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!

GNW – Östgöta Infanteriregemente

For our club project on the Great Northern War (1700–1721), I have painted up a unit of Swedish infantry – the Östgöta Infanteriregemente (the Östergötland Infantry Regiment). The regiment took part in several battles in the war, most notably Holowczyn in 1708 and the disastrous Poltava in 1709. It was perhaps not the most glorious or outstanding regiment in the Swedish army, but as Östergötland is the province where I was born and grew up, I thought it would be fun to have a personal connection (however small) to the unit I choose.

The Swedish soldiers of this time was known as "karoliner" (Caroleans). The name derives from the latinised version of the name Karl (Charles) the name of the two Swedish kings, Karl XI and his son Karl XII, who reformed the Swedish army during their reigns.

The Swedish battlefield tactics of this time were highly aggressive, partly in an attempt to make up for the relative small size of the army. Under the orders "Gå på!" ("Go on!"), the soldiers would march right up to within 50 meters of the enemy, in the face of heavy fire, before unloading their own salvoes and then charging in with bayonets, rapiers and pikes. Add to this equally aggressive cavalry charges where rapiers were used in the charge instead of firearms, and heavy artillery fire, and you have a fearsome death machine indeed.

Such fearless – or death-defying! – tactics naturally counted on the troops being highly disciplined. The soldiers were heavily supervised, both at home and in the field. Religion played a pivotal role in both controlling the men and boosting morale. Punishment for any type of religious offence was harsh, often death. As the idea of a common nation was still some time in the future, the religion also served as a unifying factor for the army as a whole. Priests were naturally following the army when on campaigns, and would often be right up at the front.

These models, as well as the flags, are from the excellent Warefare Miniatures GNW range. The sculpts are somewhat slimmer, more anatomically correct perhaps, than the "chunky" style I'm used to. At first, I must admit, I found the delicate sculpts and fine details a bit of challenge, but I persevered and in the end I'm pretty happy with the result.

The regiment wears the standard uniform ("enhetsuniformen") but has blue and yellow rims on their tricornes, normally they would be white. I have seen conflicting information about this detail, but thought the blue and yellow rims looked good so I went with it. According to several sources, their scarves would be red but as you can't see any scarves on these models you just have use your imagination ...

As for the uniforms of the officers and drummer, I painted these with the same colours as the rest of the soldiers. I don't know if this is correct, but there you go.

Originally, I had planned to paint up the unit for the club's demo game at the LinCon gaming convention in May. However, the delivery of the miniatures was delayed a couple of months and I didn't get them until late April. Being a slow painter, this meant I didn't finish the unit in time. As the club is now gearing up for a whole GNW campaign, maybe I will get another chance to field them.

Thank you very much for reading.

Håtunaleken – All the King's Men

Not much action here lately I'm afraid, but I've actually not been idle. Hopefully I can sort out some picture of the latest stuff some time soon. Here's a start anyway!

Even more men are rallying to the king Birger Magnusson's banner in the fight against his rebellious brothers. This time I have painted up some dismounted knights (foot men-at-arms) and some more serjeants.

After the first couple of games – read all about it here and here – I not only found I lacked in missile troops, but also that I wanted the king to lead from the front instead of sulking way back with the defensive serjeants. As befits his status, I have now put him and his closest man in a hard-hitting unit of foot men-at-arms!

This slight rejigging of the force was done by adding the two foot knights I had already painted to the new unit, meaning I had to paint up a total of four foot knights and two serjeants (to replace the king and his man). Here are the new recruits.

The miniatures are all from Gripping Beast with two head swaps for the serjeants (the two miniatures to the left) as I didn't want any duplicates in the force. The new heads are from Curtey's and fit perfectly.

As before, the lions on the shields are over painted transfers.

This force is now almost finished, just a small unit of bidowers to paint up and the full 24 points of Birger's host is finally ready to defend his crown. If I can get the time for some games that is!

As always, thank you very much for reading!

Håtunaleken – Allmoge for The King's Host

The king Birger Magnusson has rallied some more troops to his banner. This time he's reinforced by a unit of allmoge – yeomen armed with a mix of spears, pole arms and crossbows.

As befits such a motley crew, the miniatures are a mix of Curtey's and Black Tree Design. One of the BTD minis had a cone helmet with a nose guard, typical 11th century stuff and not really suitable for the 14th century – even the rural Swedes weren't that much behind the fashion of the times by then. To bring him forward a couple of centuries I chopped his head off (a-ha!) and gave him a new one from one of the West Wind head sprues I have around. He's the one with the red and white shield on his back. The head fitted reasonably well, but for some reason it looks a bit weird from a certain angle. Oh well.

As they are in essence a bunch of peasants, I painted them mainly in muted colours but with some details in the colours of the House of Bjälbo to show their allegiance to the king.

This was my first experience with Curtey's miniatures and they were jolly nice, although perhaps they look a bit "squat". Might just be my preference though ...

During the games in our club campaign Håtunaleken, I have felt a distinct lack of missile troops for my host, so this unit is a welcome addition indeed.

Thank you all for reading!

Håtunaleken – The Host of Birger Magnusson

This is my starter "half host" (i.e. 12 points) for our latest club project Håtunaleken ("The Håtuna Games"). Some of you may have spotted these in my mate Dalauppror's AAR posted a while back, but here are some more detailed pictures together with some background for this fascinating period of Swedish history.

Corbel of Birger Jarl in Varnhem Abbey Church.

During the later parts of the 13th century Sweden had become a catholic monarchy in the vein of the larger kingdoms of Western Europe, thanks to the stability enforced by the mighty Birger Jarl of the House of Bjälbo – the last person to hold the old title of Jarl. In his role as adviser to the king, he had become so powerful that he could be seen as the de-facto ruler instead of the weaker monarch. Birger's crowning achievement was when he eventually managed to place his son, Valdemar, on the throne. The country was at this time an election-kingdom and thus the titel of king was not hereditary.

King Birger Magnusson of Sweden.
Painting from St. Bendt's Church in Ringsted, Denmark, where he is buried.

Valdemar was later usurped by his envious younger brothers Magnus and Erik, who defeated him in the battle of Hova and then forced him to resign. Instead Magnus, who later earned the epithet Ladulås ("Barnlock"), was now declared king and, like his father, appointed his son – Birger Magnusson – to succeed him. However, as Birger was very young when his father died, a Lord High Constable, Torgils Knutsson, ruled in his stead until the king was old enough to be crowned and take over the reign.

Torgils became very powerful indeed, at times he was probably the most powerful man in the kingdom, and spent some of his time conquering lands to the east, enlarging Sweden across the Baltic Sea.

Sibling rivalry obviously ran in the family, for when the time came for Birger's crowning in 1302, it was now time for his younger brothers Erik and Valdemar to rebel. After much skirmishing and raiding between both sides, in 1304 the brothers had to bow before Birger and Torgils Knutsson and recognize their superiority. However, the bitterness of the defeat soon saw the two brothers once again plotting to overthrow the king.

They began undermining his authority, and one of their key targets was Torgils Knutsson, who had remained a close ally and trusted advisor to Birger. The brothers managed to convince the king that the Lord High Constable had become too powerful and now posed a threat to not only Erik and Valdemar but also to Birger himself. In 1305 the three brothers had Torgils Knutsson arrested and executed in Stockholm. He was later buried in unsacred earth like a common criminal.

But Erik and Valdemar was of course not content with this. In 1306 the brothers arrived at the king's estate Håtuna by the lake Mälaren. As the three of them now seemed to be on good footing, Birger suspected no foul game and received Erik and Valdemar as friends and threw a feast in their honor. However, the brothers had other plans – during the night their men captured the king and the queen and took them to Nyköpings hus (Nyköping Castle) were they where held prisoners.

After this coup – which later became know as Håtunaleken, although the whole feud/power struggle is called andra brödrafejden ("the second feud of brothers", the first being the feud between their father Magnus Ladulås and his brothers) – Erik ruled as king, but was almost immediately thrown into a war with Denmark who was firmly on the side of Birger due to close family-ties with the Danish royal family.

Erik had in his turn close family-ties with the Norwegian royal family and had expected support from them in the ensuing fighting. However, the Norwegian king was growing worried about Erik's increasing power, especially as he had a very strong power-base in what is now the western parts of Sweden, close to Norway. Lacking the necessary support, Erik had to seek a truce. Birger and his queen were released, and Sweden was now split between the three brothers and in practice ruled as three independent kingdoms.

Birger wanted revenge after the humiliation suffered at the hands of his brothers, and revenge he would get ... But that is another story for another time!

The models are all from Gripping Beast. The sculpting is quite nice although some of the castings were a bit rough, perhaps showing the age of the moulds.

The look I wanted was a "varied uniformity", fitting for a medieval army. The main colours are from the arms of the House of Bjälbo, white and blue, but as I didn't want the models to look too uniform I tried to vary where the colours were applied.

This is the model I chose to represent Birger Magnusson, the king, together with his closest men. He is wielding an old family weapon – a might dane axe who is said to have belonged to the mythical progenitor of the House of Bjälbo, Folke Filbyter. (This is all made up by me, in reality, if Birger himself ever fought I guess he would have been equipped with a sword or maybe a mace, like every other knight of the time.) One fun detail: When rolling for his Talent, I got Rash, which seems to fit this model perfectly!

The lions on the shields are overpainted transfers. I choose only to apply them to a couple of the models to get a more varied look.

For the banners, I made a basic black and white design in Adobe Illustrator and InDesign before printing it out in two different sizes on paper and then painting over the outlines, doing shading and highlights as usual. This was my first attempt at this technique and I'm pretty happy with the results.

I'm in the process of painting up another 12 points for this force by adding some more mounted knights together with some allmoge – Swedish yeomens who often fought in mixed formations, armed with spears/polearms and crossbows.

Have a great week everyone and thanks for reading!

Italian Wars French 5 – Reisläufers 5

After a long involuntary break, I'm finally back with some painted miniatures. During the later parts of January and for most of February, the family's been plagued with various colds, flus and other ailments leaving me precious little time for the hobby. What little time I could scrape together has been focused on painting rather than blogging. But now, spring most definitely is in the air here in Stockholm, and the dreaded "sick period" seems to be behind us, which hopefully means more time for both painting and blogging.

To kick things off, here are the last miniatures to be finished for my two Swiss mercenaries pike blocks to be used in my Italian Wars French army: fashionably late, it's the commanders.

The models are all from Foundry, lovely sculpts with lots of character.

With these miniatures I made the conscious effort to go for bolder "steps" and increase the contrasts on the highlights, as I have become increasingly frustrated with my painting style lately, feeling it doesn't "pop" enough on the gaming table. I'm very happy with how these efforts payed off, and this is a direction I will try to strive towards in the future.

The flags are painted by me and based on designs I found on the Internet, more specifically on the excellent blog Camisado. A highly recommended blog, especially if you're into the wars in Italy during the 16th century. The flags represent the cantons of Bern (the bear) and Uri (the bull) respectively.

The flags are removable, for easier storage and for when I want to swap them – in the event I'm fielding these as Landsknechts they obviously can't have Swiss flags!

Here are some pictures of the two complete pike blocks.

Of course I now want to add another 3 bases to each block, for a truly massive amount of pikes. But this will have to wait until I finish some gendarmes and artillery pieces.

Thank you very much for reading!

Italian Wars French 4 – Reisläufers 4

Sometime in late November (I think?) last year, I finished another two bases of mercenary pikemen for my Italian Wars project. Today, I finally took the time to photograph them.

Like the last two bases finished, these are in an attacking pose with leveled pikes – very unpractical for storing and playing but they certainly do look the part.

The miniatures are once again from Foundry's lovely Renaissance range, sculpted by Michael Perry way back.

Unfortunately the matt varnish seems to have killed some of the brightest highlights, making them look a bit flat. I have never had any problems with this varnish before (Windsor&Newton Galleria Matt Varnish), and I've been using it exclusively for the past three or four years. It seems I may have gotten a bad pot, and I've since bought a new one that seems to work as it should. When I get around to it, hopefully another coat (the third) will restore at least some of original highlights.

Finally, I couldn't resist taking a picture of an almost finished unit. Lots of pikes here!

I'm working on the command bases now, and then these two units will finally be finished. It's been a bit of a slog to be honest, but I think the result will be worth it.

As always, thanks for reading!

Projects for 2015

With 2014 firmly in the books it's now time to lay down the plans for this year. As usual I like to set myself some official goals to help with the motivation. However, last year this trick did not really work as hoped as I mentioned in my review of 2014, so for 2015 it's time to focus and get back on track – no more procrastinating!

For this year, I have set myself some rather strict, but hopefully manageable goals:

Italian Wars French

After last year's failure, no more excuses, I will finish my planned starter force for this army during this year. Simple as that.

Håtunaleken

For our Lion Rampant club project, I will add the next couple of units to my host to bring the total points up the regular 24. The current plan is to do some more mounted knights and a unit of foot yeomen with mixed weapons (allmoge). I also plan to do a mounted and an unmounted version of the leader of my host – i.e. the king Birger Magnusson.

Great Northern War

Ever since leafing through my parents' copy of the classic "Karoliner" at age 10, the image of these iconic Swedish soldiers has been firmly planted in my mind. When the new club project for the GNW was announced, I naturally signed up to paint a unit. Our plan is to put on a display game at the Lincon gaming convention in May, so there's a strict deadline to paint to which always works wonders for my motivation.

Operation Winter Storm

I have long been wanting to do some serious WW2 gaming, preferably on the eastern front as it's such a fascinating theatre of war. The ferocious fighting – on all levels of operation, from the large scale to the small scale – and the horrible conditions both sides found themselves in, give the whole thing an almost mythical air. After purchasing this excellent scenario pack for Chain of Command, I knew I had found the perfect project to get started on some eastern front gaming.

The plan is to do everything required for the first 14 (of 22 in total) scenarios during 2015: paint up all the models for both the Germans and the Soviets and make all the terrain. I'm looking at doing this project in 15 mm, which has a number of benefits such as low cost, quick painting time, lots of suitable models from different manufacturers available, and the fact that I already have most of the German infantry needed (although unpainted). There's also some of the club's terrain that can be used which will save me some work.

I have a somewhat sketchy plan to eventually "upgrade" to playing at company level, using the I Ain't Been Shot Mum rules, by expanding the forces some time in the future. This is a rather long-term plan though, so it won't happen this year.

Well, these projects should keep me sufficiently occupied during 2015. Now, all I have to do is stick to the plan and not get seduced by all the fun distractions that inevitably pop up along the way – always the greatest challenge of them all!