Soldiers of the Red Tassel

Hey folks!

Sorry it's been so long since the last post, i know you've all been desperately awaiting my next installment.

My excuses are that I've been on nightshift, although that was over a week ago now, and then I've had a few actual games of 40k, and some painting misadventures! We'll get to the misadventures later, but for now, some miniatures.

So, in this installment, we're going to have a look at some of my mate Earl's minis i painted for him, just after i painted up Aquillion and his unit, and before i painted up the drop pod.

The reason i got to painting these minis, and not ones of my own, was simple. We were playing DnD, and we'd encountered a band of mercenaries that had been hired to kill us. So, we kept coming across these particular soldiers, all with Red Tassels. The mini's Earl was using for the soldiers were good, but they were mostly unpainted, just undercoated in white. I took this as a personal challenge, and asked Earl if i could paint up his minis, to which he responded with an emphatic yes! (to this day he keeps offering to let me paint more of his stuff).

The soldiers of the Red Tassel were either generally archers, or footmen, and so we needed two types of mini to represent these. At the time, i had recently read a great little tutorial on painting Empire soldiers on the Games Workshop site, however they have since taken it down, and unfortunately i never kept a copy.

Since these miniatures were basically older GW Empire troops, i thought it fitting to try and paint these guys up to look the part. I went with a red and white colour scheme. There was actually about 20 archers and 15 foot soldiers, but since i wasn't taking photos of my minis at the time, I've only got a couple here to show you all.

Red Tassel Bowmen Front View

Red Tassel Bowmen Rear View

 There were 10 of these guys, 5 in kettle hats (the ones with a brim) and 5 in cervaliers (the bowl helmet), and then there were another 10, with the colours painted in reverse, ie red tunics and white hose and hoods.

This was my first real foray into painting white on a large scale. My previous regiment of spearmen had some white, but these guys had large, unbroken patches of white. I was still learning how to layer properly, and so in some places, the white highlights look a bit...out of place. The red tended to be a bit more forgiving and so while the skill of application was the same, the colour ended up looking a bit more realistic.

Now, the archers of the Red Tassel would be nothing without some footmen to defend them, and what do you know, there were some of these too!

There was about 15 or so of these guys as well, but I've only got three at the moment to show you.

 

Red Tassel Footmen Front

Red Tassel Footmen Rear

 There we can see the first guy who has the reversed colour scheme. These guys were quite fun to paint, as they are wearing "slashed and puffed" look clothing, much like real world 15th century Landschneckts. This means that in the washing stage of painting, they instantly look fantastic as the wash settles in all the slashes and provides great contrast. I've then gone and layered over these guys, but if i was to do these guys again, I'd probably have drybrushed over them, as that would have been both faster and more effective.

Oh, and the one in the centre has green felt on his base because we use a TV, sitting on a table, screen facing up, connected to a computer, as our map function in our DnD game. Yes, we're THAT nerdy.

 So, as with all adventures, there needs to be a "Big Baddie" at the end. Conveniently, Earl had just the model for that.

The Big Bad Front View

When i got this guy from earl, he wasn't even undercoated, and he didn't have a weapon. I think the shield comes from one of the Empire kits of swordsmen above, and the helmet with massive crest was definitely from a Bretonian knight.

Because he was without a weapon, i obviously had to make him one, and i didn't have many bits at the time, nor any Green Stuff. What i ended up doing was using one half of a banner pole with an eagle's head on the end as the haft, and then trimming some pieces of a winged banner decoration from the Spearmen regiment to use as the flanges of a mace. I think it worked out very nicely.

Big Bad Left View

Big Bad Right View

I'm particularly proud of the line highlighting on this guy, i really think i got it just right. And each of the rivets on his armour was picked out individually as well. The lion was done by painting in a brassy gold, washing in black, then drybrushing with a shiny gold and then a touch of silver.

 Lastly, please let me apologise for the crappy shots, I'm photographing these models with my flocked mat draped over a chair, and with my phone. I'm going to work on getting or making myself a light box for doing this, so if anyone has any ideas, feel free to post in the comments or link me a good guide to making one!

Till next time folks!