Freehanding shields, part 2

I got some good tips on TMP for shield work.  One of the tips was to rough out the motif and use the background color to paint over and clean up the image.  Some motifs were fairly simple and I was able to get them right in a single pass.

Now that I'm in my late 40s, I can't paint without reading glasses and an enormous amount of light. I work under a pair of 500 watt halogen work lights.  As a result, I'm painting in an environment not unlike the Gobi desert. The work light kicks off heat and a few times, shields were ruined because the over painting technique resulted in 3-D built up of paint. When this happened, I scraped the shield down and started over.

36 knights and shields later, here's a sampling of some of the better motifs.  Each is based on East European heraldry and most are Hungarian.

Goose in a Chalice is one of my favorites!

I can't help but think about the Impetus ruleset and their style of basing armies. By using fewer figures and larger, diorama style bases, I think I could field a better looking army in less time. A lot of detail will be buried when these figures are snugged shoulder to shoulder on a single small base.

Here in Minnesota, the sun has disappeared entirely beneath the gray skies of November. Maybe the relentless gray days are taking a toll on my attitude.  Tomorrow is another game at the Source.  A good game will renew my energy and interest in seeing this project to the finish line.

The rivers that divide us

The mighty Mississippi

The Twin Cities gets its nickname from the cities Minneapolis and St. Paul. They're divided by the Mississippi River, with Minneapolis on the west bank and St. Paul on the east. After moving here, I discovered that residents often sort themselves based on which side of the river they live on. I remember telling a coworker about an interesting place I'd visited over the weekend.  He sniffed disdainfully and said, "oh, that's on the east side. I never cross the river." It was a common refrain.

I attended a local  gaming event last week and I counted three groups running ancient to medieval miniatures. We had 9 people playing Field of Glory (FoG) in 15mm. A second club had 9 people playing FoG-Renaissance in 10mm. A third group was playing Impetus in 28mm over two tables.  There isn't a lot of crossover between our groups even though we all share a passion for history and miniature gaming. People seem to sort themselves based on ruleset, scale and club. Since I play one set of rule (FoG) in one scale (15mm) with one club on one side of the river (east), I'm guilty of it as well.

I've been thinking about crossing the river, so to speak. I've thought about gaming with the club that does Renaissance in 10mm. Since 10mm is outside the scale that I'm painting and playing, I hesitate to give this a go.  Lately I've been eyeing the Impetus rules.  The way they use fewer figures per base and make each base a diorama is very appealing to me.  I asked one of the Impetus guys if he'd host a demo game over the holidays so I can see what these rules are like. He told me the Impetus group fields 28mm exclusively and at this, I hesitated again.  I have 5 ancient and medieval armies in 15mm.  28mm is more expensive than 15mm and much more time-consuming to paint. After rules, scale is another river that divides us. 6mm, 10mm, 15mm, 28mm, fantasy, historical, science fiction, Hail Caesar, Impetus, FoG and DBM...it's frankly amazing we can get two or more people to agree to game anything!

I decided to go ahead and get a game of Impetus in. At a minimum, I get to see a new set of rules in action and I might have the opportunity to mix it up with the Impetus guys from time to time. Its also possible that I might like the rules enough to cross over to 28mm for a change of pace.  So many rivers to cross, so little time.  See you on the bridge!

Serbian Hussars

Serbian Hussars served as light cavalry in Matthias Corvinus' Black Army of Hungary.  They were armed with lances and large wooden shields.  Corvinus is generally credited with reorganizing the Hussars from small irregular units into large trained formations. The number of Hussars available to Corvinus rose in 1459 when Serbia was absorbed by the Ottoman Empire and many Serbians fled to Hungary.  The Hussars took part in the Hungarian wars against the Ottoman Empire and were employed successfully against their counterparts in the Turkish, Bohemian and Polish armies.  These boys will serve as light shock troops in my Hungarian army.  Light horse generally skirmishes and evades but not the Serbian Hussar. Their role is to pursue, engage and break opposing light horse.

I had a couple of breakthroughs here. First, I've been experimenting with basing.  No radical departures here  but I did use more static grass and Stilfor tufts, including flowers. I also took the time to pick out the larger rocks and coat them with dark and light gray.  I'm very pleased with the results! 

Secondly, its no secret that I've struggled with miniature photography.  I took many pictures today and was disappointed with all of them so I went back to the internet and combed through the tutorials.  I learned how to manually adjust white balance by pointing my camera at a white sheet of paper and just like that, the quality of my photographs greatly improved!  These are all by natural lighting.

 

All figures are by Essex and I do love their horses as there is a great deal of variety and energy in them. The only downside is the limited poses for the Hussars but I don't think it detracts too much.

Freehanding 15mm shields

One of my favorite books of the last couple years is Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers: The Story of Success."  In it, Gladwell dispels the myth that people are born to greatness.  He demonstrates time after time that greatness is earned with practice-about 10,000 hours worth.  That's 20 hours a week for 10 years. Before you panic, 10,000 hours is what it takes to put you at the very top of your sport, hobby or passion. Think Bill Gates, the Beatles or Lebron James.  If you are willing to settle for merely "good," you can invest much less time.  For those of us time and interest challenged, a minimal investment of practice in your craft will vault you to the hallowed status of "just good enough."

"Just good enough" described my skill in painting horses a year ago.  Back then, I'd put off painting cavalry because I didn't enjoy painting the horses. Maybe it was the musculature, maybe it was the reins and tethers or maybe it was the horse at the stable that bit me.  Whatever it was, I struggled when I got to these figures.  If you're going to paint ancients, there's no way around the fact that you're going to paint horses over and over again. By the time I painted my Turkish army, I'd painted so many of horses that I'd forgotten I didn't like them. I'd reached the point where horses were no longer a mystery to me. I knew I'd  conquered my Equinophobia when the first figures I painted in my Hungarian army were 72 figures of cavalry.  

My current painting phobia is freehanding shields.  When I see a shield, my first reaction is to look for a shield transfer. Or slap a geometric shape down and call it good.  I might do a little drybrushing or a wash but I've never painted an object on a shield.  This is a problem in my Medieval Hungarian army because the Cliperati and Armati battlegroups have 64 shields and the 50+ knights each have a shield ...ugh!  

For this project, I made a rule that even if I wasn't happy with the results, I'd move on. There were 64 shields and I couldn't sweat over each one.   I turned to the Internet for inspiration and found excellent Hungarian heraldry sites here and  here.   I loved the picture below so I decided to give it a try. 

I stripped out the fancy bits and concentrated on the motif of an eagle's head rising out of a crown.  It took a while but I achieved passable results.  I  reminded myself that these shields will be bunched up in units of 32 and then viewed from 3 feet or more. The camera is quite unforgiving this close up but here it goes...

Geese figure prominently in Hungarian heraldry so I gave them a try. As it turns out, painting geese was the easiest of the many items I tried. It starts with the S and then you fatten out the bottom of the letter.  If only every item I painted could be shaped via the letters of the alphabet, my shields would be so much the better!

Romans to the front, allies to the rear

Plans to field my Ottoman Turks today were delayed due to a lack of medieval opponents. Instead, I brought out my Mid Republican Roman army for the very first time. To get in the Roman spirit,  I'd planned to bring a chaise lounge down to the Source and bark commands while reclining & dining on de foie gras and bacon. Then I remembered that I don't have a chaise lounge and my wife ate all the bacon.

To demonstrate my Roman cunning, I settled for giving my opponent Al a chair slightly more uncomfortable than my own.  Al brought his brand new Carthaginian army and the question on everybody's lips was, could Monty possibly lose as the Romans?  The fact that everybody asked me this question before the game was not an encouraging sign.  

The initial setup presented me with a problem.  I had a large farm field in the middle of the table to contend with.  Roman legions do poorly in anything but open terrain.  Marching a legion through the farm field would delay my entire line of battle so I decided to deploy my Italian Allies in the center.  Being Medium Foot, my Italian Allies had the ability to move and fight with impunity in uneven terrain like a farm field. Unfortunately, they were also my weakest units.

As I launched a vigorous advance on the Carthaginian line, I had a feeling of disquiet about my center.  I didn't have any reserves or units providing rear support. Then I remembered the Battle of Cannae and how Hannibal purposely put his weakest units in the center of his line.  Worse comes to worse, I could conduct a double envelopment of the Carthaginian center with my strong right and left flanks.  Riiiiight...

Someone get those fellows pants!

Al's center was composed of Gallic foot and elephants and he decided to send them in once I came within charge range, which was just as well as the impetuous Gauls are unlikely to listen to a general's orders to stand fast in the face of the enemy.  My Italian Allies crumpled on impact and crumpled too were my plans to conduct a double envelopment.   I now understand Romans reluctance to grant full citizenship to their Italian Allies in the Republican era.  Nifty shields and great hair but they can't fight worth a darn.

Before

After

With my center evaporated, the battle devolved into a series of small actions.  Al's elephants proved effective against my legions. Against all odds, one battlegroup of fragmented elephants managed to grind down and then break the Hastati to its front.  With that, the battlefield became a chaotic swirl of units ebbing in every direction.  My camp was sacked and enemy roamed with virtual impunity behind my lines.  The battle ground on and on with neither side yielding. Finally, with each side's army a single point away from breaking, one of   Al's units broke and the game was called.

Roman velites tackle the non-business end of the elephants. 

Closest thing to a double development I saw.

Lesson's learned:

1.  Don't put your weakest unit(s) in the center of your battle line.  Put them on the flanks or in reserve where they can't cause too many problems. 
2.  Cretan Archers are expensive but fantastic.  They had a hand in breaking two battlegroups. 
3.  You can only deploy 16 bases of Upgraded Veteran Legionaries in the Mid-Republican Roman list.  Arggg!  Reading fail on my part!  My list had 24, which means the match goes to Al!  

Other matches today included Bruce's Byzantium army versus Clay's Teutonic Knights.  Unfortunately, a flank march with the Knights did not come off properly, contributing to the game going to Byzantium.

Bruce put a brand new Numidian army on the table against Klay's Pontiac army.  I was curious to see how 32 bases of Numidian Light Horse made out.  The short answer was not very well today as Klay had the hot hand and the victory by day's end. 

 

Al tells his dad Brandt that he should have brought Romans. 

Elephants could not save the day for the Numidians. 

Spotlight on Later Ottoman Turks

For historical gamers, the Ottoman Turkish Empire has much to recommend. The Turkish armies have some of the most exotic and colorful units you'll find and they bumped up against a multitude of other nation-states during their 500 year empire.  For purists, there are abundant historical adversaries and also research materials to recreate armies and battles.

I chose Later Ottoman because I wanted to paint up a colorful army that would be significantly different to run from my other armies. The Turks delivered in spades! I'm not exaggerating when I say every unit in this army shoots, except for the camp.  The emphasis on cavalry units means that you get a very fast AND shooty army.

Janissary handgunners: These superior handgunners are a "must have."  In addition to rerolling 1s, shooting at an enemy with firearms means that unit tests at -1 during any cohesion tests in the shooting phase, regardless of whether they were actually hit by the firearms!

Azab Handgunners:  You can't have too many handgunners in a medieval army so take these handgunners as well. These can be taken as average or poor. I take them as poor.  While unlikely to hit, the smoke and sound of their guns can frighten enemy troops and inflict the -1 cohesion during the shooting phase.

Azab Archers:  These fellows aren't discouraged at all to be using B.C. technology on an A.D. battlefield.  They're decent skirmishers and a required unit in the Later Ottoman list. They have a job to do and they do it in high fashion!

Akinjis: You may have noticed I'm a big fan of Light Horse.  How big? How about 20 bases worth in this instance.  I used a trick painting these up. I chose 5 color schemes-blue, yellow, green, orange and purple-and repeated the patterns over the 40 figures that make up the 5 battlegroups. I'm very pleased with how these turned out. 

Janissaries:  Superior, protected, drilled, medium foot armed with sword and bow.  Whew! I'm guessing they will be tough as nails on the battlefield and I can't wait to take them for a spin.

Qapu Khalqi Cavalry:  These are the elite guard cavalry responsible for protecting the Sultan.  Drilled, armored, bow and sword armed, they are "Death on Horseback."

Timariots:  Timariots are the bulk of the Ottoman heavy cavalry.  While they'll have difficulty going toe to toe with knights in melee, the trick is to retreat in the face of a charge and arrow your pursuers to death.

Serbian Knights:   As if the Ottoman army isn't tough enough, you can take Serbian Knights as an ally.  I figured with all of the medieval armies built around Knights, I better have a few stands of my own.

Commanders:  In the Ottoman Empire, the more important you were, the bigger and more elaborate your headdress.  My Minnesota Vikings ball-cap tells you everything you need to know about me, by Ottoman or modern standards.

 

 

Camp:  I think you'll agree these tents are in keeping with the subtle color scheme of this army. 

If you're thinking of painting up a medieval army, consider the Later Ottoman Turks. Their fighting style is radically different from the knight-centric armies that dominated Europe during this era and the wild colors speak for themselves-quite loudly in fact!  As a bonus, a Later Ottoman Turkish army can easily morph into a Seljuk Turk army if you're willing to paint up additional light horse and heavy cavalry.  It could also be fielded in the Renaissance era so you might say it's a 3 for 1 special.

This army is composed of Old Glory figures and I found these sculpts to be almost uniformly excellent.  They are the best I've seen from Old Glory and were a joy to paint. I'm going to bring this army down to our club games for the next 3 or 4 months and see what I can do in the Medieval era.  Only two weeks until I get to put them in battle so stay tuned!

On the workbench-Serbian Knights

Monday was a great day for me.  I came home from work and found 2 Field of Glory related packages in the mail...kind of like Christmas in September!  The first package was my Essex Hungarian army. I got an email on Saturday confirming the Hungarians were shipping and Monday, they were in! That's amazing since Tennessee and Minnesota are more than 1,000 miles apart.  I'm thrilled with the fast shipping and great price of  Wargames.  I'm going to go back to their website and scour for more medieval troops.  If I'm lucky, maybe I can find enough figures to pull together another Medieval army.

I've never painted anything but Old Glory so I was fretting over whether Essex would be of equal quality.  It turns out that these figures are very well molded and loaded with detail.   The horses have a very nice size and shape compared to Old Glory.  Side by side, the Old Glory horse looks very thin.  I haven't even painted a single figure and already, I'm a fan of Essex!    

Last week, to prep for painting 40+ Hungarian knights, I dug out the last of my unpainted Old Glory Knights that I used for my Serbian Nobles battlegroup.  When I painted the Serbs last spring, I primed them with white primer, drybrushed sliver, washed with Badab Black and then over that with a bright silver.  I don't routinely drybrush 15mm figures but with chainmail and some barding, the technique works. 

I don't know but I've been told, Knights primed white shine like gold. 

This time around, I decided to change things up.  I primed the remaining Knights black, drybrushed them with a dark silver, then a black wash and then a bright sliver.  Comparing the two, the difference is very subtle. Priming white will give you a slightly brighter silver and shinier knight.   I think I'll stick with black primer for my Hungarian Knights for a slightly darker result. That's fitting since they will be a part of the Black Army.  

Drybrushed.

Stained and then painted a bright silver. 

Serbia scores 6 more Knights.

These 6 Serbians were a nice warmup for the Hungarian project.  On a critical note, I'd like to get better at painting shields.  I confess I see shields as a chore and it shows through in my work.  I'm going to have to fix that because there are an awful lot of shields in this army! I probably could use some Medieval reference books before I really dig in, so,  its time to go to Amazon and see what I can scrounge up.

And in case you were wondering what the 2nd Field of Glory package was on Monday?  More hills, trees and stone walls for enclosed fields. In for a penny, in for a pound.  

Off the Workbench-Heavy Chariots

I finished up 4 more bases of Carthaginian Heavy Chariots...just in time to be temporarily retired with the rest of my Carthaginian army.  The Old Glory chariots are good with a few caveats: 

1.  You'll need a pin drill to drill out the hole where the axle goes into the wheel. Try to force a wheel on and  you'll bend the tiny axle back and maybe even let out a swear or two.
2.  Don't glue the wheels on until AFTER you've painted and detailed the chariot. Obvious to most people but I overlooked it with the first batch I painted.
3.  These chariots come with a grooved diamond pattern in them.  You'll want to create a paint scheme based on this pattern or risk poor results. I tried putting a stripe across one but the paint bled under the tape due to the grooves.  D'oh!

With the difficulties I had in coming up with a snazzy scheme for the chariot frames, I spent extra time on the wheels.  The trick that worked for me was to paint them black and then add contrasting colors that popped against the black.  I like the way the wheels turned out but I'm less happy with the chariots themselves. 

Now that summer is over, it's time to start a new army.  I've been eyeing Xyston Miniatures but almost anything I paint of theirs would duplicate an army that someone in our club already has.  A number of players run Medieval armies and with my ancient armies, I rarely get to play them.  I decided to focus on the Medieval era. After reading about Matthias Corvinus and his Black Army of Hungary, I settled on a Later Hungarian army.  Later Hungarians have an interesting and colorful mix of units.  Plus the Hungarians make a great tabletop opponent for my Ottoman Turks.

The last hurdle was to find miniatures.  Unfortunately, Old Glory doesn't have an Eastern European Medieval line.  I tried to scratch up units that could stand in for Later Hungarian but it was difficult.  Then I stumbled across a US distributor of Essex clearing their figures out at 50% off.  While their Medieval lineup has been well looted at this price, I did find enough Hungarians to build a Later Hungarian army.  Figures shipped today...I can't wait to get started!

Onward Carthaginian Soldier

Saturday's game featured a Carthaginian versus Roman showdown with each of the 4 players fielding a 650 point army. Battle was fought on a 9' x 4' field.  The terrain set up turned out poorly for the Romans, with their center attracting a gully, open field, village and a plantation. The upside was the Roman village did look awfully nice!

I ran a Later Carthaginian army, loaded with elephants.  My teammate Klay ran Early Carthaginian, loaded with heavy chariots and the Sacred Band. We concentrated our African Spear in the center of the table with orders to hold in place. On our right flank, I planned to push forward and meet the Romans head on. On our left, Klay aimed to swing wide around the Roman flank and bend their line back, hoping to create gaps and opportunities for flank attacks.  The battle was shaping up to be another demonstration of Roman quality versus Carthaginian quantity. 

The early game progressed well for Carthage, with our right and left flanks advancing sharply.   In the center, Mark struggled to move his legions and medium archers up due to the village and gully.  The wall of Carthaginian chariots and cavalry presented the Romans with a challenge. What would they do in the face of Klay's flanking movement?

Two units of my Numidian light horse caught and ran down Roman slingers.  During the pursuit, my Numidians Light Horse discovered Lanciarii in ambush in a plantation.  The Lanciarii charged and succeeded in running down one of my light horse from behind.  In pursuing the broken horse, they  forced my 2nd battlegroup of light horse to evade through my elephants, disrupting them! 

Luck was with me on this day because my Elephants managed to fight the Lanciarii to a draw and then subsequently rally out of disorder.  The Elephants proceeded to win in subsequent turns and broke the Lanciarii, sending them back to join the routed Roman slingers.  While the Lanciarii and Elephants battled it out, two legions advanced into what would turn out to be a trap.  

The Scutarii trap is sprung.  Elephants moving up on the right, Scutarii in the center and just out of sight, another unit of Scutarii coming up on the left.  With only 2 legions to face down enemies on three sides, this did not end well for the Romans.  

Meanwhile, Mark's Romans advanced relentlessly on our wall of African Spear in the center, disregarding our superior numbers.  And for good reason, apparently, as one unit of Spear broke from bowfire alone!  In melee, a legion broke a second unit of Spear and just like that, our center was crumbling and now in doubt. 

On the Carthaginian left flank, nothing went quite like it should have.  Brandt skillfully deployed his legions and countered Klay's every threat. By game's end, my partner had failed to eliminate a single Roman base or break any units. His chariot charges failed as did a charge and melee by the Sacred Band!

At the finish, we scored the Carthaginians as up on the right flank, Romans up in the center and Carthaginians neutralized on the left flank.  The 6 bases of elephants were key on my front.  They are faster than heavy foot and in melee, they neutralized the Roman advantage in armor and superior sword skill.  Then again, its easy to shine when you have the rare fortune of catching your opponent in the flank.  

This is as good a point as any to rest my Carthaginian army. I have 3 other armies to play, one of which has never seen the tabletop. I'm planning to fast forward 1700 years and run my Later Ottoman Turks at our next meet.  After getting slapped around by Roman Medium bowmen, I'm looking forward to running my Janissary Medium bowmen.