Army build archives: Medieval Irish

From July 2015: I built a Medieval Irish army around RedBox's foot of the same name. They have cavalry on the release horizon, but at time of building did not even have a schedule for it. But the LH and the Cav needed for the army are completely different. For LH, I needed barefoot, javelin-hurling, tunic-wearing minis that I could build cloaks, hoods and maybe puffy sleeves on. For Cav I looked for something rather similar to Breton or Norman knights. They all ride unsaddled horses, but the lights are probably little mountain ponies and the Cav, regular size horses.

So what I ended up using was from HaT: except I used some of the last of my old Atlantic 7th Cavalry ponies to provide the very small ponies needed here; and strangely enough, Lucky Toys Hun ponies which were so huge I didn't use most of them for my Huns! LH riders are HaT Moorish riders; Cav riders are HaT El Cid Spanish.

Conversion work: The lights get hoods and cloaks and puffy sleeves, and beard-moustache face hair. The general gets mail skirts added, his pair of riders get puffy sleeves. The Spanish lose their stirrups, of course. All horses get a 'cushion' seat-pad, and lose any girth straps. I extend the saddle blankets back a little too.

During this period my copy of DBA 3.0 arrived and I shifted from a 2.2 army to a 3.0. There was some shuffling around of figures on bases, which was unfortunate but the final result looks pretty good. The Cv appear as the rules suggest, with a well-equipped rider and a couple of support pony-riding types.

As I completed the army, the shift in thinking from 2.2 to 3.0 made me reconsider the foot. I added another Bd element (from the unused RedBox minis) and a number of kerns using Alexander's Light Troops by HaT. (In case you are wondering all the conversion work involving adding clothing and saddle pads was done with Grey Stuff. Fiddly of course, but the big advantage is that once dry it stays how you leave it, and it gives a really good 'drape' for cloaks and sleeves.)