Foteviken 1134: The Last of the Cavalry

These past weeks have seen me frantically painting to meet the deadline before the trip to London and Salute. Consequently, there has been very little time for blogging or even visting other blogs.

However, now I've finally finished the last of my models for our demonstration game The Battle of Foteviken 1134. Some more cavalry, bringing the total up to 36.

Just like the other units, this one has a mix of miniatures from Black Tree Design and Gripping Beast. I had to scrape the barrel, so to speak, for this last lot and as a result they have a bit more mixed appearance than the earlier ones. And honestly, they are a bit rushed in places. Anyway, they should blend in nicely with the others.

Even though this has been a fun project, where I've had to push my painting capacity a bit which has certainly been a useful learning experience, I think I'm done with mounted models for a while now ...

At Salute, we will be at GA15, just to the right after the entrance – see the map above. If you're at the show, please come by and say hello!

Foteviken 1134: Hirdmen

Here is another batch of miniatures for our Salute demonstration game, The Battle of Foteviken 1134. Up until now, my main focus has been the cavalry, but this time I've painted up some infantry from the king's and jarl's hirds, i.e. their household warriors.

The miniatures are once again a mix of Black Tree Design and Gripping Beast. The BTD 2nd Crusade models in particular, are very nice indeed.

For this project, I've not held back on the bright colours, especially on the shields. With lots of sharp colours, there's always the danger of them clashing and/or looking too garish. However, here they are balanced by muted browns and the greyish looks of their armours. All in all, I'm rather pleased with the final look.

This model is supposed to represent the son of the Danish king, Magnus, with his personal banner bearer. Like most of his brothers-in-arms, Magnus was killed at the battle, but not before making a heroic last stand. Let's see how he fares this time ...

As always, thanks for looking!

Foteviken 1134: Flags for the Cavalry

We did some more play testing for the Foteviken 1134 project at the club a while ago and I took the opportunity to take some pictures, focusing on the finished flags for the cavalry. You've already seen a sneak peek of these in the previous post but here are some better pictures.

It was very nice to see it all starting to come together. In fact, we were so pleased with the look of our collected forces that I was promptly given the order to do another 12 mounted models. Right now I'm in the midst of painting up a big batch of hirdmen (armoured infantry), but after these I will tackle some more riders.

I'm now beginning to dread transporting all these cavalry models to Salute ...

Thanks for reading!

Project F: Early Medieval Soldiers 3

It's been a bit quiet around here lately due Real Life intervening in the form of colds, stomach bugs, work and whatnot.

However, amongst all this I have managed to keep Project F chugging along and have now finished the final batch of mounted models: 11 more to bring the total up to 24. Only Gripping Beast models this time, apart from a Black Tree Design horse thrown in for some extra variety.

I'm still working on the flags, but I didn't want to wait until these were finished until I posted this. I thought I'd take some snaps of the whole force, flags and all, and post them here later.

Now it's on to the foot soldiers!

For those of you waiting for details about Project F, hang in there – it should be any day now ...

Project F: Early Medieval Soldiers 2

Just before New Year I previewed the first miniatures for Project F – the still "secret" project set in the early medievals, master-minded by the ever industrious Dalauppror. Now it's time for the first proper batch for this project and the last miniatures to be finished in 2015.

The miniatures are a mix of mainly Gripping Beast Normans, with some Black Tree Design 2nd Crusaders used as commanders. All very nice minis.

I'm using a bit of a "speed-painting" approach to this project, utilising a 3-tone technique in the Foundry style and cutting a lot of (small) corners. I pretty happy with how this has turned out, and while the miniatures don't look too good up close they look fine from a distance.

The shields are hand-painted, and some of them look a bit rubbish but I'm hoping these won't be too noticeable when all the units are done. Yes, there are more cavalry coming ...

You'll notice there are some flags missing, and this is because I still haven't decided on a design so I'm saving these for last.

After the mounted minis were finished, I did the painting tally for 2015 and realised I was just three miniatures short of an even hundred. So I picked three foot minis that were quickly painted up.

I'm quite pleased with how they all turned out, cavalry and foot, and I'm itching to continue with this project.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend everyone!

Håtunaleken – The Full Host of King Birger Magnusson

As I now have finished my host for our club project Håtunaleken, about the feuding royal brothers in early 14th century Sweden, I decided to take some pictures of the assembled units. To me, it's always very satisfying seeing a finished project like this.

This is a full 24 points retinue for Lion Rampant consisting of:
Mounted Men-at-Arms (Drilled) 7 points
Foot Men-at-Arms 6 points
Foot Serjeants 4 points
Foot Yeomen (Mixed Weapons) 5 points
Bidowers 2 points

Leading from the front, swinging his big axe and accompanied
by his personal bodyguard, is the king himself.
In the background can be seen the fearsome knights,
ready to make short work of any rebellious brothers.

The miniatures are a mix of Black Tree Design, Curtey's and Gripping Beast. There are some headswaps hidden amongst the units, with new heads from Curtey's and West Wind.

I had my first game with the complete host this past Monday – and it was a complete and utter disaster! More about this humiliating defeat in Dalauppror's upcoming AAR I'm sure ...

And to finish it all off, here is the last part of the story of the Second Feud of Brothers. When we left the three royal brothers – Birger, Erik and Valdemar – Sweden had just fought a civil war with the king Birger on one side and the younger brothers duke Erik and duke Valdemar on the other. Since Birger and Erik through marriage, had the support of the Danish and the Norwegian kings respectively, neither side was strong enough and the fighting was inconclusive. Instead, on initiative of the two other kings, in 1310 a peace treaty was signed and Sweden was now definitely split between the brothers and in practice ruled as three independent kingdoms. However, as the "legitimate" king Birger had, in his own opinion at least, drawn the shortest straw, he naturally wanted to restore his power and unite the kingdom under himself once again.

Here are the king's trusted knektar (serjeants),
and in front of them some skirmishing peasants.

In December 1317, as a sign of reconciliation, king Birger invited the dukes Erik and Valdemar to Nyköpings hus (Nyköping Castle). When they arrived they were told only they could stay at the castle, since there wasn't enough room to house all their men. Instead, the men had to make camp in the city itself.

On the night between December 10th and 11th, the dukes were arrested by a company of crossbow men. According to the legends, the king himself was present at the arrests and is told to have said:

Minnes idher nakot aff Haatwna leek?
Fulgörla minnes han mik!
Thenne er ey bätre än hin!

(Do you remember the Håtuna Games?
All too well I remember them!
This one will not be any better!)

The dukes were then imprisoned in the dungeons, while in the morning all their men were also arrested. These particular events have became known as "Nyköpings gästbud" (Nyköping Banquet).

However, Birger had misjudged the political situation: rather than acknowledge him as king, the dukes' supporters rose up against Birger and Sweden was once again thrown into a civil war.

Finally the allmoge, peasants armed with a mix of spears,
polearms and crossbows. (Sorry about the blurry picture!)

When Nyköping castle was besieged in the summer of 1318, Birger and his queen were forced to flee to the island Gotland and then further on to Denmark. In the meantime, their son, Magnus, was left in charge of the defenders of the castle. However, they could not hold out against the attacking forces and Magnus was also forced to flee towards Gotland. During the flight he was captured and later executed in Stockholm in 1320. When the dukes' supporters broke into the castle they found both Erik and Valdemar dead in the dungeons. How they died remains unclear to this day – were they murdered or did they die of starvation?

Birger ended his days in exile in Denmark 1321, while duke Erik's only son Magnus Eriksson was chosen as king of Sweden in 1319 at the age of three. Prior to this, he had been declared king of Norway after his grandfather king Håkon Magnusson had died, and thus he was destined to become a very powerful man indeed. King Magnus was a very interesting person, for many reasons, but this is another story best left for another time!

Have a great weekend everyone and thank you very much for reading!

Håtunaleken – Bidowers for King Birger

Hello everyone, long time no see etc etc. It's summer/vacation time, which strangely enough means I'm more busy than ever. The unexpected bonus of having small kids I guess. Anyway, time to update the long neglected old blog with some painted miniatures – my final unit for the Håtunaleken club project no less.

This is a unit of skirmishers, or bidowers as they are called in Lion Rampant. Very nice for screening your advancing troops and harassing the enemy.

The models are all from Black Tree Design and started out as Anglo-Saxons. A couple of them got new heads from West Wind Miniatures for a bit of variety. These are the hooded ones and the blond fella.

As they are meant to represent poor peasants, hunters and other wood folks I went for a really muted palette. To add some interest I picked out some details in contrasting colours.

I'm in the process of sorting out some picture of the full host and will post these in the coming week.

Thank you very much for reading!