Saturday 20 December 2014

Merry Christmas - hiatus is over.


Oops, I’d not realised that it has been over five months since the last update on this blog. 


My apologies for the ‘radio silence’ but the reality is that I have made no material additions to my HYW – focussing instead on my Burgundians and some extra units for my AWI collection. However the good news is that 2015 will see the resurrection of the blog, as I have some expansion plans. These are primarily inspired by the 600th anniversary of the battle of Agincourt and the related Perry Miniatures plastic and metal additions to their AO range. I’m hoping to use my figures and terrain for an Agincourt demo game on behalf of The Lance and longbow society at Salute next year – Agincourt being the theme for the 2015 event. However I understand that the Society are still awaiting confirmation of the game from the South London Warlords – so if any blog readers can kindly give them a gentle nudge that would be appreciated!


The picture at the top is one taken by Alan Perry, with some of the bowmen from the new plastic Agincourt English, which I’m sure everyone’s now aware of. I was lucky enough to be given a test sprue. I now have the plastics box and am very impressed by the men at arms in full ‘white’ harness. The sculpting is fantastic of course, but I think Renerda have surpassed their previous craftsmanship – there is hardly any loss of definition along the sides of the armour plates, the visors are wonderfully detailed and the figures have been aligned so that mould lines largely follow joints in the armour plates and only helmets need a small amount of smoothing before paint is applied. The flag sheet by Alan is also very informative on the styles of armour over the circa 1415 to 1430 period that these figures cover.


For Agincourt I will need to add some casualties, vignettes, flags and banners of some leaders (as I have largely focussed on the 1420s so far) and some French mounted knights. For the casualties I have found some half completed ones from Old Glory I have – not the best of sculpts, but there is a lovely fallen horse and rider. Although the horses head is noticeably too small, I’ve replaced the body of the knight that’s provided as a two piece model with a cut down plastic Perry one, which is a big improvement. Just need to decide on the heraldry for the caparison on the horse.


More anon  in 2015 – in the meantime have a wonderful festive break and hope Santa brings you some hobby related gifts…assuming you’ve been good all year of course!!

Thursday 5 June 2014

Medieval Hounds castings

The information on these models is on my other blog - http://je-lay-emprins.blogspot.co.uk/ - so forgive me for those who follow both, but I have commissioned some sculpts for medieval hounds, as none were currently available.



Typically termed aluants, they were greyhound-like hunting dogs and are regularly shown in medieval illustrations and tapestries. Steve May has done the wonderful sculpting and Griffin Moulds have converted them into some crisp castings. If anyone's interested, I have a modest stock that can be purchased as a set of the four poses. See the 'Je Lay Emprins' blog for details.


Also of interest is Perry Miniatures announced venture into plastic HYW figures - a box of English and French figures seems to be planned and Alan has shown some of the greens that he's working on. This will definitely re-generate my own project and extend the collection. I will be adding more French mounted figures for an Agincourt game soon. And I'm now thinking on what other theatres in the 1410-1430 period, these forthcoming figures could be used for...hmm.








Sunday 30 March 2014

Masters In Miniature - a new chapter.

As you may have seen, Atlantic Publishing are releasing a new book at Salute in two weeks. It comprises of hundreds of photos of the Perry's figure ranges. Alan and Michael have staged and taken all the photos, which are beautifully done. My modest contribution has been to lend them my HYW collection, which forms the bulk of the 'Agincourt to Orleans 1415 to 1429' part of the book. One of these pictures has made it as the cover of 'Miniature Wargames' magazine for April.



I've seen all the photos  taken for this chapter (nearly 18 months ago). The are all very impressive and it's interesting to see your own figures in picture compositions that you've not thought about before - throws a new perspective on your collection. Alan's added some arrows in-flight to some pictures, using Photoshop, which creates some contemporary feel to the battle scenes.


Pictures from the other ranges that I've has a sneak peak of are really excellent too - it's the kind of book that you'll keep returning to for reference and inspiration. So I know what's on the top of my shopping list for Salute!


Thursday 20 February 2014

Old Burgundian Army (& Swiss) ON SALE

I'm planning to sell my OLD collection of Charles the Bold's wargames army, plus the smaller units of Swiss that I did in the late 1990s. These are comprised of the great and very varied 25mm Citadel (now Wargames Foundry) range that the Perrys sculpted. The sale is to fund other historically-based hobbies and I've got to a tipping point with my more recent Burgundians and Swiss collections.

They're planned to go on ebay at the weekend. A couple of pics to whet any appetites (I have taken more pictures for the ebay sale - I'm yet to photograph the Swiss.). Below is the draft entry for the sale. Should anyone here be interested, then I'd be happy to discuss further. My email for this is simon.chick@tesco.net  I've added new flags to all the men at arms.
Note that these figures need to be collected/handed over - they will not stand a postal journey!







A complete 28mm army of Charles the Bold’s Burgundian Ordonnance, for his battles and campaigns from 1465 to 1477.

All figures have been painted by me and collected over a number of years. Elements of this army have featured in photographs in ‘Wargames Illustrated ‘ magazine.  Figures are from Wargames Foundry/Citadel and designed by Alan and Michael Perry. They are painted and based to a high collectors standard and mounted on plasticard or plywood. Flags are a mix of printed or hand painted.

This is a unique collection, which is being sold to fund other historical-related interests. The opening bid price represents an average cost of less than £3.00 per figure and less than £5.00 per mounted figure.

The army comprises of:
2 command bases, representing the Duke of Burgundy and Antony Bastard of Burgundy, with mounted men at arms (total of 8 mounted and 2 foot figures)
12 bases of mounted Men at Arms/Gendarmes (total of 70 riders & horses)
8 bases of pikemen, comprising 2 units (total 72 figures)
6 bases of longbowmen (total 64 figures)
2 bases of handgunners (total 11 figures)
3 bases of crossbowmen (total 30 figures)
4 bases of halbardiers (total 24 figures)
1 base of dismounted men at arms (total 11 figures)
6 bases of wheeled artillery with crew
2 bases of siege bombards with crew - plus 2 swinging mantlets and 600mm of wooden siege defenses.
3 vignettes.

Total of 78 mounted figures and 212 on foot (exc artillery crews).

All bases are 100mm wide, with varying depths dependent on the types of figures. This is ideal for rules such as ‘Impetus’, but they could easily be rebased for other rulesets.

IMPORTANT  - PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS COLLECTION NEEDS TO BE COLLECTED BY THE BUYER!!
This collection is not going to withstand the vagaries of the postal system and would most likely suffer damage. Therefore the agreed sale is on the basis that THE BUYER COLLECTS (from NN7 in UK) or I will travel up to 50 miles from NN7 to meet and hand-over the figures at a mutually convenient date. Consequently I regret that I cannot offer this sale to non-UK buyers.


Sunday 16 February 2014

Cravant game at Vapnartak.


Belatedly here are some pictures of the Cravant game,  put on with fellow members of the Lance and Longbow Society at Vapnartak show, a couple of weekends ago now. My thanks to Darrell Hindley for sending me some of his pictures, which are great and prompted me to do this post. - his own excellent blogs are here and here.



This was a re-run of the Salute game, with the same set-up on a slightly narrower table; albeit that we started with Lord Willoughby's battle crossing the bridge to speed up the fighting. The forces were divided into three players for the Anglo-Burgundians and four playing the Franco-Scots (we simply divided the largest Scots pike contingent into two units for the purposes of the game). This time however we managed to fight the battle to a conclusion.






The Bugundian centre and the earl of Salisbury's contingents duly crossed the river, under cover of their longbows, whilst the Scots approached in an attempt to prevent the crossing. The French left wheeled to aligned themselves to fight Willoughby. In the ensuing contest the Burgundians fought valiantly, but were eventually routed. However by then both of the Scots pike had taken heavy casualties and Willoughby was on the verge of finishing off the last French contingent, who were effectively surrounded. Therefore a hard-won English victory, as per 1424.




The field was left for the heralds to identify the dead - which reminded me yet again that I need to create some more casualty markers!






Many thanks to everyone who played the game - an extremely enjoyable and rare opportunity to game for me - and Steve Ayer's helpful guidance through the Impetus rules provided us with a playable game, whilst allowing us to natter to the show's visitors and part with our funds at selected traders. Thanks to Dave and Lynn of Dave Lanchester Books for their local hospitality too. Thanks for all the kind comments from those who I spoke to - many of you were aware of the blog I know.




Now, can I bring myself to paint up a heap of extra mounted figures, so that Agincourt, Bauge and Patay could be refought? Hmm...


Friday 31 January 2014

Medieval cottage - completed.

The completed cottage for my medieval figures - to be used with my HYW and Burgundians. I'm happy with the finished piece, as I usually prefer figure painting but it's been fun to do. However the sculpted details on the Hudson and Allen buildings are so good that it makes the task a lot easier to look authentic.




I've added plenty of foliage - using John Boadle's work as my reference points - which hopefully helps give the buildings and fences a sense of being well established. I can get three of my 60mm square bases, i.e. a single unit, into the enclosure as planned. The barrels, baskets and tools etc are a mix of stuff which I had lying around to use. Beehives seem to have come out OK.


 "So what's that Eddie Grundy been up to this week then?"

 "Just checking on the bees, honey"

"Now, did I lock the front door?"

I've a couple more H&A buildings left to do as another small farm, but will come back to them another time.

Tuesday 28 January 2014

Cottage - WIP.

Quick interim update. As Darrell requested on my last posting, I've been slapping the paint on!


The main areas now have some paint applied; the fences are done as is the groundwork, prior to grasses being stuck on, which will be one of the last stages. The lovely trees are made by John Boadle and have been waiting for a model such as this to be 'planted', I merely added some lighter colour flock to one of them for variation.


The walls of the cottage are also done. The colours used are Formula P3 Menoth White Base (I like the P3 paints as they are nice and thick and cover really well), this is washed with GW Ogryn Flesh (annoyingly no longer available) and then a drybrush of Vallejo's Iraqi Sand. Some green wash at the base of some walls tries to represent a bit of rising damp.

I've also created a couple of beehives, which are ready for painting. These are cast thimbles - small ones used as Monopoly pieces and were purchased from ebay - with string glued on and a hole drilled in. Hopefully when painted they'll be sufficiently convincing.



I'm hoping that the finished cottage may see it's debut at the Cravant game that will be at the Lance and Longbow stand at Vapnartak show in York Racecourse next Sunday.
We'll see....

Saturday 25 January 2014

Medieval Cottage

After another hiatus for this blog, I've started work on cottage to extend my real estate a little. These are exquisite Hudson and Allen buildings that I've had for a long while, before getting on with them. The motivation comes from the wonderful models completed by John Boadle for Dave Imrie's collection, to be seen here. 



The cottage is two buildings stuck together to create an abode of a more prosperous farmer. These are photos of the first stage of work; I've added a wooden gateway and high fence to the front (Kingmaker castings from their Hussite wagons) and lower wattle fencing (Renedra plastics) to the rear and hedge to the gap at the side. I should be able to get three of my bases of figures in the enclosed yard/garden.  I'll place some tools, barrels etc around too - am trying to disguise some miniature thimbles look like convincing medieval beehives at the moment.




The wooden frame of the cottage has been drybrushed in shades of grey (...!) and the first coat for the rendering applied - this looks very bright at this stage, but it'll be washed over to tone down, before highlighting whiter.



Will keep some more progress posts a-coming.