Azincourt Initial Review

 As previously mentioned, I had been eagerly anticipating the release of Wargames Atlantic's Azincourt sets. They were delivered as detailed here and my initial plan was to delay painting them. The first moment of weakness in my resolve was when a break in the nasty weather motivated me to prime them with a rattle can of black primer. 

After watching the painting tutorials on YouTube by Peachy, I couldn't resist giving a go at the sprues. First up was a smaller sprue of English dismounted knights. I drybrushed these fellas with Army Painter Plate Armor silver. In hindsight, I should have applied a much heavier drybrush application on these guys but this is something I learned for future sprues. I followed Peachy's method fairly closely although I added highlights to the base colors prior to an ink wash. 

The figures are really nice, they are small but have some nice detail and poses. Future attempts at the sprues will include heavy drybrushing. 

Next up, I decided to try my hand at some of the French crossbowmen since they were also on a smaller sprue. I drybrushed them with Vallejo Turkey Brown followed up with a drybrush of Vallejo Cork Brown. This was a heavier treatment than the dismounted knights received but perhaps not heavy enough yet. I also added a more focused drybrush of off-white to some of the gambesons. The crossbowmen were a bit fiddly more fiddly and complicated to paint because of more bits than just armor and also because of the attached pavise. I let the color palette on the figures fairly minimal: neutral grey, Prussian blue, a dark red and Russian green (all Vallejo). 

For both the dismounted knights and crossbowmen, I gloss varnished them and then applied a mixed wash of AP Dark Tone, Strong To me, blue ink and GW Lahmian Medium. 

I'm not sure if painting them while attached to the sprue is easier or not. I will continue to paint them on the sprues until I get basing sorted out. I'm thinking perhaps 60x30mm bases or even 80x40mm. I think something larger will be aesthetically pleasing.