Claymore Castings – Bretonnia at arms

I had an eye on Claymore Castings for quite some time now. I was amazed by their first ranges, sculpted by Paul Hicks, that included Scots, Highlanders and Gallowglass, for the Wars of the Bruce's among other conflicts. At some point Claymore Castings reconciled their range, brought in new sculpts by Matthew Bickley for the French and English, mostly of the Hundred Years Wars, and parted with some of the moulds and codes, that went to Antediluvian Miniatures, and are available now there.

Some of the Scottish, Irish and Gallowglass codes would be a good fit for my pseudo War of the Roses / Game of Thrones project, but the newer Bickley sculpts would stand out a bit with the slender Perry sculpts. As Claymore Castings doesn't do shows outside of Scotland, our paths didn't cross again for a while and I merely was astonished by the new, dynamic sculpts and incredible paint jobs that David Imrie shared with us via facebook for example in Saxon Dog Painting.

But then I had an idea and followed up on that by ordering a small batch of infantry codes at Claymore Castings.

Even in the current situation, David posted the order quickly and the Royal Mail / German Mail did their job as well, having the small package arrive here within a few days after I ordered.So what was my idea or new need? I rearranged parts of my collection into smaller Middlehammer warbands. Not armies, not even full regiments, but a few characters with a bigger retinue, which spread across one or two blisters per unit type. As I already have the Empire, Chaos and by a lucky opportunity even Orcs sorted out, and the design of the colourful knights really appealed to me, I thought about Bretonnia. A duke on quest, two or three knights errants, and an entourage of squires and men-at-arms.

But as the Bretonnian range is oop, not just the middlehammer items (the oldhammer stuff can be acquired through Wargames Foundry if you don't mind the slabs instead of slottas) but more recent 2000's as well, creating quite the raise in second hand prices. The perry sculpted range of the mid to late 90s was well done, but nothing that I would go deep into my pockets for. So I laid the idea beside, until I once again saw some of the very scenic Claymore models.

It was a bit hard to decide what codes to choose, as they are a good mix of Rank&File poses and characterful singles and I wasn't looking for regiments but the handfull I mentioned above. I looked across both ranges, the french and english codes and decided to go with these.

• OT50 Command Pack 1
• OT07 English Archers 5
• OT08 English Archers 6
• OT56 Infantry 5 with a Hand Weapon
• OT57 Infantry 6 With a Hand Weapon
• OT52 Infantry 1 with Double Handed Weapons
• OT55 Double Handed Weapon Armed Infantry 4

That gave me the duke on foot, with some loyal guards, a small group of archers / squires with bows, and two groups of men-at-arms with halberds and hand weapon and shields.

Claymore has some really nice models with pavises and crossbows. But the later don't really fit the Bretonnia vibe, as they only had bows. As for the spearmen, I might a bag of those later, along with a second command pack, when they release (more) cavalry down the road.

Casting is very well done. A few of the weapons are quite delicate, as they are not overdrawn and kept in a realistic scale / proportions. Mould lines are minimal and there is little work needed to clean up these casts.

So what's missing? Well, those are historical miniatures and to really bring them into Warhammer, some more fantasy and fictional input. I have in mind to use a sorceress/damsel, a mounted version of the duke and the knight errants to accompany him. And if I'm lucky they'll release something that would fill the position of mounted squires.

To give you an idea of the size of these miniatures, here's a scale comparison.

First picture is covering archers, left a HYW more recent (and bulkiger) Perry bowmen, Claymore Castings in the middle and the Citadel miniature from the 5th edition Warhammer Fantasy boxed set (sculpted by Michael Perry, 1996). The second picture shows a WHFB breton man-at-arm champion (Michael Perry) and Sorceress / Damsel (Brian Nelson), framing the Claymore archer in the middle. In the third picture I added Gui le Gros (WHFB named character, once again Michael Perry) and a Claymore knight on the left. The shown Claymore models were sculpted by Matthew Bickley. You can see the regular Breton troops are beefier, have stronger proportions, but I think the damsel and Gui should mix in quite well.

I really like the dynamic and flow of the range, and I have to stop myself to not go overboard and have something larger than a Saga warband for this project. I might get a few more codes for specific poses and will trade / sell of the overstock.

They just look so great. Really looking forward to this. I wanted to keep this article back until I have done more with them, but I am just too excited about the casts and sculpts, I had to put it into words.

As for the availability of these miniatures, Claymore Castings has temporarily closed their online shop, as due to Covid-19 in the UK casting is an issue - not just for them. And they want to assure that they have a stock to supply incoming orders. I was lucky enough to have placed my order shortly before they closed. But I assume they'll be back shortly, as will I as an returning customer.