Egyptian Chariots

   Carrying on with the same project, here are the two units of finished Ancient Egyptian Chariots. As the new edition of Lion Rampant suggests and following on from mods I've seen online, I'm using units of 2 chariots, so that each model is about 3 'wounds' to give a reasonable strength breakdown for the unit itself. 

   One of the things I've noticed in my research is that most of the chariots depicted in wall art aren't very colourful at all, with the odd exception, so I've gone for a middle ground of having colours but not being colourful*. And in complete disregard to the photos, I am more likely to have mixed units of chariot (a lighter and a heavy in each unit) than the single types I've photographed, but my point stands.

*I think

   I've still got to finish the Pharaoh's chariot (almost finished) and the last unit of infantry, but this is now a playable army, so I'll need to get a game lined up for them and hopefully push myself to finish the last few bits off.

Thanks for reading

The Kingdom Of The Sun

   With my big planned games for July/August out of the way and any potential games coming up not needing any major painting efforts it's allowing me to stop and re-evaluate my painting for the next few weeks. I have a few projects I'd like to be getting on with but with the Lion Rampant 2rnd edition released and with it having official rules for chariots, I thought it might be a good idea to have an ancient army ready to test these out.

   My New Kingdom Egyptians have suffered from being a fully metal army that I've just built and painted a unit at a time in between other projects, this has meant that there is never a second unit ready to go the moment I finish the one I am on and feel like keeping going. So, this time, I've built and sprayed nearly everything I have for them - will it help? Lets find out.

Egyptian Axemen

2rnd unit of Egyptian Spearmen

   With these finished it leaves only a single unit of infantry - which is built but not sprayed - and the all important chariots . . .

Thanks for reading

The March On Towton

   2022 has been a bad year for panic painting at a deadline and this week has been another example of this* with the last of my WotR Lancastrians on the painting desk for a game Wednesday just gone and another on this Sunday.

*hoping this is my last panic paint of the year but who knows

   I was aiming to not quite match my opponent's collection but to at least give him the chance of getting as much onto the table as he could, while giving me the easiest way of splitting my army in two as I knew I'd be sharing my troops. With the additions below it meant I'd have two retinues of 3 units of archers, 2 units of billmen, a unit of each mounted and dismounted men at arms and then a unit of something else on horse.

Duke of Somerset's dismounted men at arms and banner

1st unit of Somerset's billmen

2rnd unit of Somerset's billmen

2rnd unit of liveried archers for Somerset

Proper last minute painted mounted men at arms

   I'm planning on being much more relaxed now with my painting and seeing any deadlines well ahead of time. I've got, I think, only 1 game planned where I need more than a single model or unit painted before it, anything else is just me picking a collection and working through what I have**.

**None of which will have a game organised until they are finished . . .

Thanks for reading

Duke of Somerset

   With our last club game set in the Wars of the Roses being a success and both sides talking about a rematch or two, it was inevitable that we'd end up in an arms race before we could get them back on the table. I know my mate, Neil, is painting more Yorkists so I set about looking at my backlog and seeing what I had left I could add and seeing what I needed to buy to fill the gaps.

   The more I thought about it, the more I suspect if I keep adding troops in Andrew Trollop's livery, I'm probably pushing the one warband theory too far, so it's at this point I've decided to mix in a second commander - the Duke of Somerset - this will also allow me to split the army between two players more easily.

   The first troops finished for this bit of the project are a unit of archers and the mounted command figures - the Duke himself and his standard.

   I've got another 4 units to add to this army - digging into my Yorkist backlog to achieve the figure count (which will need to be replaced in the future as I like to keep armies for both sides of a conflict - but I might add another unit of mounted knights to keep the second player happy.

I'd better get painting.

Thanks for reading 

How Many Cavalry?

    As I have mentioned before, I have a hobby spreadsheet where I keep lots of different bits of data with all the formulas that I can think of, giving me numbers back out. The formula that is important for this post is how many small scale games I have played this year (4*) and it is too low for being over half the year in.

*although, I don't think the 4 is within the spirit of my aim

   Then in a separate fact, I also added all the major battle dates from the same spreadsheet into a new calendar that I have then linked to my personal calendar, so that if at the end of a club night we aren't sure what to play the next week we can see what anniversaries are the next week and see if that inspires any games**. The reason I mention this now is that with the thought of having another 15mm game at some point soon, I noticed that the battle of Adrianople (Goths vs Romans) is in early August . . .

**which has inspired a big project rethink that might be something to do with the 25th October

   The first batch of figures up are the rest of my regular Gothic Cavalry, another 4 bases bringing my total up to 6 bases (48 mounted men). These are more Forged in Battle figures from my last big splurge on their site***. I've mixed in a few more horse colours this time as I have more in my repertoire but nothing exciting beyond that.

***Although, I have just seen they have a summer sale on

   The second thing is a unit of Noble Cavalry and some commanders. The noble cavalry seem to be based on the same figures as the regulars with, I think, 1 extra rider sculpt(?) and chainmail on the torsos so I've added some white horses into this batch to try and make the easier to pick out on the table top as from 3 foot away, you can't tell the difference.

   The commanders are all Forged in Battle as well and are mostly Germanic commanders from a few hundred years earlier, I just avoided ones that were obviously the wrong period. The general is Theodoric 1st himself, although, again, I doubt I'll actually be using the figure as himself.

   Then I have some scenic bits for the project. The campsite is from Baueda and was bought in a semi-recent Magister Militant test order. I just wanted to try and bring a bit of life to the back of the table and I felt like the Goths would have some of that. 

   While the wagon is from Essex Miniatures and I'm not sure why I didn't paint it in my last big batch of 15mm wagons.

   The vineyard was a test piece copied from Setting the Scene Volume 2. I probably need to add at least one more base of a similar size, but a double sized one would be better.

Figure for scale

   The last things are two Alternative Armies 15mm War Mammoths with crew from Forged in Battle (extras from my other packs). I bought these in a sale on a bit of a whim when I was thinking about adding little fantasy bits to my historical armies. I'm sort of tempted to add one more if I do another order but for now they will do. They are mounted on half sized horde bases, so if I need standard base sizes, I can add them together as a unit.

Thanks for reading

Getting On With The Crusade

   In a last minute rush to get the game ready for the day I'd suggested it being played on I was painting the odd bits left at really strange times of the day and these were the end results.

The foot serjeants. There is a mix of troops in here from the Knights Templar to regional troops. I put a baratheon in as the figures were left over from that project and it felt right, plus a few figures with the Cross of St Edward on for a similar reason.

   

A unit of crossbows, painted in the same batches as the troops above.

A shepherd with flock and baggage camels with handler for a bit of dressing.

   I also painted up cavalry movement trays for this game as a test to see if I liked them and also because if there was ever a game I was going to need them in, it was this. Plus I made some stands of trees using cheap plastic palms from China, but they aren't a good enough quality to be subjected to being photographed without something else in the photo.

In the end we played two games with me playing as the Moor/Saracens both times, with the 1st game being a disaster that was over within an hour. Both armies play very differently and it was a really interesting match up when the Muslims managed to pass some order tests. 

Thanks for reading

Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem

   The second order I picked was a much smaller order (I believe they only had about 30 knights at their biggest) and were called the Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem. 

   These were knights from other military orders who had contracted leprosy but were able to keep in service (at least for the time being) and I thought they were be the perfect accompaniment to the force as it would be easier to explain why the secondary part of the army was so small - there just aren't many of them. I gave them a unit of mounted serjeants as well as you just can't have a knight without a squire.

   My research didn't bring up much evidence of what colours a serjeant for the order would wear, so I stuck with the same white as the knights. The knights all have enclosed helmets as befits someone in their condition.

The mounted Serjeants

The Knights

Thanks for reading

The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon

   I mentioned in the Moorish Light Cavalry post that the project had started suffering from serious project creep, and this is that first bit of said creep.

   I was reading a series of novels about the Knights Templar to keep me painting the last of my Moors and before I knew it, I was drawing out a little crusader force for an opponent - instead of using my Baratheons - and I looked at what it would cost me, decided it was worryingly reasonable, but thankfully Waylands wouldn't stock them so I'd have to wait for the post and would my enthusiasm last that long, so there's no point in doing it, brilliant, I've talked myself out of a project - wait, Waylands had what I needed in stock and I can pick them up on my visit to the store tonight? Crap.

   My little force is just going to comprise of two units of knights, two units of mounted serjeants, a unit of foot serjeants and a unit of crossbows. I want the army to look more like a ramshackle force than a crusading army that has just arrived. Maybe the knights templar are off doing something and have called in favours from other orders and any troops hanging about. 

   So I plan to have a unit of templar knights and a unit of their squires/laymen, a unit from a different order with their squires/laymen, and then a mix of foot troops from different places. This means the army can grow in the future if necessary as I can add units without breaking the theme.

   First up are the poor fellow-soldiers of Christ and the temple of Solomon or the knights templar. The figures are plastic Fireforge and are half a box of each of their Templar Knights and Mounted Serjeants. I painted the horse for these in my big batch painting of horses over the last couple of weeks*, which meant it was fairly fast to get the figures finished from that point onwards.

*probably 80+ mounted troops in that batch by the end . . .

The mounted Serjeants

The Knights

Thanks for reading