The Gallowglass

Greetings all. For those of you, friends etc who know me personally and follow this blog you will already know that due to my job as a frontline Health care worker I have been extremely busy working 36 hour and even 72 hour frontline shifts. For those of you in Internet land, that is why I have not had the chance to continue my current projects. I have managed to paint up my first few WW2 American Airborne from Warlord. I will eventually get around to the huge pile of Redshanks and Galloglaigh on my table. In the meantime here are those Americans.

February 1595. Aodh Mor O'Neill through his Gaelic allies has been engaged in a proxy war with the Tudor English in Ireland as they continued their encroachment onto Gaelic Irish lands. Now on the 16th of that month he openly commits an act of aggression against the English in Ulster. A group of Irish soldiers led by his half brother Art MacBaron O'Neill approach the fort, apparently with prisoners in tow. At this stage O'Neill and many local septs and families were nominally "loyal" to the Tudor crown in England.  One veteran of  O'Neills army tells his story of the events on his deathbed many years later. No doubt copious amounts of Poitín and the drying of time had shaped the story, but is that not which makes legends. For the full experience, click on the two youtube links at the bottom of the page and play these songs by the Chieftains while reading. I promise you will enjoy. Kicks in something fierce midway through.   Nice and slow, no hurry....

So despite the song lyrics my new terrain is neither representative of plains, nor of the terrain of Meath. It is however closer to the mountain valleys of the Wicklow Mountains. When I envisaged and planned my table I initially wanted terrain suitable for playing the Battle of Glenmalure, a battle that itself has a catchy(cringy perhaps) patriotic song written for it. As the project evolved my focus moved to later in the century and farther north to Ulster. Either way the table will I hope work whether I am representing the battles of Fiach McHugh O'Byrne or O'Neill and O'Donnell. The various sections can be moved around to get different combinations of battlefield and needless to say it is a work in progress. I hope to add the remaining sections to fill out the entire table and to add some 16th Century or earlier buildings. Earlier buildings with some weathering should work perfectly and will be also be of utility for my future Normans/Edward...

It has been a hectic Christmas and new year period. I did manage however aside from some fierce work/family multi tasking to get in some Ale drinking and conversion work. I have however been unfaithful to my 16th century project and cheated on them with some late war Germans. It has become more than a fling though, and I am well on the way putting together an entire Heer division with plenty of Fallshirmjager, SS and Volks Grenadier units mixed in too! Hobby infidelity aside, here are my latest conversion additions for my Irish. Most of the shot are Perry, some really very nice sculpts, with the exception of the guy in the back with the blue jacket who is a Eureka Portuguese Colonial conversion. All the pikemen are Eureka conversions. The painted one has had a Leine added with greenstuff.

Greetings all, I have been busy these last few days, taking advantage of every spare minute available to paint up the first half of my horse. Nothe that they are still in the process of being based, hence the liquid mud effect still drying and translucent. So here they are. Thanks for viewing.

Dia dhuit, I have had some time to get used to convertimg with greenstuff. My pikemen are still a work in progress and as I continue to build up experience doing simple green stuff conversions I felt it was time to get stuck into some horse. I got myself some New Line Design Pictish cavalry. I spent a fair amount of time searching for suitable miniatures with which to convert my Irish Horse. These are quite small, closer to 25mm, or more probably a true 28mm meaning they would do well as Irish Horse who rode sure footed Ponies rather than heavy boned war horses. The riders are quite generic in terms of attire. They have long hair, a cloak pinned with a celtic looking broach, short trousers and no shoes. The detail is actually very good, especially the facial features. With that in mind I decided not to be very specific in terms of period with these. They are more of a representative amalgamation of 16th Century horse in Ireland than conflict specific. I had a look a...