Burgundian Coustillers - second contingent.

Second contingent of Coustillers for my Burgundian Ordonnance army are complete – without any 
basing nightmares I’m pleased to report!

These are Perrys from the Late Medieval Light Cavalry plastics box, with the exception of one metal flagbearer. Several have head options selected from other plastic sets, one figures from the Men at Arms (with riding boots added) and a couple have plume castings added too. The torso and legs option in the 
Light Cavalry box I've sculpted longer riding boots, rather than the shoes which he has.

Composition reflects my plans for all these bases of three riders, with the central one bearing a flag or pennon, with others armed with light lances or spears. All of these will be interchangeable to form a three-base unit, except where I add company-specific captain’s flags (which I’m yet to do). One of the pictures shows them ‘in situ’; supporting the men at arms as a second rank, which should give them added punch against the Swiss!

So, two units down and four to go. I’m enjoying assembling the figures and working my way through the huge range of permutations, plus looking for other arm options and easy conversions that can extend the variety of poses etc. The task that really is onerous is painting all the horse flesh.

Burgundian Coustillers - first contingent

Completion of the first contingent of Burgundian Coustillers has taken a little longer than planned – when it shouldn’t have. Although I’ve started assembling and painting riders and horses from the Perry Light cavalry boxes from Salute, I decided to take a short cut to get the first group done, eager as I am to have a completed unit of mounted troops (as these will form the supporting row for the men at arms). So most of these figures are not my paintwork; the left and right hand bases are models I was able to purchase from Stefan, whose fantastic painting and modelling skills are on show on Xututec blog. They are a mix of Perry plastic and metals, with a lovely finish on the plate armour. 

The figure bearing the Burgundian arms in the centre is a Perry herald, with head and hand swap, who was completed some time and finally found a place with this unit. The metals fit quite well on plastic horses, as long as you cut away the back part of the saddle on the horse.

The delay was entirely down to my loss of concentration when basing. Having prised Stefan’s figures from the bases he’d attached them to, I then glued them to my bases. After some deliberation, I’d decided to mount them on the same size bases as the men at arms, which is an 80mm depth and 60mm frontage. Figures were attached and filler, stones and sand glued, ready for painting – when I realised that I’d attached them using the long side as the front! At this point I lost some traction, as I was so annoyed with myself I couldn’t immediately face the prospect of removing them again and repeating the base work.

All sorted now however and hopefully a second contingent will be along very soon; most figures are all 

done apart from marrying riders to their mounts (…and the basing up!)

 

The inclusion of some crossbowmen among the rear rank, reflects the composition of mounted troops in the contemporary illustrations attributed to the Master WA from the last quarter of the fifteenth century. I’ve referenced these engravings before and they are almost the only images of late mediaeval soldiers in formation that I'm aware of. A front rank of spear armed cavalry are supported by two rows of crossbowmen. Whilst they may have fought as a mixed arms unit, with the crossbows supporting, on the wargames table (when this army finally makes an appearance) I plan to treat them as spear/lance 
armed cavalrymen. However I’ll probably include some more crossbows in another Coustiller group.

More along soon, I hope.