28mm Perry Medievals painted and based for ADLG

A rash yet planned purchase of Medieval stuff at Warfare last year finally makes it onto this site in its  painted glory, ready for a 25mm ADLG competition that hasn't even been scheduled to take place yet.

See how the plastic figures shape up in a line of longbows and a crescent of crossbows...

28mm Perry Longbowmen - with added Stakes!

At Warfare this year I had decided to jump into buying a L'Art de la Guerre army in 28mm, with the typical thought that adding around 5 boxes of multipart plastic self assembly infantry would be an easy way to expand my existing long-unfinished Swiss pikemen into a series of other morphable medieval armies.

That saw a purchase of Perry plastics and then, of course, a spot of the same stuff, largely built and mostly painted but unbased on the bring and buy. So I ended up with twice as much as I needed.

However, it did mean some of them got based up really quickly! I also had the time to play around with making some magnetised stakes, allowing them to be used with or without the stakes.

Instructions on how to do this, more photos, and links to buy the magnets are in this article

It's been a while - so, some Perry Knights!

After somewhat of a hiatus I've finally gotten round to adding some more content to this site. Nothing too onerous (for me) but here are a load of photos of 28mm multi-part plastic Perry Mounted Men at Arms, which I will be using as C15/C16 Gendarmes in FoG Renaissance armies.

I was wildly impressed with these models - a phenomenal amount of thought had clearly gone into designing each sprue to have huge variations in how you could equip and assemble the horses and riders to allow you to do a variety of troop types from each sprue

The horse barding included was sufficient to do every single horse in the pack of 12

There were just 2 riders who were unarmoured and which add a bit of colour to the formation

Everything was painted in a black spray undercoat, and a drybrush of Gunmetal, with some Gold highlights to bring them up a little

Army Painter Dark Tone gave them a blackened look after the drybrushing

 Very simple Gold details really makes them look more upscale than just plain silvered metal

Ready to rumble - hopefully I will only see them from this angle when they get on table!

Donnington Flags

I saw regular show exhibitor Damien from Donnington Miniatures at Warfare last weekend, and he sent me over a bit of info about the flag ranges he's created to go with the rather nice ‘New Era’ Medieval figures he's now producing.

The exciting bit is that apparently some TYW flags are in the works and so if they are up to the same standard as the current flag sheets for Vikings, Saxons, Normans, 100 Years War, Gascons, 14^th/15^th Century Scots, French Ordonnance, Swiss, Burgundians and WOTR it'll be a good extra addition to the list of flag suppliers on my 15mm Renaissance Manufacturers page. 

There is even an instructional video available on the website to show you how to use them.

The flag sheets are available in 15mm scale and in other scales on request to A&M. The number of flags varies, with lots on each sheet - £5 per sheet for 15mm scale and £10 per sheet for 25/28mm scale. For more info contact Ancient & Modern Army Supplies:

Website:                      www.ancient-modern.co.uk

New Medieval Figures from Donnington

I've just gotten my hands on some of the new Medieval figures from Donnington (due to be released at Salute 2009) - and very nice they are too.

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Having chatted to Damian at last weeks Doubles in Oxford, it seems these figures have been designed by a totally new sculptor for Donnington, so are a big step forwards from some of their other ranges. The figures themselves are compatible in size and bulk with the popular medieval ranges from Essex & Corvus Belli, but have more innovation and animation in poses than the Essex ranges. They even stand up very favourably when set against figures from my personal favourites, Mirliton and could be mixed IMO with any of these three manufacturers with no problems at all. The first 3 ranges on offer are 100YW, Swiss and Low Countries - so plenty of Men at Arms and halberdiers all round, as well as some longbowmen who will give the well-regarded 100YW Corvus Belli range a stiff challenge in the popularity stakes - especially as Donnington have nicked an idea from Peter Pig and slipped in a longbowman giving the Frenchies the finger!

Donnington intend to sell these new figures under a slightly different brand to the rest of their ranges (maybe "New Donnington" - which I suppose is better than renaming the old lot "Classic Donnington"!), and at a higher unit price. They still intend to offer the option to buy figures individually, but probably will offer unit-sized packs as well. There is a good variety in each range with at least 4 variations for most types of troops, and if they continue to allow you to mix and match their horses (of which there are 12 on offer in the 100YW range) when you buy the variety you can achieve could be very impressive.

The figures generally come with open hands, or at least hands that need to be drilled to accommodate spears or pikes, although some of the halberdiers come with cast-in weapons. Donnington intend to offer a range of weapons with the figures, maximising variety within each unit. The clever innovation with the range is visible in the above photos of the horse-less Men at Arms - the guys have been cast with a "Vamplate" (no, I didn't know what it was either) on their hands, which creates the hand guard part of a proper lance when its drilled through to take a metal wire spear - very cute!

Overall these look to be a really good range, and continue the recent trend of ever-improving 15mm figures with more "human" proportions, lots of variety and some genuine thought going into the poses to create more interesting units. There are plenty more pictures of these in the 15mm Photo Gallery (search for "New Donnington" in the "manufacturer" field) - and I'll be adding more as I get to take some photos of them. Details of procing etc haven't been released yet, but if you contact Donnington or go along to see them at Salute I'm sure you will be able to get hold of some soon!