Randy's WAB HYW Medieval English, The End? & Other Bowmen Completed pics p3, 18/11/13

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**winterdyne**

Really like these. I'm dreading starting cavalry units. :-)

**RandyMcStab**

Thanks! Your blog is great. Yeah something about painting horses sucks....I think I'll be postponing my other unit of cavalry. I'd like some caparisoned horses instead of the metal barded ones the 'Mounted Men at Arms' kit comes with. I've tried finding some on eBay to no avail, and Fireforge who produce some ok looking ones don't sell sprues separately (like the Perrys do).

Newsflash Perry Miniatures are going to up their prices so grab your boxes now!

**RandyMcStab**

Here are the finished pics of my Longbowmen.

Fully based with new tufts and flowers!

Rear ranks.

Front ranks. Note the heraldry on the horn pennant, I was quite pleased with it. Musician has an axe from the Mounted Men at Arms sprue. It's really useful sprue as it has a hammer, axe and mace so you can equip troopers with things other than a sword, because of the true scale, rather then herioc, no GW parts work on these models. The standard bearer also had a weapon swap.

I'm please how they finished up, I'm toying of adding a sub pennant to the banner pole, something like a red strip with a Latin or French motto..not sure if it needs it or not.

Some more progress on the Medium horse has happened and most of the build work on the 3rd and last unit of bowmen has been done too. More pics to follow.

**RandyMcStab**

Here are some shots of the last unit of bowmen...

Everybody..

Front rank

Command group, nice drummer, Leader and Standard bearer from the 'Mercenaries' command Sprue. The unit standard bearer has a 'Mounted Men at Arms' box head. There's another guy in full plate converted to have an axe.

Rest of front rank.

Rear rank. Note guy with billhook, I want this unit to look more 'fighty'.

I wanted a secondary standard in this unit and have converted this guy. He's got billhook holding arms with hands removed. The spear is from the 'Bows and Bills' kit, the mace from the 'MMaA' and the head from 'Mercs' box. Next to him is bowman brandishing a sword also from the 'MMaA' kit.

Hope you like em, I've nearly finished bulding this unit and painting the Cav, hope you like them.

Ta ta.

**Some_Call_Me_Tim?**

Looking good! I love the Perry Bros' WotR plastics, and it's good seeing 'em get represented on this forum. It's making me wanna start up an Empire army using these figures as the core troops...Would it be possible to use these kits to make a unit of all heavily-armored foot troops carrying great swords?

~Tim?

**winterdyne**

In general, a guy with a polearm won't carry a secondary weapon unless it's in a scabbard or sheath - maces on belt-hooks tend to dangle around and get in the way, where a scabbard is held at an angle by points to the belt, so it doesn't wave around. Even so, long weapons are actually not all that useful in a bill block, and archers tended to favour shorter, naster weapons (falchions were popular archers' secondaries).

Similarly, archers almost never carried bills or cumbersome weapons that might get in the way of drawing or shooting a bow, unless deployed in a defensive position - there simply isn't room in a close-order unit to put the bill down to draw a bow. What they did instead was to have mixed-rank units (entire ranks of bow or bill) and drill to allow the ranks to change. When things got hairy, the archers would retire to the back of the unit while the pointy-stick lads went to the front. Those behind stakes or other similarly prepared positions would be more likely to have polearms lying around (by the stakes) for defensive use.

**RandyMcStab**

@Tim?

Thanks, yes I love this range too. Unfortunately just increased in price to £20 a box, obviously massively cheaper than GW still. There is the 'Mercenaries' box too which has handgunners and crossbowmen (and pikes).

This is off the 'Plastics Workbench' page of the Perry's site, so yes they will release good Greatsword proxies but who knows when. I was a little disappointed when they started doing WWII stuff just recently (as good as it is) as I just wanted them to finish this range, they'll be a heavy infantry box (as above) and a light horse box too. I'm gagging for this set as I love all that plate harness, it's slightly too advanced for my era technically but no one else will ever do multipart plastics this nice. I want to do a cool foot knight unit led by Edward III.

@winterdyne

I know what you're getting at but I wanted to convey some of the disorganised and random nature of Medieval forces. I'm not going all out for historical accuracy ie I'm not doing livery of real lords in general (but I'm stopping short of adding Dino riders). The bill is there to create a different silhouette to the 'skyline' of the unit and to give a sense of being just as dangerous close up as at a distance. As I'm sure you're aware many of the great victories for England in the HYW were due to the Archers in melee nearly as much as when shooting. The WAB army list 'Seasoned Archers' are as brutal in a scrap and have held there own against Roman Legionaries (a big deal in WAB) and I wanted this unit in particular to look fighty.

I've nearly finished my Cav today too, just finished the basing today, just need to do a simple pennant.

**winterdyne**

Fair play... I'm really looking forward to the light cavalry box, it's pretty much all I'm missing. Footknights'll be great too, if they come with poleaxes (please, please, please!)...

**RandyMcStab**

Yeah if I knew they were doing a plastic kit for light horse I may have held off buying the 6 metal ones I'm working on now. The WIP pic of the unit even seems to have bows in cases which would be perfect for this unit as they are bought as archers and upgraded to be horsemen. The Foot Knight box should be awesome. I expect a pretty good range of weapons, there are some (albeit very short hafted) poleaxes in the Bow N Bills heavy sprue that are pretty good.

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I'd love to see pics of your medieval force if you have any. It's also nice to get inspired by (steal) others good ideas.

**winterdyne**

I'm chucking photos into this thread:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/545818.page
as I get stuff done... it's my own stuff so I can only grab an hour or two here and there.

**RandyMcStab**

I really like your stuff, I've commented on your thread and will keep an eye on it.

**RandyMcStab**

Here's the finished medium cavalry.

Group shot, it was a cloudy day so the pics aren't as bright as I would have liked (I do have a daylight lamp but need 2 really).

Dappledy horse. I've been trying to do some proper horsey type features but still trying to keep the time down, so just basecoat, black wash and basecoat again.

Red and white livery coats to match the next unit of bowmen.

Horse has little sock and blaze.

Unit champ. You can see some 'Stirland Mud' squidged about on this horses hooves etc (they all have a bit but it shows well here).

Other horseman..

Standard bearer.

Not done to a huge finish but I'm happy with these guys. They are a bit of a dry run for the Knights which will get more layering and individual heraldry n stuff.

Hope you like them.

**RandyMcStab**

Started work on the painting of Longbowmen unit no.3.

Not sure on how to equip the command group however (only cosmetic, no in game changes).

With shields...

One shield..

No shields. Guy on rights arm can be reposed.

I'm leaning towards option 2 I think, full (Gothic) plate harness became so effective that shields started to become superfluous and to penetrate the other guys armour a 2 handed weapon was necessary, probably a poleaxe. However it's nice to have the units heraldry repeated on a shield so at least one is good.

**Tibbsy**

I'd go with option 2 as well, just the 1 shield looks right

**RandyMcStab**

Cool, I'm pretty much decided on it I think. Funny the amount of different iterations you need to go through to get to the right choice.

**RandyMcStab**

Quick update

Just showing the progress on this last unit of bowmen..

The rear rank is pretty much finished and I'm starting the basing.

That's all for now!

**Some_Call_Me_Tim?**

Looking good!

~Tim?

**RandyMcStab**

Thanks!

I've found time to do a bit more, the back rank is fully based and completed bar a small pennant. The next 5 are nearly there and the last 5 (the command strip) are awaiting their black ink wash.

Basecoat.

Black ink.

Re basecoated and awaiting devlan mud wash.

Basecoated command.

These are just some progress pics I'll do some nicer shots when they're approaching/at completion.

What I'm not sure about is the main banner, I like the formula of the old English banners and would like to emulate them.

I'm talking about the ones on the left of these lovely 15mm ones to buy from 'Little Big Men Studios'.

I really like these emblems for Bristol (where I live) and would like to have it as the badge for the banner and repeated on the shield.

So maybe the St. George Cross bit, then a field colour, red would be obvious but I was thinking maybe yellow would be more interesting? Then the city emblem/heraldry and motto 'Virtue et Indusrtria'. I'll need some little designs to add about the place, maybe crowns or stars. I'm open to ideas.

**Alex Kolodotschko**

Yellow (or any other colour) would be better, red would just bleed into the St George cross. You wont get much contrast. Look at the third and fifth banner. They just seem bland.
I'm thinking of something Bristoly and small such as, anchors, nautical stars, coiled ropes, apples/pears, cider jugs I dunno? Turnips or skulls for the lols?
Perhaps stag's heads, antlers? That'd be a challenge.
Everything's looking great at the moment anyway, i'll leave it in your capable (if slightly too busy) hands.

Can't wait for my Nids to get a chance to tear these apart.

**RandyMcStab**

Of course the Nids would beat them,

I haven't done my knights yet...

Quick and very dirty..

Various types, yes one of the reasons I wanted to do yellow was to avoid clashing with the St George bit. Yeah anchors or little fish would be nice as tiny little logos.

**Alex Kolodotschko**

RandyMcStab wrote:
Of course the Nids would beat them,
I haven't done my knights yet...

What? Because you'd want to get closer to them?

`Yeah, i'd go for yellow, it actually looks the worst of your three tests but that's because the red and yellow on the crest is so washed out.
Anyhow, seeing as we're talking about flags shouldn't we be calling yellow gold?

**RandyMcStab**

No

They'd counter charge (the foot knights can take a charge too).

Yeah I'm leaning towards GOLD too, even though the test looks odd I think the shade is wrong.

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Another version

Ignore crappy clip art little logos..just there to give an idea..

**necrondog99**

Hey Randy,

That is excellent work on the bowmen and I cannot wait to see how your army turns out given that I am working a similar project myself.

If I could give a hint on horses, I recommend lots of natural fur colors and the extensive use of washes. Also if you read Scotland: The Story of a Nation by Magnus Magnusson, he does a short treatise on how the actual appearance of a English War Horse during either the 100 years war or the English-Scottish Wars was a rare thing and even most noblemen ended up on campaing with the brown/black mare-nag hybrid type thing. Just saying.

Thanks for a great blog read!

- Jesse

**RandyMcStab**

Thanks, glad you like them.

I know the English didn't go in for lots of horsemen but the entire army (at Agincourt) was mounted and dismounted to fight. At Potiers the battle was won by a mounted reserve and I've always thought of my force as from that sort of era.

When you say natural colours do you mean not grey (white)?

I would like to see your WAB armies are they online anywhere?

**necrondog99**

Randy,

Actually I did not see the horse pictures until just now, I had only read the bit about you guys hating to paint horses, so I threw in my two cents. Your horses look great. I have noticed with horses that when they mix breeds you tend to end up with a brown fur black maine quarterhorse looking animal, but I am not into equistrian stuff that much. Perhaps I should consult my daughter.

Good point on the English WAB army. I hate to admit I only have about 50% of my army painted but I should build a gallery and get it posted. That is something I will work on this week. I also have the Canaanites/Israeli guys but I intend to strip them down and do some repainting because I have come to the conclusion that I gave them waaay too greek of a paint scheme, so they look like II Temple period or maybe not historical at all. I will post a photo of that as well. Thanks to a recent trade on Dakka I now have all the WH40K stuff I ever want to buy and will not be buying any more, unless a seriously badass Necron model just has to be bought. The Necron army is about 90% painted and I want to finish it before I get serious with the WAB again.

- J

**RandyMcStab**

Cool, yeah after these guys I'm going back to my Marines been feeling the pull after the new Codex came out. That will only leave a unit of Foot and Mounted Knights to do (Perry haven't released the Foot box yet but it's in the works) and that will be a nice chunk to do to a nice standard.

Yeah I know nothing about horses, I did google some pics but that was the total of my 'research'.

I look forward to seeing your WAB stuff, I love that game, I hope I get to play it again eventually!

**necrondog99**

Hey Randy:

I have started my WAB improvement blog here:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/555838

Cheers!

- J

**RandyMcStab**

That link is 404ing but I found it through your profile, I'll comment there.

**RandyMcStab**

Here are some pics of the completed back rank of archers..

As the back rank they're getting slightly less attention but I think they'll be ok.

The guy with a spear will get a small pennant soon. I'll do the fancy unit banner and possibly another pennant at the same time.

The lighting is making them look a bit sallow, it's hard to get right.

The front rank is getting there too, the 5 troopers are just completed and based and the command group is freshly Devlan'd and ready for a touch up and detailing.

(photo prior to Devlan)

I've started on the shield as well, I'm a bit worried it won't come off as it's too small an area..it's also hard to paint!!

Sketching out the design in watered down black..

Basecoating

Black lining, I hope it comes out well (bit worried it's too much for me now I've started!). The design is a mix of the 2 emblems above. Primarily the first but with the waves/water of the latter. It's a useful dry run for doing it again on the banner.

More soon, been able to do some painting again and been really enjoying it, this unit feels like it's taken yonks but it's getting there finally. Hence the big update.

I'm looking forward to doing some more 40k stuff soon back on my other blog, I've ideas for a nice crashed Sentinel objective/Relic marker, some more weathering on all my tanks and revamping my SM army in light of the new Codex.

**Some_Call_Me_Tim?**

Dang, that's some nice freehand! Good work.

~Tim?