Painting: Lion Rampant - Foot Sergeants

This weeks painting post is for the Billmen from the Perry Miniatures War of the Roses box set which has actually taken me quite some time, I think it because I used a multiple wash process, but I feel it's paid off.

As ever all paints used are Vallejo unless otherwise stated

I started with basing them on 20mm Renedra bases, then covered the bases with sand, and undercoating in Halfords Matt Black.

                          
 Next the metal armour and Bill heads were painted with gunmetal (72.054)

 Then I painted the leather armour, belts, some shoes, hair and bags Beasty Brown (72.043)

In this picture you'll see that I painted the flesh with Bronze Fleshtone (72.036), and the cloth with Enscorpena Green (72.032). I painted the cloth green so that when I use them for my KoW KoM they work as a filter army for my undead - all based around the fluff in the KoW rulebook.

I then tidied up the models using Abaddon Black (GW) for the black sections and liberally applied Dark tone (Army Painter) all over. This is unusual for me to apply the tone before I've finished painting but I wanted to try something different.

                            

Once the dark tone was dry I drybrushed the flesh with Elf Flesh (GW), and painted the metal areas with Chainmail Silver (72.053). I then applyied Nuln Oil wash (GW) to the armour and bill heads.

Billmen

Command

Next I applied Leather Brown (72.040) to the leather armour and some shoes, (leaving some shoes beasty brown) these were then drybrushed with Plague Brown (72.039). I painted the belts and bags with Plague Brown (72.039), which was then drybrushed with Bonewhite (72.034). The metal armour was drybrushed with Silver (72.052), as were the studs on the leather armour.

I decided I didn't like the green cloth after all so I painted it in British battledress (Flames of war paint set), washed it with Strong Tone (Army Painter) and then drybrushed with Earth (72.062) when the strong tone was dry.

The bases were then painted with Charred Brown (72.045) and then static grass was applied. After the glue had dried I used Matt Varnish (70.520)

There we are; 2 foot sergeants/Billmen ready for battle.

In the pictures below I have laid them out according to relevant game system:

KoW - Regiment of Billmen for KoM

Lion Rampant - Foot Sergeants

Miniatures: Lion Rampant - Archers and Foot Sergeants

This week I thought I'd build my War of the Roses box set by Perry Miniatures. 

I'll be mainly using these for Lion Rampant but these can be used for a whole host of games set around the medieval period,  as such I'll also be using them as a Kingdom of Men force for Kings of War.

The packaging:

As per the stock photo below you get a card box with a great picture. As well as an inlay sheet outlining the war of the roses, colours and heraldry used during the war and a basic how to guide, including what armour is what - Warlord games take note!

The box contains 3 sprues of 12 troops (36) and 2 command sprues of 2 (4) (picture of individual sprues below), resulting in a total of 40 models for the rrp of £20, which I feel is great value for money, especially as you can get it cheaper elsewhere online.

The box also contains the bases shown below; this is useful for games where multi basing is required (Hail Caesar, Kings of War etc) however this doesn't work for Lion Rampant, so I won't be using these.

The Models:
The models have a great level of detail and there doesn't appear to be any molding issue. The command sprue also contains a range of extras like arrows, quivers, swords etc.

There's a great range of arms, some are single piece, some are two pieces (left and right) and then there's multi part arms!! now that drives me mad! I'll cover that in "building the model"

Removing these models from the sprue was a little difficult, as the plastic is so hard that a lot of pressure had to be applied with my craft knife. Why didn't you use clippers? I hear you cry well this is because I don't have thin long nose ones, just short ones so I was unable to easily get under the base.

Building the Models
As mentioned above you can build 40 models.
With 12 models on a sprue I assumed that they would work as either billman or archers, but this isn't the case, it seems that some of the models are specifically archers and the others billmen, I've tried to mix them up but the positioning of the bodies just does't work.

Once removed from the sprue, which was actually quite difficult as the plastic is very firm, and cleaned up, the parts go on the model nicely, fitting snugly with little to no gaps or strange angles. Except for Multi...part...arms!! why...why do the gods taunt me so! I find them so difficult to put together, trying to align the arm with the hand on the pole while positioning the other arm socket is a nightmare, but I prevailed and was successful in my unholy fight.

When fully built I glued them individually to 20mm bases; I bought these bases from Warlord games and I felt they worked better than GW bases, as I wanted a lower/flatter base.

 Out of the 40 I built with Lion Rampant in mind:
 12 billmen, which I will use as foot sergeants

24 archers with command, the unit with command will probably be my elite archers

4 command (Standard, 2x Hero/Leader/General (call it what you want) & musician), these don't really have a use in Lion Rampant so I may use these as Men-a-arms (with the addition of two more models of course)

Command at alternative angle

I would happily buy this box again and build the command as fully fledged Men-at-arms, as there are some "troops" that are wearing full plate so could easily be put together with the command sprue to make Men-at-arms. It would also be just as easy to make less archers and more foot Sargeants.

Overall I'm very pleased with how these look and I look forward to painting them up and fielding them for Lion Rampant.