Hussite War Wagon and Command (Orion) Pt 1

A bit of a mixed bag this one as the PSR review reflects.  Jan Žižka.  He was blind in one eye...which eye is difficult to acertain, I´ve done a LOT of research and come up with either.  As most of us only have at most two, it must have been the left one or the right one..but the bod in the set appears to have the use of both.! There is no indication as to wether one of them is in fact blind, we can´t ask cos it´s a lump of plastic but in ALL the woodcuts, statues etc of him one at least eye is covered, wether it be the left one or the right.
I´ve gone for the right eye as it´s the one shown as covered on the statue on Viktov Hill, Prague (btw, it´s the largest stone statue of a horse in the world!!) and as he was nicknamed "One-eyed Žižka", without any mention of which eye...the right one  is ok by me.

The 3 mounte bods in the set. Jan Žižka in the middle, Prokop the great (Procopius the Great) and a standard bearer. The standard beare comes with an embossed flag bearing a goose emblem. I now know this is an invented insult and have replaced the flag with one bearing a chalice.

Eye bandage on Jan created with..wait for it..Toiletpaper :-D  I tried with having him totally blind, the bandage across both eyes but it looked..well, stupid.The other "mistake" with the sculpt..his mace. he is always protrayed as carrying a mace in the form of a clenched fist holding a dagger.

Prokop the great, later leader of the Hussite / Taborite army until his death in the Battle of Lipany, 30 may, 1434

Something not mentioned in the PSR review..the size of the horses supplied with the set. 6 horses and only 3 riders is a bit of a mystery but the size is odd to say the least. To the left, Italeri and the right..Orion. They aren´t badly sculpted, but they are just too small!!

Next part, the Wagon...:-D

Medieval assassins and more

Another set of medievals from Alex..this time "special forces" :-D

From Fredericus-rex a Trebuchet crew sculpted by Markus Eckmann. They could be used for any other seige machines, onboard a boat or whatever. The bod picking it´s nose is a great idea

 

and from Andreas from Kamarzinnfiguren, a viking chief and a viking shield wall

Hello to Fireymonkeyboy from The Monkey that Walks blog. He´s been painting and gaming with minis for over 20 years and has a large range og wargames and minis to look at on his blog.
Hello to James Cotgrave from twitter..thanks for following :-D

The figoblogtheque voting went into another round..5 blogs got the same amount of votes and it´s been extended for 5 more days so..VOTE HERE and if you´re not on thier blog list...get and do so
(PS....I have removed myself from the running :-D)

English Archers in Burgundian service...

... Halbardiers, upgraded / rebased Command unit and the whole army ...so far.
The project is being put on ice for a while until I can come up with a decent idea for some scurriers, or some get made....Ok..I can dream :-D

Archers. From the Redbox WotR´s sets and the command bod from caeser

Halbardiers. A generic term as not all are armed with halberds. Bods from RedBox, Italeri and Caeser.

Command rebased . I´ve added two bods from RedBox and the drummer..a converted Revell Knight.

Right flank....

....center....

...left flank....

...and from above

Medieval Bombard "Harlequin"

The titel is the English for this guns name. It´s original  name in French  is "Hellequin" (Arlequin), a black-faced emissary of the devil, who chases the souls of the dammned to hell.
The fact that the gun sends it´s enemies to thier doom and it´s muzzle is black is the reason for the French gunners  painting the carriage as it is and it´s "petname" name "Arlequin". The whole of the IVth cent French ordnance was nicknamed the Mesnée d'Hellequin, the household of hellequin, whose traditional colours are black and red, but the yellow and red colour scheme looked better.

I know the Flag is a (speculative) company flag of the French Ordnance but it looked a lot more colourfull than the individual unit flags.

Phew!!!! I almost believed my made up  historical background bumpf myself ! :-D
Real fact of the matter is..I saw this one...I liked the colour scheme so much..I had to have one ;-D

Hello to Broke n English...Your google friends link isn´t set up.
Hello to Jose  from Muñequitos de goma blog . An amazing collection of largescale "toy soldiers"

Town and County Levy (RedBox)

It seems that RedBox have really upped their game in the area of sculpting. This is the second set in thier WotR´s series and another good one.
The set divides into more or less two groups...the men armed with bows and the others with various edged weapons.

One complete sprue of the 4 sprues in the set.

The archers. I´ve painted them up as english archers so they can be added to the burgundian army.

The edged weapons group. The bod with the axe and the one holding the buckler up are ok, but the three with the pole arms are very nice, even if thier weapons are a bit long. . A couple of them will find a place in the next pike block.

A couple of ideas that redbox have included. The bod on the left seems to have brought all his bagge with him. The bod in the middle. When I first saw the scans of these I couldn´t make out what was at his feet...the object   turned out to be a sack of arrows. The last bod.. he carries not only a quiver but his bow wrapped up in a carrying bag. Wether they did this or not, I cannot say, but it´s an original idea.

All in all a nice set. Unfortunately  there is on one or two mold lines running down the middle of thier faces but the overall flash is minimal and the set mixes well with the previous Men-At-Arms and Retinue.
Hopefully this will be the standard of future RedBox sets and I hope they continue the WotR´s line.....some armoured cavalry, scurriers, gun  teams, arquebusiers etc would be nice....please :-D

Atlantic Roman Chariot

I know...they didn´t use them for warfare and it looks way too fancifull for a battlefield anyway, but this set was one of my all time favourites some 30 plus years ago. I can still picture it crashing through the Airfix celts, who were being supported by Robinhoods men, atlantic greeks  and various other "they will do to fill the line" troops.

One bath in brakefluid, a new whip from a bit of copper wire and an acrylic paintjob. I haven´t added traces or reins...I didn´t want to make holes etc as the set can still be obtained..but only for silly money.

Hello to Landser83, from Oh! What a lovely war! blog  He´s only just started blogging but he´s done some lovely line drawings of WWII subjects.

Medieval Washday

Or alternative Titel "over here big boy"
I´ve looked but I can´t find any evidence of them using..or not using washing lines but I suppose it would be the most obvious method to dry washing.
All bods from different Valdemar sets.

Atlantic Greek Chariot

Not really up to todays standards..well it was released in 1977!!!
The set shown on PSR is the full booklet style box, I used to love reading the stuff inside!! :-D

The "chariots only" set. The painted bods on the boxart are definately the 1/32nd versions..the size of the moss in the picture is a dead giveaway.

Hello to Franck from  the Forgotten & Glorious Company of Art.   28mm WWI minis...some of them painted by Oniria..IMHO, one of the best painters in the hobby. 
PS, Franck, your blogger friends link is not on. 


And this looks interesting. It´s been running since the 1st of January this year. I haven´t heard anything about it anywhere..and even though I follow La Figoblogtheque, a vote for your favourite blog of 2011..

Khandibarian Camels

I really don´t like painting camels but it has to be done. :-D
This lot are  from the  Hat Taaishi Camelry and the Hat  Hadendowah Camelry. 

Hadendowah´s

Taaishi´s

A trick. The bods aren´t that stable when glued on so I cut the end off a pin, about 1cm long and using a pair of pliers, pushed the blunt end into the saddle. The plastic is quite soft so it doesn´t take much effort.

A couple more conversions. from the esci Muslims set. The bod on the left will be usefull for shooting down from a building or from a rocky hillside

Hello to Duane. I´ve read on Paul´s blog,  Caliban-somewhen, that he´s asked wether you have a blog..if so do tell :-D

Burgundian Heavy Cavalry

Only the Scurriers and some levy to get painted /converted and the army will be ready.
Nags and Bods from Miniarts Burgundian mounted Knights,   Zvezda. Italeri and  Revell.
Lances scratch made, flags etc from Dansk Figursspilsforening

Khandibarian Cavalry

There´s no Arab cavalry sets!!!!! OK, the airfix Arabs(Bedouins) set but you only get 3 riders and the nags need fixing to thier stands! So..a bit of converting is called for.
The Airfix bods are unchanged. The rest are from the Hat Numidian cavalry set with head swops from Caeser Arabs and Escis Muslims.  The bugler got a head and arm swop...

Flag from Warflag

Nags from different sets including Italeri, Zvezda and Hat

And a couple of infantry conversions using bods from the Esci muslim warriors set.

Body  swops

Head swop and a body swop

Hello to Kris..Aka Heisler...from Wargames and Railroads Blog. Not only does he do wargaming and scale railroads and his Fantasy minis are great