The pike Machine cranks up again

More pike for the masses, this time it’s the Trained Bands turn to get shafted. I hand picked a group of pikemen with buff jerkins. Most are Redoubt miniatures but I have also included a couple of Bicorne miniatures with tassets. This is because the Trained Bands had a lot of equipment and so would have access to the best stuff. I’ve only put two in as most sets of tassets would of been dumped. I’ve worn mine once and that was enough, let alone March in them.

The second rank of musketeers are put outside for a couple of hours to take the smell away. My old Soft tone does dry quite quickly so loses its smell pretty fast, still give it 24hrs though just in case.
 

London Trained Bands WIP

There is a good splattering of buff jerkins in there including a new officer with a head swop. His hat looks like a giant Spanish one from the Thirty years war.

The sneaky converted plastic musketeer looks good in the mix.

 

Basing Roundheads

The tracks go off in this direction...

The Roundhead commander in chief is getting ready to take to the field.

These 60mm round bases are designed to be Forlorn Hope bases for Victory without Quarter. These have been tweaked from the Artillery guard stands. On a certain card from the deck, both sides skirmishers can act, very similar to the cannon. It’s work in process at the moment but it quite fun trying to work it all out. 

They will have an attack of three D6 which makes them pretty useless against a regiment, although lucky rolls can happen. This makes them more of a annoyance really as they can’t combine their fire with other bases. They have a single wound so three hits would destroy them, if they receive two hits they have to roll for morale and could route 2D6.

However, they are always classed as open order so are quite hard to hit and if in cover as well, are going to be a real pain. A regiment using its volley fire to try a flush out annoying stinging knats is going to be really ticked off and so will be good to tie up units. 

They can not melee and are destroyed on contact with large regiments. I suppose skirmishers vs skirmishers could duke it out with three D6, higher score wins in melee.

Watch out for cavalry, so get those bases into buildings or fortified cover.

 There are bases of Dog locks too, these are meant to be companies so have six figures to a base. They suffer all of the same rules as above but fire with Four D6 making them a very different story on the field.

I added tiny stones from Army painter which seem to work well.

 

Cheering Dwarves

These four bases will make a unit for Oathmark. Being Dain’s army from the Iron hills, all these Dwarves will be classed as warriors for the game, tough and armoured veterans.

This Dwarven battle line has withstood numerous fierce attacks and has survived. They now cheer and jeer their retreating foes.

What’s getting him down?

Head to head, the newly arrived Dwarves meet the heavily armoured orcs. The cheering Dwarves look confident but will they stand...

It proved a bit more tricky than I had first imagined to put these bases together. I arranged the first two bases then left them overnight, so I could take another look at them the next day with fresh eyes. It took a lot of moving around figures and repositioning before I stuck them down. The casualties really helped the narrative and were well worth it.

I also had eight figures left over from long ago and these were put into another two stands. This way a full unit for Oathmark was obtained with four bases ( four ranks).

 

Getting Ready for the Flock!

Well, I’ve been in the new rented house for a few weeks now and I thought it time to finally catch up with all the unfinished projects. Bolg and his mighty bodyguard are still in need of some love. The two elites of the army, Bolg’s bodyguard and the Black Uruks meet up for a photo opportunity and a great time is had by all.

It’s also time to see to the casualties of the move. This poor troll lost his hand after I lost my balance and the whole box tipped 45 degrees.

 It took me ages but I found my unfinished ECW cavalry too. Very annoying when you can’t find anything but I pushed on and found the little sh#ts hiding in a random box. Note to self, must pack better.

 

Frost Grave Demons as Orcs

See what I mean... these Demons make for great Morannon orcs from the Jackson films. Very handy for GW players.

The motley line up, quickly mustered and sent off to the front.

I do like the Demon shields with all the rivets and overlapping plates.

The black watch, I painted these as black Uruks with black/ blue skin. I actually used confederate grey from Foundry for some of the flesh tones.

“Stop pushing at the back you maggots!”

Black leather armour looks good and is different from what I have done before. I bought some GW Contrast paints from eBay and the ‘Black Templar’ is very useful for this.

This is interesting, a Mantic goblin on the right makes for a nice Snaga archer. The next figure is half FG Demon and half Warlordgames orc. The goat legged Demons can be sawn in half so as not to waste the torso. The big guy is a Frost Grave Demon with orc head.

Close up of the mix of the two sprues. They make for a good medium size orc.