Switching gears a bit from my previous 28mm Robin Hood posts, it is now time to have a look at some of the baddies - hooray! Indeed, the infamous Sheriff's men-at-arms and their captain, the luckless henchman Sir Guy of Gisburne, are as much a part of the Robin Hood legends as the great man himself, and Conquest Games offer an excellent selection of figure packs to fill out your ranks. Like the rest of their Robin Hood range, these miniatures are heavily inspired by their appearances in the 1980s hit TV show, Robin of Sherwood, although they will easily work for more historical 12th-13th century settings.
The RoS inspiration is most clearly seen in the costume worn by Sir Guy, which is rendered brilliantly in miniature form. Conquest provide both mounted and unmounted sculpts in the same pack, something they also do for their Sheriff of Nottingham figure. Despite it being somewhat unusual and outlandish from a historical perspective, the "scale-maille" (or possibly some kind of lamellar) armour worn by the character is distinctive and marks him out from the rest of the Sheriff's retinue very well. He brandishes his sword in the air, a good pose for a unit commander rallying his troops around him. Most impressive is the thick cloak he wears, which is nicely sculpted and lends a strong sense of movement to the figures, particularly the mounted version.
Speaking of which, Conquest have given us a hefty white-metal mount here, setting Sir Guy apart from the other mounted Sheriff's men, who ride the three-part plastic horses from the company's Noman Knights box (check back later for a post on these mounted figures). The horse model is very expressive, with bared teeth, and it also has the decorative harness used in the show - I'm afraid I don't know the proper term for this - which is a nice touch for RoS fans and further establishes the importance of the character. Included in the pack alongside the standard 25mm slotta base is a 50mm round base for the horse, providing plenty of canvas for those who like to make a show of their miniature bases. I've kept my basing consistent across the Robin Hood range, comprised simply of some small stones, mixed green flock and woodland tufts.
On a slightly different note, I did find that the face sculpting on the unmounted Sir Guy lacked a bit of definition, which didn't work so well for me as I tend to avoid painting faces in detail and instead just give them a wash in Agrax Earthshade to bring out the shadows on the table-top. The relative flatness of this figure's face meant that it came out a bit smudged. I may go back and give all my Robin Hood range proper faces at some point in the near future, which I think will help this particular miniature a lot.
Moving on now. The Sheriff's Men-At-Arms come in packs of three, with Conquest offering a whopping eight variations in total: spearmen, swordsmen, billmen, crossbowmen, and then the same again but equipped with cloaks. This means that if you were to buy one of each pack you would end up with a sizeable force of two dozen infantry, but equally if you are just after a few guards for a small scenario then you aren't forced to buy in to a large box of them. These packs are all built around the same three white-metal sculpts, with small changes to the hands to accomodate the different equipment. The poses are generic, but good - in each pack you get one miniature standing guard, one advancing, and one defending. Compared to other 12th-century miniature ranges this can mean that your troops might look a bit same-y, but within the context of roleplaying or skirmishing around the Robin of Sherwood theme I think they work well. After all, the Sheriff's goons were always very much treated as faceless arrow-fodder!
As with the rest of my Robin Hood miniatures I've done my best to replicate the on-screen costumes, in this case paying attention to the tabards/surcoats which feature the Sheriff's chevron heraldry on a worn blue background. I think the colour here (a mix of Citadel's Stegadon Scale Green and Thunderhawk Blue) captures the slightly grubby and haggard look of the Men-At-Arms costume well - they always looked a bit like they'd spent a fair amount of time trudging around the countryside, escorting the Sheriff on progress. I repeated the heraldry on the shields as well - a couple of variations of the shields can be seen in the show, some of which have the chevron much bigger and chunkier in it's proportions, but I've opted for a slightly more subdued look as I didn't want the bright red and white to dominate too much. I also chose not too fuss too much over the neatness of the lines as a) I find painting straight lines oddly difficult and b) shields were disposable items and weren't likely to receive a lot of artistic attention when one had to fit out a whole garrison. The helmets are trimmed in a worn brown suede in the show, so I replicated that here as well.
One final point - the weapons for the Men-At-Arms packs I have so far acquired (seen below) are supplied loose in the pack, although in the case of the shields and spears they are on a small sprue. The hands are all open with a slight curve to them, which makes glueing the weapons to the figure nice and easy. No drilling required!
Wow, that was a lot of words - time for some pictures!
Sir Guy of Gisburne, mounted (modelled on Robert Addie)
Sir Guy of Gisburne, on foot
The Sheriff's Men-At-Arms, armed with spear and shield.
More Men-At-Arms, this time armed with crossbows and bolt bags.
I hope you've enjoyed this post, I certainly enjoyed writing it. At the end of the day these are just painted lumps of metal, but for me they are the product of a lot of time and care, and a lot of thinking goes on whilst I am working on them. It's nice to have a place to put all that thinking into words. Next up, a break from the green leaves of Sherwood Forest as I take my first steps into the excellent The Barons' War range from Footsore, created by Andy Hobday and Paul Hicks. Also coming up, a gaggle of monks and nuns from Conquest Games. Thanks for looking!
