The Republic of Cataplana

I may have been neglecting this blog recently, but I've still busy. Which is why I've been neglecting the blog, but mainly it hasn't been a wargames related busy.

Anyway.

Went to Portugal this year and it has inspired an army, the Republic of Cataplana. It doesn't exist, never has, but if it did it wasn't a Republic. Republic just sounded better than Kingdom. Which is as good a reason as any.

Right, the background.  A cataplana is a sort of covered cooking dish. It sounds good and is close enough to Cantabria to sound authentic. Secondly, the inspiration for the army was a story they have in those parts. This is the Rooster of Barcelos,

The Rooster of Barcelos tells the story of  how an innocent man was (sort of) saved from hanging by a miracle in which a cooked cockerel crowed...

So I went for a medieval army. Tourist models of cockerels provide the centre point of the army and it seems quite quirky.

The King and his knightly guard. The shield blazon seemed obvious but I've limited it's use to this unit because it takes too long to paint. Plus my eyes didn't appreciate it.

Strangely, I thought it was a priest who had been accused but that doesn't seem to be the case. Still, I had the figures already painted so used them. I'm not sure who made them.

I wanted a vaguely Tercio feel to this army so used Aquiland pikes as the basic infantry unit.

The cockerels were bought ready painted. The front figure is a bird that was obviously very well fed and is used as a flier, the others are a beast element and represents, well, a flock of irritated chickens.

The only section of the basic army still unfinished are the missile troops - I'm basing them as basically equivalent to Sparabara rather than just bows or Ps so will put them 2 ranks deep on 60m bases. The army colour scheme is based on the ready-painted cockerels except without the black.