THE VVITCH

I went to see The VVitch last night , which lived up to all my expectations. We don't get to see many films set in the 17c , and rarely one where the dialogue, costume and behaviour of the protagonists is so well portrayed. The director had clearly done his homework and I recognised several real quotes from 17c witch witch trials. It certainly wasn't an easy watch, the burgeoning sense of paranoia, the graphic portrayal of witches rites (as recorded in trial testimonies) and the discordant soundtrack all added up to make a harrowing yet compelling film. I'll certainly be buying it when it's released on DVD to add to the folk horror collection.

Now...who does figures of 17c witches and civilians....?

BATTLE OF LANSDOWN 54MM

A flying post here. We set up the battle of Lansdown for Robin's history project and moved the figures around for different stages of the battle. This was done rather on the fly, as the project is due in on Monday and we are having a tour of the battlefield tomorrow, courtesy of Ian Chard..a splendid fellow and member of the Skirmish Wargames Group, who also happens to be the Battlefields Trust 'warden' for Lansdown. Slightly fuzzy pots as the light wasn't brilliant and Robin, who took them was well excited. I aim to make some more bespoke terrain in the future and spend a bit more time on getting the terrain better.

Wallers Army on Lansdown Hill ("Thus stood the Fox gazing at us")

The small hammered guns well entrenched on the brow of the hill.

Parliament dragoons sally forth to goad the Royalists off Tog Hill ("...it was aptly named, for wee had much tougging to gain mastery of it")

It works!

Lord Carnarvon  leads the Royalist cavalry down the hill

A body of Parliament cavalry support their dragoons

The Royalist cavalry come down off Tog and Freezing Hills and the Parliament horse and dragoons pull back

Colonels Burghill and Carr boldy charge the the Royalist army in it's entirety (...it was the boldest thing I ever a saw...to charge an army in it's own ground more than a mile from their own body")

The Royalist cavalry flee...earning themselves the appellation "The Runaway Horse"

Incensed by their cowardly cavalry, the Royalist foot march down the hill to give battle.

The Parliament horse wisely pull back, to lure the enemy infantry into a bloody trap 

The Royalist foot approach the foot of Lansdown and the Parliament guns play upon them. They are also enfiladed by dragoons and musketeers lurking in behind hedges and walls. (Wish I had moved the catfood there!)

Stung beyond rational behaviour The Cornish foot cry "Let us fetch those cannon"

They begin their assault upon the Parliamentarian earthworks...at a terrible cost. Arms and legs fly into the air as they are pounded by the artillery.

The assault underway

Grenville's Cornish Foot and other Cornish Regiments (Slanning's, Mohun's and Godolphin's) reach the earthworks and pile in pell mell.

(getting exciting here) as Grenville throws away his life. The Parliamentarians fight back and Sir Arthur Hazelrigge leads a counter charge with his famous Lobsters. (...so called as they are couvered in a bright iron shell")

Grenville falls, poleaxed by a cuirassier, and Hazelrigge receives a pike wound to his thigh.

Waller withdraws behind a stone wall to his rear that has been pierced with holes to allow horse through. The Royalists balance precariously on the edge of the hill...a spent force ("...one lusty charge would have rolled us to the bottom.")

Night falls as the armies fire half heartedly at each other. Waller withdraws to Bath having protected it from Royalist capture. Parliament casualties no more than 80....Royalist casualties between 200 and 500, including Grenville. A definite Parliament victory, yet all the history books say otherwise. I can't get my head around it.

Quotes in italics are along the lines of  real ones, but I am remembering them off the top of my head, so forgive me if they are a bit wrong. I am enthused to do more scenery and baggage train in 54mm, but goodness, they take a lot of room up when laid out. Next time we may borrow the village hall. I hope to do Waterloo one day with a bout 4 times as many figures.

I have also just sold a heap of 10mm Warmaster figures, and within hours Prince August had a sale on their Roman wars moulds so I bought some of those with proceeds, and this very evening Black Tree discounted their Roman range by 50% so I hoovered up some auxillaries and artillery..... I still have cash left from the Warmaster stuff, as well as a few other sales and it is very satisfying recycling hobby stuff to by more, rather than spending more 'real' money...I aim to do this in the future.

SHINING KNIGHTS

I've been suffering from painters block recently, coupled with the fact I've become hooked on Ripper Street which I'm watching on Amazon Prime (which we somehow unwittingly subscribed to). However, I took the day off today as the forecast was so terrible and managed to get some pictures taken of figures I painted at the end of last year. Here are some generic medievals, for my fantasy games initially...more info and pictures here.

I seem to be over the stoppage in artistic flow now and the muse is upon me again, so I'm going to paint a few figures for Frostgrave which my oldest son is dead keen to play.

HAIRY NEW YEAR

What better way to welcome in the new year than with some hairy Vikings. Robin, my oldest lad is Norse mad, and had some boxes of plastic vikings for Christmas (or Yule if you prefer). In preparation, I dug around and managed to muster a motley bunch of 16 Norse raiders to sail with/fight his chaps

Eylief Foul-Fart's warband (a real Viking name!)

From left to right

an unknown freebie from Penarth Crusade show

, Citadel, Citadel, Irregular mooning viking!

Old Asgard, Citadel, Asgard, Citadel ulfhednar

all Citadel

Ral Partha, Citadel, Prince August, Citadel

I had  a go at some fancy shields, Fenris chasing the sun, and a Salins style II beastie.

It was nice to paint up such a random mix of figures, some of which I have had well over 30 years, and get back into trying a little shading on smaller figures, rather than block painting 54mm chaps. I am looking forward to painting some Lion Rampant medievals, in bite size units of 12 or so.

ANNUAL REVIEW 2015

Quite a productive year really, I surprised myself when I laid all the figures out I had painted this year

Grand review

25mm figures. Mainly for the Thistlewood project over on my Fantasy Blog, but there are some figures for the Conan project, plus generic terrain and a group of 16 random Vikings in the middle.

Here we have the 54 ECW stuff I finished in the first part of the year, plus a single Napoleonic bod.

I have managed to complete one of my goals, getting the ECW figures done, and have almost finished the Thistlewood Oldhammer project, only 20 more villagers to do.

A total of 

306 54mm Figures (I cheated by including the horses...well they are very big)

159 25/28mm Figures

465 in all, so a good improvement on last year.

In 2016 I hope to

1. HAVE A GAME!!! I have a small one hour wargame booked with a friend in January.

2.Complete Thistlewood in the first week or so of the year.

3. Paint up a few Frostgrave figures to play with my oldest son.

4. Paint up a couple of Lion Rampant, Robin of Sherwood forces (Wolfshead Rampant)

5. Complete a few regiments of Prehammer figures to play Reaper or Chainmail 

6. Do some more 54mm Funny Little Wigs/ Marlburian chaps.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!!

A MERRY CROM-MAS FROM THE FROST GIANT JARL

I didn't have time to paint a Christmas figure this year, so had to plunder one from the collection. This great old Ral Partha figure is a giant in my Warmaster Chaos Marauder army where he towers pleasingly over the 10mm warriors.  I've got a few more of this chap waiting to be painted for my Pre-Hammer armies.

Wishing you a Splendid Winter Solstice

and a Merry Christmas

LUMLEY'S HORSE

I was delighted to get my copy of Dragon Rampant on getting home from t'mill today, pictures here .

Last night, having completed the evenings decorating duties (we are giving the oldest lad his own room, and I'm mournfully re-painting it) I cracked open my new tin of yacht varnish and glossed up these fellows for the Funny Little Wigs project...possibly Lumley's horse

Very nice Del Prado figures, picked up here and there. The most expensive was £3.80. Some of the paintwork was badly chipped, but this didn't matter as I was re-painting.

If I was playing real Little Wars, and firing missiles at them (which I might do with Playmobil cannons) these chaps would be invincible. They are really heavy and must contain a fair amount of lead.

I need to get on with some Bavarians and/or French soon.