Mark Makes plastic Serjeants in three different weapons units
Footsore's Mark Farr opens a box of Serjeants and fires out three new units in an afternoon!
Mark:
I have started on my box of Wargames Atlantic Serjeants. There are 24 in a box, so I decided on 3 groups of 8 as a good starting point (Barons War is a D10 game and serjeants are quite good so units of 8 will 'get the job done'). The 3 units are Serjeants with Falchion and shield ( the staple of your serjeant choices), Halberdiers/billmen and Crossbowmen.
I wanted a distinctive look for the crossbowmen so chose the nasal bar helms for them - in my mind these are regular troops with access to an armoury and are equipped from some of the older supplies as 'getting stuck in' isn't their forte. I wanted the other 2 units to look much more like they would want to 'mix it up' with the enemy so the kettle helms and as much mail as possible are the 'go-to' option.
People looking at the frames will notice that there are only 3 torsos without arms so you can't make 8 halberdiers and 8 crossbowmen straight from the box, I used a few 'Levy' torsos and you can't tell the difference. You could also probably cut some of the left arms off a couple of the extra torsos but I didn't try this.
Painting
As there was a lot of mail I decided to spray my frames black. Then I cut my figures off of the frames and had a dry run 'test fitting' before I glued my troops together.
Usually when painting I work from the lowest or deepest layer (normally the skin) and work my way up but when painting metal armour (normally the top layer) I start with that because my method is messy!
I dry brush the armour a suitable metallic leaving the black undercoat in the deepest recesses, let it dry, give it a black wash, let that dry and then drybrush the original metallic again and call the metal done!
I then use a mid-brown for most other colours and apply that over the required areas leaving the black undercoat in the deepest parts and between the joins between different colours (it's a bit like the old black lining process for painting back in the 1970s but I don't mind if the lines get blurred I am just looking to add depth to my colours).
As of this morning, the basic colours are done and I will start going back over them this week adding highlights and washes.
So, there are my first Serjeants. Now let's see your units. MarkF
