Wednesday 14 January 2015

Me Lord's Retinue for Lion Rampant

While usually playing only one game is not the stepping stone for a whole new direction,  Andrew's introduction of Lion Rampant [ LR ] did get me thinking about my dormant medieval 28mm collection.  While I do like the collection, thinking the painting fine and still interested in the period,  I could not make it 'work' for any of the common rule sets played around here.  The army lists of those rules either had me needing to buy - and paint - many more, or had me abandon large amounts.  I was willing to do neither, nor did the thought of rebasing excite me.....

Years ago, some club members came to the conclusion that nearly everyone had medieval figures of one type or another in 28mm individually mounted and wouldn't it be fun to have a huge game with everyone coming with whatever contingent they could create!   Well I was in as I had just traded for a large and now older GW plastic Bretonnian army - very historically Hundred Years Wars that.  Lots of archers of course and so completed the lot all in one livery.
The whole concept fell off the rails of course, as those things usually do, and so I have been left with this one-side-only collection too big and not finding the right opposition in terms of nice miniatures and or indeed willing to do the opposition.
There it lay in the box for years until this week.

After Andrew's game I searched the web and came up with the pointing system and set to task computing my retinue numbers and indeed can produce a three retinue army of 72 points !  And legally at that!  So all the various amounts of men-at-arms, archers, spearmen all are nicely grouped into proper units.  Wonderful!  With the 72 points I could field a 14 unit army if I so choose and all in the same livery.   These are all foot, Early HYW (c. Battle of Crecy)

I was struck by the simple fact that my collection fit almost perfectly with the army list values of LR
Nirvana!
With that
a) I will not have to purchase any more
b) It uses all my figures in total*
c) I will not need to rebase!
d) no other known rules set I can use my force without need to add to or subtract
e) I WILL NOT HAVE TO PAINT ANY MORE TO COMPLETE!

makes the choice fairly easy.  I do hope I will like the rules….

*with the exception of only 3 additonal Bidowers which I completed in short order as I had a few unpainted plastic spares. (see below)

The collection is the mentioned GW plastics, with a smaller amounts of Black Tree medievals, and perhaps ? Front Rank. They were long in the box and traded for or purchased in dribs and dabs so I can't rightly recall.

The livery is dark red/dark blue simply because I liked the colour combination.

One of the elite archer units of my retinue. Mostly plastics with a few metal ones for variation. 
The "Bidowers" 
Before and after slight modifications to give my Bidowers and bit of different look.  Originally GW plastics
the big bushy plastic bared head really alters the look of this figure. I added a small purse to the modified figure to enhance the change.  The bidowers would be mercenaries for hire I be thinking.
The final added figure to the bidower unit.  Again a new plastic head (from a donated Perry plastic left over sprue) provides the greatest difference between the original figure (in the back).  The added large bag again enhances the difference along with the clothing colors used. The other three figures of the unit are, were I believe called "scouts" or some such and are metal.

Now to play a game or two with this lot!