[Matilda]

Thanks Willz 🙂 more to follow as I go. I have some more sprues painted up so will put a few photos on when they’re not so AP tacky. . .

[Matilda]

Absolutely, Alexander 🙂 I thought intially I’d at least pick up a little that might be useful, but have since found the Robin Of Sherwood DVDs I mentioned early on in a box of stuff to go to charity shops and had a watch anyway for old time’s sake. Oh boy. .  .

Time does weird things with your memories of old TV and film. Marion wears eye-shadow that makes her look like she’s in ABBA, Robin has a hairdo like an 80’s footballer and there are Tiffen filter long shots galore (the sky is often green or orange)! Still, fun in a nostalgic way, if only for the eye rolling, scenery chewing Sheriff, Nicholas Grace!

First photos of some English longbowmen using reference from an Osprey book, with AP Quickshade Soft Tone.

[Matilda]

Thanks for the ongoing info and photos everyone, all very helpful 🙂

Guy, I vaguely remember seeing a TV documentary which must have used some of the longbow enthusiasts you mentioned and a “simulated strike” on a mounted dummy armoured knight. At the time I thought “WOW, must have been like a Tornado carrying a JP233 ADM!”, but your comments help put that into perspective.

Did some work on the ultracast minis yesterday, didn’t get as far as I wanted due to some interuptions, but if anyone is thinking of buying any I found the following:

They do take paint without priming, which was nice

Cleaning up with a scalpel means careful slicing with a fresh blade (I started with one used for only a couple of days on injection moulded polystyrene, didn’t work, sharpened it with a diamond whetstone as an experiment, slightly better, then changed out for a fresh blade, essential

The material is somewhere in-between hard poly and the old soft Airfix toy soldier stuff of the 70’s, almost but not quite, like Reaper Bones and has a tendency to be a bit fluffy, so no files are going near these

The minis in these boxes are made from moulds usually used with metal according to PSC, so I think if I keep going, having bought a box each of French and English I’ll save up the pennies and go into metal rather than more ultracast, but a good place to start as they’re not expensive for the amount of minis in a box.

 

Interesting to note that the three battles you’ve mentioned are the ones Osprey covers. Hmm. . . if they had a World Cup series, perhaps it would be very short? 🙂 Looking forward to finding out how deep this can of worms is!

 

 

 

 

[Matilda]

Many thanks to everyone who’s posted since I started up this thread 🙂 All very helpful and I will follow up the links.

Yes Ruarigh, I’m in the UK and after your post am thinking of using Cheshire and Flint as Osprey Combat 24 HYW 1337-60 has a nice illustration of an English longbowman in green/white livery and I have family connections to Flint. Katie L’s guide above prompted me to have a look at this again, so thanks for sharing your experience. I haven’t mentioned that the minis I’m using are 15mm “Ultracast” from PSC as I’m just getting started – I’ve enough English and French to try out the rules (MeG), but I also have Osprey’s Lion Rampant  and looking at larger scales for that, but don’t want to overextend myself at the start and not get something finished. However, willz minis in 25mm are very appealing and the hand painting of the banners looks superb, I can see you’ve put a great deal of time into this. I’ll be printing!

If I do decide to go to a larger scale and add to the lead/plastic pile, is 25mm still popular for the period, or has 28mm supplanted it as it has in other periods/genres? Also, MeG seems to be quite a new system and I’m curious as to what other rules systems people use. This all started up because I was on PSC’s website buying WW2 15mm British and saw MeG, thought I’d give it a try and bought the rules, then settled on HYW to start with as MeG covers a very long time period.

Looking at the English bowman, he’s equipped with a sword and buckler. Once he’s exhausted his arrows, does he become “second line infantry”, or are these defensive and he keeps out of harms way as he’s too valuable an asset to lose? Until I get hold of a tactics book (Osprey do one, I think), I’m falling back to my experience and he seems “MILAN of his day” in that mindset. Reasonable (if simplistic) analogy?

Ultracast claims to require no priming (not sure about that, but I’ve painted some fantasy Reaper Bones making the same claim and they were OK,just needed a wash in warm water with a dash of WU liquid). Planning to do a bit of painting today and will post some photos once there’s something to see!

 

[Matilda]

That’s brilliant, thanks very much. I’ve ordered a copy and will give the links a look too.

[Matilda]

Thanks willz, I think that’s the sort of thing I’m looking for. The Osprey’s I’ve read have been useful but this looks very comprehensive.

[Matilda]

Thanks bobm for the heraldry rules, very helpful. Born to the purple dredged up from O level History too many years ago to admit to, and perhaps the RoS reference should have had a 😉 following, but I won’t tell if you don’t, and it’s a good excuse for me to dig it out and watch again anyway 🙂 I seem to remember John Rhys Davies is in one episode years before playing TLOTR, but I might be wrong.  Using anything fictional is always a bit dubious at the very least (I remember the fuss over beach obstacles when Saving Private Ryan was first screened, despite no end of military and historical advisers, and some Easy Company veterans thought Blythe died of his wounds as recorded in Band of Brothers, then he turned out to have survived and remained in the US army for some years). Going off topic now, course correction made. . .

[Matilda]

That was quick, thanks to you all!

I seem to remember that the ’80s Robin of Sherwood didn’t go overboard with the costuming, and I have that somewhere on DVD and will revisit this and Thomaston’s suggestions. Isn’t there something about being “born to the purple” connected with this being a difficult colour to produce at the time (synthetic dyes are Victorian/industrial revolution onwards, I think) and so expensive and the preserve of the wealthy. Thanks for the livery colours advice Katie, very helpful, I can go with my favourite colours and no one can complain! No “That Spetsnaz beret is the wrong shade of blue” here 🙂 Having said that, I have a high rivet-counting tendency myself. There’s no substitute for experience, Sane Max, so thanks for passing on yours. There’s always a time when you look back and think “Wish I’d known that before I started”. I’ll keep the AP use restrained. Comments and suggestions from “the more serious types” very welcome too!

 

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