Here is a French basic impetus army from some time ago that I'd almost forgotten about, I mentioned it the other day and got it out from the top shelf of the cabinet and was pleasantly surprised with it. I am in the midst of assembling a French and English army for 1415, entirely Perry and mostly plastic but before that army was the English army that I raided for archers and this French army that has a few late 1970's citadel archers but otherwise is a product of the 21st century. Basic impetus was my way back into historical gaming after decades of painting 40k figures and precious little gaming. Basic impetus at the time was a free set and covered the great Italian wars which I aspired to at the time I had Perry war of the Roses armies, recently painted as did Des so we played Lancastrian versus Yorkists on temporary bases, in the meantime I decided to revamp my citadel figures who mostly seemed English? I therefore decided to create a French 100 years force, more Crecy and Poitiers than Agincourt like the English I already had. I was a little constrained by cost so the knights and the sandal wearing crossbowmen were ebay purchases, the pavisse carrying crossbow men were mostly citadel. The spear armed militia were plastic hat reconquista plastic figures with Perry heads and shields, I gave them the emblem of Angers as it is the nearest city to where my sister has lived for over 20 years. The knights heraldry is taken from a Funken book and I spent a happy evening doing them! The bases were my first go at scratch building sabot bases for cavalry and they have been refined in the meantime as has my basing!
Some of the flags came off the Internet, the knights are mostly Essex I think? It's a nice little army, I have started work on their English opponents but I think they might be a while yet. I don't know of anyone around here who plays impetus ( I have bought the new version of Basic impetus) but I think they might be a start for a To the Strongest! army?
No John at the club so I took part in a game of dead mans hand very bloody and duplicitous and great fun, lovely figures and terrain supplied by one of the other Ians at the club.
Here you go Lawrence, waiting for a delivery on site! The start of a dark age Welsh army.
Next up ? Napoleonics, late Romans, something the Jolly Broom man refers to as Space Nazis? Great Italian wars?I'm not sure!
All the best
Iain
I love the Impetus army Iain, as some of the figures I'm pretty sure we had as kids/teenagers, if not they are very similar in style and detail, something which I've grown to love over recent years. Nostalgia I'm sure! Wild West has never floated my boat but the game does look great:).
ReplyDeleteThanks Steve I got the back row of crossbow men about the same time as tge white dwarf I sent you so yes, a return to our childhood!
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I'm not going to lie Iain, I involuntarily flinched a little when I saw all that plastic waiting to be glued together, but then relaxed when I reminded myself how good the Perry product is. Beautiful French army and nicely done on the heraldry. It is quite a chore finding the individual designs, but the total effect is well worth the effort.
ReplyDeleteThanks Lawrence,wargames Atlantic not Perry but still nice figures! Glad you liked the French army!
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How could you "almost forget" such a handsome army? Glad to see that it was rediscovered. Honestly, I don't see why Impetvs (Basic or otherwise) does not see much play time. As a core set of mechanisms that simply work, I think they do the job terrifically. I use them for a variety of periods and they always provide an exciting game.
ReplyDeleteI always quite liked impetus but I guess you need a community to be playing the game and everyone seemed to want to play something else? Glad you liked my almost forgotten army too!
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Absolutely splendid mate, on the strength of this post I have just broken my « no buying new miniatures » rule and gone 12mm WOTR from kalistra. Damn it. Having played using Jon’s Basic Impetus I’ll go down that route too.
ReplyDeleteThanks Mark, sorry to be a figure pusher! I always liked Basic impetus and you've obviously had a go with Jonathan, I'm sure you'll have fun!
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Good stuff! Nice little French army. Cool western town/game. Lots of plastic potential.
ReplyDeleteThanks Fitz on all three counts!
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They are beautiful, I love how they look. The Dead Man's Hand is quite a twist in this blog, pretty nice too!
ReplyDeleteThanks Suber, yes Dead mans hand makes a change but a really good skirmish game!
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What was lost is found? Very well done project and good luck on table top with them.
ReplyDeleteYes and I didn't even know they were lost, that's a bonus!
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Excellent. On the head swap, Perry to HaT, that is an interesting mix of soft / hard plastic, did you have to pin?
ReplyDeleteThe new Billhooks rules would be another possible for this army, especially as they straddle 100 years and Italian Wars.
I've got yhe billhooks set, I picked it up with wargames illustrated. All the hat 28mm are hard plastic same as Perry except the British Napoleonic cavalry which are semi hard. They're a little smaller/slighter than other 28mm figures but I am planning on getting some more hat Bavarians to give me at least a brigade in 1809, kind of need Bavarians for the early battles?
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Lovely looking army!
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot Michal!
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Cracking looking French army, some great figures on show and very well painted.
ReplyDeleteThanks very much Donnie!
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Great looking army Iain, and clever use of the models you had on hand. The Dead Man's Hand game looked great as well, and sounds like you had fun. Look forward to seeing how the Welsh develop, and what you decide to show next.
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot Dave, yes Dead mans hand was great fun, the Welsh are a long term project, I've got all the other dux Bellorum armies so I figured I should do the Welsh as well but not a priority!
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Very nice! Hopefully you will get them on the table soon
ReplyDeleteThanks Greg, me too!
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Nice looking army Iain. Not played the basic BI but have played several remote games using Jon Freitag's version, and very enjoyable they have been.
ReplyDeleteThanks Chris, it's a pretty decent set of rules I think?
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arise great looking army from storage! arise!!!
ReplyDeleteI still haven't tried BI either. I found the rules hard to read.
DMH is supposed to be a system I'm getting into one of these days. 😁
Thanks Stew, sounds like we're bacj with Frankenstein! I thought it was a good set of rules, it might be because it was originally written in Italian that it was slightly different? DMH is getting a new edition so you can dive into that!
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Nice little army from the top shelf and I’m sure could be brought back into play under several rulesets. Lots of other stuff going on. I was glad to finish painting my welsh infantry recently, I’m not planning on a getting any more.
ReplyDeleteThanks Matt, yes I'm sure I could use them with various systems, they're all single based on sabots so there's no excuse! Your Welsh army is excellent so I can see why you wouldn't need to add to them!
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Lovely medieval heraldry Iain, and the western gunfight game looks cool - they are generally a lot of fun, in my experience!
ReplyDeleteThanks Keith yes the western game was great fun!
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Some splendid figures here, congrats!
ReplyDeleteThanks very much Phil!
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Some absolutely cracking figures there, Iain, which made me immediately consider bringing out my unfinished Italian wars project I started last year. But I'm desperately trying to play catch up with some Napoleonics currently, so I'll just have to stay strong... ;-)
ReplyDeleteDifficult to stay strong, I've done two years of almost exclusively Napoleonics so I'm doing some other bits and bobs but I still want to paint 400 Napoleonic figures this year!
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Great looking army Iain.
ReplyDeleteThanks very much Richard!
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Loving the HYW figures, can't go wrong with Essex figures.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ray, yes I've got z surprising number in my collection!
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Some classic/vintage? miniatures there Iain…
ReplyDeleteDead Man’s Hand… A very entertaining game… Trust no one 🤣.
All the best. Aly
Too true about the figures, 1979? I think! Great game and I will take your advice!
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