Medieval Prison Wagon MKII and Excecutioner

Due to a raising of taxes  there was enough funds in Hugh Jarse´s Koffers to have a spanking new prison wagon built. Not only was it affordable but due to some resistance to the tax rise, it was necessary.
This led to a bit of a conundrum with 22 non tax paying peasants having to be caught and thier property sold to raise the extra Money for the iron work, leading to the Phrase "catch 22".

As with the old Version, the door can be opened.....

....and the towing bar is movable. No yolk attached as yet some sutable oxen /draught horses Need finding. Some tax dodging individuals can Count themselves lucky that it´s not mobile.................yet.

For some unfortunate souls, the end stop won´t be getting them any further ahead in life...

Mr C.Hopper from Valdemar.

On Sunday it´s the 14th of July and it´s Bastille Day.
In 2011 there was the 14th of July challenge  over at the Gloranthan blog, I took part with my collection as it was then...HERE
This year there´s no big army day  but if anyone´s interested we could re-start the challenge for next year (and every year after)
Anyway, to clebrate the 14th, I´ll be posting most of my medieval armies this coming sunday.

Medieval Prison Wagon

Not a lot of evidence of there actually being such things in the medieval period. There´s a couple of so called medieval prison wagons at the Mittelalterliches Kriminalmuseum( Medieval Crime Museum)  in Bavaria but looking at them they look like (at the best) late medieval ones.
No smoothing down of surfaces on this wagon...it´s not intended for pleasure rides so I wanted it looking as rough and ready as possible.

The bod is from the strelets Norman army on the march set and the Oxen from one of the recent Linear-B or Strelets Transport  sets 

The door I´ve left open so that "passengers" can be added later.

One Problem solved. Normally I fix the beasts to the base and then do the basing, adding the cart or whatever last. This means the  height of the towing bar has to be adjusted taking into consideration a level of basing material which nearly álways means the Yolk doesn´t exactly match and a lot of fiddly adjustment is needed. With a movable towing bar the height is instantly variable.

After breaking the 1,000,000  hits barrier ( Yes,  0ne Million!!!) Big Lee is having a give away on his blog! ! Join in with the Party  HERE

Snail Shell house

Long Long ago, giant snails roamed the world. Being slow  they were generally not considered a threat and therefore tolerated. Sometimes a snail of great Age (and size) would pass away. moving slowly  to the great cabbage patch in the sky and some enterprising individual would find the remaining Shell and move in.
A bit of work was necessary to carefully remove the central spiral "walls" but after this was done a cosy waterproof abode could be constructed.

1/87 bod from Prieser, the cat from an Outcast-Figures set (available at the Croeburn 1813 shop)

Medieval Knights tents

Made from resin, these 1/72nd scale tents, created by  Torsten Burgdorf, are available from the Croeburn Project shop under the titel (quite near the bottom of the page)  Mittelalter:WM-MA 001 - Ritterzelte.(Medieval Knights tents)

I haven´t added any Heraldry..one, so they are usable in Connection with whatever,,hussites etc and two..after all the Heraldry for the bannockburn Knights I couldn´t face painting it any more.

They´ve got a good material effect  which makes them easy to paint.

What happens when all the work of putting up the tents is finished????

PARTY!!! 

Looks like Hugh Jarsé´s Men are acting in thier usual manner. Can mean only one Thing, Sir Hugh, his Servant sir R.Sliker and that miserable toad,  the Sergeant-at-arms, Hugo First are away planning something dastardly.  



As usual, some of them can´t hold thier mead.

John d ´Engaigne, John Grey and Aymer de la Zouche

3 more english Knights etc to bring their numbers up to 31. Only a few more Knights to go....:-D
From left to right;
John d Èngaigne,  Aymer de la Zouche,  John Grey

A couple of signallers. The signaller on the left is from the Army of Henry V set, but he´s had a head swop and the one on the right has had his axe replaced with one from a Valdemar weapons set.  

The Forces so far..

That little lot has given me a headache..not just the painting but the research (which is all too often contradictory) so the Bannockburn Project will get shelved for a while...................well, that´s the plan
This, from a series called great battles is worth a look (I´ve been told it´s pretty accurate with only a couple of mistakes)

English Cavalry - Bannockburn (13)

Another 8 Knights for Edward´s cavalry.
sets used;
English Cavalry of Edward I
The Scottish Army of Wallace

William Latimer, 2nd Lord Latimer of Corby and Aymer de Valence, 2nd Earl of Pembroke

Edmund de Mauley has got a new steed and next to him,  Sir Thomas de Furniville

Thomas de Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley  and Rodger de Clifford, 1st Baron de Clifford

Hugh le Despenser, (Hugh the Elder)  1st and last Earl of Winchester, Chief Advisor to King Edward II

The Standard bearer. This one was  a pain. I can find the Name of Roberts Standard bearer..and his coat-of-arms but Edward´s!? If he is to hang around near Edward II then he´ll have to have a name so I´ve called him Roger Northburgh (who was the kings shield bearer and keeper of the Privy seal)

and yes..the Surcoats get the Coats-of-Arms as well :-D (as far as possible)

One mildly annoying thing with the English Cavalry of Edward I, of the 8 horses with barding, only 2 have smooth  surfaces allowing Heraldry painting, of the remaining six, two have padded barding, the last 4 chain mail. One third of all the nags in the set !. Ok, I could just paint them all up as having chainmail but that would look boring so the chainmail effect had to go.
Easiest way I found is to cover the mail with a thin layer of Pattex 100 gel, smeared across the surface with a toothpick. The final effect is a bit glossy (this helps you to find any bits you´ve missed) but...

 ....it takes paint really well. The rear of the saddle is cut off because the bods just won´t fit into the original seating Arrangement. The backs are being replaced with greenstuff

If   the actual site of such a Major and famous battle is still disputed after 699 years  (see Here) then I reckon lowly painters of bods are allowed a bit of leeway with colours etc :-D

English cavalry - Bannockburn (Pt12)

The Ist lot of  Edward´s Cavalry. So far only 16  of the (approx) 50 needed
Not based up yet, as there´s a load more that need doing and then they will be based according to which "battle Group" they belong to.
Sets used;
English Cavalry of Edward I
Military order Sergeants
Russian Medieval Horsemen (De Vescy´s new nag)
A couple of the Lances come from the Zvezda French Knights set.

To "bulk" out the numbers (barded nags are few and far between) I´m adding bods from the miltary order sergeants set. They´ll get shield Patterns similar (or in some case, the same) in  colour etc as thier bosses. Later additions will get the flags of selected "bosses" to bump up the colour of the stands.
From left to right, Aymer de Valence, Thomas Erkedekne, Gilbert De Clare and ...well I liked the colour scheme. It´s the same as the Earl of Norfolks , Per pale or and vert but it hasn´t got the lion rampant gules.

The kniggits
A couple of them like Gilbert de Clare have already turned up elsewhere on the blog so only close ups of the latest ones.

Giles de Argentine   ("For me, I am not of custom to

fly, nor shall I do so now") and  Robert Fitzwalter , 1st Baron Fitzwalter. 

One Thing worth noting about Robert is that the coat-of-arms on his shield are imprinted.   In fact a lot of the bods in the set have imprinted coat-of -arms, several of which, like Roberts, have  historical accuracy. So far I´ve noticed(after cutting off shields and slicing of heraldry on surcoats)  C.o.A´s that could pass, (apart from the obvious George cross) for;
David de Brechin, (using the pics at PSR....third from left top row)
John 1st Baron of Amand (third row from top, ist on the left)
William Sampson or alternatively  William Latimer of Corby (top row, ist on the right)


Marmeduke de Tweng, 1st Baron Tweng and Henry de Bohun. Henry will get based seperately as he didn´t spend a whole lot of time at the battle due to an unforeseen headache.

Sir Rodger Mortimer de Chirk 

William de Vescy of Kildare has got himself a new nag´.

Bannockburn (Pt11)

Another stand of english infantry. This time they have "generic" coats-of-arms but the General colour scheme for thier clothes remains.
Sets used;
Army of Joan d'Arc
Army of Henry V
Medieval levy (1)
Medieval Levy (2)
Medieval crossbowmen

More conversions...The two in the centre have head swops..the bod on the left has had his spear removed,  a head and weapon swop. .

A couple of full contact pics

A couple of additions to the scottish side, The Standard bearer for Thomas Randolph, 1st earl of Moray, nephew to Robert the Bruce.

 James Douglas, Lord of Douglas and Walter Stewart 6th High Steward of Scotland

Dead Medievals

I could (if I had the Money to spare) get a load of dead from Ykreol, but then what to do with all the unusable or repeat pose bods? Battlefield scatter! :-D
This lot are all from different Strelets sets and will make casualty markers / "Decoration" for the Bannockburn battlefield.

Based. I´m using 6cm wide bases to fit alongside normal Impetus sizes.

Add some previous battlefield "scatter" (from the medieval casualties post) and a bit of ground cover to fill the gaps between the bases...


A crows eye view.

A Knight (Sir Cobbleweed) giving some protection to Geoffrey,  his wounded horse.