Medieval Organ Gun

A large caliber 4 barrelled battlefield clearance weapon.
Multi part, Made of metal, I haven´t a clue which make this is.
I´m not too sure wether the solid wheels are correct, every depiction I´ve seen of Ribauldequins have spoked wheels but seeing as this is a Heavy Version I suppose spoked wheels wouldn´t be up to Holding the weight.

I was going to do a "how to" on painting the Wood but I got into the painting and forgot...:-(

Medieval European Mercenaries Light Horse (RedBox)

As with the other RedBox sets, 12 bods in 6 poses and 12 nags in two poses.

All painted OOB apart from the two crossbowmen. One held the crossbow vertically so it had to be freed from the Hand holding it and turned to a more realistic angle.
The other was missing the  bottom arm of the crossbow so a paper clip had to be cut and shaped to replace it. Over at PSR they write;

"Finally there is another crossbowman who also holds his weapon vertically, and might seem a bit better as he is clearly not about to shoot it, yet the bow is obviously at full tension, so again we worried about why the bow was fully set, yet not being used and with no bolt loaded".

To me, it looks like he is in the act of loading. He  has spanned his crossbow and is now reaching into his quiver to to take out a bolt.

One Thing I´ve forgotton to mention, as has PSR, all the RedBox medieval Light cav sets..the Bridles. Every one of the nags is missing the nose band. There are contemporary medieval paintings showing bridles without the nose strap but they aren´t that common compared to ones with a nose strap. Also, it appears that the nose strap is left off mostly on early medieval depictions of nags but not always..the Bayeaux Tapestry for example.
Anyway..I painted them on. 

The entire WotR´s mounted force..so far*

26 heavy cavalry and 23 light
The "Heavies"

The "Lights" (excluding the Hobelars)

The entire force

"My Horses, My Horses, My kingdom for some  Horses!"

*I´ve got a few more from Tumbling dice to be added. 

Teutonic Infantry on the March (Pt 2)

Again, using the Teutonic Infantry on the March set from Valdemar (VA110) I´ve added a bod from the Valdemar Medieval tax Collectors set as a Standard bearer. They will end up as part of the 1329 dio but this time  as Infantry from Danzig (Gdańsk).

Couple of Close ups. The flag was easy to create, all I did was find an online Version and print it but the shields were a real pain. First find a red shield pattern. Then add two cross pattée in White. This meant a lot of pic editing but saved a lot of freehand painting. 

A bit of an update on the 1329 dio

Waiting for King John of Bohemia

Hakenbüchsen or Medieval Gunpowder Castle Artillery Pt2

I knew I´d seen them before!!! ...as I wrote on the Medieval Gunpowder Castle Artillery post

I´ve seen examples of them in print but I can´t remember where. They look  late medieval  or Renaissance.

The pics  come from "das Zeugbuch des Kaisers Maximilian I. 1475"
Digital Version HERE
Look under the titel (left Hand side )  Messinghakenbüchsen
The book shows a whole range of arquebus´s, big,  small, on Trestles, two legged stands, wheels, breech and muzzle loaded. 
Looking at the pics...the "Flaming Brands" depicted on the RedBox Bods now makes sense.

Arquebus from The German Hakenbuchse..a Hand gun with a hook so it can be braced when being fired. 

And...at PSR they are sceptical about the kneeling bod using a pick axe to chip  shot down to size but..what is pictured in the bottom left Hand Corner of the pic below? 

Number 4 is labelled as an Archer..but he´s Holding a crossbow and has a quiver Holding bolts..not arrows

It could be RedBox were being too literal (or not)  by portraying a hammer with two spiked heads but the pic below ..the one on the right has, when viewed from the side,  what Looks like two Points. Even though they aren´t as common these days, so called  "Stone Dressing Hammers" used to be common and they do (did) look a wee bit like small pick axes.

 

Oh...and the bod Holding the guage board..the one with the axe in his Hand. What is it for? The axe not the board.
It´s a Stone cleaving axe, something like...HERE.
IMHO, definately not a tool for shaping shot of the size that would pass through any of the holes in his board but maybe for  cutting bigger chunks of Stone into a rough size.

And just to confirm...here´s a site listing, among other Stone mason Tools,  axes (plain edged)  and Hand picks (Sculptors pick)
The Art of Making in Antiquity 

Medieval Scottish Light Cavalry (RedBox)

Another set with a slightly odd titel as  this lot could be, due to the Equipment, members of any countries army as well as the scottish.
As with all of the RedBox medieval  mounted bod sets (to date) 12 bods in 6 poses and 12 nags in 2 poses.
The Review at PSR HERE

Medieval Gunpowder Castle Artillery

Bit of a mixed titel but seeing as one of the guns seem to be fixed as if mounted permanently on a wall,  it sort of fits all the possible uses the set could be used for, both in defence or seige of a Castle or also, in the case of the handgonners, field warfare.
Made by Ultima Ratio, this is a very nice set. 4 sprues each with 6 bods, a pavise and stand alone Cannon. Flash is virtually non-existant. The Bod Holding the 4 barrelled Handgonne has a bit of excess plastic between his Body and the weapon´s handle but it doesn´t affect the Overall look.
Me, I give it 10/10,  simply for the Quality of the sculpts and the subject matter.

Handgonnes
The Pavise has the message "In Vino Veritas" (In Wine, Truth) on it and a priestly looking type praying to a wine goblet. I´ve done a bit of searching around but found no Pavise with the Slogan on it so maybe it´s an Joke on the part of the scupltor.
The gunner holds a flaming brand to ignite the gun. A slow match or a heated iron would be more accurate but the brand is ok..

The Guns.
I´ve seen examples of them in print but I can´t remember where. They look  late medieval  or Renaissance.
Anyways..only one bod per gun? Surely the one with the enormous bipod gun wouldn´t be able to aim and fire the Thing?
OOB, the bipod is flat along the gun  so  it Needs warming up in hot water and twisting into a realistic Position..hardly any work at all.
The large gun on the stand would more than likely be a fixed weapon on a Castle wall but I´ve made it into a field weapon.
Again..the gunner has a brand

Cannon Ball Masons.
One is Holding a shot measuring board. The holes are numbered from top to bottom I-IV. Why four hole sizes? Possibly the availabe guns come in 4 calibres? Why he´s Holding an axe I´ve no idea.
The bod kneeling has a lot of chipping ahead of him if he wants the shot to fit even hole number IV.

.

Medieval Scottish Heavy Cavalry (RedBox)

A quick break from painting the 1329 Project bods
12 bods in 6 poses, 12 nags in two poses.
Only a little  bit of Flash to deal with and that mainly on the nags, which is in contrast to the set PSR have reviewed, so as with the Hobelars I painted from RedBox, it depends on which set you get.

PSR reckons that the bods armour and kit is ok for the period, the usual complaint (one which I entirely agree with) about the set having only two nag poses and that the nags are very well armoured, too much armour in fact for all the riders to have such a heavily armoured mount but this  has already been covered on previous Reviews on  RedBox WotR heavy cavalry sets.
I´ll have to think about using some of the spare riders and mix then with some nags from other sets..the Zvezda French Knights for example...but when I have the time.

 The titel of the set is a bit odd. Why have the first two sets labelled as Men -At- Arms and this set is "heavy cavalry". Surely they are, like the previous two "heavy cavalry" sets,  also mounted Men -at- Arms?

As with the previous RedBox  European Mounted Men-at-Arms and the Mounted Men-at-Arms sets, these will end up as part of Richard III´s Body guards...hence all the armour on the nags, which, TBH, I like the look of.

A bit of an odd pose..waving a two handed sword about whilst mounted?

Medieval Raiding party

Another bunch of bods for the 1329 dio..this time an older Valdemar set called VR 008 Plunder. As far as I know, the set isn´t produced anymore.
10 bods and two porkers. 

A couple of Close ups

"Oh!..so that´s where Geoffrey went to" 

Medieval Guards on Duty (2)

Another 4 sets of Valdemar VA127 "Medieval Guards on duty"  for the 1329 dio.
With this lot that makes 47 guards ..(one in the First Batch lost a Hand)

Three got  Pavisen, scratchmade  like in  THIS post.

One set is painted up "Freestyle". The axe and crossbow from the spares box. The sets Come with crossbows, they are ok but a bit small for the bod to lean on one.

Medieval Drinking contest.

A combination of two sets, Valdemar´s  Medieval Guards Resting and Knights drinking.

Medieval double axle Transport wagon

Another two wagons for the Teutonic Order 1329 dio, also made by Fredericus Rex as part of their Greenline range.

8 pieces all made Entirely of resin.
The one at the back is missing a tiny Piece. Unfortunately I´d tipped the parts out of the Blister box onto my Workspace and I didn´t notice that a bit had  broken off until I´d started painting and by then it was lost.
Note to self;
Spread out and Check parts using a clear Surface and tidy up the Workspace on a regular basis so as to have a better overview.

As with the two  Kobelwagen, the "falling tongues" have been left unfixed for Transportation

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.