At Last!

Back in the early Spring Phil and I tootled over to the Newark Showground to attend 'Ommer'ead. We'd actually resolved not to go this year, but the unexpected cancellation of WMMS lead to our plans being reappraised. One of my purchases there, from show stalwart Dave Thomas, was the Perry Miniatures baggage wagon set from their Wars of the Roses range. It has sat in the Lead Pimple ever since, the very definition of an impulse purchase if ever I've made one! Well last month I finally resolved to assemble the kit of parts and spray undercoat it ready for it's encounter with the Brush of Doom! It's not been exactly plain sailing I have to say...

Phil would tell you that my patience, in respect of hobby stuff at least, is not the greatest. Instead of thinking ahead about the painting process I moved right ahead to cleaning up and assembling the cart, the load, the oxen and the figures! Partly I confess because Superglue and I do not enjoy a disaster free relationship...

You'll hopefully recall this picture from an earlier post! It neatly leads me on to cataloguing my problems at the painting stage, starting with the oxen. The beasts' heads needed fixing to the bodies, but that meant fixing in place the yokes first. I assembled each pair, only later realising how fiddly painting them would be once I'd glued each pair onto their bases. Similarly with the cart, I glued the resin cast load into place on the cart bed and then glued the side pieces to the bed and load. I never thought about the painting stage at this point. If I'd left off fixing the cart wheels and fittings painting would have been more straightforward, but hindsight is a mixed blessing.

There was a good deal of overpainting, repainting and accompanying curses along the way either side of our trip Oop North and liberal washes of Agrax Earthshade to disguise the myriad mistooks! Most difficult at the end was painting the two civilian cart passengers as I fixed them in place again without considering the painting process on small pieces firmly attached to the whole piece. You can judge for yourselves, it would look good 'to a blind man on a galloping horse' as my late father would surely have remarked ~

I added the musician figure to create a bit of interest, its probably from their 100 Years War range. It was in one of Aly's packages for the deserving poor!

Agrax Earthshade covers a multitude of sins. It also helps the figures to stand out and look a little better than they really are!

As I hope you can see in the final picture, the musician adds a point of interest and colour to the mostly dull look of the baggage set.

Still, its done now, so on to other things in due course. I thought I'd round the post off with a couple of holiday snaps, à la Matt ~

Pagecroft Cottage, near Haydon Bridge and handily placed for the more accessible parts of Hadrian's Wall.

And the view from our cottage's front porch. It takes a lot of that to make you ill!

Finally, a  bit of Wall...

Hadrian of Wall fame!

At Chesters fort museum, a bronze tablet, the reward for 25 years service gifting Roman citizenship!

The wall from Housesteads Fort...

...bleak does not even come close to describing its location the day we climbed up to visit!

Reconstructed sections at Vindolanda,  both in timber and in later stone.

Gladiators immortalised in glass. I find it amazing how it survives!

Adapting to the posting, evolution of the Roman soldier's appearance on the wall.

The different styles of armour shown at the Roman Army Museum, a twinned visit with Vindolanda at £20 each for both. We split our visit to each over two days.

And finally, we never did encounter that ghostly Roman soldier though...

Something Old...

...Something New, as the saying goes. Well, after the title for this blog entry I'm confident you might be expecting  an exciting reveal, something new for an old project perhaps?Never mind, its hardly new or for an old project, so you may simply put any confusion down to my age! In the last post I mentioned that I had assembled and spray undercoated the Perry Miniatures Wars of the Roses baggage wagon set, which I had purchased from Dave Thomas at 'Ommer'ead back in March this year ~

Here it is before the spray undercoat was applied. For those interested in such things, I use Hycote Double Acrylic white from the local Home & Motor store, just under £5.00 a can! I think I have mentioned this before now I come to think on it.

Before travelling Oop North I had some unplanned time at my painting desk and so I've made a start on painting it. So far I have finished the four oxen, the drover, and an additional figure from Aly's earlier gift parcel - you'll have to wait to see him though! I've also applied the base colour to the woodwork of the cart ready for the application of a colour wash or two. 

But first we are spending some time with Hadrian...starting in Hexham Abbey and this memorial tablet for Flavinus, a standard bearer in the Petriana Cavalry Regiment, on display at the foot of the Night Stairs.

Going off at a tangent I recently received in the post a copy of the new edition of my rules for the Anglo-Zulu War, Washing the Spears.  These are published by arrangement with Partizan Press via Dave Ryan at Caliver Books and are priced at £17.50. If sales go as expected then there may at some point also be new editions of my other C19th rules, for the Sudan and the Indian Mutiny.  I had seen the layout during the design stage but nothing beats handling the finished product in my opinion.  The graphic designer has made a splendid job of the layout, so I hope that you won't mind if I modestly recommend them to you if you are interested in the period. Like all sensible rules they are scale and figure agnostic. 

Another of those Friparies!

Well, actually three of them, but let's not be picky. You may have noticed that it was a tad warm last week, almost warm enough to tempt you to take off your vest perhaps? Not the sort of weather here in GHQ conducive to painting much, even less for cleaning up new figures and such? A good job then that rifling through the old Lead Pimple I found these bits ready for the Brush of Doom. Six mantlets from Wargames Foundry and three figures from Perry Miniatures which I have wrangled into three bases I can use in Italian Wars or Wars of the Roses games to afford some cover for the smaller guns, or combined with Chevaux des frise to provide defences in a seige game ~

Not as striking as those which come as a part of Perry Miniatures large bombard set - which you might recall I bought by accident - but a useful addition to the tabletop battlefield ephemera of two wargames collections ~

I thought that I should add some closer pictures of each base/set just for completion ~

I think the figures are sufficiently generic to pass in both collections. We just need an excuse to get one or other of them out on the tabletop battlefield here in GHQ for a game in the coming weeks...

Richard Fiennes, Lord Dacre

The last base/unit of MAA for the Yorkist faction has endured its time under the Brush of Doom and has mustered into GHQ in support of Edward's claim to the throne of England, though not quite in time for last Thursday's game with Paul it should be noted!

The figures are from three different packs by Perry Miniatures, the Banner from Freezywater Publications, and the base as ever from Warbases, static grass from Jarvis and tufts from Gamer's Grass via Great Escape Games ~

Not much more I can say about them at this point in time really! I have started on my last retinue for the Yorkists now, working first on the four figures for the small Command base and then the archers for the base of Bows. There will be more about these in due course once the final base of Billmen which I'm currently working on are completed. That will then leave just one base of MAA for my Lancastrians and all are mustered into GHQ! So as we stumble into the Festive Season some progress is being maintained, albeit in shorter sessions due to my eye issues. While I am still enjoying painting the figures for my Wars of the Roses project,  a part of me is quite looking forward to working on something different again! But first, the last base of Billmen needs my attention of course...

"Buckingham, and all the crew of them..."

Somehow I omitted to pass all of the mounted Knights/MAA over to Phil for horse painting! {It must be due to old age and memory loss Sue says to cheer me up!} Nothing daunted I have tackled these three figures entirely myself rather than wait until Phil can fit them in. The figures are from Perry Miniatures but in this instance the Standard was made for me by my friend George Anderson. They will represent Buckingham and his mounted Household element in our games. Like all the other bases of mounted figures they can also double as Command Stands in our games using Midgard or Hail Caesar, or even as Champions in Midgard ~

Buckingham take post in command of the Lancastrians' right.

All being well the next element to pass under the brush of doom will be a further light artillery piece and crew, though not for a week or so now as Sue and I are enjoying some overdue R&R in the South Lakes area in the company of Phil and Di. So by way of a bonus here is the complete collection to date drawn up on the tabletop battlefield here in GHQ ~

And that's it, for the present at least,  time for some R&R is calling ~

"Have with thee, Pole!"

As I mentioned at the conclusion of my previous blog entry, the next figures to pass across the painting desk and muster into GHQ comprised a base of Billmen and MAA to complete the Retinue for John de la Pole. The figures for this Retinue are from the small Eureka Miniatures range and from Perry Miniatures' European Armies range stiffened by a couple of MAA from their War of the Roses range, one of whom bears a de la Pole Banner from Pete's Flags via Ebay. 

Figures on the Retinue command base are from Eureka Miniatures supplemented by a MAA from Perry Miniatures' War of the Roses range and a drummer from their European Armies range.

The base of Bowmen are from the small Eureka Miniatures Medieval/C15th range. They are at the pricier end of the available figure ranges but for my money are worth it. Both the sculpting and the casting are superior to the metal figures from Perry Miniatures, in fact if the range were ever expanded I'd certainly add more.

The base of Billmen are from Perry Miniatures,  the bills from their European Armies range and the two MAA from their Wars of the Roses range. The banner is from Pete's Flags and the base from Warbases as ever. 

As I had completed the last of the nine mounted Knights/MAA where Phil had painted the horses and I had the Standard of John de la Pole still unused it seemed only proper that he should join his Retinue.

So here they all are joining the Yorkist ranks just in time hopefully for our first run through in mid October, once Sue and I are home from our jaunt 'Oop North' with Phil and Di. Meanwhile, I see that Perry Miniatures are hiking their prices from the beginning of October. Time to stock up I think while I can afford it...