Thursday 30 July 2020

Frankish Crusader Command - Tumbling Dice

5 Bods and three nags. 3 standards and a shepards crook and 5 Heater shields. 5 shields is a bit odd because, unless one is strapped to the back of the foot knight , only three are needed. I left the shield off the bishop Bod.
I also replaced two of the standards using ones leftover from TD and Valdemar sets.
Erard´s standard is one from the set.
Erard de Valery. 
Boniface de Montferrat. and Standard bearer.
Templar Bishop (were there such things?) and a Monk.
The Monk. Peter the Hermit perhaps?

Saturday 25 July 2020

Hospitaller Knights

From Valdemar -  VM062 Hospitallers.
Just to get my hand and eye back into painting medievals.


Two Templar Knights.
Poor fellow Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon
The one on the right has  the colours are the ones used on thier Battle flag but they look good and make a change from the red cross on white.

Knight of St Thomas
Hospitallers of St Thomas of Canterbury at Acre


Knight of St John
Order of the knights of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem

Knight of St Lazarus. 
Order of St Lazarus of Jerusalem
I´ve painted these before but as Foot Bods (HERE)
Weapons (swords/Mace), shields, sword sheaths (both empty and with sword) and the head of the downed Nag,  are all seperate.

When painting the nags I advise choosing the final colour scheme and painting the underside before attaching them to a base. Not only is  the underneath of the Caparisons visible (not so well in the pics) but the legs as well.

Legs. A couple of the Nags are posed with just two hoofs on the ground. I used a Pattex Perfect Pen, which  contains Loctite Super Attak gel. Takes a few seconds to hold and a few more minutes to dry but it works on Metal to metal, Metal to card, plastic.



Monday 20 July 2020

Anglo Saxons Tumbling Dice - Complete range

39 foot and  11 Mounted bods.
All 7 sets that go under the titel Anglo Saxons on the Tumbling Dice site as shown at the Tumbling Dice site  HERE.

AS1 Huscarls Danish Axe
Close ups of the set HERE
AS2 Huscarls Spear
Full set review HERE
AS3 Select Fyrd
Full set review HERE

AS4 General Fyrd 
Close ups and full set review HERE:
AS5 Saxon Skirmishers
Close ups and full set review HERE
AS10 Mounted Huscarls
Close ups and Full set review HERE

AS20 Anglo Saxon Command
Close ups and Full set review HERE


The entire Tumbling Dice Anglo Saxon Army*
Huscarls to the front and centre

My entire Anglo Saxon Army - so far as the Strelets Housecarls of King Harold set bods are not yet painted.
TD, Strelets and Emhar. 93 foot and 11 mounted.
Left wing
Centre with reserve behind.
Right wing




*without using repeat poses from the sets.


Friday 17 July 2020

Anglo Saxon Command - Tumbling Dice

Set AS20.
3 mounted Bods in 3 different poses and 3 nags in 3 different poses, 2 foot Bods.
3 round (lenticular ) shields, 3 kite shields.
3 standards -  1 triangular, 1 square and a draco.
The three nags are poses from the C1066 H3 Palfrey/light Horse set.
I added two kite shields left over from other sets.
I changed the flags for printed ones. The metal flags are ok but too heavy and, TBH, the printed ones are easier and quicker than painting them myself.
The Draco I painted with a Blue-Gold drybrush to give it a shine. Works in reality but doesn´t really show in pics.

Sunday 12 July 2020

Anglo Saxon Mounted Huscarls - Tumbling Dice

Set AS10.
8 Bods, 8 shields (4 lenticular, 4 flat round) 4 swords, 3 spears and 2 axes.
Thier mounts are 2 sets (each set has 4 Nags) of  C1066 H2, Destrier / Heavy Horse.
The 8 Nags from both sets have 5 different poses, a similar set up to the nags provided for the Mounted Vikings, so rather than repeat what I wrote there about the possible pose selection, my review can be read HERE.

I was going to give  the bods Lenticular Shields left over from other TD Anglo Saxon sets. My fisrt thought was that using the Kite shields, wether historically correct or not, would, IMHO, make them look way to similar to Norman Cavalry. But then, I thought, they are Late Anglo-Saxons, and Huscarls and also, they could be used as Norman cavalry...so they ended up with Kite shields
Also, they got the same regimented look as the foot Huscarls.
I´ve also swopped the lances for home made ones.
Close ups.
The diferent Nag Poses that come with both sets are numbered.
Number 1 in pic two should be 5

Wether the Vikings used Cavalry in combat is..?..not so provable but Anglo-Saxon Cavalry? Yep, they did have them. See HERE

Wednesday 8 July 2020

Anglo Saxon Huscarls with Axes - Tumbling Dice

Set AS1. 8 bods in 7 poses and 8 kite shields.
These are "Late" Anglo Saxon shields,  carried by the great majority of the figures representing the "English" as shown in the Bayeux Tapestry.*
As they are the leaders personal Body Guard and elite soldiers I´ve painted them as a "uniform" bunch.
Close ups
The two on the right are the repeat pose. The axe head is in the original position on the bod on the far right.
Rear view

 *  "Wiley Blackwell encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England"    under the titel "Arms and Armour"(2nd edition available as PDF - pages 69 onwards)
and N.P.Brooks "Weapons and Armour"  in the "Battle of Maldon AD 991"
The only description of the colours of Anglo Saxon shields  is from Beowulf which tells of the shields as being "bright" and "Yellow".
Yellow? Plain wood ? Saxon shields are described in English Poetry as being made of lime wood (yellowish) and a range of shields using different wood types have been found. None though showing signs of being painted.

Usefull pdf on Viking /Saxon / Norman Shields HERE.

Friday 3 July 2020

Anglo Saxon Select Fyrd - Tumbling Dice

Set AS3.
8 bods and 8 kite shields. Two poses were repeated so didn´t get painted.
This lot are the "rich kids", landowners, freemen so unlike the huscarls they have thier own colours on thier shields.
Close ups
Pose on the far right is one of the repeated poses
 Pose on the far left is one of the repeated poses
As with a lot of the infantry sets from TD, wether the repeat poses are the same in each set isn´t clear. If I had got two sets of the above, it could have shown wether they have the same repeat poses or wether the repeat poses are random.