If you’re not from Melbourne, you’re probably wondering what the title of this post means. „C’aaarn The Roos,“ is what supporters of the Aussie Rules Football team North Melbourne call out when their team is playing (North Melbourne are called the Kangaroos).

What does this have to do with wargaming I hear you think? Well if you’re thinking of the Wars of the Roses and you’re making a Lancastrian Army there’s a very good chance that you might want to field Thomas Ros the 9th Lord Roos, a stalwart supporter of Henry VI.

I decided to make him the commander of my little heavy cavalry contingent for no other reason than I needed a character to lead them. I also gave him some retinue bill and bow too. I put Lord Roos on a base with his standard so that the figures can be used as a separate command stand if there is no cavalry on the field.

The knight in orange and black is just a minor noble that I invented just for the sake of added colour. I painted a tiny little Rose of Lancaster on his breast. It’s tiny; a little bigger than the head of a pin. Likewise I painted a tiny peacock on Lord Roos‘ standard bearer. 

And here’s his retinue bill and bow. After boasting about painting the tiny little badges above, I actually forgot to do tiny bulls head badge on these guys. I’m pretty this will bug me and I’ll end up painting them at a later time. Little mistakes like this annoy me.

These are composed the same as the other bill and bow units I’ve made: 16 figures (10 bow and 6 bill/command). I’m sure this isn’t the most accurate way to depict troops in this manner but they were mingled together historically and they did fight side by side. This method of basing also allows me to organise them differently for other game systems if needs be.

I should also mention that these figures are all from the Perry Miniatures plastics range except for the commander and standard bearer of the bill and bow, which are from their metal WotR’s metal range.

And here is what my Lancastrian army looks like so far. I’m pretty happy with it and I should begin looking at making a start on York now. I can see a couple of little things to finish now that I’ve laid them all out: I need another commander on foot and I’ve decided that it will be Jasper Tudor. I also want a mounted Duke of Somerset command base. I’ve just finished prepping the figures for these and I’ll get to painting them very soon.

5 Bands of Retinue Bill and Bow (2 Somerset, 1 Exeter, 1 Tudor, 1 Roos)

3 Bands of Dismounted Knights (1 each Somerset, Exeter, Tudor)

1 Band Mounted Knights (Roos)

1 Band Levy Archers

1 Unit of French Pike

1 Band French Handgunners (Small unit)

I Cannon.

With the French Pike unit I only made 3 bases so that they’d line up with the other units but that was a silly mistake. I need to make another base so that they can be formed into a pike block. I’ll add another flag to it just to make it look groovy.

So that’s it for now. A couple of command bases and a base of pike. Should I stop there or keep going? I have plenty of figures and I’d like to keep painting Lancaster but I’m tempted to start making York.

Whatever shall I do?