Happy New Year 2018

Happy New year!

Another year and another Batch of Bods, nags and accoutrements finished.
Slightly down on 2016´s prodution rate but still not bad.
Approximately 312  bods, 68 nags (with and without Mounted bods) 4 guns, 9 trolls, 4 fire demons, a catapult, a stack of  ACW Terrain, roads, walls, rivers, Bridge etc and an ACW  wargame.
13  English Men-At-Arms 13th-14th Century
14  English Longbowmen                                
80  ACW Union inf                                        
8    McNeill's Rangers                                                        
80 ACW Confederate inf                                
8 "Jayhawkers"                                                                  
8  Crew and 2 ACW guns                                
4  trolls
14  Norman Cavalry                                                            
2  Orc catapults
10 Modern Mounted Amazons                                            
12 Modern Amazons foot                                  
14 Eastern Friendly Indians                                
9   Lewis and Clark                                            
14 Medieval Guards resting                                  
4   Burgundian field artillery                              
10 Dark Alliance orcs                                        
12 Conan and friends                                          
13  Caeser Orcs                                                  
4 Fire Demons Set 1 and Set 2
2 Orc Catapults
War Trolls set 2
4 War Trolls set 3
6 Hobelars  
4 Inquisition                                                                        
14 Bodstonian Dragoons                                          
10 Amazons                                                                
10 Mounted Amazons                                                

What was planned and actually happened.
Continue work on both 1329 Teutonic dio and  the Airfix ACW wargame Project.
Wargame the ACW bods using the rules (with possible mild adaptions) from the Terry Wise book. ..this should actually happen.
Re-Boot Bodstonia. Those  Bodstonians have been getting on without me so it´s about time I had a look at what they are up to

Medievals took a bit of a back seat, the bulk of "production" was Fantasy and Airfix ACW with both subjects taking up over 2/3rds of everything painted or created.
The ACW Project got completed and a game was actually played.
The land of Bodstonia  wasn´t revisited with new Storylines but a lot more (46) Personalities and Populace were created.
A couple more bits and pieces were painted for the Teutonic 1329 dio.
Apart from not creating any new tales for Bodstonia...2017 Targets achieved :-)

Plans for 2018
Produce  more for the 1329 dio.
Get some Story lines done for Bodstonia. I made the effort to read a book (Changes in the Land by William Cronon)  on early Colonist/native American Indian relationships/Interactions,  so it would be a waste not to use the new info  in the plot lines.
Possibly..but I´m still thinking about it, add to the ACW Project using the new Strelets range of ACW bods.

Kobelwagen

Made by Fredericus Rex as part of thier Greenline range of wagons.
Kobelwagen? Well wagen is easy - Wagon. Kobel (or Koben) means stall,  a simple small room made from Planks, usually to hold animals.
Basically   a covered wagon, used principally by women as a means of Transport.

The kit, made from laser cut paper and Balsa and the main Body is resin, Comes with easy to follow instructions,  is easy  to put together and the only glue necessary is PVA.

This pair will end up as part of the Teutonic order 1329 dio. The "falling tongues" haven´t been permanently fixed so they won´t break during Transport.  To make a bit of difference between the the two I´ve left the covering off one.

Hobelars

Horse Boys or Hobelars 
Redbox´s Irish Mounted Troops.

Originally I was going to use other nags, particually for the boss, unpainted they look a bit podgy but after test painting one it turned out looking ok though not quite as elegant looking as an actual Irish Hobby. (The breed is now extinct..so no evidence of actual colours...a good excuse for my choices) Also decisive in using the nags in the set was  the tack,   which is unique to the set. 

PSR´s main complaint was the amount of Flash on the Nags but my set had very Little.  As with other sets I´ve bought the Flash does vary  sometimes from the PSR accounts so I suppose it depends on which box you pick up.

Javelinbods
Apparently the Irish  were one of the few in the medieval period who kept using javelins from horseback

So which mob should this lot represent ? After a bit of looking about (helped by the fact they are mentioned at PSR ) I decided on the Geraldines (Fitzgerald´s) . Chosen over the Butlers mainly due to the fact thier Standard, Argent a Saltire gules,  is easy enough to paint

Basically, if this lot are supposed to be running about in the WotR´s period,..the boss has to be Thomas Fitzgerald, 7th Earl of Kildare. 

For anyone interested I came across THIS site on Medieval Irish Cavalry

A slightly sad note. The two kittens (Bobby and Foxy) will be going tomorrow. They are going to a good home but it pulls the heart strings to see them go :-(

Bodstonian mounted command

As previously mentioned, I thought a complete command Group for a small number of dragoons was a bit over the top so they have ended up as a mounted command Group for the entire Bodstonian army.

The commander of the Bodstonian land Forces (I F**kin` hate painting White nags!! ) Colonel Jeremiah Coleman and his son, captain of the 1st Bodstonian Dragoons, Rupert.

Standard bearer and Drummer
Over at PSR, there´s  a bit of doubt as to wether the Drummer would have used his drum when mounted and should have it stowed. Wether in reality the drum was used when mounted makes no difference to me because in  Bodstonia,  the drum is used both when in the saddle and out.

The flag hasn´t been added as my Printer has run out of toner

Bodstonian Dragoons (Pt 4)

As noted at PSR;

This gives us nine poses, which is quite a good number for a cavalry set of this quality, so we feel quite guilty in pointing out that a figure firing his musket from the saddle would have been a really useful pose (perhaps instead of one of the swordsmen)

Well, that´s easily sorted :-)

Top half of the Standing bod, bottom half of one of the one´s with sword in Hand, a bit of carefull cutting to preserve the Sabre (sorry, sword)  and cartridge box.
Hole drilled through both the legs and Torso.  Both are then joined using second glue and a filed down end of a toothpick which was jammed up through the legs and into the torso.
The other end of the toothpick is then stuck into a cork for ease of handling whilst painting.
When finished, toothpick is cut to length (snipped off so  a half a cm or less is left sticking out under the rider) and the rider stuck to the nag by inserting the short length of toothpick into  a pre-drilled hole in the saddle.


Next..the Command section.

Bodstonian Dragoons (Pt 3)

A couple more Standing bods.

The one tending the nag has had his left arm swopped with one of the riflemen´s arms which has been repositioned so it looks like he´s giving the nag a sugar lump (maybe) and the reins have been cut away from his right hand.
I decided to base the bod "making ready" singularily as it makes him more adaptable and fit alongside the other free standing one who´se aiming/firing.

Only a couple of conversions and the command Group to go.

Bodstonian Dragoons (Pt 2)

A couple more finished.  Unfortunately The set has few nag poses, 4 only,  so both riders have the same nag.

As there will only be a few Dragoons, 8 or so,* they don´t Warrant a Standard bearer etc so the Command bods in the set I´ll paint up as Regimental command bods. The wigged bod (described on the boxart as a Major)  as Jeremiah Coleman and the one firing his pistol (described on the boxart as an Ensign) as one of his sons, Rupert.

* If I can get hold of Zvezda´s  Swedish Dragoons of Charles XII I´ll add some more. The nags Seem to have different blankets but the uniforms  look almost identical..or? 

Bodstonian Dragoons (Pt 1)

Using the Zvezda Dragoons of Peter I set.

First up the dismounted bods 

The set Comes with 3 bods Holding the nags and a possible 6 nags for him to hold. Small Problem is ..if he´s Holding the reins..then all of the nags already have reins so they needed removing

An  "ahhh!" bit.

At the Moment we´ve  got 5 cats.

The ancient british short hair who found our house and we took in, the "runt" of a litter from a 3 legged cat´s first litter and the 3 legged cat and the  two kittens from her second litter 

The 3 legged cat was originally given space at ours due to her giving birth a day before the original owners moved . With all the stress and chaos of the move it was better they had somewhere quiet. After the kittens (3 of them, two went to friends) were old enough she was given back to the owners but it proved too difficult for them and we took her back..only to find she was again pregnant. 

From left to right.."Pepper", the "runt" of the 1st litter, "Bobby",  the 3 legged cat "Emie" and "Foxy".

"Ghost",  the British short hair lives in her granny flat (the Conservatory) as the kittens pester her - she´s too old for being annoyed. 

Their names are provisional as they are already promised to friends..shame as I really like "Bobby" and I´ll be sad to see him go.