I have been missing doing some historical guys, so I decided to try and start a new historicals project. I've always wanted to do Hastings and the battles before it, but the thought of painting hundreds of 28mm miniatures of Saxon-looking guys for all three armies (Norse, Saxons, Normans) was just too depressing to fathom for me. But, painting that many of my wooden guys? That's an option!
However, I have done some Dark Ages/Early Medieval guys before and didn't really like them much. They never quite captured the look of the mail coat look that most of these troops have. However, with my new way of doing the fantasy figures with the upside down milk bottle body, cool nasal helm head, and paper "skirt," that is exactly the way these figures should look. So I decided to start a new historicals project, that being Hastings, and kicked it off with a test base of Norman Archers.
I wanted to do a game that is more of a stand-based approach rather than individually mounted figures (or even pairs as I had been doing in my ancients games). I decided to go with the precut thick 3" by 1" wooden rectangles I get from a craft supply place online. The bases are so thick that people will be likely to pick the figures up by the base instead of by the figures. I usually don't like thick bases, but I think for these guys it makes the most sense to use a thick base to protect the figures as much as possible. But, the issue with that is that the figures are not very stable on the larger base, and any sort of tipping, etc. will likely loose the figure from the base, regardless of how much glue one uses. But I came up with a solution.
I knew I wanted to screw the figures onto the base from the bottom. I thought I could countersink the hole on the bottom and use a flat head screw. No problem. I also realized that the milk bottle "top" (the lower legs of the figure) actually has a little indentation in it, which is almost like a guide hole for a screw. So this should work perfectly. I should be able to drill a hole in the base, glue the figure down, and before the glue dries screw the screw in from the bottom and into the base of the figure. Glue + screw should be plenty strong. Turns out if I was right!
Here is the base from the bottom. You can clearly see the two screws that go up through the base and into the figures. They are countersunk (is that a word!?) so the base still sits flat on the table top.
And here are the two archers. I wanted them to be a bit "un-uniform" so one is in a hood with a mail coat and the other is in a leather coat with a nasal helm. Standard milk bottle body construction, paper hood (where appropriate), paper skirt (bottom of the mail coat or leather coat depending on the figure), tile spacer arms and quivers, with tile spacer feet. Ah, the feet. I couldn't do what I was doing with the fantasy figures. Screwing up through a rubber tile spacer and then into the wooden body of the figure would have been a nightmare. I'm sure it would have turned out where the body would have spun around because of the torque of the screw driving process, or the feet would have become unglued from the body, etc. So, I still like the looks of the feet, so instead I just glued them to the base of the figure up against the body of the figure. First, they are not likely to come off because they are in a position where they will not be touched by human fingers. Second, the figure is no less strongly attached to the base because the feet do not enter into that equation. They are a bit shorter in height than the fantasy figures, since the bottom of the figure is not sitting on the top of the tile spacer feet, but I still think they look pretty good, and with a whole table full of the same construction, no one will know the difference.
No swords and such for these guys. Just the basics. I plan on doing four bases for each unit, so I don't have time to put a lot of the details on them like I do for the individual fantasy rpg character figures.
I think they turned out pretty good, I'm pleased. Next up is a base of Normal infantry. I can't decide whether to do three or four per base. What was nice about these archers was that I actually attached the figures to the base first and then painted them (there was enough room to do that). This is very handy because I did not have to try and hold the finished figure in place while screwing it onto the base. I think trying to do it that way could get very, very dicey and I might end up breaking a figure (arms off of it I mean) if I try and screw them into place after I've painted them. If I did three Norman infantry to one base I could probably paint them after screwing them onto the base. If I do 4, I'm going to have to paint them first. Not sure what I'm going to do yet.
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