Friday, June 13, 2025

We Sergeants Three..... Erm, perhaps a few more than three, 28mm Wargames Atlantic Foot Sergeants

 

now that I'm looking at him in a photo I see that I'm going
 to have to go back and fix the Old Man's face, that crooked mouth is killing me!

        The last part of my mass-build of the Wargames Atlantic Sergeants/Peasants sets is this group of spear-armed sergeants. My intent while building them was to get an "alike, but not the same" posing and equipment. To add some variety I used some of the unarmored peasant bodies to reflect poorer soldiers and made the rest using mailed/padded torsos. Once again the huge assortment of weapons and arms holding them made this a simple process. The color scheme is a nod to the year I spent in Cub Scouts (before I was expelled, but that is another story) with strong blues and rich yellows providing a pleasant contrast. The crisp detailing on the minis made painting less of a chore than I had thought it would be, only the sheer number of them slowed me down.

Thursday, June 12, 2025

Smelly Peasant Types...more Wargames Atlantic Middle Ages 28mm

 

please excuse the unfinished bases, I haven't decided if I am going to make
 sabot bases so that I can use these in skirmish games or larger bases for Midgard

       At the bottom of the social and military pyramid were the serfs/peasants. Often forced by circumstances (or their feudal overlord) to take part in the squabbles of their "betters" their main objective was to survive and return to the back-breaking labor of farming. They had little in the way of funds to spend on armaments so often they were armed with modified agricultural tools. Under just the right circumstances they could be effective, but most often they were just there to do the grunt work and buff numbers. The Wargames Atlantic set provides a huge number of options for posing and arming the minis so you are spoiled for choices when building your force.

I should have mentioned this in the last post,
 the shields are all left blank white while I seek decals for the heraldry
 

 
       And this is for The Housemartin:

 
                 


Tuesday, June 10, 2025

So.....It's been a while but I picked up a brush: 28mm Wargames Atlantic MIddle Ages minis

        May turned out to be far busier and decidedly unpredictable than I had imagined. At the beginning of the month I had started assembling the Foot Sergeants and Peasants sets from Wargames Atlantic. This (of course) took me down the rabbit-hole of trying to make each figure and individual, much time was lost combining the two sets. On the upside I can confidently say that they cross-pollinate very well. 

       After two weeks of squeezing a bit of spare time out here and there I was confronted with almost sixty little gray soldiers and that's when it hit me; I have to paint these guys! Don't get me wrong, these are excellent figures, well detailed, naturally proportioned and cleanly cast. It is just that, as my eyes have aged and arthritis has taken a toll on my hands, painting has gone from a pleasant pastime to a brutal grind. Or maybe it is that I grew up painting Minifigs and Hinchliffe figures....probably a bit of both. All that aside I have finally finished the crossbowmen and archers. You can behold them in all their splendor below. 

I understand that uniforms were not yet a "thing" but I like my units to be recognizable as units

I tried to make a "shouting and pointing" guy for the crossbow unit but wasn't satisfied with the look so only the archers have a readily spotted leader

       I'm nearly finished with the spearmen so they should be appearing soon. Perhaps I will find some ancient figures from the 1980's that I can speed-paint my way through.