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. 

English Men-At-Arms 13th-14th Century - Strelets (conversions)

The OOB set has 12 poses to which I´d added two conversions already, as can be seen HERE
Back then I reckoned at least another 4  conversions were possible...so here they are.

Left.The obvious and not much of an conversion, swopping the flag for a spear.
Right. Adding a halberd from the MiniArt French Knights with Assault Ladders set to the trumpeter was a bit more complicated.

Left. As the pole of the halbard is quite thin the head breaks off easily which means either replacing it or converting  the bod into another role..here as a staff slinger.
Right. Spear removed and replaced with an axe,  heater type shield added

Amazons

The foot bodettes to complement  the Mounted set.
10 in the set, half of which are archers,  which, when added to the Modern Amazon foot, gives them a lot more firepower.
This lot are dressed and armed less like their Modern Amazon sisters, who are more along the lines of Conan/ Hercules / Zena type Books, Comics and films but more like the ancient greek depiction of Amazons.

Were there actual Tribes of Amazons? The greek stories of female warriors of  scythian / sarmatian tribes of female warriors may have, with the telling, become exaggerated.  Archeological finds Show about 20% of Scythian-Sarmatian 'warrior graves'  contain women dressed and armed for battle similar to the male warriors of the time so maybe not whole tribes purely made up of females but it´s likely females fought alongside the males.
That, or that the women practised the arts of war so that when the men went to war they could defend thier camps. Maybe the idea of purely female warrior tribes came to be after such a camp was found by a foreign army/travellers

Who knows for sure and TBH, I don´t much care as they will become part of the Cimmerian faction.

As with the rest of their Amazon sisters (Modern or ancient versions) they have a tendency to go, at least  partly, au naturel. 

The entire Amazonian (Cimmerian females) force.

Mounted section 

The ranged weapons sections.

Mounted

Foot

Now there´s only the second set of Cimmerian foot to get painted and that´s the Cimmerians finished. 

Mounted Amazons

I´m still playing "catch up" with the Alliance range of Fantasy bods.
34 sets and I´ve painted about 28-29 of them.
As with the Modern Mounted Amazons I´ve swopped the nags provided for ones from the HäT Numidian cavalry and the Zvezda Carthaginian Numidian Cavalry  so they fit alongside the Cimmerian Cavalry and the Modern Mounted Amazons (no saddles and reins etc)
10 mounted and two foot bodettes. A bit of Flash to deal with but not too much.

The ranged weapons section

Foot command

One or two of them are a bit free with thier choice of clothing. 

War Trolls - (Set 3)

Made By Dark Alliance
4 Trolls in the set, hardish plastic, virtually no Flash.
They look more like Cave trolls than the the Previous sets of War Trolls (Olog-hai) but seeing as they appear to be  cave trolls and  are able, like the Olog-hai, to withstand sunlight*, I´ve painted them up so they match thier armoured Cousins.

Toby

Tyson.
"They have a cave Troll!"
He´s missing a collar and chain but basically he´s the spitting Image of the poor troll who gets visciously set upon and killed in the film "The Fellowship of the Ring"

Tristan and Tommy

These have a  slightly  chunkier bodies than thier armoured kin and thier bases are big enough so they stand on thier own.
Family Group pic...in no particular order
Timmy, Toby, Terence, Tyson, Trevor, Troy, Triston and Tommy.

* Apparently only Stone trolls turn into Stone when exposed to sunlight, similar to what happened to poor old  Tom, Bert and William who are cruelly tricked by Bilbo into staying up too Long.

A size comparison pic.  I´m not  certain that covering his head with his Hands will be that much of a help.

Fire Demons - Balrogs (Set 2)

Again, made by Dark Alliance and again, big beasts.
For  my considerations on size ..see HERE

 The whole Gang together. I might have swopped the wings between the two sets.

Ok...so Alliance has made Trolls, Balrogs, Orcs, Uruks, Dwarves, Elves and Wargs to populate a 1/72nd scale middle earth.
What´s missing?
Hobbits, Rangers, Ents, Haradrim, Dunlending, Nazgûl on foot or mounted either on nags or Fell beasts, Barrow wights, Dwarves mounted on Rams
Mûmakil but too big maybe ?

Another "period" for me to get into?
Zombie Hunters/Post apocalypse survivors from Dark Alliance,  coming in 2018

War Trolls - Olog-hai (Set 2)

The second set of Trolls from Dark Alliance and in Terms of use and ..unfortunately   Quality*,  a bit of a mixed set.
You get eight in the box, two lots of four poses and I´ve painted up only one...the reasons will become clear.

Teddy

The catapult is from one of those "Bag-O-Kniggits". I´ve replaced the end of the throwing arm, added some cogs from a broken wind up toy and replaced the wheels. 

*Of the other three. poses? Well, it Looks as if the mold has "slipped" and slipped quite badly, 1-2mm´s.  I´m used to removing mold lines, IMHO, it´s part of the hobby but in this case, the amount of slippage meant they were way beyond saving.  C'est la vie.
 
Hopefully this was in only a few sets and I was unlucky as I really like the Alliance Fantasy Range.
I´ll chalk it up to bad luck on my part and hopefully I can get hold of a complete set later on.
But what were they up too?
It Looks like two are the ones who were opening the Black Gate in the LotR´s film "The two Towers" but they could equally be employed to push/pull siege weapons like a seige Tower.

The 4th pose Looks very much like his painted Counterpart and similar looking ones are seen loading catapults in the LotR´s film "Return of the King"
He could be saved with a lot of snipping but TBH, I haven´t the time