Milites Votadinorum I

Here is my starting army based and ready to be undercoated, just waiting 'till the weather clears up to start spraying. Two groups of warriors on foot and one mounted.
Milites Votadinorum or Milwyr Y Guotodin (if my Welsh is good enough).

Next are some pics of the new light cavalry command figures released on this Salute. The figure on the right is for the highlight, he holds his spear with both hands without a shield. He can be a descendant of the Sarmatian auxiliaries who were stationed in Brittania in times long past. The flagbearer will get a spear instead too, so will the hornblower is his free hand. The leader comes with a choice of sword and spear hands.

RB20 Light Cavalry Command

Ultimately these will be backed up with levy units and additional warriors and elites.
For levies north of Hadrian's Wall I chose the new Picts of Curteys Miniatures that came out on Salute this year. All that needed changing were theur Pictish shields for some nice round Sub-Roman ones.

Here are some pics of the new unpainted figures along with a comparison shot between different manufacturers.

Pict01 High King

Pict03 Command 1 standing

Pict05 Warriors standing with spears 1

Pict06 Warrios standing with spears 2 (cloaks)

All in all I'm mighty pleased with these figures. You can see a clear evolution in sculpting from their little bit older Arthrian foot troops to the figures presented here. Also, almost no flash whatsoever! Big plus.
I hope they will continue their Pictish range, because I need skirmishers looking like my levies; and hopefully there'll also be some armoured Picts in the future.

Progress on Dux

I have joined the Dux Brittaniarum campaign in the club and started out as a minor player; giving me time to paint up my forces. As a minor player I have solely my Tribune, a champion and three groups of milites; of which one can be changed into a four man cavalry unit.

My Lord character is Tribune Postumus Flavius Dago. A young man, short in appearance yet a master of arms in training and an exile to boot. He is commander of the garrison in Trimontium, deep in Votadini territory.

Seeing as I'm situated north of Hadrian's Wall I have opted to change the look of my army to a more British and less Romanised one. For this I bought the new Pictish troops from Curteys along with armoured Arthurian soldiers and the new cavalry command. Mixed together I think they'll look like a convincing Gododdin force. Additional inspiration was taken from here.

My Tribune is painted up backed by his Labarumbearer and shieldbearer, a general just screams 'scenic base' to me.

Just need to finish basing and adding transfers to both the, now extant, shield and Labarum. I'm going with transfers from Veni Vidi Vici; simple, elegant and to the point.

 These are two nobles for my army, although I can only use one for now as my champion. They are Horsa and Hengist from Wargames Foundry and I like their Saxon look, it'll bring a nice diverse touch to the army.
The shield was painted by the technique I lifted from here.

 These troops I painted for the British so far will become the core of my Saxon army instead. They're still waiting for spears and shieldtransfers, that's what you get when you have to make do with a monthly gaming allowance :-(
Also I screwed up with a varnish spray which turned out to be glossy, still have to give them a matte coat and hope they come out alright. Apart from that I really like these oldschool figure from Newline Designs. I have six more of them on the painting bench, of which two are converted to hold Draco-standards, twelve armoured Saxons  and one noble.
One of these days they will be bulked out with the Saxon females from Elite Wargames and Models to get some nice variety in this barbarian mix.

The beginnings of an army for Dux Brittaniarum

I've recently begun with the building of a Sub-Roman (Romano-British) army for Dux Brittaniarum.
It'll be an all metal army, a first for me, comprising mostly of Newline Designs for the ordinary troops,
and Wargames Foundry for the characters and archers.

The starting army as a whole.

The characters are all from the 'King Arthur with Champions and Characters' pack from WF.

The Tribunus with the Labarum-bearer and his Sacerdos.

The two Decurios.

 

For now I have the shieldbearer of the pack as my Champion, but I'm contemplating of putting
him in the priests place on the Tribunus stand; and instead use the Brynhildr figure from
Bad Squiddo Games as Champion.

The Newline Designs figures are from two packs: Early Saxons and Gothic Warriors. I really
like these figures for their old school appearance. Not quite as detailed as other companies,
they do however paint up well and are relatively cheap too. That's a big plus for me since I have
to do the hobby on a limited budget.

The Comanipulares.

The Milites.

The Sagitarii

First of three units of Numeri.

Apart from spears, shields and basing this unit is finished. I really like how these ND figures look.
Although the stances of the figures are limited, their spear arms are easily bended in new postions
and makes each figure look more unique to one another.
These were painted simple too, each part got a single color, then washed with Vallejo's 'Umber wash',
and then got a quick drybrush. I must say I'm pleased with the result.

Bought these figures on last Crisis event from their booth, nice fellows and all. I guessing I'll be standing
at that booth again next Crisis. (If they come over to the mainland of course)

Dismounted Ordonnance Knights

This dismounted unit of Burgundian knights is  a veritable mix of plastic parts. For the most part they are Perry foot knights, with some heads from the mounted MaA-box, two pair of arms from the WoTR box and shield and plumes from some old GW stuff I had lying around. The red sashes of the standard bearer are simple strips of paper glued in position with a drop of superglue. the horses are metal ones from Front Rank's WoTR range.

The next units will be a dismounted unit of Italian mercenary serjeants and a decorative general & base.

"De Goedwillighen" Antwerp crossbowmen

According to tradition, in 1181, Henry I of Brabant (taking over from his father, Godfrey III of Louvain, since 1172, but only becoming Duke in 1190) granted the crossbowmen of "de Oude Voetboog" a guildsign as well as a special marking, a crossbow with the initials DGW; De Goedwillighen (the Goodwilling).
The guild must of course be older than this 12th Century anecdote, for it would be doubtful that Duke would grant such honors to a new unproven organisation. But this is the oldest known source.

A Burgundian cross in the colors of Antwerp,
the Antwerp coat-of-arms,
the cross of saint George,
and the same with the initials of
'Antwerp' and 'de Goedwillighen'

But only in 1306 Antwerp officially recognizes the guild, "de Oude Voetboog" (the Old Footbow), maybe then it was just known as de "de Voetboog" until in 1385 another guild, called "de Jonge Voetboog" (the Young Footbow) was founded.

Later it would become known as the Antwerp Guild of Saint George. I assume that Saint George became the patron saint of crossbowmen in Brabant and Flanders since every crossbow guild was named after him, from Ypres to Antwerp,  and wore his crest (red cross on a white field).

According to Floris Prims, a priest who compiled the history of Antwerp between 1927 and 1948, Antwerp and Charles the Bold made an agreement, on May 22 1472, for a fixed number of troops to be supplied for the ducal army.

"30 Hommes-d'armes et 30 crennequiniers who are bound and charged with service, each to be horsed and equipped as is necessary."

Further in the text the hommes d'armes are referred to as lances. And maybe these sixty men had additional men with them so it could double or even triple the number of people needed to be sent on campaign.

The first of these campaigns was began just one month later, against France in the Neslé area, and ended in early November. In June 1473 the men from Antwerp marched with the ducal army towards Guelders and captured Nijmegen. In 1474 Antwerp sent their troops for the eleven month siege of Neuss.

These campaigns brought many financial troubles to the city of Antwerp and the rest of the Low Countries; so by 1476 the Staten-Generaal der Nederlanden (a council of the Low Countries) refused to aid the Duke militarily and finacially, they seemed to know a lost cause when they saw one.

"Quit being such a baby!"

In 1469 there came an ordonnance banning liveries, for it promoted factionalism.
"Too many people claimed protection of the person whose livery they wore, coming and going as they please, armed with armor, swords, javelins, glaives, guns, brandereels (a lead ball on a string), axes and other forbidden sticks or weapons. Too many of these are people of low social standing and workers..."
So recognized guilds and brotherhoods needed a registration of all their members; weapons and the bearing of them  became strictly regularised; and only the "archers of our country" will be able to were a livery and weapons as well as the officers of the Duke and his vassals, within the boundaries of their office.
Also noblemen were only allowed to give liveries to the members of their household.

"I can't stand the sight of blood..."

However I chose to give every man a red vest to give the appearance of uniformity as would have been the likely case of a guild. Red is one of the colors of Saint george as well as the city of Antwerp so it isn't that far of a stretch.

Next up are some Men-at-Arms on foot.

Italian mercenaries in Burgundian service

These were completed last week or so, but today was the first day with enough natural light to make decent photographs.

According to Osprey's 'Armies of Medieval Burgundy' Charles the Bold sought mercenaries in Italy and one Condottiere mentioned by name was Nicola de Monforte, Count of Campobasso.

So my first unit of Italian mercenaries is made up of crossbowmen and handgunners from Campobasso. The unit is a mix of plastic Perry's and old metal 'Marksmen of Miragliano' from GW's Dogs of War. Although the metal figures are a little smaller and fatter than the plastics, they seem to match up well.

I tried to duplicate the arms of Nicola de Monforte on the pavise, however my skills were insufficient to paint the four small red roses in each corner realistically and make look like roses too. So I settled for one larger one in the centre and this one looks more like a four-leaved clover than a five-leaved rose. Crap happens, I suppose.

I converted one plastic figure into a kneeling position to hold the pavise. I know it was done earlier in Flemish, French, Italian and Hungarian armies that one man held the shield with an crossbowman behind him. Maybe no longer in the 1470's but I thought it looked neat none the less. The miniature was converted without any greenstuff or other sorts, just a knife, file and glue.

This metal figure has a simple conversion, he has gotten the plastic handgun and hands from the Perry mercenaries box; perfect fit. The chap next to him is a plastic Perry with an old plastic head from the Mordheim box, fits like a glove.

Next up: another unit of crossbowmen and handgunners, levied from the guilds of Antwerp.