Lombardy men at arms

As part of completing my French forces, I've added two more bases of men at arms mounted on armoured horses, who can be used as Lombards for the battle of Vernuil.

For the 1424 campaign, Charles VII had raised a large contingent of Lombard mercenaries, contracted to a Milanese captain called 'Le Borgne Caqueran'. The rationale for the armoured horsemen was to counter and break the English defensive positions and longbows, as they had apparently achieved in 1423 against a Burgundian force at La Buissiere.

At Vernuil the French may have had at least 500 and possibly upto 2,000 such mounted troops. Although there is debate about whether they were positioned on the wings or in the centre of the French army, their initial charge successfully broke the English line (although not win the day). More figures may therefore be needed for any refight of the battle; but I do have more castings and already have some similar ones completed.

The man at arms on the grey horse is a part-painted figure from Oliver James, which I've finished off and the others are done by me - all Perrys AO range.

La Journee

Just a quick post to promote Darrell Hindley's new blog.
http://lajourney-bedford.blogspot.com/

Darrell and I are planning to put on a demo game in 2011, for the battle of Verneuil, Bedford's victory of 1424 using some of the figures that I've been posting here and Darrell's started a blog covering both the historical side as well as showing his great figures that he's painting for the game.
The title of the blog relates to the arranged battle site and date that was agreed between Bedford's Anglo-Norman forces and Alencon's Armagnacs. I'm sure he'll explain more on that in subsequent posts.

It promises to be great blog to follow.

New Contingents

And Lo, in the month of July, in the year of our Lord 2010, royal warrants were issued to the Count of Wymborn to raise goodly men of war, both spears and bows, to assist our noble king Henry in his rightous claim to the crown and lands of France....

...or to put it in other words, I was extremely fortunate earlier this summer to have the opportunity of purchasing the HYW collection of Oliver James. Oliver has posted many of his excellent figures on Steve Dean's Painting Forum; they include many conversions, handpainted flags and his own designed and cast figures, all painted to the highest standard of detail. His plans are now to extend his designing work and move into a WotR collection, so I'm now in the position of intergrating these and complete my English and French armies using Oliver's figures, supplemented by my own.

Shown above are the remainder of the core English bases, 3 men at arms and 6 longbowmen. All are Oliver's figures and flags with the exception of the musician and six of the bowmen (the conversions that I did in July); a flag is to be added to the bowmen - I'm awaiting 'Battle Flag' to make some later HYW sheets very soon. Oliver had based his figures individually on mdf, which I've carefully managed to cut at about half of the depth with a small hacksaw, retaining his basework and then landscaped into my usual basing approach - grout & pva mix, sand and stones - for my 50mm square basing.

I will therefore be 'pulling stumps' on the English comprising of 10 men at arms and 28 longbowmen bases. I'll still be adding some vignettes, baggage, casualty markers and other extras.

Carcassonne

I always try to combine my hols with some historical or military sightseeing, if there is any opportunity. So this year we left our holiday venue early one morning to drive the 90 minutes west to Carcassonne in the Languedoc region.

Carcassonne is a rare example of what would have been a common sight in the medieval world, a fortified town, complete with inner fortress and outer barbican in this case. It's military promimence came to the fore in the crusades against the heretical cathars of the region in 13th century, at one point being administered by Simon de Montford. It's position then was effectively to control the borders of medieval France and Spain. It consists of complete double-walled fortifications with 53 towers in all.

However all is not what it appears. After the fortication fell into disuse, it was extensively restored in the 19th century by Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, who infamously restored other French medieval buildings. Consequently much of the upper ramparts and walls are not original, but it is the overall impression of the place that is impressive and the closest representation of a walled town you may witness (without using CGI technology).

What struck me most were the walls where the wooden pallisading has been restored - this IMHO truly reflects what 15th century walled defenses would have been like, rather than the raw stone walls that we see on most castles - be they actual or on a wargames table - and reminds me that I must add them to mine, when the time comes for a HYW castle.

I also managed to paint a dozen more figures, although the finished quality was poorer than expected - a very warm climate for your holiday is what you wish for of course, but it plays havoc with painting al fresco when your acrylics are literally drying on the brush!!

Scots (II)

The remainder of the Scots, that I began posting in December last year ; these being archers and men at arms. As previously notes it appears that larger numbers of bowmen were deliberately hired among the Scottish levies recruited in the 1420s to counter the English successes.

The figures are a mix of Perrys and Citadel Brettonians, which go together quite well (as they are from the same designers). The Citadel figures are based on the armour and attire of an earlier phase of the HYW, however I've used them on an assumption (completely unfounded in any records) that the Scottish captains raised troops for the wars in France, from among the less-affluent tiers of society, who could not afford the latest in arms and armour (..works for me anyway!). Also I've purposely used a high proportion of figures weilding axes and two-handed swords for the men at arms, based on the entirely anachronistic visual reference to Celtic Gallowglass and highlanders.

Figures are painted by Jim Bowen, Oliver James and myself, flags from Freezywater. The heraldry, either on flags or surcoats, includes Thomas Blair, Edward Lennox, William Stewart and the earl of Angus.

A holiday-induced hiatus will now follow...

...oops, have realised that couple of pics are a tad blurry - sorry (will re-shoot after hols)

WIPs - a little variety

After a hiatus, I'm now resolved to get my English and French armies to a position whereby I have all the key arms needed, in sufficient numbers, to have a small scale game. This will not prevent further longer term additions, such as Burgundian allies, but also mean that I can put them aside 'completed' with a clear mind, for when the next Perry WotR plastics arrive.

To get to this stage it looks like I need to do the following. For the English; a couple more longbow and dismounted men-at-arms bases, some command vignettes (inc Henry V), baggage & waggons and plenty more stakes.

For the French I have some completed Scots archers and men-at-arms to base up, several more men-at-arms bases, command groups and I want to have mounted coustillers as a second-rank to support the mounted French men-at-arms. If time permits some armed peasants/brigands would be useful, perhaps using a mix of designers (as the Perry ones appear to be permanently stuck on the workbench!).

So plenty to do.

Picture above is the starting point to fill in these gaps. Thought I'd see if I could get a little more variety by utilising plastic spares from the WotR's box. This range does not seem to lend itself to easy conversions, (the type that I can achieve!) but I'll keep thinking if there are others to do. The advancing longbowman pose came from a conversion that Oliver James has done on one of his figures, so credit goes to him.

These will be primed and then painted next month when I'm away on hols.

Lifesize inspiration

About time that this blog was kicked back into life and as I'm busy on t'other blog recently, thought I'd show some pics taken at Warwick Castle event at Easter weekend.

It's only an hour away from my home, so my daughter and I dodged the rain storms to mingle with some acquaitances from the duke of Buckingham's retinue living history group and visited the excellent 'Kingmaker' display. The pics are some of the life-size figures in the castle, displaying the earl's retinue making preparations for the ill-fated Barnet campaign of 1471. All the clothing and equipment is spot-on for the period and taken from reliable contemporary pictorial evidence. I'm also planning some encampments, so also took some pics of camp life for future reference too.

If you've not been before, I recommend the castle and the quality of the Kingmaker galleries is (almost) worth the steep entry price alone.

More HYW figures (probably the remaining Scots) will be coming here soonish...