28mm Landschneckts

What! Another period I hear the bewildered cries going up...

Block of twenty Landschneckts, ready to serve English or Scots overlords

But no, not a new period, rather an extension of an existing period that I have been building armies in for the last couple years. In my research of the Scots & English Armies in the 1500s, I was reading Osprey's lovely Scottish Renaissance Armies 1513-1559, Men-at-Arms book. Imagine my surprise when I found that both the English and Scottish were regularly using German, Spanish & Italian mercenaries to bolster their forces at home.

Another view, from the left

Fortuitously, I happened to have some sprues of Warlord Games Landschneckt Pikeman at hand and I started to build some to see if I could do the figures justice. I must admit that I was somewhat nervous of taking on such a mini project - largely due to their extravagant dress sense - and the fact that the last time I did an Landschneckt Army as about 30 years ago in 15mm. It nearly killed me!

Final view of the bock from the other side!

So these figures were actually a joy to build and paint. That said I split the unit into two groups, first a batch of eight figures and then a second batch of twelve figures

The first batch of eight figures that I painted and was pleased with so...

... I did a second batch of twelve.

Simply add a random head to a torso, add arms and then a sword and the figure as pretty much built. I opted to arm a couple of the figures with Halberds, as the pike arms were missing and I had suitable arms available from the Wargames Atlantic Conquistador kit.

The models by rank to give a better view

Figures were undercoated in white before being 'dressed' with various random-ish colour combinations. For most figures I did not try to do all the slashes and contrasting lining colours but instead relied on ink washes to give those highlights and lowlights. Instead I concentrated on interesting colour combinations on the stripes and the various combinations of leggings and sleeves.

Second rank, some heads from Wargames Atlantic

Once completed the hands and faces were washed in sepia ink to give a arm flesh shade and then the clothed areas were washed with watered down Army Painter Dark Tone inks. All figures were based on 20mm round bases, to allow the figures to take a 'close order' formation, I'll also be looking at getting some movement trays to make the whole movement thing easier!

And more to give a good overview. Those that were not armoured were given
leather 'Jacks' to wear to help give some consistency to the unit.

Next is to source a few figures to do some command figures,  drummer, officer and a couple standard bearers, with the aim of taking the unit up to 24 or 25 figures.

Front Rank with two Halberdiers on each flank. Halberds from Wargames Atlantic

More 28mm Elizabethans

Here is my second batch of Wargames Atlantic Elizabethans, six of these little chaps are straight out of the packet, whilst the other four have been constructed using the spare parts from the WA kit and mashed together with Warlord Games plastic ECW figures to give some additional figures that can be used.

The completed batch of ten new figures

If you look carefully you should be able to figure out which ones are originals and which ones are conversions.

Two, two-handed swordsmen! Left is built using Warlord Games ECW torso, right is 100% Wargames Atlantic

To paint these guys, I undercoated in white and then for most the figures I used a linen colour to represent undyed materials making up shirts, hose or jacks. A few brighter colours were then added, sparingly, to brighten up the figures - such as hats, pants and hose - before applying either gunmetal for armour or a buff colour for leather.

Two sword & buckler men, both 100% WA figures,
although I have sapped in bucklers from other WA kits.

I used a sepia wash to add highlighting to the skin areas and a light brown ink on some of the shoes and bags, before applying a home made 'paynes grey' wash on all metal work to simulate bluing of the metal. A thinned down dark tone was used to shade most other colours.

A growing group of pikemen, unarmoured figures are Warlord Games mash-ups,
whilst outer, armoured figures are WA.

Overall a nice, simple group to add to the expanding Elizabethan collections

Finally two musketeers, left is 100% WA, right is based upon a Warlord Games ECW torso.

New Wargames 28mm Atlantic Conquistadors

I finally got my hands on a set of the new Wargames Atlantic Conquistadors,  28mm plastic figure set and they look very promising for my Anglo-Scots Elizabethan Wars project.

Six completed figures, representing the contents of the base sprue in the kit, the observant may notice that  I have used different base sizes. There is method to the madness, Halberdiers & Spearmen being classed as close-order troops whilst missile men and guys waving swords around would need more space to operate!

I have completed one sprue of the figures to date and they were simple to assemble, basically a torso to which you add a head (one of 18 variants on each sprue) and some arms, which then dictates which weapon combinations the figure has at his disposal.

Close-up of the Crossbow man

The options ae basically to build a sword & buckler, a Halberdier,  a crossbow man or a musketeer. The sprue also gives the option to build a drummer. There are 24 figures in a box, with 6 per sprue.  In ddition there is a second sprue for each figure sprue that enables an additional range of weapon options to be accessed - namely Spearmen and two-handed swordsmen. This second sprue also has an additional 8 head options plus hand swords for each figure.

And a close-up of the Musketeer

In all a huge range of figure variants will be able to be built and if the word from the manufacturers is correct they will be releasing addition 'variant' sprues, to enable these figures to be used in an even wider range of scenarios.

A Scots Sword & Buckler man, with plate armour

And in the interest of balance, an English Swordsman, in quilted jack 

These guys aren't heading off to the steamy jungles of South America, rather they will be on active service along the Scots Borders acting as Reivers or soldiers in Elizabeth or Mary's Armies - as I get to build them.

Possibly my favourite figure of the 6 so far, a Halberdier

Another obvious use for them is to combine the parts with the Wargames Atlantic Irish - to help me expand that force as well as (when the appropriate parts are released) to build a Spanish force that would be be carried by the Armarda...

Finally a Scots Spearman, in plate armour

AHPC XII: From MIke W - 28mm Elizabethan Irish Missile men

 You may remember earlier in this challenge that I completed a number of Irish Dark Age / Elizabethan figures in an earlier post this year, with the promise of converting a few remaining figures to be musketeers. Here they are accompanied with a trio of archers.

The group of eight Irish missile men

These figures are all Gripping Beast plastics, the archers from their Dark Age set and the Musketeers from their Irish set.

Three Irish Archers, centre & left have cloaks to add to their Irishness!

With the Archers I added a couple of cloaks to the figures to make them look more Irish, additionally a couple of the heads were substituted

Three Irish Musketeers, figure on right has extensive changes to get him to old a musket!

With the musketeers I 'liberated' suitable arms and weapons from the Warlord Games ECW plastic set and then did some pretty basis conversion work to add these to the Gripping Beast figures. Some cutting away of parts of the Irish figures to receive the Warlord arms was required along with quite some filling on the shoulder joints. The use of cloaks to disguise the worst gaps helped a lot!

Two marching musketeers

All figures were undercoated white and then suitable rustic colours, largely citadel 'Bubonic Brown' were applied to give that typical Irish look, before completing basic colours with flesh, browns, greens, grey and metallics etc. Washes were applied according to base colours to add shading and some highlights were re-applied using base colours.

After a matt varnish, basing was completed in my usual manner with fine sand and electrostatic grass.

Another view of the last two musketeers

AHPC XII: From Mike W - 28mm Irish Foot (Dark Age through Elizabethan)

 These figures are from the new Gripping Beast Dark Age plastic boxed set, that I acquired over the Xmas Holiday as a present. The aim is to paint these up to join my existing Irish collection, that I use for both Dark Ages / Medieval Saga type games and also allow these to be used in Elizabethan period games as well.

All 20 of the Irish Warriors

The Gripping Beast figures come 5 to a frame, with a selection of heads, weapons and shields.

Those in the know will spot that I have only built 20 of the 25 figures in the boxed set, there are two reasons for this...

The first five Irish Warriors, I've gone with the smaller shield option as this allows
me to use them in later periods, and I have stuck to a muted colour scheme. The guy with the raised axe is the only one I have equipped with a large shield.

First I only started on Monday with a frame of these as a tester, whilst in between other figures that I have on the workbench but I enjoyed making up these figures and painting them so much that on Tuesday I made-up and painted another five.

Wednesday evening  upped the ante and made 10 more figures before painting these and completing their washes and varnishing on Thursday. Almost a definition of a true squirrel project.

Cloaks are optional on figures, there are three per frame supplied with the set

Oh and for the second reason - I held back five figures as I want to model these with muskets and or cross-bows to give them a more specific Elizabethan usage.

The figures are virtually flash free and to add variety I used some other Gripping Beast heads and arms from the spares box.

I swapped around heads from the spares box, there is a Victrix Anglo-Dane head and a Gripping Beast Dark Ages Warrior head here. I also gave the guy wit the raised sword an arm from the Conquest Games Norman set - to give a better quality Sword for him to be waving around

All figures were undercoated white, I used a predominantly yellow ochre type colour scheme for these men - to fit in with others in my collection but added more colours in their additional layers of clothing and cloaks. 

All got a watered down black ink wash and a varnish before being based.

The last set of five figures in this batch.

A Squirrel Point is claimed for Irishness of the group in Dark Ages / Elizabethan times

I'll also claim a Bonus for visiting Caprica, the Irish were doomed as a fighting force against the overwhelming power of the invading Normans and English throughout this period.

POINTS

AHPC XI: From MIke W - 22 x 28mm Elizabethan Irish Kerns

 In today's post, I am 'show & telling', I am posting about a batch of Wargames Atlantic, plastic 28mm Irish Kerns. The set is marketed as Dark Ages / Medieval period figures but these generic fighting times remained largely unchanged in Ireland for centuries - thus I am calling them out as Elizabethans.

The completed batch

These figures are simple to build, coming as a frames of six figures which typically ae full torsos plus an arm. Thus when building these you just need to add a weapon arm, a head and a shield.

Another view

And another...

There are many other detailed parts to opt (or not) to apply to the figures, including cloaks, knives, swords etc. Once built I glued them to 20mm round bases and undercoated in white.

A close up of five of the little guys.

Overall a quick way to bulk out any Irish Army at a reasonable cost.

Five more

I used an old pot of Citadel Bubonic Brown for the distinctive ochre coloured dress that these guys wore and then added a random number of coloured jackets. Flash was then added and then spear-staff and Shields were coloured in.

Five more, the guy in the red jacket would likely be a higher status individual

When painting completed and mistakes rectified, I gave the skin areas a watered down Army Painter Flesh wash and then the rest of the figure a watered down Strong Tone wash.

Final close-up batch, seven figures with the leader in a cloak out front.

Figures were completed with a Matt varnish and the bases were covered with fine sand and electro-static grass.

How they started, I nearly forgot to take a photo -
so here undercoated and a couple with initial paint applied

AHPC XI - From Mike W, 28mm Gallowglas Warriors

As had hoped, I have now been able to complete a historical group of figures, although there are plenty of Fantasy figures still in the pipeline and about to be finished!

A bag of Gallowglas found hiding at the bottom of a drawer

I have returned with a small group of 10 x 28mm Irish Gallowglas miniatures, I missed these a couple of weeks back when I did a similar batch - the downside of having a metal pile kept in a drawer - you never find everything all at once...

I believe that these figures are from Reiver Miniatures and there are three poses, two in chain mail shirts and one in a padded coat.

The completed group of figures

I was going to do some head swaps to add a little variety, but I forgot and undercoated them before I remembered what I had planned, instead I moved one two handed swords from an archer figure and added  to one of the figures running with a lochinbar axe..

So as usual I undercoated these figures in white before using a generic 'Linen' colour to block in all the padded shirts - and under shirts for those in mail. 'Oily Steel' was used for the chainmail, helmets and sword blades before applying flesh colour to hands and legs and faces.

Three archers, I swapped out the big double handed sword on the middle figure

Various shades of hair were added and then leather straps, scabbards and quivers before going round all over again to correct any smudges and 'over painting'.

... and added it to the back of one of the charging figures, for dramatic effect!

Again I used coloured inks from Army Painter to add definition - flesh tone on skin, Strong Tone on all other areas apart form the metal work, which had Dark Tone applied. All washes were watered done by about 50% to avoid staining the underlying paint.

Possibly my favourite pose of the three, a mailed warrior 
with a double handed sword, ready to strike.

Matt varnish was applied when the inks were dry and then basing was done using fine sand and electrostatic grass.

AHPC XI - Mike W, 28mm Elizabethan Irish Kerns and Gallowglas

Today's post sees me flitting back to my Wargames Club's current project - Border Ruffians & Elizabethan Wars in Ireland to paint 15 x 28mm foot figures. I'm so shallow that any reason to change my focus from one project to another will likely distract me!

The Lot as it arrived from eBay

Seven of these little guys represent Gallowglas warriors whist another four represent Kern skirmishers and a final four represent a group of musketeers.

The finished figures

The figures were sourced from an eBay lot that I acquired over the summer but did not have time to paint at the time, three of the Gallowglas figures came without heads so I sent away for some resin Elizabethan heads and added these heads to these figures.

Four of the Gallowglas, all in mail shirts and wielding large axes

Interestingly, I did not realise that at this time the Gallowglas were typically Scots mercenaries that were used to stiffen the forces of the various Irish warlords. In fact in Irish Gaelic, 'Gallowglas' means Foreign Warrior! It was only that I picked up and flicked through a book on the subject that I found out and that was enough to divert me to do these little guys...

Rear view of three of the Gallowglas that have 
additional two handed swords to play with...

The three Gallowglas figures who had head transplants!

The four kerns have a variety of weapons, typically javelins, although a couple have swords. The guy the red tunic would be of higher status.

The four Kerns armed with Javelins, Shields and Swords

Finally I have done four guys with muskets, these guys would have been better paid than regular Kerns and they would have spent their money on better clothes - as per the guy in the red cloak and breaches, or protective helmets etc.

The four musket armed figures with sexy hats, pants and cloak!

Most of these figures arrived undercoated black, I added my own white undercoat and then painted on the generic light brown / ochre coloured cloth. Oily Steel was applied for helmets and chainmail before flesh colour was added for bare skin areas.

Other detail was added as needed before applying coloured washes from Army Painted to add shading. This is a different approach to how I have painted other figures in the collection, where I used a simple Dark Tone wash or Dip to add the shading, I like the results - a brighter, seemingly cleaner resulting figure.

I have a box full of these Irish to do but they would be ineligible for the challenge as many are already pre painted - my task (one day) is to take them off their group bases, repaint to integrate with my existing collection and then put on to single bases.

One day...