A new gaming space

Something I've been working on this year.... is a new gaming space. A wargames garage!

Still got some tidying up to do, but it's ready to host some games now. I hope to get the French and Burgundians on the tabletop sometime soon.

It can hold a 10x4ft table, which is about the right sort of size for the games I have planned. Shown here is just a 8x4 setup, you can see the space for two more terrain tiles.

The next big challenge is to see if I can get good quality photos of games in action. I plan to paint a backdrop to make things look prettier too.

I'm going to really get stuck into terrain building this winter. These terrain tiles are ones I built years ago, the first time I'd done it, so I was learning as I went.. They'll do for now, but I'm going to replace them with some better designs.

Another advantage to having a permanent setup is I can do lots of solo gaming to playtest my own homebrew rules. That's not something I've really been able to do before when it required moving furniture around in a small living room to just try out a game!

Back to the baggage train

Just a quick update. A while back I shared an image of a gun with a two-horse limber. Since then I've added traces made from twisted wire. I'm very pleased with how this turned out, both twisting the wire to make authentic looking rope, and how they've attached to the horse harness.

I've also made a similar two-horse wagon setup. Both of these are from the Perry Miniatures American War of Independence range, with the gun obviously replaced by a more suitable 15th century piece. Looking at 15th century manuscript art it seems wagon technology didn't really change much over the centuries, and the ones in the AWI range seem perfectly suitable for the medieval period. Interestingly there are lots of examples of wagons and limbered artillery in the Swiss Chronicles. I was keen to use these setups with two horses in tandem, as they will be much easier to paint than a full four-horse setup with them two abreast!

Another French infantry unit!

At long last I have completed my next unit of French heavy infantry. Like the previous one I finished over a year ago, it consists of 30 men with polearms, including both fully armoured men-at-arms and more lightly armoured troops. It could perhaps represent men-at-arms of the ordonnance companies dismounting to lead 'lesser' troops such as francs-archers in an assault. But really it could be used to represent any sort of French infantry as required!

Now since that last unit I have had two sets of figures commissioned and sculpted for me by Yannis of Talos Miniatures. This is exactly what they were originally intended to be used for - advancing polearm troops in (mostly) livery jackets to fill the ranks of these large units, so I don't have to rely on using the same few metal Perry sculpts over and over again, and with the right combo of poses and clothing I wanted. Now many of these sculpts have actually found their way very happily into more 'stationary' posed units already, but this was the original goal. Here's some pics of all the Talos sculpts in this unit - the heads are mostly from Perry Miniatures (but not all of them), and the polearms and sidearms are from a variety of sources (many of the glaives sculpted for me by Yannis). I've managed to include duplicates of four of the rear-rankers, with different heads and weapons to avoid them appearing as clones.

Note that some of the most recent commissioned figures aren't here - they are on the painting table awaiting to be assigned to more upcoming units!

My absolute favourite is the chap with riding boots and blue sleeves - being so photogenic he had to go in the most prominent position at the corner of the unit! He's a really amazing sculpt.

Besides the Talos sculpts these are mostly Perry metals, including some conversions - there's actually only two Perry plastics in here.

And here they are side by side with the other unit, and facing off against some German pikemen.

Slow progress

Just a quick post to show some things on the workbench right now.

Slow but steady progress is being made on the next unit of French infantry. This is not all of them, just a selection - it will be a unit of 30 when finished, and I've just now started on the last batch. Will include many of my commissioned sculpts (but only two of the most recent batch in this unit, one of which you can see here). 

Here's something that's been sitting around for a while now - a two-horse artillery limber. The limber and horses are from the Perry Miniautures War of American Independence range, and the gun itself is from Avanpost. I plan to make some traces out of twisted wire. My thoughts on making limbers for the late medieval period can be found on a previous post here.

And finally here's a little handgunner conversion I am really pleased with. The body is a 3d print from Warsteel Miniatures, with plastic Perry head and arms, with a hand-swap. I sculpted a crude bag out of green stuff which seems to have turned out ok. I think the post works really well!

New commissioned miniatures

As mentioned in the last post, I commissioned another set of infantry figures from Yannis of Talos Miniatures. This time it was a collaboration with another hobbyist with similar interests - Nelson of the Fantastic Legions blog, who is working on a 15th century French and Breton project. Like me he is keen to see more figures sculpted for this period to incorporate into his Perry Miniatures collection.

We had six infantry figures made, and split the cost evenly between us. So three of these are my designs, and three are Nelson's. They have all been cast in very high quality resin.

We also treated ourselves to a couple of new heads, which both came out beautifully. Yannis' sculpting is so clean, and the details on the faces are closer to those on Perry plastics rather than their metals - if you don't know, the plastics are actually first sculpted in a much larger scale and the moulds are then made at the correct size as part of the mysterious process of producing plastic miniatures. So the fact that Yannis' sculpts compare favourably when actually sculpted in 'true' 28mm scale is very impressive.

Here's a look at all six of them. As before, they came without heads or weapons, intended to combine with plastic Perry parts, or any other spare heads and weapons that are compatible. All the dark grey parts you can see in these pictures are from the Perry Miniatures late medieval plastic sets.

First up are two soldiers in livery jackets, suitable for both French or Burgundians. One has tall riding boots, so could represent a dismounted archer or coutillier. They have both been given the resin glaives I had made as part of the first commission. The metal head is from Steel Fist Miniatures, and was actually also sculpted by Yannis!

Next up are two men without livery jackets, which could be used for all sorts of things, and I'm thinking will make good Swiss or Germans. The spears are cut down from the pike arms in the Perry 'mercenaries' plastic set. The metal sword is from Steel Fist.

The last two are more heavily armoured. The left-hand man-at-arms wears a sleeveless livery jacket and will be used on both the French and Burgundian sides. The right-hand one could really be used for anything - a well-equipped infantrymen, a man-at-arms in half-armour, or a heavily armoured Swiss pikeman. The metal parts are again from Steel Fist, the head being another of Yannis' sculpts.

And here's some alternative builds of the same two figures, one featuring one of the two heads which were part of this set. The heavy poleaxe is from Front Rank (or Gripping Beast who now sells the Front Rank ranges).

I can't wait to get some paint of these guys, and they will all be turning up in various infantry units going forward!