Hungarian Archers

The Hungarians are upon us!

I recently finished these Hungarian riders. Ebob has sculpted these beautiful miniatures in commission for Tankred who will make them available via Heer46 in the near future. Ebob's sculpts are (as always) incredibly beautiful. As I've heard there will be a pack of 16 riders in the end.

More information on the Hungarians can be found in the German Sweetwater Forums.

 

Although I painted the miniatures in historical fashion, I probably won't use them in historical context. As all of Ebob's works, the Hungarian match perfectly with the LotR scale. For me, these miniatures seem perfectly fit to represent an Easterling tribe. Maybe I'll use them as Khand mercenaries or even mercenaries in service of the merchants of the city of Dale. If GW's SBG rules don't provide me with a fitting profile, the SAGA rules probably will...

Ebob Normans

Just took a picture of my latest purchase...

Ebob Miniatures has released some awesome Norman infantry. I immediatly had to get some copies of these and ordered all 16 of it. Indeed I am totally amazed. In my eyes, these are some of the greatest sculpts I have seen from Robert so far.

Although my first idea was to paint them as Night's Watch for ASoIaF wargames, these would look great amongst GW's LotR/The Hobbit miniatures as well. I already have some ideas in mind and will hopefully be able to show you the first results in some days. The comparison shot shows that they perfectly blend with the LotR/Hobbit range.

House Stark: Heavy Infantry

Just in case some of you wondered: Although there are so few updates, the "Ice and Fire" project is still alive. I recently finished some Perry "Brigans", painted as Stark bannermen.

Leader of these men at arms is the famous Ethan Glover of Deepwood Motte, bannerman to Lord Eddard Stark and one of his companions at the Tower of Joy.

Living by the Sword

Since it wasn't possible for me to attend this year's Tactica in Hamburg, I spontaneously visited the Spieltrieb Frankfurt Wargaming club yesterday to get some live impressions of their great "Feud of Kronberg" Impetus presentation.

Unfortunately some of my own Westerosi troops used this opportunity to betray me. The Wensington archers and the Arryn houseguard offered their services to the enemy general Kerstin and fought as sellswords alongside the guild companies of Frankfurt against their painter.

I had no camera with me, but took these photos with my mobile. I hope they can convey the great atmosphere of the terrain and the miniatures. Thanks for the great game!!!

The Hanau knights under my command, facing the treacherous Westerosi.

Kronberg infantery in the centre.

The glorious knights of Hanau attack the sellswords.

After crushing the Arryn guard, the Hanau knights turn and
attack the enemy from behind.

Some of the Spieltrieb's beautiful "disordered"-markers.

Sworn to House Baratheon

Long time no see, but I finally found some time to finish another base for my ASoIaF themed Impetus army.

House Wensington is a vassal house that holds fealty to House Baratheon of Storm's End. No character of the House has appeared in the books yet but I really liked the heraldry. Most of GRRMs designs are too "fantastic" for my taste but this one, found on the Ice and Fire Wiki, is just great.

Although the Wensington house motto "Sound the Charge" suggests a more active role in battle, I wanted to depict some men-at-arms in a more defensive position. Impetus gave me a great opportunity to use the Perry AO5 box "Archers preparing for battle, hammering in and sharpening stakes".
I added a Wensington knight who gives last instructions to his archers before he is off to smash some breastplates with his hammer...

Impetus at Kauzenburg 2012

As I feared, most of my pics turned out to be blurred. The Kauzenburg wargaming weekend takes place in the caverns of the Kauzenburg in Bad Kreuznach... People in the Middle Ages didn't spent much thoughts about illuminating their castles to enable miniature photography. Considering that I used a cheap digital camera that can't compete with the high tech equipment of the more talented photographers, I'm still quite pleased with the results.

Frank Becker, one of those more talented photographers has already presented some better pictures of the event in his hobby blog: Figuren und Geschichten

I am sure more will follow. At this point, I will focus on the Impetus presentations at Kauzenburg.

Some of the Impetus Armies at Kauzenburg 2012:

Martin's (El Commandante) Warhammer Fantasy sellswords,
based for Impetus Fantasy.

                        David's (Azgul) Knights Hospitallers                   

Frank's (Tankred) beautiful LotR Rohirrim and Uruk-hai,
based for Impetus Fantasy.

                                   Frank's Rohirrim Camp                              

                                 Thomas' (Rusus) Kleve army                             

Some great Crossbowmen, painted by Frank for the
Feud of Kronberg presentation at Tactica 2012.
The troops in the background are intended for the same scenario
and were painted by him and various other artists.

My Personal Highlight at Kauzenburg 2012:

The first battle of my Westerosi. The 100pts contingent, led by Robert Baratheon himself, fought alongside a large 13th century army, led by Count Diedrich of Kleve. Our enemy was another ragtag army composed of Italian sellswords, some unfaithful Lannisters and armed citizens of Frankfurt. I shot a lot of pics, but only a handful turned out good enough to present them here. I hope they can convey some impression of the amazing gaming atmosphere at Kauzenburg.

Norbert, the captain of the enemy sellswords is planning
something evil with his cannon battery...

...and opens fire on my general. I don't think there ever was
a ceasefire for poor Robert.

Kerstin, moving the Frankfurt contingent. My left flank had
recently started to attack the treacherous Lannisters.
Choosing between close combat and constant cannon fire,
it wasn't as if they had a choice...

House Stark: Skirmishers

The Kauzenburg gaming-weekend is over and I am sad to say, that I have taken far less pictures of the gorgeous terrain and miniatures, than I intended to. Instead I mainly focused on my first Impetus battle with my Westerosi, of which I will show some pics soon. In this battle I played a 100 pts battlegroup of a 400 pts army and so, I had to finish another unit beforehand: Skirmishers of House Stark.

Skirmishers belong to my favourite units in Impetus. They are no use if you intend to charge the enemy and deal few to none damage with their ranged weapons, but can be a pain in the ass for your enemy if he wants to weaken your valuable melee troops with bows or crossbows.

The miniatures used here, are a mix of Foundry, Perry Miniatures and Ebob Miniatures and were painted in pale colours, fitting to the Lords of the North. The small banner was not planned from the beginning, but made sense to me because the base had no real eyecatcher...

Ours is the Fury!

 I have finally painted my version of the Young Stag. I really love the Darksword Version of this character and had to use it although it is slightly taller than the other miniatures I used. The dying horse on the base is a 5th edition Bretonnian horse, the standart bearer is an English heavy cavalry man, sculpted by Ebob.

I tried to depict Robert in the heat of the battle. His horse has just been shot beneath him and is kicking in vain while the Usurper is now pushing on on foot. The rider on his right bears his personal standart, the black stag of house Baratheon.

Again, I used Tamyia Clear Red X-27 for the blood splatter. This stuff is really great. The mud on the horse legs was coated with gloss varnish to achieve a wet look. Actually this technique can't convince me yet... I might rework this at a later point.

What a Beast!

I ordered some of the awesome Dark Sword Miniatures to see if they would fit in with the miniatures I use.. Although I had already heard that they were slightly taller and a bit more subtle, the result surprised me:

I don't see much problems with the Robert Baratheon miniature, as he is described being some strong young man at the time of the revolution, but the Mountain is just MASSIVE! He looks way taller than the 8 feet that are described in the books. More like 9 or 10...

I'm tempted to base him as a monster for Impetus Fantasy. We'll see.

Impetus Magneticus II

One of the main problems with Impetus bases is, that they are a bit bulky when carried around. They won't fit in any of the miniature cases I usually use for my single based miniatures.

Therefore I bought some metal-boxes from a certain Swedish furniture store, which are large enough to take even the longest flagpoles. Instead of using rubber foam to upholster the miniatures, I used Tankred's basing method, which he described at the German LotR forums, and bound some 5x2mm magnets to the bases.

As you can see, 4 of them are strong enough to hold a 12x6cm base with 10 metal miniatures in position, even in most adverse conditions.

As High as Honour!

Jon Arryn, Lord of the Eyrie and Warden of the East, has rallied his banners to put an end to Targaryen tyranny! Here you can see the elite troops of the Eyrie, Jon Arryn's personal household guard, always accompanying their commander in the vanguard, led by their skilled captain Ser Vardis Egen, offspring of a noble house of the Vale.

These battle-hardened veterans carry the coat of arms of House Arryn. I found two descriptions of the arms: 

- "A sky-blue falcon soaring on a white moon, on sky-blue."

- "A white falcon volant and crescent moon on a blue field."

As you can see, I somehow merged these two descriptions and stuck to one of my preferred interpretations of House Arryn's colours as it can be found on the title of one of the German translations of ASoIaF: Das Lied von Eis und Feuer 8: Die dunkle Königin 

I like the depiction in the series as well, but the symbol used there is too far from heraldic correctness, even for my purpose.

Ser Egen carries his family's arms: A yellow sun, white crescent moon, and silver star on blue chief above white.

All the models used, are old Bretonnian Men at Arms, sculpted by Alan and Michael Perry.

Oak and Iron, Guard Me Well,...

... or else I'm dead and doomed to hell!

I painted the next Westerosi knight. Some might already have gotten it from the title or recognized the coat of arms (a green shooting star above an elm tree proper on sunset), others (even those who have read the books...) might still be guessing who could be meant. May I present:

Ser Duncan the Tall and his pert squire Egg, sometimes better known as Dunk the Lunk (thick as a castle wall) and, well... those of you who have read the Hedge Knight Novellas of GRRM will know what Egg stands for. I don't want to spoil those who haven't come accross Martin's Ice and Fire short-stories (or the Hedge Knight graphic novels) yet. 

Some thoughts on the model: Well, I don't know what Egg has done, but somehow he has managed to fall off Maester (the mule). Now, he's trying to catch up with him. 
Maester on the other hand doesn't care. He's heavily laden with a cask of Arbor Gold and the luggage of Dunk and Egg and quite satisfied being rid some of the weight.
We can't see the face of Ser Duncan cause of the helmet, but it's quite probable that there's a big grin. He just spurs his horse, hoping that Maester will follow him. Egg has kidded him the whole day, so that's what he earns...

The model used for Ser Duncan is a 5th edition Bretonnian knight, slightly converted. The horse is from Ebob. Way better than the GW ones. The mule Maester started his life being an Ebob pony. I did some minor conversions here as well. Egg is a Foundry model with a plasticcard-shield added.

Since all heroes in Impetus are regarded as being mounted (most heroes in Westeros are knights, so this is ok for me...), I decided to base most of my cavalry models on half-width bases. Gaining some interchangability, it will be a nice way to to show the unsteady allegiances of the Westerosi nobility.

I promise there will be more mounted knights on the bases to come... Not less than three miniatures of which at least two are knights seems to be the way to go for me.

Some Photoshop-voodoo. Sorry guys, but I had to practice...

Roadside Shrine

Just finished the roadside shrine with the Warrior's statue. Hope it will give the games some Westeros-flavour.

I'm thinking of doing a goodswood next. Does anyone have some spare GW trees? They would make great weirwoods...

WIP: Ours is the Fury!

I couldn't wait working on the general of my Impetus army, Robert Baratheon, Lord of the Stormlands, known as "The Usurper". Base-model is the "Count of Vendome" of the Perry Agincourt range. I sanded off all the heraldry, resculpted the livery and added his famous warhammer and antlers.

I'm still uncertain about the antlers. These are just taken from a 5th Edition Bretonnian knight and don't have the "aggressive" look I aimed at.