The idea with this blog is to show the creation of my Norman army, to show my thoughts about how to make it and I do also hope to get some input from the people reading this blog. I will post pictures of all troops that I finish.

I did actually start collecting and painting the army a long time ago (that would be around 2002), but it is first now that I have started to give it any real attention. The army is going to be modelled after William’s army at Hastings. The army will be based for Warmaster Ancient; our playing group have a special variant were the elements are 8x4 cm for infantry and 8x6 cm for cavalry. All miniatures this far is from Crusader Miniatures.

And now over to the composition of the army. Osprey’s book about Hastings says that there were 4000 Normans, 2000 Bretons (positioned on the left together with men from Anjou, Poitou and Maine) and 1500 Flemish troops (positioned on the right together with men from France, Picardy and Boulogne). There were 2000 horsemen, 4000 heavy infantrymen and 1500 archers and crossbowmen. Duke William (even called the Bastard and soon called the Conqueror) will be the general, while Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, and William fitzOzbern will be two Leaders. The leader of the Bretons was probably Alan Fergant, but I have a nice figure of Odo, so Odo will lead them instead. I will differentiate the Normans from the Bretons by the shape of the shield; Normans will have kite-shaped, while the Bretons will have mostly round shields. But I don’t know how to differentiate the Normans from the Flemish, any ideas anyone?

That is all for today. Tomorrow I hope to post the first pictures. I have this far not finished anything, but both Duke William and William fitzOzbern are now painted and they only need a good base to be finished.

All this made me so happy that I bought some more Normans on Ebay.