Speedpainted Levies

Greetings!

Before going on into the two new maps I've made and the narrative skirmish campaign that's coming up, let me show you some speedpainted Svedonnians I managed to finish some time ago.

Here they are, 24 Met-at-Arms from Momminiaturas, painted so fast and easy I almost feel ashamed (almost!):

Well, what's the technique then? These two pics must seem like nothing more than the usual sloppy paintjobs my blog's filled to the brim with. Oh, but believe me, the time I spent on these chaps doesn't warrant quality like this at all!

Let's take a closer look, shall we?

As you can see there is texture on the tabards and shields of these pesky peasants, just like it should be. What's special about them is that I only applied one thinthinthin coat of each colour. No layering, no highlights, no drybrushing.

Step by step:

 First I basecoated them all Abaddon Black. Then, I took the largest brush I have and went wild with some Dawnstone, making sure I made all the details more visible from the plain black.

 Second, I took up some White Scar and drybrushed all models again, this time taking care to use a vertical motion so that this lighter colour only caught the areas where light would hit (brushing down across the model, top to bottom, then lifting the brush back up and repeating).

 Third, I gave the regiment a heavy wash of Nuln Oil, followed bya drubrush of White Scar as in Step 2 above.

Lastly, after all these messy layers of blacks, greys and whites, we have the lighting already done on the entire regiment! The highest parts and bumbs of the models are white/light grey while the deepest crevasses remain black/dark grey.

Then I picked the main colours I wanted to use: Caledor Sky, Yriel Yellow, Mournfang Brown, XV-88 and Ironbreaker. I thinned each one generously on a wet palette and applied them carefully to the models of the regiment, so that the previously done lighting effects show through.

The skin of the Men-at-Arms was done by simply applying two layers of Reikland Fleshshade over the lighting effects. This is a messy technique and the results might not please everyone's eye, but it is an extremely fast way to get your endless masses of mooks to an acceptable tabletop standard within a reasonable time.

That's all for now, next we'll take a look at one of the new maps!

Map of Svedonnia

Greetings!

I've been messing around with Campaign Cartograher 3 a lot lately, trying to learn the ropes in order to make a bunch of maps for my Age of Sigmar armies to base their background narratives on. It is time to take a look at the first map I've been able to put together!

Rivers do not work like that, I know.

Here is the Kingdom of Svedonnia in all its glory. Svedonnia is a small human nation somewhere in Ghur, thriving on spice trade on the coast of the Sea of Spices. The kingdom is ruled over by a king who distributes the land to his vassal nobles, who in turn gift their land to knights and landowners in return for military service or peasant levies.

Flower of Chivalry

Greetings all!

It's been a while since my last post but now (finished with the new fancy look of the blog and all) I actually have something to show you. I've been digging into my stronghold's deepest vaults lately, where my hoards of plastic lie dormant. Dusting off a few reinforced chests and prying them open I discovered my long-lost Svedonnia project which I've now brought back to the painting table!

Svedonnia? Yes, that's what I call my Sweden-themed Bretonnians, led by King Birger Pepperberg. I even name each and every one of my units in Swedish. Gotteborg Gummilansar, Trolleholm Trevliga and Stuckholm Stammare to name but a few.

I'm not from Sweden myself, by the way.

Let's start off with some Knights Errant to inspect the heraldry. This particular unit is called Gotteborg Gummilansar, which roughly translates to Gotteborg Rubberlances. Sweden is known for its display of three yellow crowns, so I decided to include two in my realm's coat of arms, yellow on blue. The same pattern is repeated on the barding of their warhorses and the unit's banner. 8 Knights, 84 free-hand crowns.

In Svedonnia, knights do not have their own personal heraldry and are all bound to use different variations of their liege's colours. This was sagely decreed by the mighty and benevolent King Birger to avoid confusion on the battlefield, as well as to prevent anyone from inventing a more attractive coat of arms than that of the king.

These knights are currently racing through a black void, or so their unfinished bases suggest. They'll get their fancy bases as soon as I've tested the effect I have in mind on some of my Men-at-arms. Nobility should not touch the filthy soil before pox-ridden peasants have tried it out first!

Speaking Typing of peasants, here's a bunch. They're called Vätteby Väktarna, Guards of the Goblin Village. Well, "vätte" actually means a small grey-haired inhabitant of the underworld that lives under the buildings of people's farms (a common element of folklore up here in the north) rather than the malevolent little green-skinned menaces all Warhammer fans know and love, but that inconvenience is just the way of translations.

These miniatures are old Perry sculpts from Wargames Foundry, sold as Hundred Years War Billmen. To my eye they look a lot like some older Bretonnian Men-at-arms models so I decided to include some in my collection to get some variation in my infantry masses.

Being the poor innocent shits they are, these peasants bear no proud heraldry on their person. Their equipment is paid for by their liege knight on whose lands they farm their muddy patches of barren land, as no peasant could ever afford mail and billhook with their sorry income. "And no more than a tenth-share shall you keep for kith and kin" says the Peasant's Vow, meaning that 90% of their produce and income goes to the landowner. Not many parties can be thrown with that salary!

Fortunately there aren't that many opportunities for a peasant to throw any parties in the first place. The flower of chivalry grows from soil saturated with the blood of the common folk. The duty of these brave (or dim-witted) men in battle is to take on enemy charges and soak up damage, often getting slaughtered in the process, while the nobility in their shining armour gallop across the field to hammer the foe's formations senseless and driving them from the field. Any surviving peasants are paid handsomely (compared to their usual fee, I mean) for their military service, enabling them to march back home proud and perhaps purchase a cow or a goat for their families.

Here are a few peeks into what I'm currently working on, giving you some idea of what I'm adding to my Svedonnian force in the near future:

Kit-bashed Questing Knights with bits from Bretonnain Knights, Freeguild Greatswords and Freeguild Miltia

Shovels, swords, barrels, pouches, shields, scrolls, bedrolls... anything you might need in search of the Grail

Men-at-arms (still WIP in this pic), mounted Damsel, Field Trebuchet and villagers (Battle Pilgrims)

We'll see what I get painted up next. Until then!