From Mike W: Border Ruffians - The Hired Help #1

This week I have been able ton finish a batch or 16th Century (possibly could be stretched to 17th Century) Highlanders who will act as paid heavies to bolster one of the Border Ruffian Families my-self and other club members are putting together for a forthcoming campaign when we all get allowed out to play again!

Once again, I'm afraid that I'm not sure of the make of these figures, as usual I sourced them as a job lot from eBay. The lot had them listed as Redoubt Miniatures figures and having checked their online catalogue - that certainly seems to be the case.

A cross section of some of my favourite figures from the batch

Four men armed with Calivars, 

Same guys, from the opposite angle

These figures were fun to paint, all with a basic ochre / yellowish theme to represent unbleached or un-dyed materials woven into shirts and other garments.

Four more 'Humblies' armed with Calivars, some of the poses are very dynamic

And the same guys from the front. Note how some Highlanders often
dropped their Plaids to fight, whilst others wore them for extra protection against sword thrusts. 

 There were 21 figures in the lot, 20 are shown here, the last one which is also painted will be showcased in part two of the Hired Help posts , sometime in the future - just because to me he looks like an Irish Chieftain, rather than a Highlander. I'm probably wrong!

Another three Calivar men, two in Plaid, one without. At this time there were no specific Tartan 'Setts'
 for each clan / family just locally weaved cloth made to the maker's favourite pattern.

Closer view of the Calivar men, I did the plaids by blocking in the base
colour then adding the lines using fine nibbed felt-tip marker pens

So my understanding is that Highlanders were often brought in to help add strength to the Border families when they felt out numbered and at risk of serious harm. An alternative to Highlanders would have been Irish mercenaries, which as noted will be subject of my next painting batch...

A group of Highland archers

Archers from the front view, not all the Plaids were chequered, so I left a few plain, for variety.

One final point, these guys came undercoated in black, it was pretty tiresome having to re-undercoat in white, my preferred undercoat colour but that's the joy of sourcing figures on eBay.

The command team! Two drummers, a Piper and a Young Chieftain.

Final view of the command group, the Drummers look very Irish to me,
they may get a transfer when all is done on the next batch!

From MikeW: Latest Elizabethans and Border Ruffians

Here is my latest batch of Elizabethan Border Ruffians, as I often do, I have found this batch of figures on eBay and of uncertain manufacture. In this case I believe that they may be old Vendel Miniatures, which I believe are no no longer available...

Figures were painted using my usual methodology of white undercoat, add colours and then apply Army Painter Dark Tone followed by Matt Vanish from Windsor & Newton. Figures then based are flocked with electrostatic grass and other materials.

Two mounted Ruffians, all lances are steel spears, acquired separately,
used as they much more robust than lead versions,...

... and from the other side

Two more mounted ruffians, one English and one Scots - with the Targe

From the other side,
Border Family loyalties were somewhat fluid, when it came to national ties,
in times of national emergency, hey would turn out for whichever
nation was offering the best opportunities for the family.

Four Ruffians, three with calivars and one with pistol

Three more Ruffians, all with calivars

One bow armed Ruffian and one with a crossbow.

The final two Ruffians in the batch, one English and one Scots

From MikeW - Mounted Elizabethan Border Ruffians

Again real life events and running a PBeM campaign have severely cut into my painting time but I was determined to get these little guys finished this week.

Three Ruffians on Perry's WoR Horses

I got an eBay lot of 16 mounted border reivers a few weeks back and I was looking for suitable horses to mount them on, then I remembered I had a couple of boxes of Perry's War of The Roses mounted figures in the loft.

Unusually for me I glued this English flag in position permanently,
here are two Warlord Pike & Shot Horses Centre & Right

Seems I'd already raided these boxes for horses and between them I managed to source 12 horses, so I then dragged in 4 Warlord Pike & Shot horses to make up the numbers.

One figure came with a moulded on Targe, he makes a good leader figure

I found some bags in my spares box, to add to the horses and also made some extra blanket rolls to add extra clutter to the figures but what I was really looking for was some small 'Targe' shields to add to some of the figures to give them that additional something else.

More usual for me, a Scots flag that can be swapped as needed,
also an example of a saddle holster added to give more period flavour

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any, so maybe later the lockdown I'll look harder and add some of these to the figures...

I like that only two of the figures have muskets, two others have crossbows
and one I added a pistol, as his saddle holster was empty! 

I'm not certain of the manufacturers of these figures, I suspect Wargames Foundry or Hoka Hey as they fit in well with my foot figures for the period.

Another view of some of the figures

So I'm now out of Elizabethan figures to paint, so guessing I'll revert back to Pike & Shot, Siege of Vienna figures. I have an infantry regiment to paint up and I have just found three Ottoman Heavy Cavalry figures to have a go at,,,

I use steel spears / lances on all my 28mm figures and yes, they are sharp!
But I find players give the figures more respect when they know they
can hurt themselves if they mishandle the little guys....

Another random selection of the little guys...

And a final shot, I added swords to a couple of the figures to give variety,
half of them are spear armed.

MikeW: More Elizabethans and Border Ruffians

So my rate of output since the regular challenge has dropped hugely, partly due to using the regular challenge to push through my lead & plastic mountains has left me 'painted out' but also because I'm running a club campaign via eMail and that's taking up a lot of my time at present.

So I finally got the next group of my Elizabethans / Border Ruffians completed.

Auld Walt's Henchmen

The group of six foot figures are the Hoka Hey 'Auld Walt' and his family gang, they are a pleasure to paint and as with the Armstrong family I have designated two of them to be leaders and the other four to be their closest henchmen

View #1

So 'Auld Walt' is the grey haired guy in these two photo's and not having much imagination, I'll go with his companion being his son, 'Young Walt'

View #2

The mounting figures are three mounted senior officers or government officials, these are from Casting Room Miniatures if I remember correctly and are offered as Generals.

Again these figures were fun to paint, lots of horse flesh which I enjoy and then a good mix of armour types, sashes and leather attire.

Officers form the front

And from the rear!

Next up a job lot of Border horse, without riders! I plan to use horses from an old Perry's plastic WoR Mounted Men-at-Arms set to mount the majority of these.

From MikeW: Elizabethans and Border Ruffians

First off, hope everyone and their families are doing OK in the present crisis, I work in IT infrastructure so have been really busy with working, looking to ensure that there is enough capacity to cope with the sudden huge leap in demand from people working from home.

Anyway, that's just an excuse for why its taken me time to completed my first post, which is a collection of Elizabethan & Border Riever figures by Wargames Foundry and Hoka Hey miniatures.

First to show and tell are a group of 6 x 28mm Garrison Archers, by Hoka Hey Miniatures. These painted up nicely and I have given them blue tabards edged in yellow to signify their garrison status.

Garrison Archers from Hoka Hey

Next on show are 8 x Wargames Foundry Swashbuckler Pikemen, in a mix of breastplate and leather jacks. These are some of my favourite figures done to date for this period, they come in a wide rage of dress and with separate weapons the pike can easily be substituted with a spear, bill or halibard to make even greater variety.

Wargames Foundry Pikemen

Third on the list was a second set of 2 x 28mm Hoka Hey figures, this time representing the Armstrong Family. Again these are very nice figures and I have based two of the figures that I took to be leaders on a 2 pence piece instead of the 1p sized bases I ]'m using for other ranks.

Armstrong men form Hoka Hey

Hoka Hey's Armstrong Leaders

Finally is the group group of figures from Hoka Hey, consisting of 6 x Calivar men, in a variety of stances. Like the Archers depicted earlier in this post the figures paint up nicely, though I did notice some need for filler where voids in the casting process elect gaps in the figure as supplied - but nothing to disastrous...

Calivar Men form Hoka Hey