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.

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...