Assault Parties (take 3)

-

On one of the rare occasions that I visit Facebook I was perusing the Victory Without Quarter page, and saw some beautiful 28mm storming party figures. In amongst the pictures were three figures carrying a ladder. Obviously a storming party needs ladders, but I don't have any! An idea germinated...

Could I make a ladder party? Where any figures suitable to chopped and changed into what I wanted. I've got some ladders tucked into a corner of my Château Hougomont model, might have some spares somewhere.

A rummage through my spares box found some standard bearers from PP pack 17 'foot command advancing' and a lowland pikeman from pack 82 'Scots pike 45' open hand'. Both have potential. 

The 'raw materials'

Couldn't find any ladders, they were from Magister Militum, who have now shut up shop. So no more available from that source, PP make a pack, but I didn't really want to spend the best part of £10 on just a pack of ladders (the £4.50 post and packing charge deterring me from placing an order). So two were recovered from Hougomont (nobody will miss them, I'm sure)

The Scots pikeman: before (l) and after(r), obviously still needs a head

The pikeman was easy enough. Cleaned up, he was decapitated, and his drawn sword removed. His right arm was moulded to his body, so I carefully cut between arm and body. Gentle cleaning of the cut with a fine X-Acto blade separated the arm from the body, an even gentler twist with pliers brought his elbow and forearm out and up. Result! A new head was added. Then a little rounding out of things, and a sword hilt added to his scabbard with greenstuff. He also needed a bag adding as he has a cross belt that doesn't go anywhere, it has nothing hanging from it at all.

The standard bearer: before (l) and after(r), obviously still needs a head

The standard bearer was clearly going to be a tougher nut to crack. Decapitated and his flag pole removed. Then drastic measures. His right arm was cut off completely at the shoulder, cleaned up and a flat face cut to allow me to glue it into the position I wanted. I was going to pin the arm in place, but as I will need to fill in some pretty large gaps with greenstuff, I thought the greenstuff would hold everything in place once set.

Varnish looks a bit too shiny, might need redoing

Would the two figures fit together with a ladder? A dry run found a problem, the standard bearer's newly positioned arm wouldn't fit through the ladder. I'd only got two ladders, so I was quite nervous cutting a section of a rung away. Altogether they fitted together quite well. 

Now that I knew they 'fitted' it was out with the greenstuff and new heads fitted.

Parliament's ladder

If you think I am making this look easy, it wasn't. This is the edited version. The pikeman was easy enough, and the first standard bearer went smoothly. But then I took a break, thankfully I had a number of the standard bearers in my spares box. Second finished standard bearer not as good as the first, but once the ladder is in place he looks better.

If you enjoyed reading this, or any of the other posts, please consider supporting the blog. 
Thanks.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BCW Project & Wiki mkII

-
Image
  After all the tales of woe and gnashing of teeth (see here ), I'm very pleased to report that: the BCW Project & Regimental Wiki is back! Slightly different domain though: BCW-Project.org.uk  (TL;DR a long story mostly centred around corporate greed). The Project side of things: the Project is 'as it was' when it disappeared from the internet nearly 2 years ago. The Wiki link on the front page, is the only real change, as it has been set to direct to the new regimental wiki address. Over the next few months, it will see some changes, mostly updating the formatting of pages, copyright, updating privacy policies etc. You may find some links broken (this goes for the Wiki too), these are being fixed but may take some time. You will also note that the 'contribute' feature has been disabled. There's quite a few things that need sorting out. The Project side of the site is very out of date software wise, and isn't  really mobile device friendly, so is in the...
Read more

Polemos ECW

-
Image
On a trip down to that there London, I popped in to the annual wargamer festival of mass consumption (aka Salute). Sadly no Civil War display games present this year - the one that was supposed to be there was a 'no show'.  So to 'justify' my visit I purchased the Polemos* ECW rules from the Baccus stand. Yet another ruleset from Pete Berry (he is co-author with David Heading and Edward Sturges) who was looking very hassled behind the till as the EPOS system wasn't working due to poor network coverage. The 76 page rulebook is split into five sections: set up, core rules, terrain and optional rules, army generators, and appendices. Set up and core rules taking up just 28 pages. So what do you get in the rulebook? Lots of tables; good written examples and diagrams explaining rule mechanisms; lots of art by the late Lesley Prince; copious B&W photos; and 4 pages of full colour eye candy to inspire you. All for just a tenner (which at the current exchange rate is le...
Read more

Act of Oblivion

-
Image
Bonus Tuesday book post! The Act of Oblivion was passed in 1660 and was, in theory, a line drawn at the end of the Commonwealth allowing the Restoration of the crown with effectively a clean slate for everyone who had taken part in the Civil Wars. With the exception of the regecides. It is also the title of Robert Harris's latest novel. With one foot in a history book, and the other firmly in fiction Harris's story follows the fictitious agent of the crown Richard Nayler. Nayler's task is to hunt down the regicides, and the novel focuses on his hunt for Colonel Edward Whalley,  and Colonel William Goffe. For those of you who like to do your "reading with your ears" (Richard Ayoade) The novel is currently serialised on BBC Radio 4's ' A Book At Bedtime '. There are ten fifteen minute long episodes. Well worth a download. (The series started Monday 16th January and should be available for a few months to come). If you enjoyed reading this, or any of the ...
Read more

Executions!

-
Image
The Museum of London Docklands currently has an exhibition exploring 700 years of executions in London's history; originally planned to appear in 2020 the exhibition fell victim to lockdown cancellations and disappeared from the Museum's schedule. It's finally here, but now on show at Docklands rather than the London Wall site. As I mention the London Wall site, it is about to permanently shut its doors (December 4th), in preparation for its move to the new site in West Smithfield (planned to open in 2026) and rebrands itself London Museum. The exhibition runs until 16th April 2023 and has an entrance charge. The Musuem recommends that the exhibition is suitable for 12 years and older. Obviously, the lack of interactive execution methods precludes the very young. The exhibition, unsurprisingly given its theme, is very macabre and probably isn't for everyone. The exhibition starts with a look at methods of execution and its use in medieval times, mostly the exhibits are ...
Read more

‘Lett no woman presume to counterfeit her sex by wearing mans apparall'

-
Image
No Monday post this week; in celebration of International Womens' Day let us investigate some more women of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. But first, a little about the title of this post... The longest post title on the blog award goes to this one, courtesy of His Majesty Charles I.  In 1643, a draft proclamation was drawn up, setting out required standards of behaviour for Charles I’s army. It included a hand-written memo in the margin from the king stating: ‘lett no woman presume to counterfeit her sex by wearing mans apparall under payne of the severest punishment.’ For balance, I toyed with a different title, courtesy of Old Knoll  'a youth of so fair countenance'. So far, on the blog, we have already met some strong women:  Captain Frances Dalziel/Dalyell/Dalzell (alias Mrs Pierson) ; Trooper Jane of Ripley Castle; and  the Countess of Derby resolutely defending Lathom House. It's about time we met some more... Cromwell's ' youth of so fair countenance ...
Read more

Comments

-
Image
Unfortunately I have had to temporarily disable comments and the contact form. Why? It appears that my pictures of the Warlord Epic cavalry sprue have upset a number of members of the 'Epic community' who have taken it upon themselves to bombard the blog with foul mouthed spam. Apparently I am trying to undermine the launch, and bring Warlord Games to bankruptcy. (If I had that sort of power, I think I would try to 'fix' something more beneficial to society than trying to bring a toy soldier company to its knees.) All I'll say in response is: you do know that these are just toy soldiers? To all my regular readers, normal service will resume at some point.  
Read more

Here is a box...

-
Image
Bonus points to those of you who got the 1970s children's TV reference in the title. Having run out of things to paint, I was, as you do when you can't fall asleep, trawling a certain auction site in the wee small hours and happened across a small wooden box. I won the auction with a bid of £2.50.  An idea germinated... A little project came to pass. The box was an ideal size to store all my gaming ephemera (dice, measuring sticks, arc of fire templates, All Rolled Up folding dice trays, dice pouches). But it would need a little bit of corporate titivation first. The inside was sprayed Liquitex raw umber, and a print of Streeter's Plan was sized, cut and glued to the inside of the lid. Several coats of satin varnish sealed everything. Everything fits neatly, and snugly inside. The lid had an inset piece of navy leather; now that would never do. An engraved 'brass effect' plaque was sourced from an online trophy shop for £4. And there you go, I'm now Mr Fancypant...
Read more

Holly Holy Day 2023

-
Image
Crivens! A second bonus post in less than a week. The first re-enactment date in the calendar is always Holly Holy Day in Nantwich. The day celebrates and commemorates the battle of Nantwich. This year was the 50th re-enactment of the battle, for which the Battle of Nantwich Society and The Sealed Knot should be applauded. So here, without any shame whatsoever, is gallery of some of the events from the day. The Royalist Army Parliament's Army The Armies march to the Battlefield The Battle Re-Enactment If you enjoyed reading this, or any of the other posts, please consider  supporting  the blog.  Thanks .
Read more

Belvoir Castle

-
Image
Belvoir Castle dominates the landscape around the Vale of Belvoir, so it doesn't take much to see why the Normans built the original castle on the site, nor does it take too much working out to why they named it 'beautiful view'. Of course, if you are wondering how to pronounce it, the locals pronounce it 'beaver'. The current 'castle' is a Regency house in a castle style, surrounded by a landscape envisaged by Capability Brown*. The original castle had fallen into ruin by Tudor times, and had been rebuilt by Thomas Manners, 1st Earl of Rutland. It is this second incarnation of the castle that became a thorn in Parliament's side. Belvoir was ideally located to protect the route from Oxford to Newark, the garrison used the castle as a stronghold from which to sally forth and disrupt Parliament's machinations in Lincolnshire , and Newark . The castle was owned by John Manners, 8th Earl of Rutland a Parliamentarian and Covenanter. In January 1643 one of...
Read more

File Leader

-
Image
What's this? Thin A5 booklet of 'skirmish' rules written by Pete Berry? Haven't I recently reviewed a set of thin A5 skirmish rules written by Pete Berry? Well yes I have. But these are slightly different from "Once Upon A Time In The West Country".  Whereas "Once Upon A Time" are for 1:1 skirmishes, "File Leader" is designed for slightly bigger engagements at 1:10. So you might field a troop of horse to take a bridge from a detachments of dragoons, and there may be up to 50 figures, in total, on the table. Those of you who worry about basing requirements, well there aren't any. If you have been around the block a bit, these rules will feel in many ways familiar. The morale tables are a direct copy of WRG 1685 - 1845 Rules. The move sequence is "I Go - You Go". Troop classification is entirely normal, with no fancy twists. The firing system is simple and effective, but the close combat rules are a bit too labour intensive. The...
Read more