Roman Construction (Linear-B)

Another great little addition to the ancient roman  civilian life, a roman Quarry/roadworkers gang.
14 bods on the sprue, the majority of them are the "forced labour" element.
The "slaves" all have either a metal band around thier necks or carry a recognition plaque.
Anyway, the are listed on the Linear-b site as " Roman Construction" and are due for release...Tomorrow (11.02.2013)

The pick (Dolabra) shovel and breaking iron crew.  



The two bods on the left are meant to work as a pair carrying a large wooden beam (supplied in the set) but I am going to use them as bods unloading a ship. The bod on the right should (I suppose) have rubble in the basket, but some sort of fruit or vegetables looks much better.



This pair carrying the stone suggests a set of quarry workers



As always, one poor worker getting told off for slacking. The original whip was a bit thick for my liking and got replaced.

 

The boss of the road crew and his chief engineer using a Groma.  The plumb lines attached to the Rostro (cross piece) are a bit "chunky" but this  is the first time I´ve seen a Groma represented in a "series" set

Roads were generally built by the legions and not civilians. That there are slaves and a Groma together in the set suggests a building project such as a road but it´s not inconcievable that a groma would find usage in a quarry etc. The one thing missing is a bod or two holding the measuring sticks used for aliginment, but that´s no problem to find a suitable bod for the job.

Welcome to Maik from Schildschmied. loads of lovely Shield and flag decals in 1/72nd and 28mm

Army of the Underworld

First off, the latest addition, the standard bearer for the "cultists"

Now..the army so far.

Cutlists

Super heavy infantry

Supreme Commander - Sir D.Eath

Strelets Medieval Britain (1)

A rare set this one, why Strelets don´t re-release it I don´t know. There´s a lot of demand for the set,  the poses are usefull for loads of things, camp scenes, battlefield "extras" and the conversion potential is huge..but seeing as it´s rare I won´t be cutting any of them up at the moment.

Medieval Britain comes in a big box which includes, The army of Henry V, The Scottish army of William Wallace and The English cavalry of Edward I.
PARTY!!!

The Knights are making Friends with the locals

..while S.Will, the cook, looks on in disgust..

..hoping someone will step in and bring the festivities to a head...

..but does the jester care?

..nope, not at all

Medieval Heralds, Guards and prisoner

This is another great set from the castle of Valdemar and available at Fredericus-rex
I used a horse from another set (the tax collector set) for the boss bod (leaning down from the saddle) because I wanted the heralds to be mounted on similar horses, ie all with caparisons.

 All 8 mounted bods and one foot

The set divides, well I´ve divided it, into two halves.........
The cavalry section….

..and the lord, (Sherrif), Town crier and the heralds

A poor peasant arrested for the henious crime of Turnip smuggling

The cavalry section added to some of the bods from the tax collectors set

Faces

Medieval Philosophers and Thinkers

A set of  "men discussing" created by Alex. Available from Fredericus-rex.
They aren´t supposed to be Philosophers or whatever, but I´ve dug about on the web and found some names,  that fit (more or less and just for a bit of fun) to the bods.

The whole gaggle of wisemen...and cleaner

John of Głogów (ca. 1445 – 1507) with a couple of his pupils (maybe Copernicus is one of them ) at the University of Krakow

On the right, William of Moerbeke  (1215–c.1286) having a heated discussion with his friend Witelo (c.1230 -1280/?) about  Platonic metaphysics.

"NO!! In the book!! Not up there!!" William of Ockham (c. 1288 – c. 1348) in a bit of a row with one of the locals

John Duns Scotus  (c. 1266 - 1308) discussing Lombard´s  sentences with the  philosopher Radulphus Brito (1270 - 1305)

As always, the faces are excellent and great fun to paint.

Johann von Bolchen and Friedrich von Befort

Johann von Bolchen and Friedrich von Befort, two knights from Luxembourg who fought alongside the french at Crecy. I´ve looked and looked but cannot find any references to exactly where they came from, their part in the battle, wether they died or survived.
The flags are taken from the Krigsspiel site and the only re-checking I could find was HERE. The devices are the same on both sites so as far as these pair go....job done :-D

Friedrich von Befort.
Horse and bod from  Accurate´s  French knights set.

Johann von Bolchen.
Horse and bod from Zvezda´s French knights set

With an estimated 35 Bohemian, 35 Luxembourg, 42 french and about 140 english flags and banners to go, the project to represent every banner used at Crecy could last a while.

The Nithing Pole

"Here I place this "Nidstang" ("curse-pole"), and turneth it against King Eirik and Queen Gunnhild - turneth I this against all the gnomes and little people of the land, that they may all be lost, not finding their homes, until they drive King Eirik and Queen Gunnhild out of the country."

This was the curse that Egil Skallagrimsson spoke against King Eirik Bloodaxe and according to the legend it worked..they, Eirik and Gunnhild,  left.

During the Viking Age to put a "nid" on someone was to put very powerful verbal curse upon them. The idea is to raise the Landvaettir and Hel(a) against the person or people who the curse is aimed at.
The power of words was not taken lightly by the wikings, so to make a curse of this kind was very serious matter. It was the ultimate insult, and used only in extremis.

A horses head was placed on a long (usually hazel) pole and then directed to those who are to be cursed. The words of the curse are written along the pole, and sometimes the horses skin was hung over the pole as well.
Why a horses head? Maybe, and this is only my thought, is that the severity of the curse called for the sacrifice of a  revered animal, horse worship was common in a wide range of ancient societys.

What do you need to make one? Some insulating foam for the rocks, a toothpick for the pole, some tissue paper soaked in woodglue for the skin and any old horses head. 

Steingrim Oddløg and his men, set up a Nidstang and direct thier curses towards thier enemy, Thorbrand Steinthor.

THIS SITE is well worth a look, a 360° view of the inside of the 19th century Serbian Royal familys church,  St. George’s Church, Oplenac, Topola in Serbia.
Click on the picture and use the mouse to turn the picture, zoom etc (similar to google street) Also, the pics along the bottom are interactive...

Bodstonian "Common Folk" (1)

A small group of Bodstonian workers and common folk using some of the figures from the Outcast Figures range available from HERE

Two market traders

An overworked trader and a salty sea dog

Father and son

There´s a couple of pics of them in thier "natural" habitats HERE
And for those of you looking for a cheap, and in some cases free, place to live then look  at THIS video. A community in northern spain that re-built a "lost" medieval village.

Ben Yusuf's Black Guards

Ben Yusuf' (Yusuf ibn Tashfin) full name -  Yûsuf bnu Tâšfîn Nâçereddîn bnu Tâlâkâkîn as-Sanhâjî ( يوسف بن تاشفين ناصر الدين بن تالاكاكين الصنهاجي  ) created an elite group of soldiers, the  Hasham Guard made up of  2,000 African Infantry and named The Black Guard.
Not based as they are going to be added to with bods from the the Andalusian  and  command sets.

A couple of conversions.

Simple conversion..the bod on the right gets a new arm from the Andalusian light  cavalry set.

The top half of the bod on the left comes from the  Andalusian Heavy Cavalry set anf the body of the bod on the left from the HaT gallic command set

Hello to Drache Zaku. Thanks for following :-D