Building a 25mm Lancastrian WOTR army for ADLG

The Lancastrians proved surprisingly succesful at Roll Call 2019, and so I thought it might be interesting to see how easily you could pull together the army list I used, and show some examples of how it was painted and based.

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The List:

3 Northern Border Militia HI 2HW Mediocre

1 Irish Kern LF Javelin

2 French Mercenary MF Crossbow

1 Bombard Heavy Artillery

Ordinary General

1 Royal Bodyguard Elite H Knight Impact, embedded Competent General

4 Ordinary Foot Knights

2 Retinue Longbowmen Elite with Stakes

1 Welsh Longbowman Ordinary

2 Northern Border Horse - LH Impact

2 Irish Kerns - Javelinmen

1 Irish Kern - LF Javelin

1 Currough Heavy Cavalry Impact

1 Welsh Archer Longbowman

Competent Unreliable General

Fortified Camp

The theory with this army was to have a centre which was ostensibly weak enough to encourage opponents to attack the guns, occupy terrain on one flank with the third command and push forward with the very wide and tough CinC's command.

In a late medieval theme where Mediocre Pike are always tempting to take, the 8 (if the CinC dismounts) 2HCW men are also very potent.

The CinCs command can drive off cavalry and assault infantry equally well, with the longbows and foot knights deployed alternately, and if the CinC remains mounted he can make extra speed to get round a flank.

The Currours and Norther Border Horse are going to be better by far than most opponents token LH Crossbow flank guards too, allowing the Currours to get into positions that threaten enemy flanks or the LH to be fast moving additional overlaps.

The artillery aims to shoot one hit off as many targets as possible before the lines clash.

The Javelin/Longbow combo shouldn't be afraid to just turn about and run away when it finds more potent opponents - it is buying time for the CinC to win with his men.

The army I used was made up of mostly Perry plastic WOTR troops, with a handful of additional metal figures from other ranges. Working through them the list has:

3 bases HI 2HW = 21-24 figures @ 7/8 figures per base from the Medieval Mercenaries box set

2 French Mercenary MF Crossbow = 12 figures from the Mercenaries box

4 Foot Knights = 28-32 figures of Dismounted Men at Arms @ 7/8 figures per base

A mounted general = a single sprue of Medieval mounted Knights (that has 4 figures on it)

4 bases of Longbowmen = 24 figures, although I guess you could use 8 figures per base for the two units of Elite longbowmen if you wished?

2 units of Light Horse = 2 sprues from the Perry Medieval LH box with lances

For the Currour horse I used some really nice Border Reiver figures from Alan at Hoka Hey / Timeline. They may be a little out of time, especially the guys with pistols (!) but no-one will notice I recckon - they come out at ₤19.50 for 6 mounted figures! Alan does some proper infantry Kerns with javelins as well if you want to go down the metal route for them all.

For the Kerns - 2 bases of Javelinmen and 2 LF with Javelins - I kinda cheated and used generic medieval figures, alhough perhaps even some of my Vikings or generic Dark Age foot may have been better representations. Either way, some more of the Medieval Mercenaries box set would probably do if you just want to use these as generic Medieval chaps, although you may find you need to borrow some extra arms with Javelins from other sets.

Alternatively a slightly earlier 100YW infantry sprue could provide a dozen anachronistically old infantry to represent the more backward Irish Kerns at a pinch - these are chaps that I've just bought as a sprue of Agincourt infantry and then kitbashed a bit with spare bits.

Anyways, you need 16 Medium Foot Javelinmen - possibly extras from the Mercenaries box, or some different figures entirely such as these, or some from Hoka Hey

The artillery I picked up from Front Rank - part of a set with 2 different gunnes and a load of interesting crew for ₤21.50.

The couple of extra generals can be made with spare infantry and mounted figures from the Perry box sets.

All in all that works out as the whole army for around ₤100 all in.

1 Box Perry Mercenaries (40 figures per box will pretty much cover the 21-24 Halberdiers & 12 Crossbows, and give you some spares towards the Kerns

2 Sprues Perry Knights (to cover all of the Generals)

1 Box Perry WOTR infantry (40 figures, of which you can make 30 Longbows and 12 billmen)

1 Box Perry Foot Knights (38 figures is more than enough for the 4 bases, and gives you a few more to add to the Generals bases to make them into mini-dioramas

A 6-pack of Border Reivers from Timeline plus a single General's mounted figure would give you the full set of 3 + 2 + 2 Border horse lancers, or a generic box of Perry Medieval Light Horse would also work

Artillery from Front Rank

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Basing was on MDF (of course) with sand and then woodstain, finished with a drybrush. The technique is shown in this Youtube video I did a few years ago

Hopefully they work out as well for you as they did for me!