'Orse 2

I spent a few hours today finishing a few more 12mm medieval bits. This time a bunch of kniggits.

I'm relatively happy with them, I must say painting heraldry on tiny figures is a daft idea, I shudder at the thought of doing it at 20mm let alone these mini minis!. However single basing 12mm minis is pretty odd behaviour too so in for a penny an' all that.

The brave band in ranky flanky formation.

 I'm still not sure which rule system I want to use with them. As I mentioned before I have been looking at Oathmark but also one page rules age of fantasy which also look pretty faff free and self contained. I may just go back to my own rules but I suppose I can muse on that while painting.

The whole gang sally forth against a generic and camera shy enemy!. 

I plan to paint a few small retinues that I can make into larger  forces or just use for skirmishes so I need to do some foot sloggers (probably no more than twenty) for this lot then on to the next bunch. Hopefully it will work as a project I can chip away at while building my 10mm multi-based forces.

...'till next time...

'Orse

   As I mentioned in my last post I have been going through my old kallistra 12mm medieval minis in order to strip and repaint them, planning to use them for either some forces for  this

 Or maybe for some other low model count single based system. Oathmark has a rather neat looking way for generating forces and running campaigns so it looks like the favourite for now.  I plan to make a few lords and their attendant retinues that can be combined together to make some colourful forces using a smaller than average number of minis. Here are the first few minis belched from the chez Sprinks painting corner:

They are Kallistra 12mm hobilars from the 100 years wars range painted in my really simple block painting style I used with my 10mm late medieval forces. Just a VERY dark brown undercoat, a white undercoat over that on the bits I want to be bright (making sure to leave some brown round the edge for shading), then a base coat and a single highlight.

I mentioned in my last post that I find painting horses an utter chore, well I have found an efficient way to batch paint them that greatly speeds up the process. Basically I paint them all brown, darkest shade to lightest. I base coat the darkest horses then lighten the brown with pale yellow to make the highlight colour. I then highlight them immediately while still wet to pretend I'm able to do a blending. This highlight colour then becomes the next base coat for the next few horses and so forth. I find I can bash out a fair few nags in one sitting using this method without completely loosing the will to live. Yay!.

I ordered some 10mm flags from pendraken to go with the project. These seem a decent fit, I even had to cut the above flange down to fit!. Anyway, back to the painting table...

...'till next time

Q) When's a Mongol not a Mongol?

  A) When he's a Bastard son of the most black'ed Crow.

Simple really.

 I feel I should clarify. Having finished my 10mm Swiss and Burgundian Ordonnance armies i fancied putting together another force, mainly to give the Swiss steamroller a challenge. So looking through Ancient and Medieval wargaming by Neil Thomas to search for suitable opposition I stumbled soon the Mongol list. Loads of missile horse and nippy lads to stretch the Swiss line and evade their doubleduppikeblocksofdeath However, the spirit of historical accuracy reared its head and I must admit to being pretty sure the forces never actually met (I could be wrong but the map of the world would point to it being unlikely). However I really wanted a speedy force of horse botherers. So the answer seemed simple. Invent a fantasy army!.

Introducing the first batch of units for the Bastard sons of the most black'ed Crow.

I planned to collect some fantasy forces in 10mm eventually so why not build one using the Mongol list as a base?. In my head they are a mash up of modern bikers, waste land barbarians and backwards rednecks. One of many tribes (or are they extended family?) that infest the wastes running contraband, raiding isolated farmsteads, protecting their 'turf' and engaging in all other brands of banditry. 

They are pendraken sarmatians painted with modern day biker gangers in mind, hence the attempt at black leather waist coats and blue jeans on all the models. I painted the bows and banner poles red to contrast the brown horses and also as a nod to early 90's G.W., I've decided the tribe use the natural materials of the wastes so carry bitchwood weapons.

 Another reason I wanted to do an all mounted force is because I have an aversion to painting horses, so doing an army full should be a suitable 'kill or cure' remedy for my issue!. I just need to work out what I'm doing for banners and I should be able to crack on.

 Also I was looking through some old miniatures and came across my 12mm kallistra Medieval armies, which were one of the first painting projects I completed a few years back. I plan to use them to build some retinues for an upcoming project. So I decided to strip and repaint a few to see how they clean up.

 I painted a few horsemen and decided to compare them with some of my earlier attempts.

Hopefully you can tell which ones I have just painted!. The point of this I suppose is that although I'm an averageatbest painter I was surprised how much progress I have made in terms of my painting style and general standard of my attempts. It's easy to feel like you aren't getting anywhere but by comparing these paint jobs I can see I have improved and be pleased with the progress I have managed. Give it a go, you will surprise yourself.

'till next time...