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.

The Marshall of Burgundy

The completed vignette of Antonie de Toulongeon, Marshall of Burgundy, who'll lead my contingent that Phillip the Good allied to the English.

The Treaty of Amiens of April 1423 was a political agreement between the Duke of Bedford, Philip the Good of Burgundy and the Duke of Brittany, in which the three dukes acknowledged Henry VI of England as King of France, and agreed to aid each other against the Dauphin Charles VII of France. Each party agreed to provide 500 men at arms should any of the others be attacked. The alliance resulted in modest sized Burgundian forces led by Toulongen joining with an English army under the leadership of the earl of Salisbury, which defeated a Franco-Scots army at Cravant in the summer of 1423.

I changed the horse for de Toulongen, as the original plan lacked a bit of movement - this one is from a Perry WR metal packs. The bearer of the Burgundian arms is also on a WR mount; the fit is not at all bad. The Burgundian flag is a download designed for Charles the Bold's period, but as there appears to have been no notable change in the arms it appears usable for the 1420s too.

Maybe a little while before I post any Burgundian troops (probably men at arms) as I focus on my 1470s Burgundians. 

The Marshall of Burgundy and a great bascinet

This is a straightforward conversion to create a new figure, who'll represent Antonie de Toulongeon, Marshall of Burgundy (1385 -1431) for my HYW collection. The Marshall commanded the Burgundian forces which combined with the English at the battle of Cravant (31 July 1423). Toulongeon was a key man at the Burgundian court of Philip the Good, being appointed ambassador to England, before becoming Constable of Burgundy and being one of the first Knights of the Golden Fleece. His appointment to be Marshall to the duke may have followed the victory at Cravant (I still need to check this out).

The figure is based on the Perrys 'Bastard of Orleans' personality from the AO range. I have removed the hat-wearing head and replaced with the great bascinet from the Perrys new Late Medieval plastic mounted men at arms box. This bascinet is actually a tad late for this period, as it appears to be based on an existing example in Churburg, which is dated to about 1440. However the bascinet was a common style of helm in the first half of the fifteenth century, developing over the decades with minor variations of styling and shape. I've replaced the sword with a plastic axe from the same Perrys box. All the cast-on heraldry has been removed with knife and files and I've smoothed the deep folds in the surcoat a little with GW Green Stuff, to aid the painting stage. The long-legged horse is a metal Perry Wars of the Roses one, again to add some variation.

The Marshall will be the command vignette for a small Burgundian force. My plan is to extend my 1420s collection in order to be able to refight the battle of Cravant, which is another interesting French defeat that on first reading appears that it shouldn't have been so. I'm doing some more reading on this, not well documented, battle - which I'\ll share on this blog. Hopefully I'll be able to assemble the required additional figures and some specific terrain pieces by by the first quarter of 2013...well that's the current plan...

Claymore Castings - sample figures

Dave Imrie very kindly sent me a couple of samples of the Claymore Castings figures, covering the Anglo-Scottish wars at the end of the fourteenth century, the first releases of which are imminently going to be on sale. I painted these last week, but a BT fault on telephone line here meant that I've had no internet connection for a few days and so couldn't post as planned.

The pictures are taken under a desk lamp and some of the details of my paintwork has been lost (..you'll have to take my word for it...!). They are great sculpts (by Paul Hicks); highly detailed, wonderfully animated and very clean castings. I'm going to employ them as an additional Scots spear bloc for my HYW, although the attire will be slightly out-of-date for the 1420s. They are easy figures to paint up and I'm thinking about doing a couple of simple head swaps to 'age' them a little to fit with the rest of my army. Height wise they'll look Ok next to the Perry figures, although the sculpting style is somewhat different of course.

New Scots figures

These images are already buzzing around the virtual wargames world, so I hope that Dave Imrie won't mind me sharing them here too. Dave and figure-painter Andrew Taylor have commissioned Paul Hicks to design these lovely medieval Scots - covering the 1388-1402 Anglo-Scottish wars. The range currently includes spear-armed figures for a schiltron, with others planned. The image I've nabbed here is the command pack - all the figures are full of movement and bags of character and look like they'll be great to paint (...I maybe one of the few people who've not yet painted a Paul Hick's designed figure I'm rather ashamed to admit ...now only a matter of time to resolve that!).

I certainly intend to press them into service, as their sons of the next generation of Scots, still fighting against the English (now in France), to bolster my HYW collection.

More info at the Saxon Dog website, which is very highly recommended, in case there is anyone out there who's yet failed to find it!

Fortified Farmhouse - completed.

I have finished painting the Hudson and Allen farm.

The thatching was highlighted with a drybrush of Vallejo Burnt Umber. I decided to flock the grass areas, as I couldn't get a convincing finish by just painting the mouldings. I added a few Silfor tufts and flowers for some variations of colours. I also made changes to the wooden gates. When painting the ones I'd made with plasticard I felt that they lacked the level of detail I wanted. So I remade them, this time using cut-down spare protective sides of Kingmaker Hussite wagons I had, which are typical of medieval fence construction. To these I added balsa strips to the bottom and reverse. The small brass hinges were glued on the reverse and then hidden by a covering of thin slivers cut from balsa sheet - all was then painted as with the other wood in shades of grey. They were attached into slots I'd cut in the walls and open and close sufficiently well.

I've added a couple of smaller farmyard items I had to hand in the 'lead pile' - barrels, basket and sacks - and plan to order some more small items and tools (probably from Mirliton?) to enhance it further.

Some pics here done quickly to show it's potential use as a defensive position. This has been one of my 'to do' medieval buildings for some time and as I approached it with some trepidation, I'm pleased with how it's come out - as terrain & buildings aren't usually my forte - back to the comfort of painting more figures next!