Fire!

No, not The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, rather a unit of archers.

A measly unit of 10 archers, mind, but a unit nonetheless. And that takes me to three units in total. That deserves a Xander happy dance!

Gotta love a snoopy dance!

As I have mentioned before, I like the detail on the archer models, and decided to include lots of little, characterful things like turnips, rats, rabbits an dead birds hanging from the archers' belts. It struck me that they'd likely be hunters, poachers even, and would probaly serve as foragers too (though whether officially or not may depend on the leniency of their liege-lord!).

With every archer down, I grew less enamoured with the fiddly bits, although once they were done, I do like the rag-tag look of them. Have a gander:

Go on, charge us. I dare you!

My only issue with them is the two guys on the left. The command bodies from the Bret. men at arms boxes are really distinctive, and the two here both have relatively decent armour, considering they're supposedly peasant scum. I've tried to cover some of it with colour, but I'm still not loving them.

The Ninth Age rules currently have a bowmen upgrade -  Brigands - that may be worth taking though, and I could see them fitting that type of unit, I suppose. Maybe their armour was looted from fallen enemies?

In addition to finishing the archers, I also finished the missing man at arms, taking that to a properly legal unit of 20:

Better late than never!

So all in, that's three minimum strength units down. I've got 3 more knights in progress, and a base-coated/washed Damsel to finish. And I'll be assembling some mounted yeomen and Knights Aspirant too.

Here's my little warband as is:

Three, count 'em, three whole units!

Now I just need to pin down Andy Lawhammer for a game!

Update

So the slow progress continues. I have another knight on the go (man, I'd forgotten how much I hate painting over a white undercoat!), and I decided to finish the 4 archers I had on the go, before I started on the men at arms.

So I now have 4 painted archers. Not a legal unit, but a start!apologies for the dim 'n' dingy photos, but for some reason the flash on the camera I'm using won't always fire when I tell it to.

Above is the 4 archers, with defensive stake & brazier. Originally I was going to try and paint the coals all orange and glowing - and I may still go back to add that in - but when I was painting them it did occur to me that it's when there's the white ash on the coals that a barbecue is at its hottest...

I've stuck with blue for the small shields, as these archers all form part of the retinue of my battle standard bearer (photo of him below...). I decided not to do a freehand little boar, as I'm already spending more time on these models than their measly points value can justify!

You may notice that they all have red hoods or jerkins; initially I included red as it was the only bright colour I had to hand, but I quite like the consistency. In my mind, it's the equivalent of a high vis jacket so they don't get shot by accident when on a hunting party. 

As I mentioned previously, I really like the detail on the plastic archers. I've stuck with my initial instincts, and kept the men at arms devoid of any extra accoutrements, but I've laden the archers down with accessories. I like the concept of them as foragers for the army, so I have all the food items on their belts, representing them hunting en route to the battle. This chap has a rabbit, a rat, and a turnip all on his belt. I suspect the rabbit goes to the Knights, while rat + turnip = bowl of brown.

I do have some issues with the command of the archers; I'll leave that moan for now, though.

I also took a couple more photos today, first off the aforementioned standard bearer.

I did him last year - at the time I had a slight issue with the transfer, trying to heat dry it too quickly caused it to fog up, but it looks OK. He's got the De Lisque banner, so he could be an army standard bearer, or if I downgrade De Lisque to a paladin or unit champion, this could easily be a unit standard. 

And speaking of De Lisque, here's a clearer picture of him too. 

So that's my total thus far: 4 men at arms, 4 archers, 3 knights, including a hero/champion and standard bearer. So...no legal units, yet, let alone a legal army!

The plan is to carry on plugging away at the knights, and to speed paint up my men at arms. Next update when I have at least 10 of them done. Or when I get this yellow-barded knight done. So probably the men at arms. ;)

VBB

Men at arms

A very brief update today on my burgeoning Bretonnians. Very, very slowly burgeoning, but still.

Now, time for the peasants! 

I'm taking a little more time on the Knights, as I want each Knight of the realm to look reasonably impressive on their own, but I thought it would be good to paint up one man at arms and one archer.

No, not you Man at Arms! 

 Now, obviously these guys are designed to look good en masse, so I needed to spend a lot less time on them per miniature; so simple colour schemes and one stage highlights all the way!

For the Men at Arms units, I've decided to stick to my Lord's colour scheme: i.e. mostly black. So, a simple black undercoat, pick out details in flesh, brown and dark metal, wash the detail colours, quick highlight, then quick highlight on the black with Eshin Gray: done. All that remained was to add a transfer (courtesy of Citadel Six) and he was finished. The uniformity of the transfer will really help make them look like one big unit.

On his own: not so much with the fearsomeness. 

I'm pleased with the end result: though basic, he was damned fast to paint, and once he's ranked up with several friends, I'm sure he'll look more impressive.

Next, the archers. Now, the Men at Arms, I reasoned, were actual peasant militia, outfitted & equipped by their lord: in this instance, my general Andre de Lisque. Hence, they'll be in his colours, with his sigil on the shields. The models back that uniformity up: they're not identical, but they're fairly homogenous, and I've avoided adding any extraneous details to them.

For the archers, though, I fancied a more rag-tag approach. I see these guys as hunters, gamekeepers (and maybe even poachers in desperate times!) who're just rounded up to come with the army. Their role as scouts / foragers for the army would make them more independent, and they'd be less uniformly drilled or outfitted than the Men at Arms. 

So I've decided to paint them all slightly differently: mostly leaning towards a green/brown palate, but with plenty variation. Here's the first one:

Twang!

So I've let more colour in there, but kept it reasonably muted. The blue matches another Knight of the Realm (a standard bearer WIP) as my idea is that the archer units will be made up from peasants "belonging" to different lords, i.e. different Knights of the Realm. 

The models reinforce this heterogeneity too; there's lots of different details and various accoutrements you can add to the models, which reflect the independence of these foragers. For instance, this chap has a mallet (for putting in stakes / tents, and a hand weapon in a pinch), and on his back he has a pigeon that he's presumably taken down earlier (and kept for supper).

Yep, that's a pigeon in a pouch. Coo. 

Both models were actually very quick to paint, and while individually they are less impressive, once ranked up I'm sure they'll look good. 

My next WIP is the aforementioned Knights of the Realm standard bearer; hopefully I'll get him done soon. In the meantime, here's my mighty army so far: three whole models! 

Arrayed against the many splendour'd hordes of Elves, the Undead and the Empire of Men, General De Lisque couldn't help but feel somewhat outnumbered.

Until the next time!

VBB