Medieval Guards - Alarm!

The actual titel of the set is just   "Alarm" but seeing as these are in the same livery as the guards on Duty and the resting guards, the post titel is fair enough.
The whole set...13 bods

My favourite poses from the set

The running bod on the right Looks a bit odd, as if he´s really happy.."whoopee!!"  but I think he´s supposed to be running up some steps

Get to it you oribble lot!!!!!

Lewis and Clark - Imex

Here, on this blog, they are the bods from the Lewis and Clark set  and represent Lewis, Clark, York, Sacajawea, Teton Sioux Indians etc  but in Bodstonia they will have new names and lives. For that purpose, a couple of them have had head/hat swops using Italeri´s American Infantry and have been painted up to fit the Bodstonian "style"
With this set There´s only two Bods I haven´t painted, both repeat poses, a firing Expeditionary bod and one Native American.   Not bad as usually I don´t really like painting repeat poses from the same set.

The Expedition Members
The bods are bigger than a lot of other makes. They fit alongside the Italeri Indian Warriors and American Infantry Bods but Tower over others such as the Strelets American Militia

The mounted section. One´s had a headswop and the two pack mules where based together but they´ve been seperated.

The Native Americans

They account for just over a third of the set, understandable seeing as the set is based on  The Corps of Discovery and the numbers can be bumped up using the Imex Eastern Friendly Indians set.

Messing about on the Water
The canoe. I searched but found that most historical examples seem to have been plain Wood colour or have a tiny bit of colour added, no brightly coloured Hollywood style ones.

Also, the canoe came with  molded  water lapping around the sides but I decided to remove it. I used both the rowing bods from the set, one with a slight Twist of the head to add a slight bit of difference.

The other two are members of the Expedition. The one punting the wooden raft is a giant..even by Imex´s Standards.

The other bits
As with the canoe, the same goes for the Tipi (There´s two Tipis in the set) 
As far as I could discover, Historically, most Tipis in a village would not be painted but left plain so I only added a Basic zig - zag pattern.
The other two bits are a stretched Skin and a campfire.

I´ll just have to come up with some names and  Story lines for them now.

Burgundian Field Artillery - Mars

The Sculpting is the usual Mars Standard, not good and adding to the Problems of the sculpting, there´s a lot of Flash to deal with.
The Review at PSR Shows a bit of Flash but either they have got a sprue with less Flash or have removed most of it.
Both the bods and the guns suffer from it, in fact, I nearly gave up whilst removing it. Still, after the snipping and carving the bods and guns (the wheels are the worst part) they become a servicable if rough looking set.

The Bods.
6 on each of the 4 sprues.
One is Holding a rather large cannon ball that has a much larger caliber than either of the guns which goes for the swab sponge Held by another.

As with all the bods, the faces look a bit punched in.
The seated bod. Exactly what the blob is above his Hand and his ale mug is I don´t know. A rather large thumb?
The Standing bod. Under his right Hand is another undefinable object. I didn´t notice until I started painting but It appears to be the handle from a dagger.

The guns
One carriage, two wheels and a choice of two Barrels on each sprue.
No glueing necessary but the Wheel hubs Need a bit of Drilling out (a 0.8mm bit will do the Job) so the axles fit.

The Crew isn´t as good as the RedBox Hussite one but the guns are better, though not as good as the Zvezda guns.
Two spare sprues have gone onto the Bods 4 Sale page but as I´ve written, they do have a bit of Flash to remove.
As for the spare Barrels from the two sprues I´ve used? Without going to the effort of creating a carriage...a Small Bombard?

Ancient Roman Town - Update

Remember this lot?

The Project came to a Close a couple of years ago and basically the whole lot was destined  to spend its future in boxes in the cellar so rather than let it go to waste I put it up for sale HERE 
There (in the cellar) it remained until a couple of weeks ago when I got a message asking wether it was still up for sale and what scale it is.

Anyway, to cut a Long Story short it is now part of an interactive Project called "I Think I can" run  by the RSC..yep..the Royal Shakespeare Company in association with the Terrapin Puppet Theatre using the Buildings and 1/72nd scale bods (the roman citizen sets from Strelets and Linear-B) as the characters.
The idea of the project is;

Through puppetry, live video, and audience interaction, this innovative public artwork asks 'What would you like to be today?' engaging you in an optimistic task of collective storytelling

It starts tommorrow, the 25.07.17 and IMHO, it´s a great idea, just the sort of Thing I´d have been into as a nipper and I wish them all success with it.
Here´s a sneak Peak Video of the Project...recognise any of the Buildings? 

If the Video (by Kind permission) doesn´t work here´s the LINK

For more info on the Project look HERE
They´ve set up an online newspaper for the Project called "Avonville"

As our puppeteers animate the character in the miniature Roman world, you are invited to tell your character's story, which is then documented and will appear in the form of an online newspaper

Link to the Newspaper HERE

I mean, how cool is that? :-) 

Medieval Guards resting

I´ve painted up this lot before..nearly five years ago as a bunch of soldiers in the pay of sir  Hugh Jarse. Then I called it  "Medieval Picnic" but they are in fact called (as per the post titel)  VA126 "Medieval guards resting"  by  Valdemar-Miniatures
This lot are painted up for the 1329 Teutonic dio  in the same Red and White livery as the  Medieval Guards on Duty set
Two sets making a total of 14 bods, 2 tables, three benches (one was missing) and 2 dogs.

Normally he would be Holding something foodwise up to his mouth but I´ve added a crossbow so he can maybe be seated on a Barrel or whatever and be added to the Standing guards

Cimmerian Cavalry

Ten mounted bods and one foot bod who appears to be another Conan lookalike
Very little Flash, great sculpts, especially the nags.
Only one small, but solvable Problem. The bods don´t fit that well on the nags. The reason ? Thier legs aren´t wide enough appart to fit over the nags sturdy backs.
I tried the "hot water Treatment" to widen their legs but even then, seeing as there are no saddles, they didn´t seat properly  and fell off.  Normally, with mounted bods, I glue them into the saddle, the glue is then more or less hidden.
Solution ? As the bods needed holes drilled in thier rear Ends to enable easy painting (they get then jammed onto Cocktail sticks which are supported in wine corks ) it made sense to drill a hole in the nags backs in roughly the area where the saddle would have been,  add a short length of wire which the bod was then pushed onto.

As with the first set of foot cimmerians I gave them reddish hair.

Loads of Fantasy  stuff like maces, Axes and horned helmets

"Come on then!! I´ll have the lot of ya!!!

Is the bod meant to be Conan ? I reckon so. The pose and kit are  directly taken from the 1980´s Conan films starring   Arnold Schwarzenegger

I´ve still not given them a  flag (do they Need one?)  but I reckon something with a bull would be good.

Dark Alliance Orcs - set 3

Still in Fantasy mode...Another 10 orcs to add to the warband..and with this lot, an Orc female!?

Chunky in the sculpting but they are orcs so the sculpting style fits

The female. Is there such a Thing as a female orc? Whatever, she´s a bit of an oddity and doesn´t fit alongside the rest of the sets so she´s become an Elf  or possibly Amazon fighter.

I´m telling you Morgu, that aint no orc!!

Conan and Friends

...Friends ? Knowing how Conan carries on they will probably end up as foes...and then dead.

Anyway, it isn´t Conan and friends but Redbox´s Cimmerians set1.

These aren´t, by any Stretch of the Imagination, the lot from antiquity or possibly not those inhabiting the fictional world of Cimmeria, thought up by Robert E. Howard.  There, they appear to be more or less a Stone age type of People who distained armour as cowardly so it more or less Counts this lot out .

So, Fantasy warrior bods who are definitely not the ones mentioned by the Assyrians in the 8th Cent BC but could be the R.E Howard type Cimmerians, only clothed and armed in the Heavy Metal mag style.
TBH, I don´t care, I like em as they are.

Seeing as one or two of them have a Viking/Dwarf look about them I went with reddish Brown hair.

Stupidly...I´ve painted up and added one from set two..the one on the far right. I did wonder why there are 11 poses instead of the ten pictured on the box

The one on the left. At first I thought it was a female bod.

Conan ?

"I´ll be back!!"

I decided what this lot will represent or on what side they will be. That means I haven´t yet come up with any shield designs or a suitable Standard.

Caeser Orcs - set 2.

What is there to say about them ? Nice poses, 13 0f them so unlucky for some,  Little Flash and made from hardish plastic.
The only small Thing, they are a wee bit bigger than the previous set but fit perfectly alongside them.

Close ups

This pair have seperate arms Holding the weapons but attaching them was easy and no glue needed to Keep them in place.

Both sets together, including a few conversions from set 1.

Just under 4 weeks ago we took in a three legged (yes 3 legged) cat and her kittens. She lost her rear right leg in some sort of accident, crawled home after being missing for nearly a week with both back legs severly mangled and one had to be removed.
The owners were moving flat just as the three nippers were born so due to the chaos of the move, they came to us. They will stay with us until the kittens are independant, two males will go to friends, the female will stay with us, the mother goes back to the owners.

Aint he cute!!!! ?

Burgundian Pikeblock (Mk 2)

As with the Mk 1 Burgundian Pikeblock  I´ve haven´t entirely stuck to the  the Livery colour combination of white on the right and blue on the left but mixed it, blue on right and White on left as it looked less uniformed and, as with the first block,  I got bored painting them all the  same :-D

This lot,  48 bods in total,  are a mix of 4 manufacturers and 9 sets.
Ultima Ratio´s Swiss Infantry (Uri) and Swiss Infantry (Bern)
RedBox´s  Burgundian Infantry and Knights (Set 1)) and  Burgundian Infantry and Knights (Set 2) 
Minart´s  Swiss Infantry. Strangely, although the sprues are only a few years old the plastic has gone brittle, only half a dozen survived the process of being removed from the sprues and having wire pikes added.
RedBox´s      Hussite Infantry, Town & County Levy, Men-at-Arms and Retinue and Continental Mercenaries
Flags are from Dansk Figursspilforening

Any bods carrying a pike (or I wanted a pike instead of a halberd) had it replaced with one made from Florist wire. A few head swops, the bugler from the RedBox Men-at-Arms and Retinue set had his arm repositioned and  all but one of the Bannerols (the Little pennons attached to thier helmets) were removed from the RedBox  Burgundian Infantry and Knights (Set 1)) and  Burgundian Infantry and Knights (Set 2) 
Both Burgundian pikeblocks together, Mk1 being entirely made up from Minart´s Swiss infantry set

A swiss Pikeblock is in the making and a Mk2 Swiss pikeblock in the planning stage.

15th Century Burgundian Infantry and Knights

Taken a bit of time to get this post set up, my PC ended went to the big electronic graveyard last week and getting used to a laptop takes a while.
Two sets again. This time, RedBox´s 15th Century Burgundian Infantry and Knights sets 1 & 2.
A lot of them can be added to the Ultima Ratio Swiss infantry sets or mixed with other Redbox WotR´s  sets, the only small Problem, the embossed burgundian crosses need removing on a few of them.

Set one.
Mainly heavy infantry. Nearly half of them have Bannerols (Little pennons/flags) on their helmets. While this isn´t incorrect, a bannerol was carried by the Squadron leaders, Conductors and Chief de Chambre , it does seem excessive with nearly half of them having one. Still, it gives a choice as to which bod is a leader type and they are easy enough to remove.

Set 2
Mainly pikemen. Again, a lot of bannerols but again, easy to remove.
The molded pikes? IMHO, too thick and a wee bit too short for my liking, not only that, one or two suffered from "brewers droop"  so I replaced them with Florist wire.
Not only  are the molded pikes  (IMHO) too short, thick or droopy  but a couple of poses have got  a lot of extra plastic between the pikemen´s bodies and the pikes. Along with the pikes, this all needed removing.

The two at the front have had head swops

Some of these, the pikes and halberds, will, along with a few others, form a Mk2 Burgundian pikeblock. The rest will fill out the infantry blocks.