Ancient Musicians

These have been created by Leonardo Torricini of Phersu Miniatures. A great looking set which would look great adorning ancient life scenes and I can see a use for some of them in a military role.
The set will be released soon in resin :-D

A good selection of interchangeable instruments allowing for more variety

The last two rows have, IMHO, an extra role in the ranks of quite a few early ancient military formations.

Hello to wardy-la from Gjallarhorn blog. Gjallarhorn ?? I´ll use wardy-la´s words to explain this great sounding word,
In Norse mythology, Gjallarhorn (Old Norse "yelling horn" or "the loud sounding horn") is a horn associated with the god Heimdallr and the wise being Mímir. This blog is to record the progress of a Viking / Saxon campaign we are hoping to run in the near future.
There´s also another great word on this new blog,  Strandhögg...but you´ll have to look for yourself to read the explanation for that one ;-D

Medieval Staff slingers

This should have been posted yesterday but due to the "Friday the 13th" crash it wasn´t.
Anyway all seems ok now..:-D
Staff  or stave slings...fustibalus
There arent that many slingers as far as medieval models go, as far as I know there´s only one in 1/72nd scale, a bod from the Zvezda medieval peasant army  set and he´s a Hand slinger using a so called "shepards sling".
After a bit of research I know that there are NO medieval staff slingers represented in 1/72nd or any other scale come to that, although this seems to have been quite a common and effective weapon, with a massive range and deadly effect.

This shows english sailors using a staff sling to launch what appears to be a "bomb" device

Picture of a Trebuchet and a Staff sling. Apparently the staff slings were used a lot for defending castles. These were shorter, about 3 feet (1m) long and could hurl rocks as big as your head !!!

The bods are from the zvezda peasant set. I used them because  they were going spare and the poses offered the best opportunity without masses of conversion.
They are using the "field" staff sling, with 5 - 6 foot long poles. (1.7 - 2m)

Miniart French Knights with ladder

So...after the friday the 13th crash it appears as if the promised reinstatement of posts did not occur, so here it is again.
The ladder and the knights come from the Miniart set French foot soldiers with Rams which is odd, because they have a set called French  knights with Assault ladders but no bods to carry them.

And if this dissapears again...I´m changing from Google

Burgundian Crossbowmen

The next installment in the slowly growing Burgundian army....knights and cavalry to be done.

Zvezda Catapult and Miniart Batteringram

The Zvezda Catapult is a very nice bit of kit, a bit on the big side  for 1/72nd but a great looking thing to have on the battlefield. Easy to build and paint, all it needed was the addition of a rope and finished.

When I first saw this on PSR I thought "YUK!!" and when I bought the set  (I only wanted the ladders and a couple of the bods) I still thought "YUK!" when I looked at it on the sprue. Anyway, I got a bit bored so just for fun,  it got built and painted up. Turns out it doesn´t look that bad, apart from the fact that there is no roof, but that will get sorted soon.

Oh, and the wheels came from the Redbox Hussite Artillery set.

Hello to BigMike. Mike has a blog about quiting smoking called Today I quit Smoking.  His headline phrase is "Quitting sucks, not quitting would suck more" I´m going to follow his progress...being a smoker myself, maybe it will give me the nudge to quit.

Zvezda Medieval Peasant Army

"The Peasants are Revolting!!"  I really like this set...a lot of conversion potential. The one thing that is a bit annoying is the "command" group (second pic down) Really good figures, especially the one holding the flaming torch, but as usual with Zvezda...only one of each pose. PSR review here

Hello to El Quinto Destino from E5D Blog . He runs 3 blogs, this one, a combined blog,  Nucel Art, The end is Near. shows wonderfull sculpts, videos on how to sculpt and paint. Well worth a browse through all three blogs.

Airfix Foriegn Legion

How many times has this set defended fort Sahara in the last 40 years and more since the type one set was released in 1962 ?? MARCH OR DIE!!!!!!!

Burgundian Arquebusiers

A mix of bods from Orion´s medieval seige troops, and a bod from Revell´s / Accurate´s Hundred years war english Men-at-arms. Pavisen made as I´ve shown earlier Here.

Have at ye!!!!

Another duelling pair from the Bennos Forum...and I lost this one as well, but only by one point this time :-D

 

Medieval drunks

These pair of Valdemar citizens, were sooooo drunk that they severly  lost a duel at the Bennos Forum to Rich´s "Now Where´s that Kebab Cart!?"   of  West Models and Figures
The base was made by Stephan from Dr Willets Workshop.

Hello to Carlos Alberto Arellano from A, S, G, D & M (see blog roll ) These are all Blog directories, click on one and register your blog under the appropiate site.

Medieval Pavise in 1/72nd

They are available in Sets like Miniart´s French Foot Soldiers with Rams or Zvezdas French Infantry of the Hundred Years War..but they  come unpainted, there´s too few of them, and I´m too lazy to spend hours straining my eyes to paint them ( they wouldn´t turn out well anyway ) 
So..I came up with this;

First up..the tools etc. Woodglue (not in pic) Scissors, sharpblade, cocktailstick, Thin cardboard, woodgrain and shield pattern printouts. The woodgrain and shield patterns I got of the web..and re-sized (easy with Word)...There are tons of them about but look out for copyright.

Slice the cocktialstick in half (lengthways) and place on the glue smeared cardboard surface. It´s best to leave a bit sticking out as you´ll see later.

Cut the shield pattern out leaving a decent edge all around and place as near as possible with the center of the shield over the cocktailstick, which will form the central rib.  You have to make sure that about half a cm at the top of the shield is stuck just to the cardboard. The little bit of the cocktail stick that is pocking out the bottom can be used to align or push/pull the rib into position. Using your finger nails, push the paper pattern firmly onto the rib and the backing. Turn the whole thing over and apply the woodgrain pattern , making sure that the grain is aligned. You can check this by holding  the shield up to the light.

Let everything dry and cut out.  I´ve found, that to remove the sticking out bit of cocktail stick it´s best to use a sharp blade. The shield now looks like this. 

With the edge of the nib from a markerpen  ( I forgot to put it in the pic!!! :-D ) colour in the edges. I´ve used brown, but red would look nice as well :-D 

Lay the shield along the marker pen and with your thumb press down. This gives the shield it´s final shape. 

To make the stand I used a Staple. Simple make a hole in the back of the shield, under the first layer of paper, insert a Staple with a bit of PVA glue, let dry, bend to the required angle and cut to length.

Hello to Carpet General from The Carpet General blog. he´s doing an amazing job on recreating the battle of Waterloo as a wargame using 1/72nd plastic bods!! 
He also has a link to a site for Free wargames rules ...HERE

Burgundian Pikeblock

This set is Miniart´s  Swiss Infantry...but I decided I liked the look of the Burgundian livery and now they are a burgundian pikeblock.
I´ve swopped the Livery colour combination, of white on the right and blue on the left cos it looked more "mixed" .(and I got bored painting them all the bloody same :-D )
Oh yeh, they are based for Impetus...well the frontage is the right width. I never really thought too much about the depth...or cared... I just like the look of a lot of bods with pikes :-D 

 I´m making another post later today so I´ll save the Hellos to then :-D  (and the wife wants the PC now to do some printing :-D )