Poilu Reinforcements

On the run up to my vacation I ran out of Hundred Years War figures to paint, Oh the horror! However a swift order to Arcane Scenery did remedy that and on the day before I went on vacation I had another couple of boxes of Perry Agincourt arrive.

With no Hundred Years War to paint it was time to clear some of the lead mountain and earn myself another point in the squirrel duel, so I dug out the last nine Brigade Games WWI French infantry from the order I had in 2018 and got to work on those in the meanwhile.

Most of my WWI collection is from the Gripping Beast "Woodbine Designs" range but the Brigade Games stuff does mix in well. There are two distinct sculptors on the Brigade Games range though, the hands and faces on some of the figures show this up the most.

The first group is five riflemen three are mounted individually and the remaining two as a pair.

The Horizon Bleu recipe I use is based on a 'Bondi Blue' paint from a very old Gripping Beast paint set, unfortunately they don't seem to do it any more and I am still looking for a good match, although with plenty enough French for my games I'm not really sure if I need much more.

In this order I went a bit mad on ordering Chauchat teams, and this painting session saw another two completed.

I tried to capture the 'blasted ground' of the Verdun battlefield on the bases. The remnants of barbed wire entanglements are sealing wire wrapped around cocktail sticks and the groundwork is pumice gel is mixed into a paste with grit and static grass and then some Vallejo Flat Earth is stirred in and the gooey mess is slathered all over the base.

Hundred Years War service shall resume shortly....

Hundred Years War: English (9)

Richard de Vere the 11th Earl of Oxford was commander of the English rear-guard at Agincourt and one of those 'happy few'.

The figures are all from the Perry plastics range, mainly the 'English Army' set, but Oxfords sword arm is from the 'Agincourt Knights' set.

I made a simple sabot command stand as a test piece, 50mm MDF circle made up with DAS clay to 'socket' the bases. Not that happy with the result but it shall suffice, maybe another custom order to Warbases is needed.

I'm out of figures for this project now, so a new order has been placed on Arcane Scenery, I took them on vacation with me and now have 72 figures assembled and ready for some paint.

More to come.

Hundred Years War: French (10)

This week I finished off the last six French mounted Men at Arms from the box of Perry Miniatures Agincourt Knights. I'm not usually somebody who enjoys painting cavalry but these have been a delight to get done.

The standard is Comte d’Alencon from Battle Flag and is carried by a mounted sergeant made up from one of the lighter bodies in the set.

Of these last six I used three of the lighter armed bodies in hauberks and aketons, as I mentioned before if you buy a box of the figures directly from the Perry's it makes a lot of sense to buy the extra medieval horses as you shall get 18 figures out of the box rather than six.

Here are some individual close-ups, the first being a mounted sergeant in the livery of the city of Rouen.

A mounted man at arms, his charger has mail peytral and croupiere.

The second is a mounted sergeant carrying the standard of the Comte d’Alencon.

The third is a mounted man at arms in white armour with arms azure a chevron or. A design from my own imagination, there were about 16000 French men at arms at Agincourt, somebody must have had this.

A mounted sergeant in simple aketon.

The final knight has arms gules a cross or. He has a cloth covered aventail, a nice feature available in the box.

I thought that as I had completed all the Agincourt Knights that I bought this would be a good place to show a group shot of all 18.

I'm also pretty much out of figures for this project now, a dozen pavisers are awaiting shield transfers from LBMS and the last few  English men at arms shall be in another post.

After these I was left with five figures to paint so I completed the small group below.

The flag is Sieur Chaunot from the Hundred Years War range from Battle Flag and is likely a little early for Agincourt, but adds some colour. The flags are a little large for the Perry standard poles so I had to trim it a little.

These shall come in handy if I need to stretch out a few extra units for a game and I'll add to them when my next order arrived.

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.