Thursday 7 February 2019

From NoelW for Thursday: A drop of Burgundy (120 points)


I had some odd Wars of the Roses foot figures lying around, oddments, really, left over from other units or acquired from Bring and Buys. Having painted some cavalry that could be used both in WoTR forces and possibly in a Burgundian Ordonnance, I decided to paint these spare infantry similarly in a blue and white livery to give similar flexibility. For Burgundians they should really have the red saltire, too, but that would remove their flexibility, as would committing them to any particular faction in the WoTR by painting on a Lord’s badges. Instead, the figures can be alighned with a particular force through standard bearers/ensigns whose flags can be changed.

The 22 figures are all Perry designs, some from their plastic sets, some metals and two of their older sculpts still, I think, being sold by Wargames Foundry, though these have been languishing in my collection for many years. Here they are:




 And here are the standard bearers.



The flags are detachable using an approach I picked up from an excellent blogger who goes by the name Olicanalad (another Yorkshireman, as it happens – we’re all full of good ideas). Each flag is wrapped around a length of plastic tube which can then be slid over a wire “pole”. His original post is here,   though he uses brass tube, which is a little more stable than my plastic, but more difficult to work with and more expensive. The main problem with this system is that flags tend to rotate around the central pole, but a little bluetak inside the tube can fix this.

Without the Burgundian flags, they look like this:


 And, if used for the Wars of the Roses, they may be given flags like these:


I assembled the Burgundian flags for this submission, but the WoTR flags had already been assembled.

Finally, there’s an Irish mercenary. He should’ve been included in the Bonus post but he’d sneaked off the painting table, concealing himself in a fold of cloth (so he says – I suspect he’d deserted for a drop of the hard stuff, as mercenaries seem apt to do), so he appears here as a unit of 1.


So that’s 23 figures at 115 points, plus perhaps a couple for the flags?

                                                     

Lovely universal soldiers and an admirable approach to flags that I have also adopted!
Great colours splendid body of men!
So,23 28mm figures will give you 115 points,
plus four flags would give you 119 but as Toby abhors odd numbers we shall round it up to 120 points!
All the best Iain
                         

10 comments:

  1. Lovely stuff Noel. Olicanalad's blog is one of the rabbit's holes that I allow my inner child to fall down when he's been really good. That blue/white livery is amazing and I do like the swappable flag ideas, although I've never actually used it for my Italian Wars units.

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  2. Great stuff Noel, Yarkshire Forever !

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  3. Lovely work Noel - love the blue and white livery. I use James' ingenious flag system for some of my Italian Wars cavalry as they often looked very similar on the field (especially the heavies). I use a brass/steel rod for the flag pole and a plastic tube to wrap/glue the flag around and it works very well. Now, this reminds me that I have a unit of Gendarmes primed and waiting in the wings... Hmm, squirrel!

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  4. Careful, Noel, you'll wear out your brushes at this rate! Lovely Burgundians, but keep them away from those Swiss...

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  5. Excellent! The replaceable flags is a great idea. well done. cheers

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  6. Terrific work Noel. Love the flags.

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  7. Very nice work Noel and i agree with the others: the banners really add some panache to these figures!

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