Rebel Right Ward Archers: Modelling

This was a relatively fast turn out for me and well it should have been - a skirmish unit of twelve archers. The exercise was interesting in itself because it is a combination of two new paint jobs and a touch-up of ten very old ones (more than 15 years at a guess). If you hadn't figured, the old ones are on top. I will point out that the bases are also partially upgraded as my older archers are based on balsa wood - something I rarely use for that purpose these days - and I have chamferred the edges. The static grass is to be touched up also as what you see is too green and not blended. I have added magnetised sheet to the base which reinforced the balsa and helps for transport in my collection of metal toolboxes.

Deficiencies in my previous paint jobs were essentially to be found in the faces which I have redone, and the lack of detail in the arrow bundles - now remedied. Some previous archers have their bows strung with my wife's hair (thank you darling) but I have strung the two new archers' bows with silk thread. Generally, I have not been as fastidious with this unit as I would have been with a new unit. By re-touching them I made a number of compromises and made some 'near-enough is good-enough' determinations as I went. For example, the way I strung the bows has the wraps at either end far too far down their length. For the archers in my next ward I will carve niches to accommodate stringing to the bow extremities and I will string all of them.

I believe all of of these figures are Wargames Foundry miniatures and I have to say I like the castings very much. The poses of these figures appear to me to either represent the archer bending into the shot at only 3/4 pull or at that point just after loosing the shot. I'd like to field some full tension archers in future but we shall see what is available. Foundry poses are typically very limited and without variation for this, one of their older ranges. They are capable of being manipulated but only really as far as the arm of the bow hand and angle or pitch of the bow is concerned. I had previously added pins for arrows (crude, but again good enough this time) and will apply finer creations next time as well as stringing the bows under full tension.

For my wargaming purposes, my list currently has my archers with no protection but as you see, half of the archers are in gambeson and I am considering whether or not to given then half saving throws. You may note that they either have arm bands of red cloth with white crosses or a white cross on their gambeson. This is in keeping with the chronicler's account of the field identification adopted by de Montfort's army who has them adopting the white cross. The red arm band is my liscence in line with de Montfort's colours of gules a lion rampant argent as well as a reversal of the traditional and perhaps loyalist tinctures of the cross of St George.