Also recently emerged from the dusty depths of the Lead Pile are 2 small units of Knights from the era of the Wars of the Roses. I had purchased quite a few of these Old Glory figures during a 40% off sale 10 or more years ago. The plan was to use them as Lanze Spezzate (literally, "broken lances") and similar non noble, lance armed extra heavy cavalry, such as were often found serving as mercenaries during the Great Italian Wars of the early 1500's. I figured that the somewhat outdated armor made sense for less than wealthy soldiers of fortune. I painted a few of them, but frankly these aren't the best of Old Glory's work, and the lack of much ornamentation made them, well, kind of dull, in addition. On the other hand, it makes them quite quick to paint!
Ultimately, these new troops will principally fill their planned role as auxilliary EHC for my Italian Wars armies. For the immediate present, though, they will also be used as Knights/EHC for my Catholic Crusader forces, as they were in my recent Hussite Wars game. Their armor style is a bit too "modern" for the 1420's, but with the WotR being only about 25 - 50 years after the end of the Hussite Wars, it isn't that much of a stretch either. Because I am not planning on actually using these troops for any Wars of the Roses games, I haven't worried about painting them to match any of the various factions or nobles of that conflict, aiming more to have them be able to fit in to the earlier and later eras that I do plan to utilize them for.
Ultimately, these new troops will principally fill their planned role as auxilliary EHC for my Italian Wars armies. For the immediate present, though, they will also be used as Knights/EHC for my Catholic Crusader forces, as they were in my recent Hussite Wars game. Their armor style is a bit too "modern" for the 1420's, but with the WotR being only about 25 - 50 years after the end of the Hussite Wars, it isn't that much of a stretch either. Because I am not planning on actually using these troops for any Wars of the Roses games, I haven't worried about painting them to match any of the various factions or nobles of that conflict, aiming more to have them be able to fit in to the earlier and later eras that I do plan to utilize them for.
Red, white and green color scheme.
Although that makes us think of Italy today, that followed from the Napoleonic Wars, not earlier. It is in fact more suggestive of Hungary in the Medieval period, which, not coincidentally, was one of the big sources of Crusader troops during the Hussite Wars.
I used the same colors for the horse furniture to jazz the unit up a bit.
Not a bad effect overall, I'd say!
Also by Old Glory, this unit of EHC Knights with swords is certainly more dynamic looking!
Here I have gone for a blue and yellow color scheme.
Once again, I think the final effect is quite satisfactory.
Quite a good collection of mounted Knights. Nice when the same troops can be used for multipl periods. Efficiency well placed!
ReplyDeleteMy entire Late Medieval to Early Renaissance collection has been assembled with that idea in mind!
DeleteNice looking units
ReplyDeleteThank you, Neil! Thanks for the visit!
DeleteNice overall effect. I would have done an armour wash and dulled them down personally and probably used different colours on the horse harness for variety. I have found that I cant get the lances to look nice if I attempted to do hoops or a spiral colour on the so have tended just to paint them a plain colour as shown on my blog. I have not seen OG knights before as in the UK they are hard to source except via mail order.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Drew. The armor is Vallejo "Oily Steel", a color I love, over white primer, and then with a heavy coat of dark black Magic Wash. Vallejo "Gunmetal" would be an even darker metallic. I paint my units in the same or similar colors for wargames purposes - in many rules I need to be identify the unit by its appearance (rather than a proliferation of labels). As the units are small the overall effect is pretty non uniform, but no question that you are correct and historically they would never have been so uniform! I did the lances with bands of color instead of attempting spirals (which I have done in the past with disappointing results); the effect is very similar from any distance.
DeleteI use Miniature Paint Chainmail for my armour and then any old armourwash that I can obtain. The results look quite nice as per those 96 Mercenary Pikes I completed last week. I used to use a Gunmetal colour but found the results too dark even for me :-)
DeleteUseful looking units of men at arms , nice and cleanly painted .I like OG infantry I find the cavalry a bit diminutive but still useful chaps.
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
Iain. I would agree that on average their Infantry is better than their Cavalry.
DeleteGreat figures and work you have here Peter!
ReplyDeleteI agree OG are a hit and a miss terms of well-detailed sculpt figures and not so good. OG foot miniatures are better than, in some cases, mounted figures..
cheers,
Thanks, Phil. Almost all the OG figures look perfectly acceptable with a decent paint job, and their value is hard to beat if you live in the US!
DeleteIndeed! OG offers great Bang for the Buck and some ranges are exceptional.
DeleteNot perfect, but definitely count me as an Old Glory fan!
DeleteVery nice figures certainly looking the part
ReplyDeleteThanks, Garry!
DeleteSweet troops Peter, my friend has a load of the OG WOTR troops, look pretty nice painted up. I picked up a number of troops and flags for a yorkist army recently. Quite looking forward to it. Just need to get some naps out the way 1st.
ReplyDeletePerhaps a few thousand Naps, Paul? :-)
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