Orc Artillery

Way back then, even  orcs had some rudimentary knowledge of gunpowder, and after capturing some firearms from the dwarves they made themselves some  blackpowder weapons.

Wheels from the RedBox Hussite artillery set, carriage from the Mars Polish Siege Bombard

Bodies from Mars Polish Siege Bombard set, heads from Caesers Orc warriors. 

War of the Roses - Artillery

The start to a war of the roses Army. The gunners have no specific liveries, yorkist or lancastrian, which would have been common at the time and it enables them to  be used alongside other armies.

Serpentine from Zvezda´s Medieval Field Powder Artillery set, the gunners from Orion´s Medieval Siege Troops and Italeri´s Medieval Tournament set.

Previously painted gun teams have been rebased . Guns (Serpentines and Veuglaires) all from Zvezda, gunners from Zvezada, Orion and Italeri.

Medieval fight training

Knights weren´t Born knowing how to fight and had to be trained in the finer arts of disabling an Opponent. A set of Trainees and Trainers sculpted by Alex and produced by Valdemar.

The whole set.

 Young sirs practising. I painted the swords up as wooden ones.

 The lower orders practised archery.

Sword master. Hs Sword appears a bit bent but that´s due to the Picture. The stick is for administering "correctional advice"

A featrure or modern medieval fairs, Knock your Opponent of the log. I reckon the Clubs are leather bags filled with sawdust. 

 With this lot, my medieval civilian collection has topped the 200 mark..203 to be exact.
112 Adult Males, from that 16 Monks/priests and one Bishop
53   Adult Females.
38   Children, from babes in arms to "Teens"

I could add  another 80 plus, but 20 or so are based in dios or  they are town guard types or taking part in the Military convoy so not strictly civilians.

Medieval Bath time (2)

Another set of Valdemar bods, made by Alex Gussav.
The last post I made with Medieval Bathtime was of  a couple in the tub but this time it´s the  nippers who are due thier yearly clean. They were a lot cleaner than one bath a year, as written in the 14th Cent Regimen sanitatis Salernitanum "The bath cleans the external body parts of dirt left behind from exercise on the outside of the body.”
The bases I made from a section of plastic wooden walling.


The "haughty" Princess. My daughter wanted her to have red hair and a blue Dress...and her command was obeyed :-D

The "water" is made using Pattex 100. It´s "Kind" to painted bods (and the enviroment)as it contains no solvents.

This is an Excellent Little Vignette.

as is this

As ever..not only the poses and Body postures  are lifelike, the  bods stand on thier own two feet without bases or glueing (they are glued in the pics) but the faces are so expressionate.

(Flogging) A dead Horse

Recently a question turned up...someone was looking for 20mm dead nags. There are a few sets with one or two dead nags in them and Ykreol make sets, covering all eras  of dead and dying bods and nags but it´s easy enough to create dead nags using spares.

First select the nag...a running one is better than a stationary or Walking pose. Remove the base.
I´m also going to add a couple of dead bods.

Slice off the bumps (rump and shoulder) on the underside (the side it will end up lying on) of the nag.

This enables it to lay flat. You could make some thick basing and press it into that but I´ve found the head and neck end up "unaturally" embedded in the surface, almost as if the horse was made of lead and fell onto some sandy earth.

Put into boiling water for a minute or two to soften   the plastic before twisting and turning the legs and arms etc. The new Position has to be Held until the plastic cools. If it isn´t,  the old Position (or very near to it) will be taken up again. The reason? Plastic has a "Memory" Heating plastic up makes it maleable but the "Memory" isn´t taken away. Parts altered by heating up the plastic can be returned to their original (or very near) simply by putting the bod into hot water again.

The raised hand of the Knight was holding a sword but this has been removed and a glove effect made by squeezing the empty hand  with fine toothed pliers. One Thing...don´t Forget to add a stirrup to the "topside" of the  fallen nag.

They now get painted. The base gets a thin smear of woodglue/fine sand mix and the bods and nags get pressed onto the mix. Any small gaps between the nag/bods and the "ground" can be filled with small amounts of PVA-Sand mix or camouflaged with static grass. Let dry,  paint and decorate.

 

The stirrup is made from a thin Piece of paper

Orc females

Introducing Marga and Morgu, the two winners of "most lovely orcette of the year" 1067 and 1068 respectively. Marga´s Body is from the Linear -b Roman Port set and Morgu´s from the Roman Tavern set. Heads from Caeser´s Orc Warriors set. 

So I told him I did 

Hello georgeous

I´m Spartacus!!!

No..HE´S Spartacus!!
Top half from the Linear-b Spartacus uprising set, his legs donated from the "my Barrel!" bod below. The nag is from one of the Roman strelets cavalry sets.

and a couple of other conversions......

The top half of the "my Barrel!" bod is from Strelet´s  Crusader Transport 2 set, his legs from the Medieval Levy 1 set. The Monk´s top half is from the Crusader Transport set 1 and his legs from Linear-b  Roman Market set

This couple are from the Linear-b Roman market set. The woman and her child always looked lonely so the potter has stopped selling pots for a while to proudly present his new child
.

Roman Port 2 - Linear-b

The second set of Romans at the Harbour, but the bods can be easily used elsewhere.
15 bods in all, 8 of which are in pairs, meaning 11 pieces. Virtually no Flash, excellent Detail...all in all, a very nice set.

The whole set together.

Roman soldiers on leave.

Couple looking out to sea.

Poor workers being watched by the foreman

 

 

 

Some dancing Girls. What they might be doing at the Harbour I can´t imagine...but who cares..they are nice additions.

...the faces are pretty good as well .

With These it brings the numbers for my town up to 160 plus, 132 of which are obviously male with only 28 obviously female bods and 6 children. A set or two of Roman women and accompanying children would be very usefull to Balance things out.

El Cid Moors - conversions

Mixing and matching again

Top halves from the  HaT El Cid Almoravid Infantry, bottom halves from the Airfix Arabs (Bedouins).  I reckon I could get another 4 kneeling archers / Crossbows using bods from the HaT  El Cid Andalusian Infantry set and a dozen or so kneeling spearmen etc from both sets.

With thier mates.

Musician conversions from the HaT El Cid Moorish Command set. Easy conversion, top and bottom halves swopped .

Moor Camel Cavalry

Mainly because it´s assumed they didn´t use camels in combat unless it was forced upon them, there aren´t many Medieval era Arabian / Moorish camel bods in 1/72nd..but I like the idea and they could be employed as a mobile archers unit, some needed creating.

The first 5 of 8.

The top halves come from the HaT El Cid Almoravid Infantry set , the bottom halves from the Airfix  Arabs (Bedouins) set.

Battle of Bannockburn - Day 2

Under nightfall the English forces have crossed the  Bannock Burn and taken up  position on the plain beyond it.
The scottish army advances into Position. The Abbott of Inchaffray again passes among the Scots soldiery, blessing them.    The Abbott has brought relics of St Fillan and Abbott Bernard of Arbroath has brought the reliquary casket of St Columba to encourage the superstitious soldiery. 

Seeing Scots knelt in prayer , Edward asks  de Unfraville wether they are craving his forgiveness for opposing him.  De Unfraville answers that they are craving divine forgiveness. 

To the astonishment of the English, the Scots army then begins to advance towards them.    

 

Edward says to de Umfraville “Will these Scotsmen fight?”  de Umfraville replies “These men will gain all or die in the trying.”  Edward says “So be it” and signals for the trumpets to sound the charge.

As the english cavalry attack, the Welsh and english archers, (on the extreme right flank)  open fire, which causes a pause in the Scottish advance but  Keith’s force of light horsemen disperses them.

Again, Gloucester leads the cavalry charge but few follow and  when he reaches the Scottish lines he is quickly surrounded and killed.

The English knights hurl themselves onto the Scottish spear line with a terrible crash.  Along with Gloucester, many   English knights are killed in the impact: among them Sir Edmund de Mauley, Sir John Comyn, Sir Pain de Tiptoft, Sir Robert de Clifford.

Supporting the   schiltrons,  Scottish archers pour volleys of arrows into the struggling English cavalry line as it´s slowly ground down and pushed back.

The flight of the english army begins. The Scots spearmen press forward against the increasingly exhausted and hemmed in English army. The cry goes up “On them. On them. They fail. They fail.”

The final blow! The ‘Small Folk’ attack. The English army begins to fall back to the Bannockburn with ever increasing speed and confusion and foot soldiers and horsemen attempt to force their way across the stream.  High banks impede the crossing and many are drowned in the confusion.  Many escape across into an area of tidal bog where they fall prey to their exhaustion, heavy equipment and the knives of the Small Folk.

The Earl of Pembroke seizes King Edward’s bridle and leads him away from the battle field surrounded by the Royal retainers and accompanied by Sir Giles de Argentan.  Once the King is safe de Argentan returns to the battle and, throwing himself against the scottish spears,  is killed.

The defeat is complete. The english army is broken and retreats.

It leaves behind several hundred dead and captured Knights and men at arms. The numbers of the lowly foot soldiers killed numbers as many as 11,000.

Edward is taken to the gates of Stirling Castle.  Here de Mowbray urges the King not to take refuge in the castle as he would inevitably be taken prisoner when the castle is forced to surrender to the Scots.  Edward takes this advice and with his retinue skirts around the battlefield and rides for Linlithgow.  He then rides to Dunbar and takes a boat to Berwick.

A group of nobles, the Earl of Hereford, Robert de Umfraville Earl of Angus, Sir Ingram de Unfraville and others flee to Bothwell Castle where they are taken and handed to the Scots by the Castle Constable Sir Walter FitzGilbert.

The Earl of Pembroke leads his Welsh archers away from the battle field and after a tortuous and hazardous march brings them back to Wales.