Bannockburn (Pt6) Gilbert de Clare and Robert II Kieth

A start on the mounted elements for Bannockburn. The Knight bods have had head swops using helmets from the Zvezda English Knights of the 100 years war set.
The flags are handpainted (the designs are simple so it wasn´t worth photoshop etc to create some)
Sets used
Army of Joan d'Arc   (Horses with Caparisons and Gilbert de Clare)
Medieval Britian       (Standard bearers and Robert II Kieth)
Norman Knights       (English Standard bearer´s horse)
Army of Henry V      (Scottish Standard bearers horse)

Gilbert de Clare, 8th Earl of Gloucester, killed at Bannockburn. As it would be an insane task to include Standard bearers for all the english Knights, the english cavalry stands will get the George cross.

 

Robert II Kieth, Marischal of Scotland, who commanded the cavalry at Bannockburn, who numbered about 500. As he´ll be based with a Group of cavalry and he commanded them,  I´ve added a standard bearer carrying his colours.



Bannockburn (pt5) Sheltron 3rd battle - Edward de Bruce.

The start of another Sheltron, this one will be under command of Edward de Bruce.
Finding bods to fill the ranks from my collection without buying the Strelets Scottish Schiltron (PSR use the other spelling, Schiltron, which is accurate and  better than what´s written on the box artwork where it´s spelt sciltron) so conversions are necessary.
So far it´s mainly head swops or replacing of weapons.
Sets used;
Strelets Medieval crossbowmen
Strelets medieval Levy (1)
Strelets Medieval levy (2)
Medieval Britian

Two bods from  strelets medieval Crossbowmen set.

This bod is now a trumpeter. His new arm Comes from Hat´s El Cid Spanish command set.

Edward de Bruce. His top and bottom halves come from the Strelets Medieval britian set and the mace from the new weapons range from Valdemar.  His head was turned during conversion to look in the direction he´s pointing.

Standard bearer.

Only a couple more to do and they can be based :-D

Bannockburn (pt 4) Sheltron 2nd battle

That was a fun Long Weekend. Went to the UK, attended a very big and excellent Greek  wedding and got a 30 quid fine for halting the car  in a gridded Zone....I thought they were there just as a warning unless signposted as no stopping....DOH!!! .:-D

Anyway....The  left wing Sheltron commanded by James Douglas, Lord of Douglas and Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward of Scotland.
There´s some doubt that both were in Joint command of  the same sheltron, but I´m sticking with this Version supplied to me by Douglas at the Bennos Forum. He´s found loads of stuff about the battle which I couldn´t find so many thanks Douglas :-D
Bods used all strelets and are from;
Medieval Levy (1)
Medieval Levy (2)
Military Order Warriors
Foot Military Order Knights

Alba gu bràth!!!!!

The shields, which used to be the Royal Standard ones and have now been replaced, still need a bit of "dirtying up" and I´ll add bods to represent Douglas and Stewart at some point

Douglas´s Standard on the left, Stuarts on the right. I used downsized shield Emblems to get the basic pattern then repainted them.

And a couple of "full contact" pics.

Bannockburn (Pt3) Welsh Archers

Commanded by the 2nd Earl of Pembroke(Third creation) Aymer de Valence (c. 1275 – 23 June 1324) who not only led Edward II from the field of Bannockburn but managed to lead his Welsh archers and spearmen back to Wales.
The flag is basically made up, I took the top left quarter of the banner of the Earls of Pembroke (Hastings - Earls of Pembroke, fourth creation). The bod carrying it I painted up in welsh colours. He´s not Aymer but just a generic Knight.. Aymer will be represented with a mounted bod.

Bods from Strelets Army of Henry V set. Why EVERY archer in the set has the arrow laid on the wrong side of the bow stave is a mystery.

This lot are from the Strelets Norman archers set.......and have the arrows laid on the correct side of the bow stave.

The English army so far.

News.
A new site for Bloggers who paint, collect and wargame with 1/72nd scale bods.(the link´s on the right under 1/72 Miniatures)
Dan from Merseybooks blog is looking for painters of individual medieval bods,  ideally 28mm, 20mm, or 15mm for a book he´s writing. Link HERE

Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!!!!

It´s September in 09 AD and the German tribes, led by Arminius have started attacking the XVII, XVIII and XIX legions in the Teutoburger forest...the Varus Battle has begun!!!
This is an old dio I made 4 or 5 years ago and re-found during spring cleaning

A small group of legionaries, cut off from the main body of troops form a line...

..and meet the onrushing german tribesmen.....

They fight for thier lives but as they tire....

...more and more fall dead or injured....

...their officer falls....

...and as the line Begins to break....

...men cast down thier weapons and flee but safety is a long long way away and ...

...the dark forest is full of revengefull tribesmen..........

Here´s a Video of the 2009 anniversary. It was  really great day out. The re-enactment of the battle starts at about 1.45 and the german tribesmen release a secret weapon at 3.20 :-D

 

one of my pics from the day.

 

Pirates of the Caribbean

Pirates of the caribbean from Mars.
They look bad on the PSR (Here) site but the sprue I got turned out with less flash than shown on the Review and the small amount that there was, was soon removed with a bit of blade work.
Most of them will end up as part of Jack Dore´s band of Pirate´s and the rest as Bodstonian Militia.

Austrian cuirassiers Regt. Nr 8 - Finished!

All 254 finished...240 troopers and 14 officers.

Divided into squadrons of 6o troopers. I was going to put them into a single block but one or two would fall over and take a whole line with them.

It would have been 256 but a couple of nags didn´t make it. They were a bit squashed  and their bases snapped off as I tried to straighten them up.

This site The Agincourt Alliance is interesting. A site set up for next years 600th anniversary of the battle of Agincourt. They are planning marches and a "big shoot" with 1000 archers!!

Bannockburn (Pt 2)

The first stand of  english infantry bods. This lot will be  royal guard types.

This bod, from the Strelets Medieval levy (2)  used to carry a spear,



The Standard bearer is converted  from the Medieval levy (1) set

An "in the thick of it" pic

Christine de Pizan

A conversion using the bottom half of Marion from the Airfix Robin Hood set and the top half of one of the ladies from the Italeri Medieval Challenge (or the medieval Tournament) set.

Marion is painted OOB which means she´s lacking her feet

Christine looks a bit bigger than Marion, which makes the nag look comparatively small, but it was more common for  medieval women to have ridden a Palfrey  and not a Destrier.

Not that  medieval women never rode war horses, Joan of Arc (1412 - 1431) Empress Matilda (1102 - 1167)and Matilda of Boulogne (1105 - 1152) are just a handfull of famous women  among many others.

Why Christine de Pizan? I found out about her when looking for info about Joan of Arc.
Usually she´s pictured wearing a "horned" headdress (A "Butterfly Hennin",  referred to sometimes as the "Christine de Pizan headdress") but the first Picture (below) I found of her,  she wears a "Steeple Hennin"

Christine de Pizan (1364 - 1430) wrote a Poem called  "Ditie de Jehanne dArc" (the Poem of Joan of Arc, also known as the song of Joan of Arc) in which she not only eulogizes Joan, but also celebrates the appearance of a woman military leader who, according to de Pizan, vindicated and rewarded all women’s efforts to defend their own sex,

"Ditie de Jehanne dArc" - Stanza XXXIV;

Hee! quel honneur au femenin Sexe!
Que Dieu l'ayme il appert,
Quant tout ce grant pueple chenin,
Par qui tout le regne ert desert,
Par femme est sours et recouvert,
Ce que Cm hommes [fait] n'eussent,
Et les traictres mis à desert!
A peine devant ne le creussent.

(Translation)

Oh! What honor for the feminine sex!

God has shown his regard for it,

in contrast to all the people who

destroyed the Kingdom and ran away and quit.

Now recovered and saved by a woman,

who did what 5000 men could not,

and now the traitors are no more

who would have believed this before

For those interested, there´s a very nice Illustrated PDF Version (in original and Translation in english, HERE