28mm 12th - 16th Century Irish Army

By Mike W

So after some time painting Irish troops for various periods, I have drawn these together into a single army that can, with suitable variation in units within the army, represent Irish forces pretty much anywhere between the 12th and 16th centuries.

The obvious thing to be aware of is the use of firearms, the musket armed troops would clearly need to be omitted form the earlier iterations of an Irish Army - as would any fellas with a Marian helmet .pre early 1500s.

The whole army laid out with all troop options

Same from a slightly different angle

And again form the other side!

The core of the army is five warbands of warriors, either 20 or 25 figures strong, including a musician plus each has a chieftain to command it. It is at this point that it should be noted that a good 40% of the figures were originally form Steve's medieval collection, these however have all been repainted and rebased to fit in as best as possible with my own figures

A mix of Wargames Atlantic and Gripping Beast Irish figures

Another warband of Gripping Beast and Wargames Atlantic plastic figures,
this time 25 figures strong with a metal leader, originally form Steve's collection.

So about two of the warbands are made up of Wargames Atlantic & Gripping Beast plastic Irish figures, about about another two warbands are based around figures formerly in Steve's collection - I'm not sure of their manufacturer. The remaining 20% are from metals from Perry Miniatures, Redoubt Miniatures and I believe Essex. 

I have tried to pull these all 'together' buy using a similar paint job across the army, with an ochre coloured cloth as the based tone, with highlights in other, sometimes brighter colours.

Another 'large' 25 man warband, mostly made up of figures formally in Steve's collection,
repainted and rebased. Leader is one of mine and I think it is a Perry's figure.

The fourth Warband, again mostly figures that were originally Steve's
but also including an number of generic Dark Ages figures to bulk it out.

Fifth and final Irish warband, 20 figures strong with a Perry's leader and a Redoubt (?) drummer

Added to the base of five warbands I have two units of Gallowglass figures, armoured mercenaries wielding two handed swords and axes to drive fear into their enemies. The larger unit of these fearsome men are Perry Miniature figures.

Gallowglass Unit, predominantly Perry Miniatures but also some Redoubt and Essex guys as well!

A second, smaller twelve man band of Gallowglass,
these are all formerly from Steve's collection

The Army Commander is, I believe an Essex figure, I have given him a priest carrying a standard and also a personal champion. Whilst on the subject of Essex figures, its worth noting that the fairly large number of these in this army were originally sourced from Steve C's collection, these have all been repainted and rebased to fit in with my army's overall look & feel.

Army Commander with his Champion (right) and personal priest,
carrying the Army Banner, left. 

A Scots contingent of Musketeers and Archers,
all metal figures, not 100% sure of manufacturer,
these would be suitable for late 15th and early 16th Century periods.

Next come various missile men, whose use would vary according to the time period in which any game is set. I need to build these numbers up somewhat but there are about a dozed archers, a single slinger and seventeen musketeers!

Nine archers and a solitary Slinger! A mix of manufacturers

Three armoured Archers, formerly belonging to Steve

A group of Irish Musketeers, various manufacturers, including Wargames Atlantic,
Gripping Beast, Warlord Games and others. 

... and six more musketeers.

Another optional unit is the commander's retinue, these would work well in any late Medieval or Renaissance game but not really practicable in earlier periods.

Commander's retinue, suitable for later Middle Ages and Renaissance period games

Then we have the dogs!

Finally, no Irish Army would be worth it's salt if it did not include Wolf Hounds,
these ten are from Wargames Atlantic, Irish boxed set.

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 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