's a wargamer to do? Start another project of course! However, this one was deliberately chosen to be finished in a week and sold on eBay. Here are the results:



I've used a different set up for my light box to match the bases.  I didn't finish the basing so people can easily match their existing basing scheme.

The figures are from Essex and Donington, and the guns from Kallistra.

Work In Progress And An Appeal

This is a slightly convoluted story so please bear with me but if you have any unpainted Roundway 15 mm medieval figures you don't want jump straight to the end of this post.

At Britcon I bought a pack of Essex MER13 late medieval mounted handgunners from Instant Armies. I bought them because I was fascinated by the depiction of a knight on horseback firing an early hand gun.

I decided to go with blackened armour with brass detailing. Here're the results



As you can see they are only partly based. I wondered if I could get some other figures to give the bases a bit of variety. I remembered that Roundway do a suitable figure. At this point things got complicated.

Fortifications

In April I saw an offer on TWW from Alternative Armies for a bundle of 40 mm frontage wall sections in five different styles that was too good to miss. I ended up with a total of 2.4 m (yes metres!) for only £20.00 delivered.

Last month I finally got round to painting some:



The sections on the left are for my Later Polish army and those on the right are for my Timurid & Islamic Persian armies (hence the different basing schemes).

Timurid or Persian Light Horse

I have just finished basing these. They are a mixture of Roundway and Donnington figures and horses and will see service in my medieval Timurid and renaissance Persian armies.

What I Have Painted Recently

Medieval Eastern Europe Command (15 mm Essex XMED1)
For my Later Polish or Lithuanian armies.  I posted some WIP photos in February.

Recently Painted Miniatures

The lead mountain shrinks a little bit.

This afternoon I finished the figures for a general's element for my Late Polish/Lithuanian army.  I've to varnish and base them but here's a few WIP photos of the general riding the mandatory white horse:



The figure is from XMED1 from Essex Miniatures. The others will feature in the photo's of the finished element.

Translyvanian Hussars

When I was exploring the options for Transylvanian Hussars I bought a few samples of renaissance pistol armed light cavalry from both Irregular Miniatures and Legio Heroica. I still haven't painted the latter but I did do most of the former and this week I finally got a result I am happy with:



First time round I wasn't happy with the red: it was too orange and looked washed out with weak shadows. Re-touching using a new recipe for the red worked a treat. For those "paint nerds" I used Palka Signal Red (32) with a highlight of Plaka mixed with a small touch of Vallejo Model Colour Sunset Red (802) just to tone it down.

What I Have Painted Recently

The title almost says it all except I hate photographing miniatures! I never seem to get it right. Anyway here are some photos of my last three mini-projects:

Late Medieval Mounted Archers



These are a mixture of Essex and Roundway figures. The latter needed some card under the bases to avoid too great a difference in height.

Northern League - 2017 Review (*)

Doesn’t time fly? Once again it is time to review the state of the Northern League; the wargames competition scene in the North of England.

2017 was a year of change. The League saw its very first Art De La Guerre (ADLG) competition and no Field of Glory (FOG) competitions at all.  The absence of FOG R was deliberate but that of FOG AM was due to lack of support.

One further change was that ADLG introduced a different format for the day: three 2.25 hour games with small 200 point armies. The DBMM format was unchanged from the standard: two 3.50 hour games with 450 point armies.

A Wargame At Last

Yesterday I finally managed to get a game in!  Graham & I traveled to MAWS' new venue in Eccles, Greater Manchester.  It was the first outing for my new Early TYW German Protestant army complete with a newly painted Transylvanian ally.  The army list I used is below:



Off the table things didn't really go according to plan.

TYW Saxon Infantry

Update: 10:33, Mon 10 April,2023
The flags featured in this post have been unavailable since I closed vexillia in April 2021.  They are too good to disappear altogether so I decided to re-release them as a set via Wargame Vault.

Each set contains 24 flags in five different sizes, from 18 to 35 mm tall, all in one A4 pdf (for the UK & Europe). Just print the pages that fit your miniatures be they 15, 20, 25 or 28 mm.

Original post
These are early Thirty Years War (TYW) Protestant infantry.  My plan is to morph my TYW Danes by painting fresh command stands with different flags.  Until recently I was hand painting the flags but these are the first to use some of the recently updated Electoral Saxon Infantry flags originally released through vexillia.com.

For practical wargaming reasons I'm using the yellow and black striped flags as a surrogate "national" flag. This is to "tie" the units together on the tabletop and to allow me to put two flags with each unit.

Transylvanian Ally Finished

Here they are at last! Thirteen elements to make up a small allied contingent for my latest 15 mm Thirty Years War (TYW) army. The original plan back in August 2016 was to morph my Danish TYW army into a Early TYW German Protestant army with the option of a Transylvanian ally. Amazingly that's what has happened:



The allied commander who can be either Gábor Bethlen (reigned 1613 to 1629) or his "less active" successor George I Rákóczi. The flag details are here and there's more here plus a free sample offer. Figures are Donnington EC03 on TYH08 flanking a Legio Heroica general.

Playing Pieces

There are times when you think you are at the forefront of your hobby. There are times when you think nothing ever changes. There are also times when you think things have changed but you eventually realise they haven't. I've just had one of the latter moments.

When I returned to regular wargaming in the later 80s I quickly made the transition from DBA to DBM. I then followed the masses to DBMM and on to Field of Glory Ancients & Medieval (FOG AM). I also played DBR switching to Field of Glory Renaissance (FOG R) when FOG AM palled.

I stopped playing DBA when the twelve element format started to get repetitive. I moved on for a more complex game. I certainly got that with DBMM: perhaps too complex!

When I switched to FOG AM in 2010 I was looking for a "cleaner" set of rules with more structure and fewer conditional clauses. Until recently I thought I was playing a game far, far removed from DBA. I was wrong. Let me show you why.

Northern League - 2016 Review (*)

Doesn’t time fly? Is it time to review the state of the Northern League, the competition scene in the North of England, once again? It appears so. This year the review is a touch late as the data's only just been released.

In 2016 the trend of steadily declining numbers continued. In last year's review I expressed the hope that the missing FOG AM players would return and the League would spring back to life. Sadly FOG AM continued its decline: