An Essex Ready-made Hungarian Medieval army
Painted in 2020 Lockdown
The work in progress shots are on this separate page
There is lot's more of this stuff on my Links Page
These are the "studio quality" shots of the Hungarian army from Essex.
The Commander, with his printed paper glued-on horse blanket thingy
This army is discussed several times in the Madaxeman Lockdown Podcast Series, on Podcasts 8 - 11.
Light Horse bowmen. Those with brown straps on the horses are Mirliton, the rest are Essex
Serbian Hussars
The flags are just Hungarian ones I'm afraid.
The Black Army in Hungary
The striped shield is a print of a real shield !
Medium Cavalry with bow (Szecklers). I used a few shooting figures to make sure they were more obviously bow armed
The printed shield at the front is really clear
Some of the more detailed shields didn't print as well after I'd resized them, but still create a decent impressionistic view at this scale
I painted over a few of the banners to get the edging colour matching the main colour on the banner a bit more, and to give a less "printed" effect as well. Its especially visible on the blue banners here.
The castle shield has come out well
I copied a Steve Dean idea (quite poorly!) to do a white stripe annd then a thinner black stripe on the front of the Hussar-type figures with raised sword.
Bathory - Countess of Blood (2008)
These shields are super-sharp!
Adding a knight figure to two of the bases creates the 2 HCv figures in the army.
Another decent high-res print of a castle on a shield. I hope no-one out there paints these freehand in 15mm
Where I struggled to paint-match the printed shields (like with this castle one) i just did a different coloured edge entirely
I also upcycled some spare LF medieval bowmen and crossbowmen, as with ADLG I now have far too many of them.
The chaps on the left are I thinmk Khurasan Gothic archers, but tonight Matthew they are Slavic types in Hungarian service
How Vienna was conquered by the Hungarian army of Matthias Corvinus in 1485
I have lift-out crew for my Essex wagons, so these simply have had new shield patterns stuck on.
A great place to secrete a Peter pIg Man Being Rude figure giving the finger to the opposition
These infantry have been in service for more than 20 years, having originally been the Hussite foot in my DBM Lithuanian army. With upgraded basing and newly printed shields they become sword-armed Clipeati infantry
Another Man Being Rude moons his way onto the camera
Adding random shields to then will help differentiate this unit from the more drilled spearmen I'm still working on
Another upcycle for the Javelinmen/Medium Swordsmen peasant infantry
Two sets of archers. I have rebased many of my LF archers to bowmen recently
The Peasant Crusading Levy
Religious Icons googled, downloaded, resized and simply printed out
These are mostly Mirliton with some Essex in there too
Medium Knights.
The army pack didn't have enough armoured riders to do all three figures on all 8 bases, so each base is two armoured guys and one Szeckler-type rider
The middle shield design is one of my favourites and fits this shield really well
Is it possible to over-do banners on a Medieval army?
I cut out the bit of the flag that wraps around the lance on one of these men - it does look better and in retrospect I wish I'd done them all like that.
Both of the shields at the front are too detailed to ever hope to do freehand
The shield with a crescent on it is also a printout of a real shield from a museum
Very pleased with the effect on the guy with the sword on this one. A simple thing to paint as well.
The Heavy Metal
I deliberately didn't try and match the banners to the horse trappings as I wanted to get some Green & Red on the horses to make them feel more Hungarian .
Another striped real shield, this time with a hand-painted red edge to it
Super simple - but the eye is drawn to the flags
...and the shields
The Summary
Really enjoyed painting this army, and the printed shield and banner thing has I think been a success
There are still too many cavalry for an ADLG army but I enjoyed painting them and at least I have options to now make up a sub-optimal list if I wish!
A welcome - and perhaps overdue - reminder that Essex still have some very good figures that take paint really well
I have also saved a PDF of the shields which you can download and print out - there are a range of sizes but there should be enough to fit most of the various infantry and cavalry shields in an Essex or other 15mm army here.
That's the end - so why not go back to the Links Page and browse through some more stuff
