Assembling the C&C Spanish plastic army

Following on from my previous article, I have now assembled and undercoated my Saga plastic Spanish army.

There are: one mounted Warlord,  2 points of Hearthguard (8 mounted Knights), 2 mounted warrior units (16 mounted spearmen with shields), 1 point of foot Warriors (various weapons and shields) and 1 point of levy (unarmoured javelinmen). Plus one spare foot figure with armour (you never know when you need a foot figure!!)

Assembling the basic foot figures and even the cavalry is straightforward.... bodies first, then heads. Finally army and weapons. Give the parts a little time to set first before trying to get head, arms and weapons added or you can end up with a mess of bits glued together.

Horses need to be held for a while after gluing to get the joins to mould together, otherwise you may have to use some filler to cover up the join line that runs along the horses back from head to tail.

Some "green stuff" putty was used to make cloaks and to fill out the side of the casualty marker horses. I also used it on some of the helmets to give a less Norman and more 'arabic' feel. Just trying out my putty using skills I guess.

Revell "plasto" was used to smooth over the chain mail armour on some of the Knights to turn them into unarmoured Warriors. The boxes of 15 Knights from Conquest only have a few unarmoured figures in each, so if you want "no chain mail" you will need to come up with as solution.

I decided to see if you could use the casualty figures in the plastic Norman Knights and infantry. I only had one infantry casualty left so used a leftover Gripping Beast Dark Age Warrior as one of the riders.

Using a sharp craft knife, I sliced the horse and rider figure up and then glued them together.

'Plasto' and 'green stuff' were used to fill in the flat side of the horse where it would usually lay on the floor.

The rider had a cloak added to remove the flatness of his back! Just take a small ball of 'green stuff' and roll it into a flat square. It needs to be reasonably thin to be able to fold it into shape.

Use a sharp knife on a solid surface to cut out a"triangle" sort of shape (see the image below).

I even used the torso from the knight to use as scenery 'fluff' under the horse (which helped to keep the horse upright while it glued - the hooves don't all touch the ground if you put the horse on its side!)

One problem I did have was the fact I only had a small amount of stringy plastic glue left at the time. I usually use the runnier stuff in a bottle with a needle dropper on the end (like Revell liquid plastic glue)

I needed to go back and remove the stringy bits of glue on each figure after they dried. I now have a fresh bottle of Revell liquid glue (I don't like the thicker glues like the GW one).

Below, you may spot a spearmen at the back with two shields, front and back? That is one of the "casualty figures" from the Conquest Norman infantry box set. I mounted him upright and used the shields to help disguise the fact that the model is a bit flatter than a standing model. Again, just wanting to try out "what if" with all of the models. In this case, I just needed to add a bit of leftover plastic to the base of the figure to help him stand up. Waste not, want not.

I added some scenic sand (yes, its blue, I have a 2 litre tub of the stuff that I am not going to throw away) around the figures to help level off the base. PVA glue and sand can be applied very quickly and gives a texture that can be painted and part-flocked to give a decent finish. The stuff I used here is much chunkier than the "canary" sand you might use to finish off a sand-themed base.
I am all for the fast approach and do not like to spend a lot of time on each figure. They are for gaming with not winning prizes.

The final article will show the completed Spanish army.

--Mike.