Spencer Smith Normans

Meant as an accompaniment to their recent "Robin Hood" releases are Spencer Smiths new Normans.

So far they have released a half-dozen cavalry, numerous armoured infantry and a couple of unarmoured bowmen. I bought four cavalry for the purposes of this review.

All are in the classic Norman war-gear of knee-length, short-sleeved byrnie and conical helm with nasal. The figures are 30mm - just the same as the Franco-Prussian War French I own which are also from the greater "Classic" range. The figures are multi-part insofar as both arms need to be glued to the body. To this end they are provided with a substantial pin-and-hole arrangement. The arms are poseable and completely interchangeable with those of other figures in the range. One could use some of the spear being thrust overarm limbs from the infantry to vary the cavalry even further.

Indeed, this latter point is the reason there are so very many variants of the infantry at least. there is not a body dolly (of which there seem to be only four) that has not had each arm swapped for it's alternate to make up the plethora of codes available. The cavalry are in the same boat with only two or three body poses that are used to make up the five available codes.

So, what are the pros and cons?

I'll start with the cons. I'm honestly not sure on how I feel about the two seperate arms. It seems that a design decision was made for economic rather than aesthetic reasons so as to maximise the number of figure variations that could be got off a limited number of body dollies. I experienced a fair amount of frustration in getting the arms into the poses I wanted as the fit of the pegs in the requisite holes was loose and getting the limb to stay still was tricky whilst the glue set. I am sure that cleverer people than I will use a superglue accelerator or even one of the gel variants of cyanoacrylate adhesive. I'm not entirely happy how the joint looks when the arms are glued on.

Moving onto the pros, the figures and horses are exquisitely well-proportioned. Their hands and weapons are normally sized. A design feature that I like especially with these figures is that detail has been kept to the minimum. The figures look like Normans (or Crusaders or...) without having to be lugging around an apothecary's workshop of superfluous detail that will never be noticed on the wargames table anyway. Thus they are quick to paint - a personal plus. The chainmail is very subdued and this will either turn people on or off depending on how they prefer to paint this sort of item. The folds of the mail are very nice but the "rows of dots" that are the generally accepted sculpting shorthand for mail are replaced by a light pebbling which to my mind might best be painted with a dark metallic coat overall (Boltgun metal as was) and a quick drybrush of something brighter - Chainmail perhaps?

I've left the shields plain as I intend to add some VVV shield decals at a future date.

Recommended. Mine will be scaling the walls of Jerusalem sometime soon.

The price is right at 95p  for foot or GBP2.35 for cavalry.

UPDATE: For Ross - a comparison shot with my Willie "Saracens for all the Ages (qv!)"

Castle walls by Games Workshop

Shields hand-painted by me. Banner courtesy of Amy.

Shewing a method for ye Construction of ye Fortificationes.

 Moslem and Christian assail each other. It was always thus between the two. So the culture warriors tell us, anyway.

 Oh, for a Kingom of Heaven. Especially one with Eva Green in it. Ahem.

Painting Challenge

Spencer Smith "Classic" Franco-Prussian War French

 It does one's painting genie good to subject it on an irregular basis to the gentle rigours of a painting challenge. A challenge between friends with no pressure other than a deadline and one's own commitment to meet it.

Imperial Regiment Saxe-Coburg Gotha

 On that basis I present the photographs here as proof that I have dismally failed in my aim of two brigades of SSM Infantry and Cavalry and an admission that I am indeed a hopeless butterfly.

French Marines defend a cardboard box to the last man and the last round

Funny Little Wars

The Field Artillery. Not quite "75s" but not too bad either.

 I have recently been bitten by the "Funny Little Wars" bug and have started a small collection of 54mm toy soldiers.

"Grande Berthe"

 But which army? Army Red? Oh, everyone does one of them. Army Black then? Oh, spare me the cliche.

The Flying Artillery? Deadly with a matchstick at six feet.

 Army Light Green? What? Montenegro? Never!

Musketry practice for the men in the red trousers.

 Army Horizon Bleu. What else could it be?

The new experimental uniform with the shrapnel-proof helmet. Will it ever catch on?

 More as I continue the build up.

"I note that the back lawn is exceedingly well-mown at the moment", says Amy. "Any reason for that?"

Me: "Oh, no, just one of those little jobs that needed doing, dear."

The Shape of Things to Come

Water Sports

 I've spent a little time this evening making watery terrain for some projected games here at the Duchy of Alzheim. Above is my swamp and below a picture of the full collection of ponds. Both are cur with my jigsaw from 3mm MDF before being painted. the painting was largely wet-on-wet to allow a degree of blending. the swamp/marsh/wetland was basically black with some stippling of green while the ponds pretty much speal for themselves.


Erin gets in on the act: "What you doin' daddy?"



I feel as though they sit pretty well on my table insofar as they are relatively heavy for their size and dead flat. I've chamfered the edges with a sanding block to blend them "down" to the table surface. At worst I think this only looks as artificial as the riverbank that is like a little speed-bump at the edge of a water-feature and a good deal easier to blend away with a few strategically-placed model trees to soften the transition.

It might be nice to make a great big lake.

Bits and bobs

 Just a few bits and bobs today. As you can see from the picture above, I've taken delivery of some Amera vac-formed terrain. In my case, five straight and two curved sections as well as a nice little bridge and a forked section. They all butt up neatly against each other so, so far so good. All the work will be in the painting I'd think, so I'll see how I go. I've probably got something like two metres of river - surely enough?

Side-note - I wonder how they'd paint as roads?

 In painting news, I'e finished glossing the heck out of these Spencer Smith "Classic" Franco-Prussian War French. The coats are a bit darker in reality - blame the flash photographer! I have decided to paint the rifle-toting arms seperately before fixing them to the torso in future.

Apart from that they were lovely to paint - surprisinly unencumbered by extraneous detail and a nice subject. I used a semi-washed style with these on a white undercoat again, but was unable to resist doing some highlighting. Some habits are very hard to break. I felt the black lining worked quite well to firm up the definition of the figure.

The Demise of the Jaeger

Newsflash, Zichenau Central:

Caught in the open, a company of ineptly led Stollen Jaeger was caught by our brave hussars and slaughtered almost to a man and, we are glad to report, without suffering a single loss in reply.

The lone survivor was last seen scuttling back to the Village of Eispicke. Little safety there, however as our brave Artillery reportedly caused a couple of casualties among those Stollens who chose to cower within.

Not for nothing is Stollen known as "A Piece of Cake".