"First stop, lads, The Drowned Rat... followed by The Golden Spurs, then The Duke's Repose and we'll end up at The Harvest Goose for last orders. Willem - don't you dare wander off half-way through tonight's watch to visit Agnes de Blom, like you did last week. Johannes, keep your eyes open for those rowdy, drunken Livonian sellswords from Graf von Bek's brigade - I heard they're in town tonight. Good. Everyone ready? Let's get a move on ... the first round in The Drowned Rat is on Lord van Brueghel, God Bless 'im,,,"
Captain Joos van Voocht, Laarden Nacht Wacht, 1688
Darkness in the Flemish Free-City of Laarden is always a dangerous time. Alongside the industrious and God-fearing townsfolk there are visitors to the city with less than fair intentions. Foreign mercenaries arriving in the city to augment the Flemish forces can be troublesome drinking companions. Pickpockets and thieves lurk in the dark corners of the Grote Markt, or the adjacent alleyways, hoping for a drunken nobleman or a careless merchant to stagger off the beaten track. And, in the midst of the campaign against Le Roi Soleil, rumours of French spies are ever-present among the night-time revellers.
Yet all is not lost. Keeping order on the dangerous, frost-flecked winter cobbles of Laarden is the duty of the Laarden Night Watch. A small, but enthusiastic, company of former soldiers and city artisans, they patrol the streets and marketplaces, alleys and wynds of the city from dusk until dawn.
Eschewing the gaudy clothing, bright plumage and lavish uniforms of other Laarden militia companies, the Night Watch is dressed in deliberately sober, modest professional grey. The standard of the Night Watch matches their uniform, being a carefully embroidered black swan, on a field of expensive ash-grey, white and black silk.
To outward appearances, the Night Watch are the sober defenders of civic order in the chaos of the night. The truth, of course, is not quite as heroic...
*****
The Night Watch miniatures are from the Wargames Foundry Thirty Years War range, venerable figures first produced in the late 1980s. I seem to have kept these in the lead mountain for years, mainly because I plumped for the later seventeenth century (and not the Thirty Years War) with my Laarden project. However, for a Flemish city watch, I reasoned that their arms and uniforms might not have quite kept up to date with the latest military fashions. And while the Spanish lace collar on Captain van Voocht looks a little antiquated, I doubt it'll be noticed when his company of watchmen is deployed within the walls of my miniature Laarden.
I painted the greyscale in various Vallejo Model Colours - black, neutral grey, light grey, sky grey and white. I mixed the colours fairly freely, just trying to create interesting contrasts on the figures. The standard of the Night Watch is freehand painted. You might remember a few years back, one of the Laarden Militias I painted in Challenge VI had the standard of a voracious pelican. I thought it'd be fun to give the Night Watch a standard of a more serene black swan, watching over the city in a patrician fashion.
Since painting the earlier Laarden militia regiments, at the suggestion of our Snow-Lord himself, I've purchased a roller for greenstuff & modelling putty from 'Greenstuff World'. I was very pleased with the result from rolling a slab of milliput on the Night Watch base. There's enough texture on the roller to easily create the paved cobblestone effect, and the resulting continental paved cobbles painted up pretty easily. I also liked forming an indentation into the putty/ miliput while wet, into which the bases of the figures can be glued later so that the cobbles are flush with the paved base.
With greyscale painting, I like to keep a part of the figures in colour, mainly as an accent. I chose the faces of the Night Watch, partly to make the point that - for all their civic obligations - they'd be just as keen as any of the citizens of Laarden on getting into a cosy tavern such as The Golden Spurs to spend the evening with several tankards of Trappist ale.
I also kept the slow match of the musket cord glowing a warm red. Something for the lads to warm their hands on in the night-frost, no doubt...
On to the points. Three 28mm figures, at 5 points each (15 points), plus the 20 points for "The Chamber of Darkness" makes an additional 35 points. And for those eagerly collecting my ridiculously whimsical Laarden "Character Cards", here's the card for Captain van Voocht and his Night Watch.
