MODELLING

By Richard Lloyd

Tips for assembling mounted men-at-arms

MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE!

People ask “Why bother assembling plastic figures when you can crack straight on with
painting metal ones?” Only after an hour scouring off flash, slag and socking great mould
lines, presumably!? But, in fact, modelling plastic figures is a joy. Never mind the price,
the real appeal of plastic is surely the infinite potential for creating unique figures.
Build a thousand and make every one different – literally!
When has that ever been possible with historical
wargames figures?

© Richard Lloyd

I
n this article, I plan to get creative
with a box of Perry Miniatures’ new
plastic ‘Mounted Men at Arms 1450-
1500’ (WR40), and share some useful
tips for the plastic figure builder. First,
a few rudiments for the newbie to bear
in mind.
1. Modern liquid polystyrene cement
boasts near-supernatural properties. It
glues, dissolves and melds plastic; acts
2. Perry figures are a pleasingly soft
‘hard plastic’. Unlike polythene Airfix
figures, this stuff is rigid, yet not so hard
that it’s difficult to work. It’s incredibly
easy to cut, shave, and shape.
3. Every component has modelling po-
tential. Study each figure to appreciate
its possibilities. A hand holding a sword
doesn’t have to stay on the end of the
arm it came with. Slice it off and glue it
© Richard Lloyd

as a smoother, filler and concealer of
joins; sticks almost straightaway; sets
hard within 30 minutes; and comes
with a needle dispenser for pinpoint ac-
curacy. In short, it’s wonderful stuff.
onto another arm for an entirely diffe-
rent effect. Angle your cuts slightly and
create a pose which is different again.
The parts themselves – and a sharp
knife – provide an endlessly flexible set
of resources. A knight’s mount leaps a broken fence.

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 away the tiny shavings of plastic that
cling on once you’ve finished cutting,
gluing and scraping. And you some-
times have to fill small joins, so some-
thing like Citadel’s Liquid Greenstuff
might come in useful, although I do all
my filling with poly cement.

WHATʼS IN THE BOX?

So – back to the Mounted Men-at-Arms
(WR40) from the Perry brothers. What
do you get in the box? Well, enough
parts to build 12 horses and riders, plus
Charge!!! about a gazillion spare parts, offering
huge flexibility. There are four different
rider bodies: one wearing fancy Ger-
man armour (of an ornate gothic style),
two wearing variants of the Italian/
English/Flemish style (much less fussy),
and one wearing the latter, but with a
surcoat.

For each body, there’s a choice of three

or four matching right arms, either with
© Richard Lloyd

couched lance or open-ended to take

assorted weapon-wielding hands. Bridle
arms are moulded directly onto the
bodies.

Two examples of new horse bodies created by cut-and-shut! The various helmets and weapons fit
with any of the armours, although a
few are specific to a particular style or
4. Natural posture is everything. The 5. As well as poly cement, you’ll need period. The great bascinet, for instance,
trick is to create combinations of a craft knife for scraping away mould li- was an old-fashioned piece by the late
bodies, arms and heads which have nes and cutting parts from sprues (never 1400s, used for tourneys but not in
the ring of truth. It’s too easy to quickly twist them off – it damages them). Keep battle. The high-domed, visored sallet,
bosh a whole box together and end up an old toothbrush handy for dusting on the other hand, was the apogee
with a load of clunky-looking figures.
The angle of an arm here, the tilt of a
head there makes all the difference to
whether your finished figure looks ‘real’
or not. So take your time. Use Blu-tack
to try poses before you glue them. The
head, in particular, makes a massive dif-
ference to the end product. Looking left,
right, or straight ahead? (Straight ahead
is rarely the best choice). Slightly up or
slightly down? Tilted to one side or the
other? Here’s a tip: the head usually sits
a little low on the shoulders, so put a
© Richard Lloyd

dab of poly cement into the neck soc-

ket, drop in a shaving or two of plastic,
leave to dissolve for a few seconds, then
pop the head on. This helps it to sit up
a bit, and makes for a better attitude in
the finished figure. The charging knight, unpainted and painted.

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MODELLING
The knight with shouldered lance, unpainted and painted.
of the sallet style, so it would best
complement the latest, swanky German
armour. Also included are several sets
of German horse armour (four separate
bits) and Italian horse armour (in two
halves). These attach directly onto the
horse, just like real armour. Clever stuff!
The horses come in two halves with se-
parate heads, of which there are seven
different ones, comprising armoured,
part-armoured and unarmoured. In each
box, three right halves and three left
halves with seven different heads and a
choice of three styles – unarmoured, Ita-
lian armour, or German armour – offer
a staggering 189 different permutations.
And that’s just for starters! It’s also per-
fectly possible to perform full ‘cut-and-
shut’ jobs, where you cut the horse in
half and glue different front ends onto
Condottiere, unpainted and painted.
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WSS nr62 aug12.indd 64
The light horseman, unpainted and painted.
different back ends, for some radically
different equine poses.
OF KNIGHTS AND RUFFIANS
For the riders, I mainly used compo-
nents from the WR40 box, supplemen-
ted by pieces from the earlier medieval
sets – ‘Wars of the Roses Infantry 1455-
1487’ (WR1) and ‘Mercenary European
Infantry 1450-1500’ (WR20). All are
fully interchangeable. But let’s start with
a straightforward build.
First up is a knight in shining armour
– pure and simple – with couched
lance and a high-domed, visored sallet,
standing in his stirrups to impale some
fleeing peasant. His sword attaches se-
parately: plenty of sheathed swords and
empty scabbards are included. (Getting
the sword to hang at a realistic angle is
Knight, unpainted and painted.
© Richard Lloyd
also vital to making these figures look
right.) The horse wears Italian armour
– a reasonable fit, although it’s worth
shaving off the trappings moulded onto
the horse’s flanks for a really snug fit. If
there’s a join visible at the chest, slather
on a bit of poly cement: it covers a
multitude of sins. (Don’t worry about
surface patches of poly cement, as the
glue vanishes under the paint.)
The second figure uses the same Italian-
style armour, but with lance shoul-
dered. I’m sure it’s possible to canter
along with a perpendicular lance, but I
reckon most horsemen would naturally
let it rest on the shoulder if riding any
distance. On the horse, I’ve shaved the
studs off the decorative trappings for a
© Richard Lloyd
8/7/12 11:13 AM

Ruffian, unpainted and painted.
slightly different look – the work of a
few moments with a sharp scalpel.
Number three is a lighter horseman. I
wanted a mix of knightly types in full
harness, and reinforcements for my me-
tal ‘scurriers and prickers’. I’ve used the
body wearing a surcoat and added one
of my favourite heads from the original
Wars of the Roses (WR1) box. (I’ve used
this head on about 20 figures now, but
he always seems to adopt a different
expression, whichever pose you put
him in!)
He’s waving his sword, urging his com-
rades forward, and I’ve added an empty
scabbard to his belt. Here’s another tip:
the separate hands don’t have to attach
squarely onto the wrist, so that the
weapon is at right angles to the forearm.
Crossbowman, front and back.
WSS nr62 aug12.indd 65
Waldo the Fleming, unpainted and painted.
You can vary the angle of the hand and
its weapon. Any slight gap between fist
and wrist is easily filled with a tiny drop
of poly cement. The horse wears just a
chamfron or faceguard.
Next, a capitano for my Milanese
condottieri. It’s the German armoured
body, and the same for the horse. I’ve
chosen one of the new WR40 heads
in an open-faced sallet. I don’t like all
the new heads in this set, but I love
this one; a perfectly cruel face. I also
enlisted the new bare head as a severed
trophy. Everyone knows what happened
to the losers in the Wars of the Roses!
This necessitated a tiny conversion, by
adding a piece of hand (culled from a
spare WR1 long-bow arm) to the end of
the rider’s right arm. Then lots of poly
cement to muss up the victim’s hair and
© Richard Lloyd
© Richard Lloyd
provide a bit of gore underneath his
severed neck. I call this one: ‘Bring me
the head of Boris Johnson’.
Two more: a straightforward knight,
about to wheel into a charge, and a
ruffian pricker, standing in his stirrups
with lance shouldered, on the lookout
for some unfortunate to spear through
the back. The knight is definitely an
Englishman, clean-cut and upstanding.
The visored sallet – the classic period
helmet – is from the command sprue
of the Wars of the Roses infantry set
(WR1).
My ruffian’s head also comes from the
same command sprue. It’s a great face;
a builder’s face. When they did a facial
reconstruction of one of the dead from
the Towton grave pits, this was the face!
A battered pugilist. I’ve given him a
sword and buckler, befitting a brawling
ruffian.
Next is Waldo the Fleming, another
mercenary, signalling to his company
that their road is clear. Apart from his
head (from the WR20 Mercenaries box),
he’s a straight build from our WR40 set,
although I’ve quartered the Italian horse
armour, using just the peytrals (or chest
defences) on Waldo’s courser. This is a
dead simple conversion, providing yet
more variation in appearance.
Physically impossible to use a crossbow
on horseback? Not so. Crossbows were
certainly shot from horseback and a cra-
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8/7/12 11:14 AM
MODELLING
Saddle conversion and finished crossbow model.
nequin must have been used to arm the
weapon. For this one, the parts came
from the WR40 set, except the crossbow
arms from the Mercenaries box. This
means I had to cut away the moulded-
on bridle arm. It sounds traumatic, but
it’s actually quite straightforward. Just
lop off the main part of the arm, then
shave away what remains until there’s
no trace left. A daub of poly cement
will conceal any residual trace of the
former limb!
ll Brutto, unpainted and painted.
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WSS nr62 aug12.indd 66
I figured out a rather obvious way round
the paucity of surcoated bodies in the
WR40 set: I simply sliced off the ‘riding
legs’ from one of the knightly bodies
and grafted them onto a torso chopped
off one of the standard infantry bodies
with open coat worn over the breast-
plate. The infantry bodies are deeper in
the skirts than the rider bodies, so minor
surgery is required to slice off the rear
saddle and replace it with a new one,
cut from the bottom of a pavise and
reshaped, before setting slightly further
back on the horse.
© Richard Lloyd
© Richard Lloyd
A pair of crossbow arms and acces-
sories, plus one of the spiral-fluted,
kettle-hatted heads from the Mercena-
ries box, and – hey presto! – we have
another villainous Milanese soldier of
fortune, ready to dispense death from
horseback.
Next is ‘Il Brutto’, a malevolent Mila-
nese with a mace and a mission. He’s
straight from the WR40 box, but wea-
ring an Italian head-enveloping barbute
from the Mercenaries box. I’ve also
experimented with his horse’s armour,
snicking off the floral motif on the front
peytral and replacing it with an embos-
sed face made by, er …, slicing the
faces off a couple of spare heads. (I’m
now working out what else I can add as
decorative relief to future conversions.
Hands? Daggers? ‘Tommy’ helmets?)
Now for some slightly more ambitious
surgery. This one also uses the surcoat
body. From two boxes, I quickly used
five of these; they’re just so darned
versatile. The limitation of the knightly
bodies is that, really, the only thing
you can use them to build are, well …,
knights! Lighter horsemen are so much
more interesting. Prickers, scurriers, fo-
ragers, scouts, mounted crossbowmen,
pastry chefs ... the list is endless.
8/7/12 11:14 AM

Anyway, this fellow is on the lookout
for the foe, lance and buckler slung on
one side, sallet on the other. His right
arm is a Frankenstein job using two dif-
ferent arms in the WR40 box to create
a livery-coated shoulder attached to an
Italian-armoured forearm; the fingers
come from a long-bow-man’s arm rea-
ching for arrows. The soft-capped head
is from the Wars of the Roses (WR1)
command sprue, and I added pheasant
feathers from a Warlord ECW box.
‘The Towton Tap’, unpainted and painted.
WSS nr62 aug12.indd 67
Light horseman, unpainted and painted.
Our last one is a more radical conver-
sion. I call him ‘The Towton tap’ – the
fatal knock on the head with a warham-
mer, dealt to the fleeing Lancastrian
soldiers as they were ridden down by
remorseless Yorkist men-at-arms. Now,
in my ideal world, the rider figures
would come with legs and arms sepa-
rate from the torsos, but unfortunately
– for understandable reasons of space,
economy, and the convenience of peop-
le who want to build figures quickly –
each body consists of a one-piece torso,
incorporating legs and bridle arm, all in
exactly the same pose.
© Richard Lloyd
© Richard Lloyd
So if you want a figure twisting in the
saddle or leaning down, you need to
operate! On this figure, I’ve sliced off
the entire upper body and arm, and re-
placed it with the forward-leaning torso
from the Wars of the Roses (WR1) com-
mand sprue. The head – visored sallet,
sans bevor – is also from that set. Then,
I added a left arm made up of two parts
from the same source, while the right
arm and hammer are from the WR40
set. A dab or two of poly cement works
wonders at concealing and smoothing
all the joins!
CONCLUSION
So, there you have it – conversion
nirvana: every figure a unique creation,
and the most fun I’ve had in ages! Hap-
pily, I have another box to be getting on
with. I hope you’ll get as much out of
them as I have.
Richard once again proves the dyna-
mism that can be created with simple
plastic. There’s a rumour that he may
be due to do one of our front covers
soon.
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