Aquilonian Heraldry and Colour Schemes

[Hollywood Hogan]

I'm painting a Bretonian Army from WH, and I want to base their colour scheme and heraldry on Aquilonia during King Conan's reign. I've got some ideas but I thought I would tap this resource for some possible suggestions and or opinions.

Here is the breakdown of my Aquilonian army

5 Black Dragons (Modified Chaos Knights)

10 Black Legion Knights (Knights of the Realm)

5 Veteran Aquilonian Knight (Grail Knights)

15 Aquilonian Knights (Knights of the Realm)

6 Black Legion Footmen (Bretonian Men-At-Arms)

14 Aquilonian Footmen (Bretonian Spearmen)

6 Black Legion Archerers (Bretonian Archerers)

10 Aquilonian Archerers (Bretonian Archerers)

8 Gunderland Pikemen ( Bretonian Men-At-Arms)

My idea for the Aquilonian Knights is to paint them all with individual colours and heraldry. I would then paint 1,2 or 3 Aquilonian Footmen and Aquilonian Archerers in a coresponding colour scheme to each one of the knights.

The Veteran Knights would be done the same way as the regular knights but their armour would be gold in colour.

I'm unsure of the colour scheme and heraldry for the Black Legion and Black Dragons.

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions.

- Hollywood

 

[Ant]

How much heraldry do you know already, HH? There's much information on the web, although quite a lot of it is spurious. There's a good list of pretty reliable sources here.

And how good is your painting? That is, how complex a design can you manage to paint in a 30mm scale shield?

I can't immediately recall any description of Aquilonian shields or banners other than the king's black banner with its golden lion.

Black-Dragon and Black-Legion knights should probably follow the royal colours of black and gold (use orange-yellow paint, rather than metallica gold) - black for the "field" (the background of the design), and gold for the charge.

To keep the painting simple, use simple charges, such as ordinaries and their diminutives. Or simple divisions.

You should be able to get more than 15 pretty straightforward designs out of this.

You might want to make some of the designs black and silver (use white paint, not metallic silver) for more variety.

If you can, you might also want to include a "badge" on the shield, maybe at the base, a dragon's head (or wing) for the Black-Dragon knights, a lion's for the Black-Legion.

For the Aquilonian knights I think you can use a lot more variation, but keep to bold colours: blue & gold (both blue-on-gold and gold-on-blue), blue & silver, red & silver, ... But avoid red & gold as they're Nemedian colours.

Ciao,
Ant

 

[Hollywood Hogan]

Thanks for the advice, it is very helpful.

I can paint pretty well and detailed. The links you provided are awesome! Thank-you very much.

Question: I like your suggestion regarding the head of a dragon on the Black Dragon's Shield, however, how should I determine the colour. I mean, if the field is black and I want to make the charge gold, would the dragon head be gold? While I really like this concept, do you think it odd that the dragon head would be gold, despite the fact that the unit is called the Black Dragons? What do you think?

- Hollywood

 

[Ant]

You could have a black dragon's head on a gold lozenge, roundel, or scocheon (a shield-shaped charge) -- whichever fits best with the shape of the dragon's head and the principal charge on the shield.

Cheers,
Ant

 

[Hollywood Hogan]

That is a geat idea, thanks.

-Hollywood