Trouble up North...the real story!

Today the lads from Goulburn came together today shunt the Norman bastards from the shores of Albion, well that was the plan anyway.

William the Bastard (ala Unlucky General)


Greg built this fantastic Motte and keep based on the Royal Castle at York about two years ago and we thought we had better give it a baptism of fire. I built the bailey walls during the week...with one design fault I didn't make the wall walk wide enough, something that can be fixed though with a tiny bit of work.







A first time run of the Siege and Conquest WAB rules Guy and Myself ran a Saxon Viking alliance to take the motte and bailey. We under estimated the power of the periers and onagers against the walls, having a hard time even trying to hit them! So we assaulted with our unit battering rams and grapple hooks, Greg couldn't hope to slaughter enough of us before we breached the walls.







Olaf the destroyer!


The assault on the Motte was much more successful, the Viking berserkers gained a foothold to start with but eventually died in a hail of crossbow bolts, but the three other Saxon units made it over and eventually defeated one unit of crossbow and a unit of milites who ran like little girls and were all cut down, the remaining mercenary Sargents decided that they would join the victorious Saxons in the keep!



well that is how I saw it anyway!!!! For the Bastards version click here

A good game and a great day out was had by all, I can still have units I want to paint and need to finish to complete my Vikings so perhaps I should pull them out and complete then at some stage.

cheers
Matt

How much is too much ECW?

Well just about finished my second last unit of ECW Irish Pike, while packing away last weeks paint jobs (Gordon Horse & Highlanders)I pondered "how much is too much"?

When I went to place them in my ECW tool box, I found I had a storage problem arising..... so I pulled out all of my painted, half painted and unpainted ECW figures and repacked what I could of the painted stuff into my tool boxes and moved the unpainted and half painted stuff into other storage boxes or onto the work bench.

The amount of lead in this 5 year old project is quite amazing (btw it started as a skirmish campaign), I have about 70 painted cavalry, with about 30 unpainted Scott lancers and dragoons to do, 9 fully painted pike and shot blocks of 24-32 figures, 96 highlanders, three part painted tercios, and two warlord plastic regt boxes, about 10 guns including two part painted and 30 odd club men which still need to be completed also.

Altogether a lot of figures, I should not be that surprised as this army reflects most of my collections, about a third too a half painted, a third part painted and a third bare metal. Granted this army has a lot of painted figures but I do every now and then ponder when should I stop.

Some of the guys in the club are interested in doing 30 years war, should I just sabot my bases for our Might and Reason adaptation " A Forest of Pike", or do I go and buy a few more boxes or warlord minis add some more floppy hats and feathers and add to the collection????

Pondering is dangerous stuff.................

Gordon Horse

The next unit returning to the fold is George Gordon, 2nd Marquess of Huntly's Horse.
They defected to the Royalist cause (George Gordon was Catholic). I still need to complete the flag for this unit as no marketed flags are available I need to hand paint the bugger!

The miniatures are from Eureka Miniatures, sculpted by Alan Marsh






cheers
matt

Montrose Highlanders Return!

I sold my Montrose ECW army two years ago and last weekend bought it back again at our clubs car boot sale. I am refitting all of them to my new painting style, washed in devlan mud then highlighted again.

The first unit I refitted from the army were the highlanders, I added some white and yellow to the kilt setts to make them more flashy. I made up the setts so they really don't really have any historical attachment, my ECW kilt research mostly describes 16th century setts as red and black. I have added a flag just because every wargame unit deserves a flag! This unit will also double for my Jacobite rebellion army so I probably should of painted them in a historical pattern......oh well live and learn!

So far quite happy with the result, another 20 odd figures to do, then I will attack the eyes etc by then my eyes will need a rest andI will move onto Gordon's horse next, then the Irish pike and shot, which I think I will increase in size by adding another eight pikemen to each unit and another four shot.










cheers
Matt