Burgundians for Cravant (II)

The original plan to complete the men at arms for the Burgundians had to be slightly delayed, for reasons which I’ll be able to share at a future date. So these are the Burgundian crossbowmen, peppered with a few handgunners, for the Cravant contingent. All are Perry AO Range figures.

They’ve been painted by me using a different approach, aimed at getting figures done to a reasonable standard in a much shorter timeframe. There is a compromise on my usual painting standards and layering of shading and highlights, as the process is based on applying GW washes over light tones of base colours, and then adding a few selected highlights - primarily on the cloths, armour and flesh areas (belts, shoes, padded jacks, crossbows were left just washed over). There’s a bit more info on this faster approach on some Perry 15^th century Italians on my other blog. Basing has been done as normal, on 50mm square mdf bases purchased from Warbases, so that the figures ‘tie in’ with my existing ones. I just need to add a few more Silfor tufts which are on order. I’m more than satisfied with the results; as the main target of getting more finished figures for the Cravant game done is being met as I did these in just over a week and the figures look acceptable at arms length viewing on the tabletop.

There’s nothing specifically ‘Burgundian’ about these figures, so they can also be used as French in other games and scenarios. The men at Arms should now be the next figures to follow….

Burgundians for Cravant (I)

So after a hiatus I have some completed Hundred Years War figures. These are the first of a few contingents that will be required to supplement my existing collection, to enable us to put on the proposed demo game of Cravant 1423 at next year's Salute in London.

First up are Burgundians to fight alongside their English allies. These are pavisers, using the Perry AO range of figures. Figures painted by Jim Bowen, to which I've added the pavises and the basing. I've used plastic pavises from the Perry's Mercenaries box - partly as I have a large number of them and partly as I wanted to use the wonderfully detailed LBMS transfers. These designs are for the Burgundian Ordonnance army of Charles the Bold rather than for that of Philip the Good; there's no evidence that I'm aware of that the St Andrew's cross and steel with flints devices were used before the dukedom of Charles. However they look great and they'll help identify the troops on the tabletop from the French and English.

I have some accompanying men at arms nearly done, so will post these soon along with some thoughts on the battle, as well as the 'to do' list to represent the battle for Salute 2013.

Hudson and Allen castle hoardings

Just a quick posting for anyone interested in enhancing their own Hudson and Allen castle walls. I've just discovered that Ben at Vatican Enterprises has just released some birch wood laser cut hoardings, for all their resin wall sections and towers. They look very good and certainly are a great way of replicating medieval defensive wallings - lovely additions to some of the best medieval buildings currently available in my humble opinion.

I've purchased from Vatican in the US on several occasions and can attest to their excellent service and safe delivery of trans-Atlantic items to the UK. It also appears that the H&A castle walls and gate have been re-catalogued, so that many can now be purchased as separate items.

All pictures are from Vatican Enterprises website.

I'll be along shortly with some more HYW postings - there is work in progress for the planned Cravant game for 2013 Salute.

Rothenburg pictures.

I forget that I was going to post some more pics from my holiday (which is already feeling like a distant memory!). These are all taken in Rothenburg - a truly beautiful medieval town, with walls surrounding the late medieval style buildings. It's heavily rebuilt as it was before the war, when Allied bombing destroyed much of the original buildings and it's now a tourist venue and whilst it does sometimes feel like a pseudo-Disneyland setting, it does retain a real charm and we spent a couple of lovely days looking around.

The jewel from a military perspective, apart from the defensive walls and towers, is the Reichstadtmuseum. This is cited in the old monastry buildings and has a good collection of arms and armour items, stretching from iron age to the Thirty Years War. I purchased a photography pass (only 3 euro) to allow me to take what I wanted, which I'd recommend if you ever visit. Some items were tricky to get due to the glass cabinets, but they do publish an arms catalogue.

These are the medieval highlights for me. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, but there are some remarkably well preserved swords and daggers, in quantities that I'd not seen before outside of a state armoury collection.

Holiday pot pouri

To keep this blog ticking over, before it hopefully gets busier later this year - when I can start work on the planned Salute game for 2013 with the Lance and Longbow Society, I will post up some pictures from my summer vacation. These are military related, roughly covering the late medieval and early Renaissance periods. ‘Mrs P’ and I travelled down the Romantische Straße in Germany from Wurzburg to the German Alps, which I can thoroughly recommend and along the way found some castles, museums and churches from which these pictures have been selected.

Above - The carved stone funerary images of German ‘ritters’( the first dated at 1379 the second 1408 and the last 1549), early sixteenth century crossbow and bolts and fine quality swords, all in the Marienburg Castle Museum at Wurzburg.

  

The horse chamfrons, half armour and visored bascinet are sixteenth century, also from the Marienburg. The heater shields appear to be surviving originals from the late fourteenth century of Konrad Hohenlohe and are kept in the church he founded in 1384 in Creglingen (where we went to view the magnificent wooden alter carved by Tilman Riemenschneider).

The other funerary images are in Wurzburg Cathedral and date from the later fourteenth and late fifteenth centuries. The latter is another Reimenschneider carving of Konrad von Schaumberg dating from 1499. The resurrection painting, with a clear rendering of a crossbow and cranequin spanning device, as well as soldier in german style harness with an interesting hammer, is from Creglingen church.

A few more to come soon….

Medieval Games (with ships) at Partizan

I went to the Partizan show at Newark last weekend. The show has established a reputation for having games of high visual appeal and quality, as well as being a friendly mid-sized show. There were three late medieval games advertised, but only two there on the day - both of which had a nautical element which is a little unusual. I took a few photos, so I though I'd post some  up here for those who didn't get to the show.
First is a naval participation game, called 'Warwick at Sea', which featured medieval cogs with plastic bow and bill Perry figures in whole or part. I believe it was run by 'Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy' magazine and appeared very busy each I time I walked by the table.

The other games was run by Alan & Michael Perry and friends and was a fictional encounter, based on Queen Margaret's flight after the battle of Hexham, 1464. The Queen had to be escorted the length of a 12 foot table to a cog waiting to take her to France. Her retinue failed her and she was seen being taken into captivity by the Yorkists.

I foresee a slight surge of interest in later medieval ship warfare about to emerge - using the Revell Hansa Kogge plastic kits that both games used - with crews easily adapted from Perry plastics.