On Flodden's Bloody Field

Since next month will be the 500th Anniversary of the Battle of Flodden Field, where the biggest and best equipped of the Scottish medieval armies stomped down a hill to it's doom at the hands of the venerable English brown bill, I thought I'd dig out my long-standing project of Essex 15s covering Jimmy the Four's grand soiree'  around North East England.

Started back in 2005-ish as an excuse to paint cannon (which i've still not done), I'd run out of steam on them some time ago, but recently started up again (by doing some flags for 'em on the computer!)

Unfortunately, when I started these, i was going through my "Gloss varnish is the future, I've seen it" phase, with the net result that the figures are virtually bombproof when it comes to unscheduled flights from the tabletop, and they look impressive at 3 foot distant, they look a damn sight less so at close range...

However, in the interests of nostalgia, here we go;

The man in charge- James IV of Scotland, by the grace of God

I do of course realise that the Herald should also be wearing the Lion Rampant, but hey ho...

The Earl of Atholl's Regiment. First of the much vaunted, but ultimately doomed pike phalanxes

Clan Robertson. I have yet to find any documentary evidence of their being at Flodden (and I strongly suspect they weren't), but since they were strong supporters of the Stewarts as a whole and the Jamesean monarchs in particular, I thought I'd include them (and a little bit of Clan loyalty never goes amiss either...)

Still to come are further pike blocks for the Earl of Bothwell (a major player) and the Earl of Eglinton (somewhat less so) and the Town Levy of Perth (nearly finished!) accompanied by the border lances of the Maxwells (who will be remaining firmly in the saddle this time around). I'll also do the grand battalion of james himself, to lead bravely to his doom. As you can see, I'm not doing a unit for unit representation of the Flodden Army, but rather sticking to units with a geographical link to each other- Clan Robertson, Perth and Atholl are all of the same area in the south eatern limits of the Highlands, and Bothwell, Eglinton and Maxwell all held lands round about where I stay just outside Glasgow.

At the moment, progress is slow, and I don't forsee having them anything like finished in time for the anniversary (still up to my eyes in redcoats and BAOR!) but it's the thought that counts!

Cheers
Iain.

Denizens of Discworld

Bit of a change of tone here from the last few posts! Some 30mm Discworld sculpts from MicroArt Studios, showing Arch-Chancellor Mustrum Ridcully, His Grace The Duke of Ankh Commander Sir Samuel Vimes and Corporal Cecil Wormsborough St. John "Nobby" Nobbs of the City Watch. The scuplts are based on the illustrations of Paul Kidby (of whom I am a mahoosive fan), which lead to something of a double take for me when I came across them; I'd always thought that 28mm sculpts basedon Kidby's artwork would be just about the doggiest of danglies, and one day whilst cruising teh interwebs, I found these on Kidby's site. I'm now slightly concerned someone stalks my dreams and steals my ideas...but, ahem, however, I digress...

Mustrum Ridcully

Commander Vimes

Corporal Nobbs

I added mail to the shoulders of Vimes and Nobby, to better match the descriptions in the book, and in Vimes' case to obscure the sergeant's chevrons he has for some reason (some confusion with Sergeant-At -Arms Keel, perhaps...?)

The cobblestones were sculpted from green stuff, and the water on Nobby's base is PVA painted with Tamiya Clear Colours. Currently waiting in the wings are Sgt Colon, Sybil Vimes and Errol the Dragon, and since the range keeps expanding, I'd probably better get me finger out...

Cheers
Iain. 

2nd BAOR Infantry Section so far...

As mentioned in the last post, "B" Section are coming along nicely...

1st brick- Corporal, rifleman, Charlie G No.1 and No.2

Corporal's nearly finished, just needs his SLR and boots highlighted...

Again, I've gone fo some tropical trousers on some of the figures to break up the sea of DPM a bit...

At time of typing, the first brick is acually pretty much ready for basing, just needs the webbing on the CharlieG No.2 doing and that's it.

Cheers
Iain.

20mm BAOR infantry

Prior to obtaining proper blue backing paper, I had a wee experiment with some blue paper towelling as a backdrop. Worked out quite well if you ignore the patterned background!

Figures are from the ever impressive Elhiem range. These being the original BAOR sectionon patrol, I painted these up last year, and have been awaiting more BAOR from Elhiem's workbeinch ever since. Now they've arrived, these guys should get some support shortly. I've made a start on the second infantry section already, and they seem to be coming along nicely...

Cheers
Iain.

A draft from home...

Some reinforcements for the beleagured Royal Welch have arrived on American shores at last! Nearly finished the unit, 2 more to go...

Just realised I've forgotten to add some tufty grass to the base of the chap biting a cartridge. Will get that sorted out next. Quite pleased how the unit have been turning out so far, hopefully I can keep it up for two more figures...

Cheers
Iain.

Further experiments in photography

Following on from my previous machinations, I went out taday and picked up some grey and blue backing paper for photographs. Both seemed to work, well, but  on getting the pictures onto the computer, the blue paper definitely had the edge.

This is an old Airfix 1/76 Chieftain MBT, which I've had knocking around for years now. Not entirely sure what will become of it; might end up in a diorama, or be used as a gaming piece with my 20mm BAOR project. Anyway, the pictures came out OK...

 

It's a bit of a hodgepodge of different marks, and it needs more weathering on the engine bay, but at 3 foot distant it looks the part!

Cheers,

Iain

On The Eve of The War- WIP 15mm Feudal Scots

A project I got started on some time ago, and have since got sidetracked away from (temporarily!). Started of as being the Army of Alexander III or John Balliol, purely as an excuse to do all the Scottish heraldry in one place, rather than having to try and figure out who was on what side at any given time, and to avoid the more cliched Army of Wallace/ Bannocknburn 1314 type Scots Common force.

However, the potential for forward stretch was too tempting, and I've started to plan alternative command bases with different commanders dependent on the period, making sure the knights that most commonly fought on one side or another are based together, etc, etc...

But, as is my wont, other periods called, and construction has stalled a bit, but here's some shots of where I'm up to so far...

Spearmen, lead by the Bishop of Glasgow, Robert Wishart. He's the bloke in armour, not the monk (who's probably being told by the good Bishop to go melt down more church roof lead for trebuchet counterweights...), since Wishart didn't take a sedentary approach to the struggle for Independence; there's a brillian whnging letter sent by one of the English Commanders to Edward I, complaining that Wishart was commanding the siege of Cupar attired "Like a man of war", and was also subsequently to be found using wood given to him by Edward for repairing church buildings damaged by his forces, instead for building siege engines. Good lad, that.

The banner was run up on the computer, using a drawing/photo-editting package, and printed off on a normal household printer onto cartridge paper. Whilst I don't mind painting my banners, enamels and paper aren't always the best of friends, and since I'm something of a late convert to pre-printed flags, I thought I may aswell put my training to work (I was a graphic designer in a former life), and make my own, especially since my chosen sibjects are rarely covered by manufactures. Gives something distinctive for the peasants to rally round anyway...

...and their Social Betters. The original raison d'etre for the army, the kinigits. I had visions of re-fighting the battle of Dunbar, but with the Scots Knights being told to hold the damn line, just to see what would happen. I'm going to end up with far more bases of knights than DBM calls for, but hey, where's the fun in that...?

From left to right, the earls of Atholl, Ross, Strathearn, Mar, and Buchan, and the John "The Red", Lord of Badenoch.

Despite what populist history loves to tell us, Scotland was not this small,impoverished nation incapable of fielding heavy cavalry, quite the opposite. One only has to look at the muster rolls of Edward I, that show Scots serving in English garrisons, all armed and equipped, by their own means, to the same standard as their English colleagues. Had they been unable to equip themselves to this standard, they would not have been accepted for service, certainly not in the capacity of "Armati", or man-at-arms, that they are shown as drawing pay as. Of course, Scotland could never match the numbers of mounted men-at-arms as England, for obvious reasons; but to say that Scotland's cavalry were all hunched spearmen riding ponies, lead by the odd nobleman who had risked all to defy the King of England, is just perpetuating the same tripe that's been fed to schoolkids since the 60's. I don't have the space to go into detail here, but if you're interested, I would recommend reading some of Chris Brown's works, notably "Scottish Knights of The Wars of Independence", for a breakdown on the research and reasoning behind this.
Cheers
Iain.