Wars of the Roses - Part 3

 Wars of the Roses part three, and as I have just made my box of plastic Perry Miniatures mounted men at arms, my second box of infantry, and my small breach loading artillery piece it must be time for some background.

“My Yorkist troops will be the retinue of one William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke KG (c. 1423 – 27 July 1469).  Known as "Black William", he was the son of William ap Thomas, founder of Raglan Castle, and Gwladys ferch Dafydd Gam, and grandson of Dafydd Gam, an adherent of King Henry V of England.

His father had been an ally of Richard of York, and Herbert supported the Yorkist cause in the Wars of the Roses.  He was rewarded by King Edward IV with the title Lord Herbert of Raglan in 1461 (having assumed an English-style surname in place of the Welsh patronymic), and invested as a Knight of the Garter.

Soon after the decisive Yorkist victory at the Battle of Towton in 1461, Herbert replaced Jasper Tudor as Earl of Pembroke which gave him control of Pembroke Castle.  However, he fell out with Lord Warwick "the Kingmaker" in 1469, when Warwick turned against the King. William and his brother Richard were executed by the Lancastrians, now led by Warwick, after the Battle of Edgecote Moor, near Banbury.”

 My thanks to the wonderful world of Wikipedia for the above material.  Because I currently reside across the border in Wales I was aiming for a figure from that area, and William Herbert jumped out as an important character of the period, with a nice coat of arms.  As noted in my November 2014 work in progress I’ve purchased some decals and flags to enable my army to advance under his colours, although my efforts at applying them haven’t been very successful so far. 

Troops In Progress

I currently have plenty of nice 28mm Perry Miniatures models (mostly plastic) hanging around awaiting a paint job, including the 12 mounted men at arms, 12 billmen, 24 bowmen, and finally my small artillery piece and its four crew.  They have all been made – it’s a joy to make Perry’s plastics – and based with a layer of sand before receiving a brown spray paint.  Of the painted models I already have (12 billmen and 24 bowmen) I need to redo the banner bearer which I clumsily broke the standard pole from while ‘Dipping’ them.  I’ve used a drill to create a hole through the banner bearers fist so he can hold a metal pole (instead of the plastic they come with) which will be more forgiving to the user.  He will be the first receiver of a CitadelSix banner when I can pluck up the courage to try it!

Work In Progress......November 2014

Flames of War

Following a game of Flames of War against James, which had given me the momentum for finishing a number of my German models, my painting of the Wehrmacht slowed to a halt in November.  Before that I managed to finish off several models which I had started years previously.  The oldest were the 2 PaK43/41’s, which had been a free gift for buying a year’s subscription to Wargames Illustrated in 2009.  They rarely have an outing, and the lack of paint didn’t encourage this but they do look very cool and I wanted a break from vehicles and didn’t feel like doing infantry.  They offered the variety of things to paint with the gun and the crew, and because there were only two of them I was able to feel I was getting somewhere quickly with them. 

I followed this up with two PaK38’s, which I had bought several years ago as an anti tank answer to the massed light tanks and recon vehicles I was encountering in mid war games.  I had managed to paint the base and dry brush the crew and gun and now I finished them off with a proper paint job.  At the same time I did the two plastic PaK40’s from the Open Fire boxed set to take my available PaK40 models up to 4, and give me a bit more flexibility in my support options.  Finally I painted the 3 plastic StuG G’s from the Open Fire boxed set, and refreshed my two Tiger tanks – their decals had especially annoyed me and I redid them at the same time.

Wars of the Roses

Having played a FOW game, and losing my wave of enthusiasm for modelling all things 15mm I turned to 28mm and chose my Wars of the Roses Yorkists.  Ben (the bio-titan) is quite keen on the period and I’ve had a couple of boxes of bits waiting to be made in the garage for over a year (a series of Triples 2013 purchases) which I decided to put together.  Being all Perry Miniatures models; they consist of a box of heavily armoured plastic mounted men-at-arms (12 in total), a box of 40 infantry and a light artillery piece.  The horse I organised into two 6 model units, based either two to a base or individually, while the foot I used to make a unit of 12 billmen and two units of 12 bowmen (all mounted 4 to a 4cm square base).  The artillery I decided on this occasion to mount separately to the crew.  Once all were made I gave their bases a layer of sand and then a brown spray paint.  Added to my already painted collection this gives me 4 units of bowmen, 2 of billmen, 2 of horse, 1 artillery piece and a commander.

I also spent a bit of cash this month on firstly some WOTR decals and flags for my infantry from CitadelSix, and secondly on a small brass Archimedes drill.  The drill was initially for drilling the banner hands of the infantry because I wanted to use metal banner poles, having found the plastic poles they are supplied with to be very easily broken.  Aidan has had no such trouble so I suspect I am just clumsy.  Regardless my early efforts with the drill were successful so I’ll probably do both infantry and both horse banner holders like this. 

The decals on the other hand were a great disappointment when I tried them.  The maker has surrounded them with a white backing rather than a clear one so I had to cut as close to the edges of the decal as possible to avoid this appearing.  This resulted in several being damaged (disintegrating as the knife went past them) before I could get a decent one off.  Then the one I did try to stick on was as ridged as a board and didn’t bend to the gentle curve of the chaps chest.  I abandoned the effort and was most frustrated to discover the flags I had bought are also decals rather than paper so I haven’t had the enthusiasm to try that yet.

Gaming:

I missed a Thursday this month due to a combination of illness and work (5am start on the Friday), but made up for that by joining in an excellent Sundays gaming in Frodsham; English Civil War mayhem organised by Aidan!  I also suffered a disappointing ECW game when I allied with Paul (a new player) against Aidan and Ian Hedley.  Honours were even in Dreadball against Paddy as we racked up a win apiece, and I defeated James’ American heavy tank list using my newly painted Germans in FOW.

Painted Vs. Purchased

The painted total comes after I finished off the 6 FOW gun teams (2 PaK43’s, 2 PaK40’s and 2 PaK38’s), and added the 3 StuG’s to it.  I also refreshed the 2 Tigers 1 E’s.

Purchased: 0

Refreshed: 9

Painted: 21