Warfare Miniatures

I wanted to post these pics for two reasons - first they not only show more great Warfare Miniatures, but I also designed them (using photos of Barry Hilton's growing collection) and they will appear as a double-page spread in an upcoming Wargames Illustrated...

Breaking a bit of news (there is a small preview in the ad), I will be designing a range of flag sheets to compliment the Warfare Miniature line. The first sets will cover the Jacobite Wars. Many will be useful for other theaters of the period, but we will be concentrating first on the units that fought in Ireland and Scotland. They will be done in the style of my free AWI flags. Besides the known flags of the theater we will offer a range of fictional flags suitable for filling in units where history hasn't endured (Many of the Jacobite devices in particular are unknown).

As usual, keep an eye here and at the League of Augsburg site for more details!

Christmas Comes Early

When I got home this afternoon from running some errands there was a box on my porch with the telltale Customs Declaration tag and Royal Mail sticker that declares a package from the UK. Inside were well over 100 Warfare Miniature castings - enough to build at least five battalions for Beneath the Lily Banners! I've painted a dozen or so of these models for inclusion in the uniform guides, but this will be my first chance to turn out full units.

My campaign of focus will be the Boyne/Augrim theater and the battle for the English Crown. My plans are to start out with the Williamite army, specifically with a Danish Brigade. The Danish regiments in Ireland appear to have been:

Garden til Fods (Foot Guard)
Dronningen (Queen's) Regiment
Prince George's Regiment
Prince Karl's Regiment
Prince Christian's Regiment
Jyske (Jutland) Regiment
Sjaellandske (Zealand) Regiment
Fynske (Funen) Regiment

For my wargames army, I think a brigade of four units will suffice and will include the Foot Guards. I'll decide on exactly which units will back them up as I get on. I am still gathering material on the uniforms and flags. I have read that the Danish troops apparently did not carry pikes in Ireland so these units will count as 'All Musket' in BLB. However, I will probably paint the pike stands for the non-guard units - one of the great benefits of this period is the similarity of uniforms between armies and the grey-coated Danes might easily pass for troops from other nations with a quick change of flags!

I have really become mildly obsessed with this period so look for 2012 to be full of units from 1690. I plan on adding two battalions of Dutch Guard, a mixed unit of Grenadiers, and a mixed brigade of English and Huguenot troops to round out my Williamite foot. Maybe by the time I get that far, the horse and dragoons from Warfare Miniatures will be out!

I should also mention that we are working on the first supplement for BLB that will focus on the Jacobite Wars in Scotland and Ireland (it's no coincidence that my first collections will be from this theater). This book is set to include an overview of the campaigns, more than twenty scenarios, and an extensive guide to armies,uniforms, and flags.

Fun stuff!

Viking Berserkers

These are the first of my 'new' Vikings, meaning that I painted them last week. Berserkers are treated as Hearthguard with a bonus in melee and a penalty on their armor.

Viking Levy

Here are four of my Viking Levy models. I still need to paint a few more to field a SAGA 'legal' 12-model unit. If I had any criticism of SAGA so far it would be in requiring the 12-model units be bow armed. Archers would have been very rare in any Viking army, but any warband resorting to Levy end up with what seems like a disproportionate number of them. They aren't great troops and they probably need the numbers to be effective, but my 6-point SAGA warband has 41 models and with 12 Levy, that's roughly a third of my force with bows. Of course, to satisfy my issue I can replace the whole lot with another band of Hearthguard or Warriors and ditch the arrows entirely. Maybe I'll use them for my Anglo-Danish warband...

My Normans arrived this week, but I've got a commission to finish up before I can start on them...

New Warfare Miniatures

There are three new codes from the Warfare Miniatures line available at the LoA Shop! There are lots of exciting plans for this range we should see new codes on a regular basis. Artillery and senior officers will follow before the end of November 2011!

WLOA10 Dismounted Dragoons with Hats

WLOA11 Grenadiers in Fur Caps Storming the Breach

WLOA14 Casualties

The Dragoons and casualties were painted by Barry Hilton (there will be painted examples of Grenadiers on the LoA site soon).

Viking Warriors

Here are a few of the warriors that will form one of the units in my Viking Saga warband (click on each image to see a larger pic)...

Next week I'll post some pics of a few Viking Levy...