War Wagon Worries

Deep inside I think most wargamers would like to have a Hussite Army. Come on now folks, it's got carts with guns on them. And knights. What's not to like. If only they'd used elephants and it would be damn near perfect. 

From time to time I do a DBA army to scratch a particular itch without committing to spending lots and lots of cash on building an army for a 6' x 4' table or bigger. Back in March I thought I'd treat myself to a pair of armies from the early Hussite campaigns and so without wanting to do a whole load of work just ordered a couple of ready made ones from Essex. I've already written about the Late Medieval Germans Link, and now it is time to catch up with the Hussites  (DBA 3/4/80 or DBA IV/80 depending on how you write it).

Well, to be honest, it hasn't been entirely smooth going. When I tipped the figures out after them sitting on the shelf for a couple of months, I thought I had a problem. For a start, there weren't enough wheels to go round at 4 per wagon, which is a problem no mistake. I then reckoned that each wagon was missing quite a few parts, mainly a side and two end panels. I checked out the photo on the Essex website, only to discover that there isn't one, which is a bit damn strange, to be honest, given the almost total coverage elsewhere.

So I sent off an email with my concerns and waited for a reply. After a week I'd heard nothing, so I followed up with a phone call, and luckily someone picked up (unlike some suppliers who let everything go to the answer machine and then never respond). I had a nice chat with a young fellow there, and it turns out that I should have more wheels (hooray!) but that the war wagon comes with a central panel down the centre of the cart and not with four walls. 

So not actually a Hussite war wagon then, which clearly has four sides and often a movable roof. I was then sent an image of another wagon they do as an alternative, but that didn't look much like any contemporary image of the Hussite variety either, being much too crude. Hmm. Anyhow, they agreed to a partial refund on the order if I returned the wagons, as I liked the figures and wanted to keep them. So I did the return, and today they have refunded me for three out of the six wagons in the pack, which I guess is fair seeing as how the stuff in the pack is discounted (it's taken nearly three weeks to get the refund, and I did have to send a reminder, but they have done it at least). 

In the meantime I had a look around at what else was on offer, and settled on the Museum Miniatures models, although Phil told me that they wouldn't fit on a 40mm frontage base (I don't really want to put them on the 40 x 80 bases as then they don't line up in a wall for combat). He was sort of right, but I worked out a way round it:

If I stagger one at the front and one at the back of a base I can have an offset line, which I rather like the look of.

It's not clear on the first picture, but the roof is expected to pivot up and is held in place with struts.

Then I started to experience further problems. The Essex hand gunners were the wrong height for the embrasures. B*gg*r.

And despite the picture on the Museum Miniatures website, that isn't how they wagons were set up. They didn't have an overhanging roof, partly because it made it difficult to throw rocks at the enemy, which was a thing they did. 

As far as I can tell the "lid" slid down the side, giving a double thickness wall towards the enemy, and then a set of embrasures to shoot through.

My first attempt to side-sling the roof was thwarted as the roofs have a little gable that gets in the way (see left hand roof). I carved this away with a Stanley knife*, and then mostly flattened the roof with a tack hammer.

The next problem was getting the gunner to the right height, so I inserted a false floor:

I did it with a lip that levelled up the bottom of the door frame. Now I've finished it, it doesn't look right, so I'll make it more like a step next time.

The roof now fits as I expected, and the gunner can now fire out of the embrasure, as you can see below:

He peaks over the top, just about, which may or may not be right. At least I can get the figure in now, which was a problem beforehand as the overhang made it really fiddly.

The wagon can take two gunners comfortably, and if I had more figures I'd put four men in it.

Any how, that all seems to work, so all that remains is to apply the paint. I have re-jigged the roofs on the two wagons I started with at the top of the post, and decided that they'll look a bit more jolly with some brighter colours and Hussite symbols painted on them.

In the last post on this mini-project I said I didn't think I'd have the same reservations about the figure choices in this pack. Well, I suppose I didn't, but I had issues elsewhere. This has really put me off the ready made army route for a while at least, and I'll probably be more selective if I add any armies to this pair. 

Lesson learned again.

* Box cutter to my American friends