Four Vignettes

One of the great attractions (and distractions!) to building any army is the creation of the non-standard troops; those command stands, personalities, casualty markers and general hangers-on. These are the first I've completed so far.

So above are; Etienne de Vignolles, nicknames 'la hire' (due to his alleged temper and hatred for the English). La Hire was a captain at the battle of Bauge in 1421 and a prominent leader of the French reassurgence at the seige of Orleans and the battles of Jargeau, Beaugency and Patay in 1429. He died 1443. His flag is very distinctive, bearing bunches of grapes. Its a Freezywater one, which I plan to 'upgrade' to GMB when one's available.

Next, the duke of Alencon command group. The Alencon family were a leading French noble family in the fifteenth century; Jean was killed at Agincourt and his sceond son (also Jean) was a leader in Joan of Arc's armies at Jargeau and Patay. He died 1476. Here he discusses the finer points of the French battle plan with Jean d'Aulon, who was squire to Joan and later a chamberlain to Charles VII of France. He died 1458. The flag bearing his armsis GMB and his personal banner by LBMS.

The bowmen are from the Perry pack of 'longowmen preparing', which i think best captures this period and which I hope will be extended at some point, not too distant. Not really a combative group; as this is definetly a 'before' not during battle activity.

Finally a vignette showing what war for many professional soldiers of the medieval period was all about (besides looting) - the opportunity to capture a high-ranking nobleman in order to share in the potentially lucrative ransom paid by his family for his release. According to Anne Curry in 'Agincourt', despite the high numbers of French prisoners killed on Henry V's orders during the battle, many Englishmen still secured ransoms for captured nobles taken back to England, in the following years.

These are last posts for few weeks as I'll be on summer hols in France - but am hoping to snaffle away some crossbowmen to do between dips in the pool and glasses of local vin.

English Longbowmen (I)

The famed English longbowmen, who have their place in historical posterity for their successes over the French in the key battles of the Hundred Years War. These are the first completed & based figures, Perrys as usual, painted by the talented Jim Bowen (couple of mine sneaked in - they're the ones that don't have the fine flowing paintwork!), who has an amazing skill in his use of the colour palette, as well as creating some beautiful, convincing facial details.

I've based the defensive stakes on 50mm wide bases, to be used seperately on the gaming table. My current plan is for a total of 24 longbow bases, based on a 3:1 ratio with the men at arms; the Normandy conquest being the last period before the 'bows-to-bills' ration started to climb significantly.

French Men at Arms (I)

The first completed French men at arms, 8 bases. Wanted to try and achieve sense of some movement with these figures as they advance in chaotic manner towards the English, under arrow fire on the verge of making contact for melee.

The figures are a mix of dismounted knights with their retainers, alongside some professional soldiers raised for the campaigns. The heraldry on the knights has been researched as pertinet to the Henrician campaigns in Normandy and northern France following Agincourt and I'll add a note to the underside of each base re the actual figures portrayed. Total of 24 bases planned and next figures for basing-up are underway.

All figures are Perrys - with a couple of older Citadels sneaked in - flags are GMB (have used the smaller version of the 2 per sheet from GMB for the dismounted figures and larger will be for mounted figures or command vignettes) and arrows chez moi.

bows and arrows

Here are the arrows that i've had cast up - excellent service by the way from the mouldmaker.com.

Pic shows the two types of sprues that I made in their raw casted state; they are intended to be stuck into bases where troops are attacking longbowmen - mainly for HYW but I'll also use for my Swiss army. Second pic shows how they can be used to add some variety on figures by adding them for 'ready to loose' figures - have also added bowstrings with some thin metal thread found in Hobbycraft (in UK).

I have plenty of arrow castings at the moment(!), so if anyone's interested I'd be happy to sell you some for a nominal fee to cover my costs.

Encore Pavisers

Just managed to miss an April update I'm afraid...but progress has been made.

Oh er, it's ... another French urban paviser unit; this time advancing into English arrows. This unit represents Rouen, the largest town in medieval Normandy, using more of the excellent LBMS pavise transfers.

Although this is the third urban milita (one to go) it was actually the first one I started and has been on and off the workbench for many months now, for some reason I really struggled getting it done and changed the composition many times - the 'rejected' figures are now destined for the last milita.

The arrows are my own castings, nicely made for me by Pete at themouldmaker.com which seems the only way I can to get hold of suffiicient volumes to allow me to place them in most of the French bases (and have some for other future and past Ancient & Medieval projects). The limitations have been my own sculpting abilities, the originals were metal rod with fletchings made from green stuff and Magic Sculpt. The feathers maybe just a tad oversized, but they are good enough for me for what I want to use them for - will post up some sprues of them for closer inspection.

In the interim between militias, I've been gradually adding French Men at Arms and I've just received some pro-painted English longbowmen, ready for basing - more anon.

Salute - new Perrys Plastics

Well, big surprise at Salute today. New 3-up masters for a plastics range that Michael Perry's making were to be on show and although the 'hot money' was on Crimea, low and behold it's Wars of the Roses. The first plastics box will be mixed bills and bows from the pics above, and then (if I recall correctly), a box for men at arms and another for mounted troops. Michael also said he plans to add metals, as per their formula for ACW and Napoleonics.

Afraid the photos I took are poor - the masters were well protected in a glass cabinet - but the detail is absolutely fantastic. Am sure Perrys will post some proper pics on their website now the proverbial cat's out.

Looks to me like the figures will be useful for any North European armies from 1450-1490s. Am already trying to decide on either a complete replacement of my ageing Burgundians or a new Wars of Roses armies... an embarrasment of riches and conversion potential awaits... approx 6 months to them being available ... can't wait!

Fortified Watchtower

This is the piece-de-resistance for my medieval collections to date, which has been made to use with both my HYW and Burgundian-Swiss War collections.

The core structure is a Hudson and Allen resin keep, which has been beautifully enhanced by John Boadle of 'Architectual Miniatures'. The brief to John was to 'modernise' and further fortify the casting to represent a structure as it would be in the fifteenth century. So John's exquisite craftmanship has added wooden pallisade around the main tower, breteche over the doorway, extra loopholes for handguns, a wooden boulevard (which is seperate) to protect the rather exposed entrance and the high gothic windowed room at the top of the heightened tower. John also painted the model.

I was frankly stunned when i saw the finished item, after providing him with an outline of what I wanted to achieve; after all the basic H&A casting is a very nice piece as it stands. John's also added on lots of other lovely details. I now have ambitions to enhance the H&A castle gate and walls to the same standard, but that will have to be a 2010 project. More immediately I'm looking forward to making some artillery seigeworks, and perhaps a terrain base with a moat, as well as using the tower as a centrepiece for some gaming scenarios.