Monday 21 March 2016

European Mounted Men-at-Arms (RedBox)

As with the Mounted Men-at-arms set, this has 12 bods and 12 nags. 6 individual poses for the bods, and again, my  only complaint, ..only 2 horse poses and they are the same poses from the Mounted Men-at-Arms set.
There´s two "spare" arms with the set, 2 with each bod sprue so 4 in total, one Holding a Lance and the other a mace. The bod they are intended for has a rather Long peg, way too Long for the hole in each of the arms. Do not cut it shorter so it fits into the hole. Use a thick needle and make a hole all the way through the arm, then push the peg through and using a hot pin weld the protruding part of the peg onto the shoulder  removing any excess as you go. Fill the join between the upper chest and shoulder with glue.
You get a better Picture of the set (the, Flash,  arms and Long peg etc) from the PSR  Scans (no Review as of time of posting this) HERE

10 in total. The bod on the far right. OOB, the flail is in front of and attached to the plume but with a bit of carefull snipping and a Twist of his wrist it Ends up looking more natural
From left to right;
1. Flail and helmet plume removed, flagpole and flag added
2. Using the hot water method, arm Holding the Lance bent, plume removed
 
From left to right;
1. Was Holding his Lance incorrectly(see below), arm and head swop
2. The hammer that came with the changeable arm was too thick so got replaced with a mace from the Accurate Hundred Years War Knights Of France set
3. To make up the numbers, one of the bods from the RedBox Mounted Men at Arms set , Hammer from Valdemar                           
Bods from Both sets added together..a total of 20......I converted another two to add to the original 8 from the Mounted Men - at - Arms set.
I´ll find a Bod to represent Richard III before basing them ...which presents Problems..what did he (and his nag) look like??
With a surcoat and gilded armour (Nag with full caparison and Chanfron/Criniere)
With a shield, plain steel armour and crown ? (nag with Chanfron/Criniere/Peytral and no Caparison)
A mix of plain steel and gilded armour? ( Nag with half caparison and Chanfron/Criniere/Peytral)
Or something more like this....Plain steel, some gilding, shield (nag with Chanfron/Criniere/Croupiere/Peytral/)..basically, the bod  and nag Combo from the redbox men-at-arms set but with a crown


Unlike the first Redbox Mounted men-at_arms set, Flash abounds with this lot. A lot of the  bods and the nags are surrounded in the stuff. It took over two hours of toe curling work using a razorblade to remove it all.

The bod on the right holds his Lance a bit loosely, basically, the fingers don´t surround the shaft so I removed the arm and the Lance entirely and replaced it with one of the spare arms that Comes with the set.
I also replaced the head. Reason being that the torse, the  twisted roll of fabric around the helmet,  is only scuplted at the back.
Example of a Torse
Basically,  compared with the Mounted Men-at-Arms set, there´s a lot more work involved  to get  a decent number of useable bods, re-aranging /re-placing weapons and arms, head swops and removal of Flash but after all that´s over, I like em.