The English Army 1415-1429 (Perry Miniatures) 28mm (Finished)

So after quite a long time I've managed to finish my box of men at arms and archers. I do wish I had been a bit more adventurous with the jupons for the men at arms and the patterns for the archers gambesons but I stuck to simple designs so I wouldn't ruin them!

It was a great set to work on, although I would have liked to have had a wider variety of poses for the archers, there are only so many times nock, draw and loose can be interesting. I decided against arming any archers with melee weapons but maybe that would have given me more choice in poses.

Men at Arms

Archers

Darksphere - Wargaming supplies, Waterloo, London

I accidentally came across this shop a few months ago when I was looking to get hold of some supplies at short notice, I didn't fancy waiting for eBay or any other mail order suppliers. At first glance it's very hard to tell what this place even is, it's situated under an archway in the railway bridge about 5 minutes from Waterloo station. Inside though is an Aladdin's cave of modelling and gaming goodies!

The first time I went here the whole shop was crammed with people playing a fantasy card game (although I didn't look close enough to see which one). They were selling packs of cards by the cart load and even had dustbins set up at the end of the gaming benches so people could get rid of their packets easily!

The shops itself has a really good selection of models, card games, board games and other handy things. I bought my Tiger from this shop as well as a tonne of paintbrushes, paints and sprays. It can be hard to find what you're looking for but the staff are always really helpful! So helpful in fact that when I asked a general question about some matt varnish the assistant even started looking on Google for me to see if it's the stuff I wanted!

The selection of models is huge and they are always really well stocked, to give you an example the image below is of one of their shelves (photo taken from the Dark Sphere website).

I've not yet ordered anything from their website as I only work around the corner and so can always find time to pop in, but I think the website does let the shop down a bit. It feels clunky and slightly dated and a lot of the products don't have photographs to match - whilst this isn't a problem if you know what you want to buy it can be a pain if you're just browsing. 

Overall though I love this shop and sadly it's prejudiced my views of smaller model retailers and shops because I look at how much these guys stock and think that it's shame nobody else does but I guess anything is possible if you've got that much space!

It's well worth a visit if you're in the London area and is literally a 5 minute walk from Lambeth North or Waterloo stations.

Dark Sphere 
Arch 186 Hercules Road 
London
SE1 7LD

Tel: 020 7928 1373

French Cuirassiers (Perry Miniatures) 28mm

Newest box completed in time for tomorrows 200th anniversary of Waterloo. These are a set of French Cuirassiers by Perry Miniatures (link) I got these from ebay from nannyogg999 on ebay who has a fantastic range of models and exceptionally quick delivery times. I've ordered two sets from this seller now and both have arrived within 2 days of me placing the order.

This is a nice set to work on and the first cavalry I've done since I worked on a set of Warhammer Chaos Knights. The only issue I had was that I managed to screw up which figure was riding on which horse and which legs belonged to who. This wouldn't normally matter but as the officer would have ridden a different horse, had a different helmet and had a different set of legs it does make a difference. As it turns out I didn't actually make an individual who can be identified as an officer because of this.

Other than that these were nice to paint although I had some issues with a very thick black undercoat, I must have sprayed too close!

Tiger 1 Ausf.E - Rubicon Models - 28mm

During an unplanned trip to Dark Sphere models in Waterloo I couldn't resist the urge to get something new. So after kidding myself for about 15 minutes by saying I'd only buy paint and some brushes I ended up at the till with this box...

This will be the first WW2 model I've done since I was about 9 and I screwed up a few airfix tank boxes. WW2 never really appealed to me as much as the Napoleonic era as it's all pretty dull. What I mean by this is that the uniforms etc are mainly green/grey or brown mixes and the old style tank kits didn't seem to have enough detail.

This kit on the other hand seems pretty exciting, you don't have to fiddle with rubber tank tracks - they're solid moulds. The fiddly bit is the MG mounted on the turret, but as long as you're patient and allow the glue to dry it's not bad.

The thing I like about this model is the extra track parts you can glue to the hull and turret, they're going to break up the camo a bit so it doesn't just look like a turd with leaves one!

Here are a few shots of the assembled beast prior to undercoating.

Still got to choose what kind of paint scheme to go for, whether it be North Africa, Russia or Europe. The Rubicon Models page has an interesting paint scheme but I think I'll pick something along these lines.














Update:

So I've started painting this Tiger, I managed to finish the cavalry I was working on so this was next in the queue.

I undercoated it with uniform grey from the Army Painter range - this is a nice neutral undercoat which seemed to work really well by itself. I could quite easily have just highlighted this coat and gone for a grey paint scheme.

 


I followed this with a coat of dark brown mixed with a little chain mail in the areas that won't be touched by the dry brushing - it didn't seem that this worked once the initial dark brown coat went on. Following this I've dry brushed it twice with a mix of bronzed flesh and bone white from Vallejo, to me it looks too bright - almost like an Essex girl after a spray tan! So I'm going to try tone it down a bit with an earth tone. I'm aiming for a colour a bit like this but it's pretty hard to hit!

The English Army 1415-1429 (Perry Miniatures) 28mm

Here is a link to the completed set that I've recently posted! The English Army 1415-1429 (Perry Miniatures) 28mm (Finished)

Again taking inspiration from a series of books I've read the Grail Quest and Agincourt both by Bernard Cornwell (again I know!.. guess where my interest in the Napoleonic Wars came from too?!, that man has a lot to answer for). I decided to pick up a set of Medieval infantry from Perry Miniatures, this set contains parts to make both archers with war bows and men at arms - fully armoured and carrying polearms (although scabbarded swords are included).

The set contains 24 archers and 12 men at arms, banners, bases and as seems to be the norm with the Perry brothers a very useful painting guide.

 The figures themselves are very detailed and look like they will be great fun to paint.

 Archer sprues contain the choice to add a trumpeter or to arm the archers with mallets, swords and other weapons - particularly handy for battles like Agincourt where the archers played a big role in killing so many captured French nobles. The torsos are wearing padded jackets or gambesons and all are armed with a dagger.

 The men at arms come with a variety of weapons including poleaxes, swords, warhammers, axes, lances and spears. A shield is included on each sprue but from the description on the Perry website it seems that these were almost useless at the time due to advanced in armour design.

Each sprue for the men at arms includes separate visors and orles - which seem to be padded circlets worn around the head. The armour comes mainly without surcoats over the top so painting should be a pretty simple drybrush job.

The poses seem pretty similar at the moment so it will be good to get these off the sprue and start putting them together!

More to come soon!







So here are a few test shots of the poses I've put together, I've used blue tack to stick them together for now as the two handed polearms cant be a pain to line up at times!

 
As you can see the poses are very dynamic, my favourite is the guy with the sword and his hand up, as if he's saying to the French "come at me bro".