My big project for the first part of 2023 is a 15mm Norman army using the excellent CAD designed figures from Museum Miniatures.

First up are a brigade of veteran milites or knights: cavalry in mail with their big kite shields and carrying lance.

These are painted mostly with GW Contrast paints, which I find give the right balance between how the finished models look and the speed at which I can turn them out.

I wasn’t looking forward to doing the shields, and they were indeed the toughest part of the process.

I wanted to use decals, but Museum has no arrangements with anyone for that, so I looked through what Little Big Man Studios has in their catalogue for other ranges and ordered anything that looked a bit Norman.

In the end,the decals meant for Khurasan’s range of Normans was the closest fit, although even their decals were a bit small: I had to use the decal more as a starting point than as the finished product, something you can see if you look closely at the red and yellow striped shield in the image above: you’ll see the decal in the middle with my painting around the outside. Time consuming and annoying!

The flags came from Wargames Designs: very easy to use provided you’re not completely cack-handed with a pair of scissors!

Although I hemmed and hawed for some time, I eventually decided to go with my original plan and mount the figures on the big bases I like to use for To The Strongest and For King & Parliament. Yes, it reduces the flexibility of what I can do, but the ease of use and look are good enough compensations. The big bases are Warbases vehicle bases and nicely fit my TTS grid.