Fred's 2014 Painting Diary

[Subedai]

Thanks chaps.

I've mixed the mediums and lights ( and a commander ). I do plan to do the heavies separately.

What little I have read seems to indicate that there was only a split to heavy and the rest. With a much higher percentage of lights.

   Comparatively, original Mongol armour was much lighter than contemporary ring/chain mail being mostly boiled or hardened leather so mixing mediums with the lights is accurate -I've done the same. The thing about Mongols was that although some of them wore armour, it doesn't seem to have slowed them down at all when it comes to maneuvering or indeed any form of movement so the classifications of LC and MC are a bit cloudy. In fact, mixing mediums with heavies is also accurate, it depends on what the formation did rather than what it wore; some may even had a form of horse armour, on the front at least.

  The only troops that I know can be classified accurately as EHC are the kesig or keshik, which were the guard. Eventually numbering 10,000 they all wore identical uniiforms of black kalat -the Mongol wrapover coat- with any edging in red. The same was true for their armour, similar to the samurai, any armour lacing and backing material was also red. All rode horses wearing black -all around- armour that had all trappings in...you guessed it, red. Whether each kesig formation rode identically coloured horses is unknown but it wouldn't surprise me if they did.

  As far as organisation is concerned, the Mongols were decimal, so really the smallest, practical wargaming unit would be the equivalent of a mingghan of 1,000 warriors. Ten of these would make up a tumen of which two units would be the MC/HC contingent while the rest would be MC/LC who would skirmish but also were trained to get stuck in if necessary. This was arrived at by having 20 warriors out of every 100 strong unit being siphoned off to form the MC/HC formations. Unfortunately, not all tumen were at full strength but could be anything between 5 -10,000 so a smaller force of 5 MC/LC with 1 MC/HC is fine as well.

  Mine are organised in 3 base units with 8 LC/MC and 2 MC/HC usually arrayed in chequerboard formation on the battlefield with the MC/HC at the rear. (I have pics but as they are not Pendraken chaps I won't post them here.)

[fred.]

Thanks Subedai great info - most of my reading has been your articles in MW!!

The keshik sound like a good paint scheme.

[FierceKitty]

What might chail mail be?

[smokie gunner]

Ouwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
Please don't say chain mail!  It's like saying chain chain.  Mail is chain.
Ohhhhhhhhh, the redundancy.
I'm melting.........melting....................

Rob 

[FierceKitty]

Ouwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
Please don't say chain mail!  It's like saying chain chain.  Mail is chain.
Ohhhhhhhhh, the redundancy.
I'm melting.........melting....................

Rob 

I'll get you, and your little dog as well! (hah, hah, hah, hah....)

[Techno]

Getting back to Fred's work.
Great stuff, Fred ! 
Cheers - Phil

[fred.]

Ta Phil - I find if you keep quite for a while, things slow return back to normality!

[Ithoriel]

Please don't say chain mail!  It's like saying chain chain.  Mail is chain.
Ohhhhhhhhh, the redundancy.

Chain Mail ... as opposed to Ring Mail, Scale Mail or Plate Mail.

Jeez, did you people NEVER play D&D??? 

[FierceKitty]

Never, I'm proud to say.

[Subedai]

I was brought up -historically speaking- being eruditely informed that the stuff was called chain mail. Since then I have found out that a more PC title is ring mail...so I used both to avoid any potential confusion.

(If ever a idea didn't work it was that one!  )

[smokie gunner]

Yes, I stand corrected.  This should be about Fred's marvelous painting!
Love those Mongols, Fred.
I am envious as I have been unable to put brush to metal in over 2 years!

I just have one more thing to contribute as far as mail is concerned and then I'll clam my gob shut.
I'm really not trying to pick a fight.     Really! 

I'm not a great believer in Wikipedia as you really have to be careful about the scholarship but this entry is well founded and may help to clarify the issue:

"The modern usage of terms for mail armour is highly contested in popular and, to a lesser degree, academic culture. Medieval sources referred to armour of this type simply as "mail", however "chain-mail" has become a commonly-used, if incorrect neologism first attested in Sir Walter Scott's 1822 novel The Fortunes of Nigel.[10] Since then the word "mail" has been commonly, if incorrectly, applied to other types of armour, such as in "plate-mail" (first attested in 1835).[11] The more correct term is "plate armour"."

1.   "chain-mail, n." OED Online. December 2011. Oxford University Press.
2.   "plate-mail, n." OED Online. December 2011. Oxford University Press.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_(armour) [/color] [/color]

You say tomayto and I'll say tomahto! 

I'll shut up now.   
Love you guys!   

Rob 

[smokie gunner]

Super job, Fred!
The sheer volume of you work is impressive, not to mention your skill with the brush!
I really liked your treatment of the ground cover with your Late WWI Germans.  I may have missed it in the text but what material did you use to sculpt the shell holes, etc.?
The Mongols have an eerie quality as if they have sprung fully armed from the soil - probably a perception shared by their historical enemies.  The sculpts are really nice and your subtle painting has brought them to life as they seem to be moving on the stands!
I also liked your 28mm Victoriana.  Who doesn't love a Victorian red coat?  There are so many beautiful figures out there in 28mm.  If was so tempting to go that route for the Zulu War but the 10mm Pendraken figures are the best on the market and I'm hooked on them.  They also take up so much less space and you can mass hundreds of them.
Your diary is great, keep up the good work!

Cheers,
Rob   

[fred.]

I'm with Ithoriel, AD&D had chain mail, ring mail and plate mail - and that's what I grew up with, so its what I tend to use from habit. I do occasionally go for just mail.

From Rob's quotes it seems that it is those bloomin' victorian's inventing history again, that is the cause of all this confusion over a simple armour coat!

Rob - thanks for the very kind words - but I'm definitely a block paint and wash kind of painter - I rely on the quality of the sculpts to make what I paint look good.  Glad that the diary gives viewing pleasure - and I hope that you can get back to painting soon.

I have had chance to put some paint on the horses of another batch of Mongols today - and I am really impressed with the sculpting - great work Phil!

The bases of the WWI Germans are done using Ronseal Wood Filler - it comes in a purple tub, available in DIY stores - its quite gloopy, so you can make shell holes and the like just be scraping a bit of a hole - I then used Vallejo Water Effects to give the impression that they are deep, even though in reality they are only a few mm deep.

The red coats were fun to paint - but I couldn't face doing a whole army at that scale!

[Leman]

Must admit I tend to go with plate and mail, sometimes unnecessarily adding the word armour incase someone thinks I'm talking about the post or crockery.

[Hertsblue]

If you really want to be pedantic "mail" is interlocking rings, "proof" is rings sewn on to leather backing and a suit of armour is a "harness". However, usage tends to blur accurate meanings over time.