Wednesday 13 February 2013

"In goodly and true love..."




“In goodly and true love, brotherhood and union” is how the Anglo-Burgundian army was decreed to behave, as it arrayed at Auxerre on 29 July 1423, before setting off to relieve the besieged town of Cravant (according to Thomas Rymer’s Foedera, written in c1705 from extant documents of the time). When the English and Burgundian forces assembled codes of conduct were drafted to ensure co-operation and discipline was sustained, this being the first active campaign between the two forces following their recent alliance against the French crown. Rymer added that they were to “love, cherish and uphold each other as brothers, kinsmen and good friends.” Waurin, whose account of Cravant is much more contemporary, echoed this state of affairs, stating that the Anglo-Burgundians “took the field in great friendship”.

The Burgundian contingent appears to have totalled around 1,000 fighting men; so comprising the smaller element of the overall army of about 5,000 (according to Waurin’s Chronicle). Accounts of the battle, written from an English perspective, focus on the exploits of English leaders in their attacks across the river. But there is nothing to suggest that the Burgundians did not play their full part in the fighting on the day, under the overall leadership of the earl of Salisbury.

Here are the completed additional Burgundian figures that I’ve done for the Cravant game. The men at arms comprise four bases and are Perry figures with a couple of Steel Fist Miniatures included. Painting is mainly by Jim Bowen, except for the men at arms wearing the heraldic surcoats which I’ve done (my reference being the useful Freezywater flag sheets). The flags are free downloads from the Kriggspil site, added for speed, of the arms of Burgundy.




I’ve made the Burgundian ‘battle’ a balanced force; of equally sized men at arms with pavisers, and crossbowmen. I may need to bulk up this contingent, once I get to placing the figures on the proposed terrain set-up – in which case I’ll draft in some ‘unemployed’ French pavisers…no one will ever notice!




9 comments:

Christopher(aka Axebreaker) said...

What a wonderful group of fighting men! Well done I'm sure by their looks the French will have a hard time indeed!

Christopher

Unlucky General said...

As always (but not always stated) I am admiring your work. A lot of effort there for a very sizeable unit - irregulars with heraldry takes a lot out of the painter. Very nice.

James said...

lovely work as usual!

Phil said...

Fantastic minis, a great work with a lot of colors!
Phil.

Silver Whistle said...

These look fantastic, I am really looking forward to seeing the final set-up.
I am looking for a suitable backdrop and the one you are using in these photos look very effective, may I ask you where you got it from please?
Cheers,
Pat.

painterman said...

Pat
Thanks - the backdrop for these pics is just some blue wallpaper offcut that i found.
The one with the trees /landscape on is from the internet (several years ago) for model railways - think the original was about 6 foot long.
Cheers, Simon.

count of wymborn said...

Excellent work Simon, really good to see, one thing though, I feel you could quite easily use quite a few figures from the wtor plastic range by this time period for instance bare heads pot helmets and kettle hats even some armets and sallets were seen by the 1420s, it would give you more varity than the 6 crossbow men perry provided for this range, but please do take it as criticism I just think it would look great.
Cheers
Oliver

Anonymous said...

Great work! :-)

Jason.

painterman said...

Oliver
You're right - some of the Perry WR plastics will fit in OK and indeed i have already started some - for specific figures for the game. More updates on that when I've completed a few more to show.
All the best,
Simon.