Hundred Years War: French (9)

A feast of images this week as the work on the Battle of Agincourt project continues with more French mounted men at arms and a selection of casualty figures are added to the collection.

This marks the first time in the project that I've got more French than English painted but I shall press on still as I really should have at least two Frenchman to every Englishmen.

As a part of this weeks efforts I painted a couple of packs of Perry Miniatures Hundred Years War casualties to use as markers or other litter my battlefields. My last order included a pack each of Men-at-arms casualties and Infantry casualties from their Agincourt range.

Great figures with bags of detail and for Perry metals surprisingly easy to clean up. The two packs comprise six figures each and a sprue of loose weapons in each pack.

Of the twelve figures seven are laid down dead, although the man at arms with the arrow sticking out of him is like not there yet, and still has potential for yeilding a ransom.

There are also four weapons in each pack, I only did half so far, planning to use the rest for conversions, this collection of sword, longbow, spear and crossbow are going to be useful for disorder markers or just fillers on the unit bases.

Finally five walking or at least kneeling dead and wounded. Bags of character here, the first chap is quite battered and looks to be surrendering his sword while the second chap pulls an arrow out of his arm. More on the third later, the fourth rests on his pole-arm while the last one looks like he has had enough!

These all appear a bit shiny, I took the precaution of adding a coat of gloss lacquer before the dull coat as they shall not usually be on a movement tray and are likely to get more rough handling than the troops.

That middle chap I am sure I have seen somewhere before.....

Yes, it's the Jolly Fisherman of so many holidays and day-trips of my youth! Maybe the Perry's took some local inspiration.

Also added are six more mounted French men at arms. All plastics made from the new Agincourt Mounted Knights 1415-29 set and based individually and mounted in some custom movement trays that I ordered from Warbases. I've now got 12 of these done, the last six were a couple of weeks ago.

I ordered this box directly from Perry Miniatures so I also ordered a couple of extra frames of their medieval horses so that I could build an extra six figures from the box.

In the standard pack you can make up to six of the figures as lighter horse in hauberks while the rest are armoured. If you add the extra horses you can make twelve fully armoured knights and six knights / sergeants in hauberks.

I'll hopefully get the final six from this box painted this week then shall make a start on more foot men at arms.

Here are a few close-ups of the individual men at arms.

This one is quite a simple 'white armour' job on his jet black charger. Most of the detail on this is just in the horses equipment.

The second figure was a bit of a fuck up in assembly, I stuck a plain armour body on a set of legs meant for a jupon or half coat, so he looks pretty odd from the back as his chevron is only on the front.

Looks like he picked up a cobweb on his lance during the dull-coat stage, I've since detached that.

The third chap is again quite a simple paint job, being mostly white armour. The simple green and white shield is quite effective, I had meant to add an heraldic device but forgot and had varnished him before I remembered, It may get added at a later date.

This shot of the figure nicely shows off the mail peytral and croupiere that come as part of this set.

This figure is made with one of the lighter figures in hauberk and padded aketon, this could represent a mounted sergeant or lower class man at arms.

More likely a man at arms though as his horse is modelled with both plate chanfron and peytral, although he could be riding his lords remount.

This one is in white armour with a reg/gold quartered jupon. The heraldic devices on the shield where added using a fine point Sharpie rather than trying to paint them on.

Although there are only three 'horse halves' in the set, the nine different combinations allow you to create many different dynamic poses for the horses. Then when you add the different heads and armour options you can field a lot of horses before they start to repeat.

This one in the buff aketon holding no weapon could be a groom riding his lords remount, or used as a scout riding out ahead of the force.

Hundred Years War: French (8)

More Hundred Years War finished this week with a dozen French Men at Arms joining the muster and a dozen peasants to set the scene.

All of them were made from components of the the Agincourt French Infantry 1415-29 and English Army 1415-1429 sets, but apart from a couple of them using standard French infantry bodies you could also use the Agincourt Foot Knights set.

I had a bit of a disaster with the Rustoleum grey primer going chalky and you may notice some of them look a bit rough because of that. It cannot be humidity related, we are talking a cold, dry Wisconsin winter here. I the same problem with my last can, maybe there is a bad batch in circulation.

Putting these away in the box today with the rest of the collection I noted that I now have 18 units done, 8 English and 10 French, it shall soon be time to stop skirmishing and start playing some big battles.

Some close-ups of the individual figures.

First man at arms in this batch is made using a body of the standard French frame, but works well as a man at arms.

Second figure in this group was one of the most badly affected in the priming incident. Shows more from the back though so hopefully not too much of a disaster.

Heraldry on the first figure was done with a Sharpie, much easier than trying to paint it on. Another use for that standard French body in the second figure. Third figure is practically a match for one of the examples given on the sheet in the French box.

First and third figures again were damaged in the primer incident. That green spear is especially rough.

I also took a break from the plastics and painted some of their metals and adding a dozen of their Late Medieval peasants to the collection.

Like all Perry metal figures they are wonderful sculpts that require a lot of cleaning up due to the poor mould making techniques used. For my painting I use a clean-up -> primer -> base-coat -> wash -> base-coat -> highlight -> highlight -> lining method and at each step you seem to find another bit of crud that you missed in the last step that you need to clean up before you can progress.

The first set is six chaps from the Peasants 1 pack. Lots of really useful poses that shall add a bit of life to the battlefield beyond the scrap. I can already visualise these as carters, farmers, drovers and tradesmen.

The second set are from the Peasants 2 pack. Two chaps, one of which looks like a member of some religious order so I painted the cross on his cloak, while the second appears more of a beggar, so I painted his cloak quite travel stained.

The ladies are all very well sculpted with lots of character, from left to right I envisage my medieval village being home to barmaid, leper, mother & daughter and proprietress.

After the aforementioned clean-up issues they are a delight to paint.

Hundred Years War: French (7)

I have painted my first six of the eagerly awaited Perry Miniatures Agincourt Mounted Knights 1415-29 set released just a few weeks ago. As I was ordering directly from Perry Miniatures I took note that although the box only contains 12 horses there are enough parts for 18 riders so I picked up a couple of extra frames of horses so for an extra fiver I shall be able to field three units from the box rather than two.

As with all the Perry Miniatures plastic sets they are really well done with plenty of options. The rider frame has plenty of men at arms in jupons and tabards etc. but there are also a couple of bodies to allow you to make lighter armed troops in hauberks as I did with the fellow with the blue over yellow shield.

I had planned originally to only get three of these figures done for the Analogue Hobbies Panting Challenge bonus round, but the harsh polar vortex kept me home most evenings this week so I was able to crack on and get the whole unit of six done.

The variety of components in the set mean that you can have a lot of options on the horse armour, from just a simple chanfron, then adding criniere, peytral right up to mail flanchards (none of these in this batch, but there shall be some in the next).

The only thing not included is any caparisons and I must admit not having to paint heraldry on them is a bonus.

I've taken a couple of close-ups of each of the men at arms and their horse to give you an idea of what can be built from the components in the box.

There are already another half-dozen assembled and primed and I hope to make a start on those this weekend.