Salute 2016: The Battle of Foteviken 1134

Well I'm safely back in Sweden after my visit to Salute this past weekend. I had a very nice time, met up with some very nice people and had the honour of being part of a terrific team. It was extremely satisfying seeing this project finally come together like this.

Thank you to Michael for taking the lead on this whole project and a truly heroic painting effort; to Jan for his stunning terrain and wonderful ships; to Jesper for lovely painting and, as always, being an most enjoyable opponent; to Colin for, amongst other things, his help in setting up the table, repairing damaged models and not least his tireless chatting to everyone who came to see the table; to Steve for helping out with everything, playing and being a thoroughly nice and enthusiastic chap; to Tony for making sure we didn't get in the way of anyone taking photos.

Finally a big thank you to everyone who came to see us, ask questions and compliment the game. We had a steady stream of visitors throughout the day – and a fair few times it was really cramped around the table – and I was truly humbled by all the nice things people had to say about the terrain, modelling and painting.

Here are some pictures of the game. I'll be back with another post with pictures of some of the other games I found while walking around on my breaks. Enjoy!

A modest start.

Starting to come together.

The table and miniatures all set-up.

We had a swanky rollup, designed by yours truly,
to welcome the visitors. 

Close-up of Jan's stunning ships.

Someone saw the trouble ahead and made a dash for it.

Mercenary German cavalry riding through the village.

The Scanian welcome committee.

Danish invaders.

The battle lines starting to close in.

Lots of details to explore on the table.
The fire had a flickering LED-light in it – very nice!

The cavalry making slow but steady progress.

The battle is beginning to take its toll:
soon there will be more models off the table than on ...

Time for some fresh reinforcements ...

... and off we go again.

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 Revealed: Foteviken 1134 at Salute 2016

The time has come to finally reveal the first details of the elusive "Project F": This is the code name for our early medieval demonstration game at Salute 2016 – The Battle of Foteviken 1134.

On June 4th 1134, the forces of King Niels of Denmark and his rival, the Jarl of Scania Erik Emune, clashed by the bay of Foteviken. The battle was not only a struggle for the Danish crown, but also for the archbishophood of Scania and a chance for Jarl Erik to avenge the death of his brother.

We will give more details of the background for the battle and set-up of our game, during the run up to Salute, so be sure to check back.

The project is master-minded by the ever industrious Michael/Dalauppror, and based on an idea by our man on the ground, Swede in exile and terrain builder extraordinaire Jan. Those of you who saw the fantastic table Jan built for last years's participation game, Stockholm 1392, knows he's a very talented man indeed and this year's build promises to be even more impressive.

Together with club chairman Jesper, I have been drafted into painting some of the necessary models for the demonstration game, although the bulk will be done by Michael. He's putting us both to shame though, as I think he's finished most of his share already!

Be sure to catch all the updates for the project on Michael's and Jesper's blogs respectively.

Salute 2016 will be held at ExCel London on April 16th. Our table will be a GA15, just to the right after the entrance. We hope to see you there!

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 ...