Hobby Update: Army Standard Bearer on Horse

Most of my hero options are taken directly from my old Empire army for Warhammer Fantasy. What can I say? Units are where it's at in Kings of War! With about 3,000 points in units though... I'm starting to circle back and update my hero selection.

I picked up a blister of some Roman Auxiliary Cavalry back among my first purchases from the Warlord Games Hail Caesar line. It was about a $10 investment, and while it turns out I didn't like them for units, I figured they might be useful down the line. I ended up picking up a blister of the Auxiliary Cavalry Command recently, as I figured these models would be great for hero options.

The first model through the hobby ringer is a very light conversion of one of the sword-wielding cavalrymen, now showing off as a fancy army standard bearer on a horse.

A guy, shield... rod... but no flag to be seen.

 I couldn't get any of the sword arms to fit this guy, so I decided to stake a little green stuff and just plug the arm hole. I then grabbed one of the many spare banner men arms from the infantry, and unceremoniously pushed it in, using a little plastic tool to smooth out the green stuff and get the arm and everything into a natural looking position.  Once the arm looked like it was in place, I poked some tiny holes in the putty to make it look more like the chain mail that the model had on.

I also added some green stuff bricks to the base, as if there were a toppled wall or ruins underneath the sands. I glued the rider to the horse, the horse to the base. Next came the the Vallejo Paste, and once that was dry, I primed the model.

Not much to see on the painting front. The sand got the "sandy" color, the ruins got some stone colors, the horse a grey, leathers brown... etc. etc.

While the painting is pretty standard, I realized that was at a loss for the flag. I didn't have a good plastic one on hand, and I had this model already started...

I vaguely remembered reading about a guy using paper and normal white glue for flags. Armed with this vague knowledge, I set about thinking and experimenting. While not the original blog post, this guy has a nice tutorial on the basic process. I eye balled my flag; the graph paper would have been a nice idea.

A paper flag, curling a bit from the paint.

I ended up taking a simple brass rod I had on hand (lots of hobby stores have them around too), and affixing a spare helmet bit from one of the Hail Caesar infantry kits. I primed the bit, and then painted it silver, and the pole a brighter brown.

I took normal copy paper, cut out a rough flag shape, and then painted part of it purple. I went for paint over marker (or crayon or colored pencil) to keep it the same exact color as the rest of my army. Consistency! That's the word I was looking for...

When the mini was all finished. I squeezed a tiny dollop of Elmer's Glue onto the board, and added a roughly equal amount of water to it. Using an old brush, I then applied the diluted mixture to the back of the flag, and then folded the flag around the brass rod. Diluting the glue was a good idea I think. Numerous elementary school art projects can demonstrate that pure Elmers glue never spreads well under paper.

Ooooo. A wavy flag!

As that dried (which too maybe a half hour to an hour? I tend to set stuff to dry, and then wander off for a while) I wove the flag in between some spare pens, in an attempt to get a good flapping flag effect going. Once the flag was all nice and dry, I found that it wasn't really sticking to the pole all that well. It held its flag shape nicely, but was sliding around the pole. I placed a drop of liquid super glue under the helmet and slid the flag up to the top of the pole. ...And after a few seconds, the glue set and the flag remained in place. Yay!

Mini done, and flag secure, a little super glue was attached to the mini's palm, and the side of the horse. The hand was probably strong enough on its own, but I figured a little stability was a good idea.

Here he is, ready to lead some chumps  troops.

I kinda wish I had tried this earlier in my hobby career. I went for a really easy approach here since I was winging it a bit, but this would be really nice if you have a complicated symbol or special crest for your armies. Stick the image in a file (Word, etc), adjust sizing, double it (for both sides of the flag) print it out, and then glue your custom flag to your pole. Same symbol each time, and very little fuss.