From DaveS - Cry Havoc, and Let Slip the Dogs of War (55pts)

I've now finished my final unit for the French Hundred Years War army for Basic Impetus.  This consisted of the mounted Men at Arms.  These are again made from the Perry Plastics, but using the less armoured horses and riders, in order to try and differentiate between them and the Nobles.

With these, I also experimented with making banners.  I debated several methods, before finally going with kitchen foil.

I glued 2 layers of the foil togehter, before undercoating it, and then painting the banner.  This was then cut out, before wrapping around the pole and gluing together.  They were then "crinkled" to give them some life and shaded.  Each banner is thus made of 4 layers of the "extra strong" foil.  They seem like they will be durable enough for the job.

Above is the final army.  Currently only the cavalry have banners, but there are figures amongst the spearmen who would be suitable for banners, should I decide that I want to add them in the future.  The whole lot is going to have magnetic sheet attached to the base, so that it can be fixed to magnetic sheets on the bottom of a Really Useful Box.

The new models today give me another 5x28mm Cavalry, for another 50 points.

Congratulations on finishing this army! It looks spectacularly intimidating and represents great effort in knocking it over in just a few weeks.

I've heard of using lead sheet or wine bottle labels for banners back in the day, but your quad-thickness banner looks really good. Have +5 bonus banner points!

Barks

From DaveS - The Cream of French Nobility - Death Star - 120 points

The french army is nearly finished.  When I was looking at the next planet in the challenge, I came next to the Deathstar.  Now, when I think of the French Knights, they seem perfect for the theme of Hubris.  Since I needed to paint some anyway, they seemed like the perfect way to continue my journey.

Without delay, I present the unit of French Noble Cavalry.

Like the rest of the army, these are made from the Perry Plastic boxes.  The cream of the army, these were, like most of the Perry models, really fun to assemble and paint.

I have also painted a unit of "Brigans", light infantry with Long Spears.  These are, again Perry plastics

In total, this comes to 

5x28mm Cavalry =50pts

10x28mm Infantry  =50pts

Death Star Challenge Points =20pts

Total of 120 points.

__________________________

Wonderful work Dave! 'Hubris' and French cavalry (of pretty much any period!) seem to go hand-in-hand. Good one!

- Curt

From DaveS - Yet More HYW French - 100pts

The last few days have seen more progress on the HYW French army.

One of the quirks of the Basic Impetus 2 System is that it has "fixed" army lists, with a very few options provided to change it up.  This means that there is very little variety in terms of which models are used.

This army has all been built from Perry Plastics, mainly the Agincourt Cavalry and French Army boxes.  The slight downside to this, is that there are no archers in either of these.  This means that in order to make the archers that the fixed list required, I have had to buy a box of "English Army" plastics, in order to actually make the french.  This was.... odd.  Despite this, the models themselves went together really easily, and painted up quickly and with no real hassles.

The other unit was the Heavy Infantry.  How heavy is not really clear from the army list, and I initiallt built these using the men at arms figures from the French Army box.  Unfortunately, reading the list again, I realised that these were supposed to be armed with "Long Spears", and that the Men at Arms were better used as the foot versions of the Cavalry, which can be used.  Therefore, I built a second unit, this time using the armoured bodies and spear arms.

Finally, I took the opportunity of having the models out for basing to get a photo of the whole army so far.

Missing from this are the Noble Cavalry, Men At Arms Cavalry, and another unit of spearmen.

The list also requires a skirmisher unit of Bretons with javelins.  I'm still struggling to find models to use for these, and may just take the option to exchange the unit for an initiative re-roll.

This post is made of 8 archers and 12 Spearmen, for 20 28mm models, at 100pts.

Having taken much less time on this army than anticipated, I've started looking at the army lists from the rulebook to see what I might want to build next (given that I really like the fixed, defined forces that can be "finished").  I think that I have decided on an early 16th Century Florence force, which will give me the chance to make use of the Warlord "Landsknect" models, as well us many of the leftover Perry plastics that I have from this project.

____________________________

Dave, wonderful work on these French spearmen, and English, er... French archers? I dunno, maybe put a fews baguettes or a croque m'sieur in there somewhere for safe measure. I also like the Army-as-it-is (or as you say 'finished') group shot.  Well done.

16th century Florence next? Oh, yes please!

- Curt

From DaveS - Hundred Years War French (180 pts)

One of my major discoveries last year was the Basic Impetus 2 ruleset.  It's simple, it covers a wide range of time periods, and most usefully to me, it has fixed army lists.

As a painter who leaps between projects on a whim, having fixed lists lets me "finish" an army.  I find that this is really helpful when it comes to keeping me on track with projects, so that things that get finished.  This worked over the summer, when I managed to stick with, and finish, an Early Imperial Roman Army.

Continuing the theme of "finishable" armies for this system, several of my planned projects for the Challenge are for the system.  The first of these is my Agincourt/Hundred Years War French army.

I have now finished the first units of these, all made using Perry Plastic miniatures, a mix of their plastic Knights, Frnech Army and English Army Agincourt boxes, as well as bits from the European Mercenaries and Light cavalry boxes.

So far, I have completed;

2 Bases of Crossbow Skirmishers

2 Bases of Peasant Levy (Heavy Infantry but low quality)

And a Base of Light Crossbow Cavalry (and after the last time I posted Cavalry and Tamsin told me off for making them all the same colour, I've tried for some variety in the horses)

In total, this makes 28x28mm Infantry and 4x28mm Cavalry for, what I believe is 180pts.

Next up will be the rest of the infantry, and the flower of French Nobility, the heavy cavalry.

______________________

Having just enjoyed Ridley Scott's 'The Last Duel', it's wonderful to see your HYW French grace the small screen, Dave.

I've never tried Impetus, but I do like its vignette style basing system. Your units look terrific - such clean brushwork. I have to say that Tamsin's 'arched eyebrow' paid off as your cavalry look varied and excellent as well. :)

Now, with there be a Jean de Carrouges and a Jacques Le Gris in amongst your heavy cavalry?

- Curt

From SimonG: One Final HYW Submission -- Two More Men At Arms Stands (60 points)

Having met my points target for this first time around the annual challenge (largely down to the Chambers of Challenge) I have completely failed to actually finish the two projects I was aiming for. My 10mm Cold War project is half done with the British yet to be started, and I am still five elements short of my HYW 28mm project that has been on the go for the last fifteen months -- still I can at least contribute two more stands of English men at arms -- only three more of these to go!

These two stands represent Sir Robert Willoughby who had a very successful career in the HYW before and after the Joan of Arc period I am focusing on. The second is Sir Nicholas Burdett who died at the battle of Pontoise. I actually messed up with Burdett's banner and arms -- the birds should be red (metal on metal would never be correct!) -- in printing them I obviously intended to fill in the white with red but forgot, this is going to be pretty darn awkward now the figures are on the stand so I may need to unattach him and fix this -- oops! I can at least fix the banner 😜

Anyway the usual mix of Perry plastics and metals with one 1st Corps figure on the Burdett stand. Im getting more comfortable with the heraldry as I do more -- a rough approximation in colours and then super fine liner pen to sketch out the details works pretty well -- including on the heraldic lion on red on the figure on the left of the Burdett stand (a generic knight, not anyone in particular).

It's been great fun being part of this years activities and I'm looking forward to next Winter already -- should be able to start a couple of new project by then and I'm already planning that out. Great thanks to Curt and all of the helpers and minions who make this all go off so well -- so with a final 60 points (12 28mm figures) on my total I wish you all well and hope to see you all again in nine months time!

From SimonG: Two Stands of HYW Mounted English Men at Arms (100 points)

Returning to my ongoing HYW project in 28mm I offer up the only stands of mounted men at arms on the English side. These two Impetus based stands represent Sir John Fortescue (blue banner with the white stripe) and Sir Thomas Rempston.

Both of these captains served in the late 1420s Joan of Arc period campaigns and Fortescue went on to a famous career as a judge in the court of Henry VI and in the Wars of the Roses -- he left a substantial written record in legal thinking and is buried in St Eadburgha's Church in Ebrington .

Rempston had a far more colourful HYW career and was active at many of the major battles of the last period of the war -- all in all he's a good and very useful Captain base for this period.

The figures are all Perry plastics with the exception of Fortescue which is a modest conversion of the Count de Vendome from the Agincourt French mounted command metal set -- I cut off the shield and tried my best to remove all of the moulded in heraldry (uugh!).

The horses for Rempston are all Perry wheras four of the five for Fortescue are Front Rank -- the Perry boxes are short of mounts relative to riders and the Front Rank mounted knights are very stiff poses so the mix works well -- although these horses are a bit "plough horse" like relative to the Perry's.

Flags are my own laser printed onto paper on foil and the surcoat and jupon are all hand painted. 

Ten mounted figures certainly is a fair amount of work and I'm glad I don't have to do any more but am pleased with how they came out -- anyway that's ten 28mm mounted figures at 10 points each for a total of another 100 points.

Next up I'm going to learn how to use an airbrush (or not, if it turns out to be too hard!)

From TomG - Follow Your Spirit - Gallery of Ancestors - 25 points

Welcome back to another adventure in to the Chambers of Challenge, this time with a leisurely stroll through the Gallery of Ancestors, and who better to guide us than a documented namesake of yours truly. Although the surname Godson led to unoriginal nicknames at school, not helped by my Dad being the local Church of England vicar (look up nominative determinism), it is one that has been researched and documented as back as the 10th century. The was once even a Sheriff Godson during the reign of King John, or so it is thought!

With much thanks to the work of those at the University of Southampton, and their database of the soldiers documented during the reign of King Henry V, I was fortunate enough to come across one William Godson, who served in the company of John de Roos during the Agincourt campaign/raid.

Although the records show him as a men at arms, I couldn't miss the chance to build and paint this glorious figure from Salute 2015, commemorating the 600th anniversary of the battle of Agincourt. The aforementioned database really is an astounding document, also showing a Robert Godson who was recorded as serving in Orleans around the time a pesky young lady turned up and besieged the city, rather successfully. Unfortunately Robert Godson is not recorded as returning home...

The miniature wasn't given the cross of St George, as was commonly accredited to the English at Agincourt, simply because there was no logical place to imply a sewn on patch of fabric. Although the fallacy of the two primary fingers being removed by French captors, the common medieval "fig" gesture is so very similar, I like to imagine this was what he is actually doing. The account of William Godson shows that he set sail from Southampton, fought at Harfleur, was not sent home or garrisoned there, but did return from Calais along with others from the Agincourt campaign.

As apocryphal as he is, I thoroughly loved the painting process, allowing my years of studying the Hundred Years War guide my choices, and it even gave me the opportunity to use some mud basing effects. Great fun, and now the grey hound is loose from the slip.

And with these words from Shakespeare, I shall end; 

"Men of few words are the best men." 

Henry V, Act 3, Scene 2.

Points - 25pts

28mm Infantry = 5pts 

Challenge Bonus = 20pts

What a cracking entry Tom! Love the background sleuthing you've done, backed up by a special edition figure and with a quote from one of my favourite plays too. Super stuff!

Cap'n Wednesday 

(who must admit to doing a similar hand gesture in the middle of said field in France!)