Back from (short) holiday and archers finished

Many apologies for my sudden absence. We spent a couple of days with my aunt and internet access was rather basic there and thus I wasn't able to enter the bloggosphere since Saturday morning. During our visit we take a day trip to Celle. On the one hand it's a beautiful city with a wonderful old city centre but on the other hand at the Bohmann Museum there is a very interesting exhibition about the Hanoverian and KGL troops at Waterloo taking place. It's a small but excellent exhibition and really a priceless source for those devoting themselves to these German soldiers in British service. The exhibition is there until 11th October so if you get the chance to go there soon do it!

But more about that later. I'll feature our trip to Celle as well as the Waterloo exhibition with its enormous 28mm diorama (15,000 figures!) in one or two posts this year. Probably two since I took so many pictures that it'll be simply too much for one post.

Anyway the figure I finished before our holiday were five archers for the Wars of the Roses period:

Painted in blue and red they shall represent some men from Yorkist retinue. Because of my very limited freehand skills I decided to omit livery badges thus they could serve for any of the Yorkish boys either Edward IV, Richard III or their brother Clarence. I'm pretty satisfied with the result on those wondrful Perry plastic miniatures. Nevertheless I should improve my photography setup since the pictures were heavily underexposed. My adjustment work with the GIMP graphic software is of questionable success as you see...

Paint Table Saturday - Bows and trees

Last week I found the time to go back to the Perry plastics for the Wars of the Roses era. In addition I returned to my ever too small collection of terrain stuff and worked on some trees. Actually pretty simple trees but at least rather cheap ones and the battlefield they'll do the job I presume. Until now I've glued them onto 40mm bases with hot glue and smoothened the bases with filler. So it's time to paint the bases and the trunks now:

The bowmen got there liverees. Although most of the WotR figures will be used for the Burgundian siege of Neuss there isn't too much need for bowmen. So I decided to give them Yorkish red and blue. Because of my limited skill I decided not to paint badges. At least there now appropriate for any of the York brothers and they could serve for Eduard IV as well as for Clarence or their brother Richard. They're mostly finished except of the bases:

I hope you like my humble progress. 

Enjoy your weekend!

Walk through medieval Neuss

Last week sweltering heat kept me away from the workbench. Although I tried some brushstrokes on the hussars I'm working on nothing presentable came together. Over 34 °C was simply too much for me.

Anyway last weekend was dominated by another event which a dear club fellow of mine prepared weeks ago. Under Kalle's guidance we took a walk on the scent of medieval Neuss. Neuss is a city on the west bank of the river Rhine opposite of the Renish pearl Düsseldorf with about 150.000 inhabitants. It's mentioned in sources from more than 2.000 years ago and therefore holds the title of 'Germany's oldest city' alongside the city of Trier
For us the medieval part of its history became interesting when a couple of THS fellows applied their attention to the Burgundian Wars. As part of the Charles the Bold besieged Neuss for ten months from 1474 to 1475 but lost against the brave and persistent Rhinelanders. Employing the wonderful 28mm ranges available for the Wars of the Roses (e. g. Perry Miniatures excellent plastic sets) we're going to present a part of this siege sooner or later and thus we tried to get an idea of the old city wall.

Thus we started our tour at Saint Quirinius Minster right in the middle of 15th century Neuss. It's one of the most important late romanesque churche in the Lower Rhine region and has been watching Neuss's history for more than thousand years. It was one of the sanctuaries of the citizens during the siege of 1474/75 and  source of hope during those painful months.

Picture from Wikipedia

Then we walked to the city hall. It's a lot younger than the minster but around it the city festival 'Zeitsprünge' (time leaps) took place. A couple of reenactors presented some steps of Neuss's history from the stone age to the 20th century there. Small but very nice.

Volunteers that fought Napoleon

A fellow from Lützow Free Corps

After this little detour we picked up the scent of the Middle Ages again. And found one of the oldest houses in Neuss's old town. Although it's younger than 1475 it gives an idea of the timber framed architecture of the 15th and 16th century:

From 1586

During the next two hours we followed the city walls and found a couple of remains. Especially the Obertor (upper gate) is worth a visit. It's preserved in more or less the same shape that it had six hundred years ago. Only at the frontage you see the imprints of early 20th century restoration work. A pity on the one hand but on the other hand it saved this imposing structure.

Obertor

Along the old city wall there are a couple of bronze sculptures. They show the look of the old city gates and explaine their fate. For example the Hamtor (Ham-gate):

Historical 'Hamtor'

Thus we had a wonderful walk through Neuss and got an idea of its medieval size. Unfortunately there's nothing left of the old battlefield because Neuss grew over it's historical boundaries long ago. Funily we met a well known Corsican who was up to mischief in early 19th century Neuss:

But the climax of the day was our visit of the Clemens Sels Museum. It's inhabiting a large number of exhibits from Stone Age and Roman artifacts right up to a decent number of modern paintings. The latter are not my cup of tea but the medieval exhibits are simply excellent. It covers the medieval part of Neuss's history and explains its importance at that time. They have a lot of finds from the siege of Neuss which are presented one of the turrets of the Obertor:

Heads of crossbow bolts.

Spurs found on the battelfield

A 16th century Bartman jug

A 15th century stone canon ball

Most eye-catching pieces of the exhibition are three dioramas covering scenes from the siege of Neuss. They are made of excellently painted flat figures and provide a lot of wonderful little scenes. One of them shows Charles's headquarter while the other two recreate the bombardment of the city as well as a brave foray of the defenders. Here are some impressions:

The bombardment

Burgundian mercenaries

The Burgundian headquarter

The English detachment among the Burgundians

Bungundian nobles gathering.

One of the smaller Burgundian guns.

Camp life

Neuss daring one of its many forays

Crossbowmen from Neuss

Men at arms attacking one of the Burgundian camps

A Burgundian knight somehow puzzled.

So after about three and a half hours our tour ended with coffee and ice cream at our fellow Axel's house. Really the crowning moment of a wonderful day. We all enjoyed the walk very much and even eagar Mrs Monty was impressed by her humble husband's hobby this time. Finally she took a picture of the three gentlemen she spent the day with:

left to right: The humble author, Axel our later host and Kalle our well-read guide

In case that you're intrested in the history of Neuss then have a look here (German only):
http://karl-heinz-burghartz.de/alte-neusser-stadttore/hamtor/http://karl-heinz-burghartz.de/alte-neusser-stadttore/hamtor/

Especially how a small city brought the mighty Duke of Burgundy about his downfall is a very interesting one. Really worth a wargaming coverage which a wargaming friend from our club is preparing for one of the years to come.

War of the Roses infantry and hay cart

Curt's painting challenge is near its end but finally I managed to create my first entry besides the bonus rounds. I'm very satisfied to have submitted all of them but besides other painting came off badly.

Anyway finally here are some miniatures I painted more or less simultaneously to Richard III. for the antihero bonus round. Partly as test figures for the armour:

These are six figures from the bills and bows box Perry miniatures made for the Wars of the Roses. Actually they shall serve as mercenaries during the Burgundian Wars especially during Charles the Bold's siege of Neuss in 1474. I painted them to get used to the new historic period and the experiment with colours for medieval clothing and armour. Altogether excellent plastic miniatures which are a pleasure to assemble and to paint.

In addition I assembled and painted a small piece of scenery: Warbases' hay cart.

It's a eight or nine piece MDF kit which comes perfectly cut. It doesn't need much cleaning and is easily glued with super glue or PVA glue. A very nice piece by Martin and Diane which I painted without priming it. Since the MDF soakes up the paint this worked rather well. The hay load is a nicely cast resin piece which fits onto the cargo area very well. I didn't glue it to have the chance to use the cart with or without hay.