RP No 140 More, Battle of Flodden Scots

These are not that recent, they were finished sometime in May, but what with the Boyne game and my current situation, they've been put on the backburner up until now.
These ten units represent the 10,000 men who fought on the Scottish left at The Battle of Flodden under Alexander Gordon, The Earl of Huntly and Alexander 3rd Earl of Home.
The Home and Huntly flags are from the period and can be found on my blog for download, while all the others are pure fiction and aren't on my blog, but if anyone wants then drop me a line and I'll send you the file.

On the left Alexander Gordon, The Earl of Huntly

on the right Huntley's men from Inverness.

Alexander Gordon, The Earl of Huntly

The Earl of Huntley's men from Inverness.

The Earl of Huntley's Men from Aberdeen

The Earl of Huntley's Gordon's

Alexander 3rd Earl of Home Retinue

and Home's Borderers from Merse.

The Earl of Home's 2nd Retinue

Home's Borderers from Tevoitdale

Cuddy Home, the Paladin of Fast Castle (The Earls cousin)

Clan Kerr

Salute 2013 Part 1

I'm still knackered even now, myself Fran and evil Gamesmaster Postie, all travelled up to London on Saturday morning for Salute 2013. Both me and  Fran had been on nights the Friday night, so you can imagine how impressed I was when the alarm went off at 0800. Just over 2 hours sleep is not the best start to the day!!! But it was well worth it!

The back of Posties head and the bloody massive queue, we as well as hundreds of other nutters, stood in it for around 50 bloody minutes. we weren't impressed. Tickets next year me thinks!!!!

In the queue we met Honorary Reject Clint!

Who didn't bring the Fudge he promised!!!

Me and Fran went straight to Warbases to pick up our orders from Martin and the guys (cheers Martin!)
And there we met fellow Blogger Andrew Saunders, better known as Loki. A thoroughly nice chap!

I also bumped into Reece and Phil from The Gravesend Wargames Club, who were putting on a Dark Age game with Rob Broom, who can be seen lurking around in the right of the pic, using War & Conquest rules.

Pics from the blogger meet up, this one was unashamedly pinched from BigLee's blog. I'm not sure who the chap is behind Sydney, to the left of Mike Whittaker and behind James, other did turn up but didn't make the group pic, Tamsin, MiniMike, Seb, Andy, Pat - The Silver Whistle, Mike - The Dark Templer, Phyilion and his brother, Legatus, Jerry & The Wild Goose.

In the pic are
Mike - Trouble At T'Mill
Carl - Hitting on a double 1
Whisperin' Al - The Wargaming Shed
James - Exiles Wargames Painter
Clint - Anything but a 1
Andy - The Lair of the Breviks
Fran - The Angry Lurker
Mathyoo - The Necroleadicon
Simon - BigRedBatCave
Dave - Round Dave's
Sydney - Roundwood's World
Markus - The Dice Warrior
Ashley - Paint it Pink
Apologies if I've forgotten anyone, drop me a line or comment and I'll add you onto the list.

Just squeezing into the pic on the right is Sir Michael Awdry and his pal The Provost Marshal.

Seb, Fran, Tamsin and the Wild Goose

Gripping Beast's Andy, I think he was saying I owed him £2 Not sure though??

MiniMike, Fran and Moi

Mike asked how Battleaxe was doing and gave us a commision,

to paint up his newly purchased  Wild West train from Redoubt.

A few shots inside the arena.

Is that you??

My personal favourite game of the show, for obvious reasons was The Battle of Flodden 1513 from the Wigmore Warriors. I had a great chat with both John and Nicolas from the Warriors, two very nice chaps! We all agreed that it was strange that other Wargames clubs didn't recreate Flodden as this year is the 500th anniversary of the battle???  Apparently the battle went along with history with poor King James popping his clogs once again. But the Warriors were the only table I saw who were busy boozing while playing, John Smith's anyone??????
I've got to admit that I was very pleased to see my flags being used, one day I'll manage to get a game with my 15mm Flodden figures.......of course I've got to paint all the buggers first!
Nice one guys!!!!

RP No 129 Battle of Flodden 1513 - Scottish Pikes

A this year is the 500th anniversary of the Battle of Flodden, in 1513 I thought I'd have a crack at getting some figures painted up for the Battle. my original plan was to refight the Battle at the Broadside Wargames show in June, but I won't get all the figures painted up in time. My initial plans were to use the army lists from the excellent ruleset "Warfare in The Age of Discovery". This called for approx 17 units of Scottish Pike, so the said figures were duly ordered from a various number of companies. BUT after reading the Osprey's "Battle of Flodden" Order of Battle I decided to extend the armies slightly.........ok a lot!!!

So the first 15 pike units will now just be for King James IV's Battle, comprising 15,000 men and here they are below....

Lord Irskine and the Earl of Morton's pike blocks

The Kings Houshold troops and Lord Home's pike blocks.

(Lord Home's pikes were not part of  the King's battle, they were in their own battle)

The Men of Edinburgh and the Earl of Rothis' pike blocks.

Keith, the Earl Marishal and Lord Borthwick's pike blocks.

Hamilton, Lord Innerwick and more Kings Household pike blocks.

Lord Sempill and Lord Maxwell's pike blocks

The Earl of Cassillis and Lord Seton's pike blocks.

Lord Ross and Lord Herries' pike blocks.

Lord Home

All the Pikemen are from Peter Pig's WotR range, while the front rank troops

are a mix of MY minis, Frei Corps, Feudal and Essex

The Edinburgh regt

Once again the front rank are mixed manufacturers, this time we have

Frei Corps, Peter Pig, Feudal and Frei Corps again

These troops were entered into Curt's Challenge, where I was accussed of sandbagging 

again, oh the cheek of it!!, They earned me a massive 546 points!!!

Most of the flags are downloadable from my blog, here!

RP No 120 Flodden - The Bastard Heron's Border Horse

One of 4 units of English Border Horse, I've recently painted up for the Battle of Flodden in 1513. The figures are from Essex Minis and are carrying the Banner of Thomas Lord Dacre 2nd Baron of Gilsland, Warden of the English West March. The flag was drawn by myself on MS Paint and is available here to download for free.

This unit plus the three others earned me 136 points in Curt's Analogue Painting Challenge.

An account of the Battle, by James Bell
"On James IV's left flank The Border Pikes under Lord Home, broke ranks and charged the English right wing, commanded by Edmund Howard. Howard's forces were outnumbered in this attack by three to one and totally unnerved by the attacking Pikes of Home, panicked and ran, leaving Howard with a few loyal men standing their ground. Howard put up a desperate but losing fight and although his standard bearer was dead and he had been downed three times, he managed to regain his feet each time and continue his struggle. Just as Home's Pikes were about to charge him yet again, no doubt with a borderers eye to the ransom, 1,500 of Lord Dacres Border Lances (made up of his men from Gilsland and  Bell's of Farlam), charged the Scottish flank and held them. Then a handpicked band of Border Reivers under the outlaw John "The Bastard" Heron, hacked their way through the Scots around Howard and freed him. Heron's Reivers "making even work before them" cut their way through the Scots towards the English ranks; on the way they were confronted by a party of Scots lead by the young Sir David Home, who was cut down and killed by Howard."