Italian wars 47 Steelfist and plastic pound shop gendarmes

 Twenty four more gendarmes, eight from Steel fist, expensive (£6 each!)but exquisite, they almost painted themselves the detail is so well done ,they're pretty much bang on identical in size with Perry figures which is also helpful. I reverted to my previous technique of prime black,dry brush white to highlight and then paint in washes . They have been finished as French gendarmes as they were the most exuberant in  terms of clothing and accoutrements, my wife and daughter took to referring to all the figures in this  post( I  paint on my lap in the living room while everyone watches TV) as entrants in Rupaul's drag race and I can see their point, they are somewhat over the top, I can see them bursting into " I am what I am" or something similar!

The other sixteen  are based around some boxes of reinforcements for the game Battle Masters that GW did the design for and I think was based in their Old world milieu. I didn't have the game but came across them in a clearance pop up store,some time ago and paid £2 a  box for two boxes of the empire version which contained a mounted general, three knights,  10 archers,five halbardiers, five crossbow men and a cannon with two crew. I  later picked up the chaos box, two mounted chaos knights, two ogres and twenty beastmen for a pound. Luckily, as a bonus, there was an additional sprue of three caparisoned horses in one of the boxes,and there,or in the loft they stayed for 30 years!

 I'd cut the knights lances off to make Scottish Lancers but eventually decided I should try and make something work out of what's left. With the addition of a couple of Essex later medieval knights I picked up with something I actually wanted off of Ebay I was now up to twelve figures and I just needed to scrape together four more figures to  give me two more units for pike and shot, or combined with the Steelfist figures four units for To the strongest!

 I had two Perry plastic knights left over from the last post and then added in a couple of spare warlord pike and shot troopers with headswaps and the addition of trumpets on Perry medieval horses. I also replaced the lost lances with Perry plastic lances. The Battle Masters  figures are a bit smaller than GW warhammer figures, they're more like chunky 28mm which means they mix in pretty well I think,I did have to carve the shields off of them and carve arms ,of course on the chaos warriors, I had to remove the distinctive headgear and add the front face of a  Perry helm and  feathers but I think I've got away with it!

 I have ,because of the preponderance of caparisoned horses ,had to spend a bit more time painting them as they are a bit more toy like I guess and have used Maximilian's triumph prints as reference , strippy lances et all, they've been great fun to paint and they are finished off with a mix of blown up Perry flags or Foundry free download flags,all French.

The plastic figures are on chunkier bases because I had to use some slotta bases,which the horse almost fit, cut down and glued to Perry 45mm x 60mm bases and then fill the gaps with foamboard .

All the best Iain 

War of three Kingdoms 8 cuirassiers

 Here we have 8 cuirassiers to give me a  unit in Pike and Shot/ To the strongest for the War of three Kingdoms, which is a less Anglo centric name for the English civil war and it  also dates from the 17th century. 

Like the Pike and Shot rules these figures are from Warlord games, most of them are from the cuirassiers box set ,which are metal figures and plastic horses,  as you get 12 figures and my units are 8, I've added a plastic figure, cut off his left arm and repurposed one of the spare metal right arms and given him a spare right arm to finish him off and make up the numbers.  

I've gone for a  mix of metal and blackened armour and a variety of buff,I'm kind of looking forward to doing a unit in a uniform soon , that might be easier!

The flag is from the box set and is meant to be Essex's unit of cuirassiers at Edgehill,there's a lot of chat about cuirassiers in this war and there only being one unit Heselrig but I'm not convinced you can absolutely prove it so I'm going to do another unit for the Royalists!

I've given them more of a  primary red sash,mid way between orange and scarlet so I  can use them for either side, or change the flag and use them in the thirty years war! Still nothing Napoleonic but it's only January and I'm wading through 24 more gendarmes, focus, they're a great band aren't they?

All the best Iain 

Great Italian wars 46 Fast and dirty gendarmes!

 We have here 24 x gendarmes for the great Italian wars, three units of eight, it's just that two were painted earlier, in fact they've been cluttering up the paint desk for something like eight years! They're metal Perry war of the Roses command figures. The rest are all Perry plastic with the addition of spare Steel fist heads from their gendarmes set.

I've painted up two units as Spanish gendarmes which were less heavily armed than their Italian and French counterparts, the Perry set is for the War of the Roses and goes up to the end of the 15th century, the Great Italian wars starts at the end of the 15th century, they might be a bit old fashioned but in the  words of Rod Stewart, I don't mind, they wear it well!

The other unit I will be using as French and I have given them a French flag I did in a previous challenge, those gendarmes are currently flying Papal/Venetian flags in two of my To the strongest  armies, I wanted to be able to field four armies on my two tables but I have a dearth of gendarmes, hence these 24 gentlemen,  I have a further 24 moving on to the painting table, gosh this laser focus on Napoleonics is going well don't you think? 

I've changed techniques on these chaps,previously I would prime black, dry brush white and then paint with washes, giving me a kind of highlighting.  In an effort to increase speed and productivity I have continued to prime in black and then wet brushed the colours on using the black as shadow,  I think it's worked alright, I'm calling them good enough!

The Spanish flags are by Pete's flags, they're ace!

So a unit of Steel fist gendarmes and two units of plastic pound shop gendarmes  have now hit the painting desk, more French gendarmes (they need a lot!) to come!

The barded horses are warlords plastic English civil war horses with their heads replaced by Perry's ,first post of 2021, that's 220 points,charge!

All the best Iain