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.