Joan - converted

A very quick post - taken with a poor picture so my apologies - of the converted 'Joan to a Burgundian man at arms' Perry figure with paint now applied. The highlight tones on the horse have not come out well under the desk lamp (usually I try and take all pics in natural light). However I'm pleased that the idea has turned out well in practice as a nicely posed figure, who should fit well into the next Company (or perhaps the one after that when I make a final decision on basing, we'll see).

The other men at arms are making very slow progress - the horseflesh and trappings seem a bit tedious to paint - at the moment I'm getting more out of assembling and seeking new poses and variations.  So I'm guilty of having diverted into a couple of other vignettes, which I'll post when I have some outstanding items needed to finish them off.

More soon.

Ordonnance men at arms - variations on a theme

I have to admit to making slower than planned progress with my second Ordonnance Company of mounted men at arms. It does take more time to prep and assemble the excellent Perry plastics, but I've been attempting to make modest enhancements to the figure before painting. This has resulted in me having a go with the ProCreate putty,  and a combination of my rudimentary modelling skills and needing each stage of applied putty to harden before moving on,  has all been rather time consuming.

So this is another interim post, with some pics of some of what I've done so far. I've varied the horse tack again on some of the mounts. 'The Count of Wymborn' suggested that I use putty rather than metal foil and despite my misgivings beforehand, I've cleaned off all the moulded tack on a couple and replaced with different styles of trappings, taken from contemporary illustrations. I'm pleased with the results and will be doing some more on each unit.

I've also pinched ideas from The Lead Adventurers Forum (where several people are doing some really wonderful conversions on the Perry WotR plastics) to cut assembled horses into front and rear halves and reassemble to obtain different and more passive poses. More Procreate work (and time) required to fill and smooth the inevitable gaps when halves are glued back together.

Most of the men at arms have had a cross of St Andrew added - again with putty - and I'm happier with the results compared to my first unit which were done with foil. The last conversion is to use the Perrys Joan of Arc figure from the Agincourt to Orleans range. Although the figure wears harness of approx 40 years earlier, and is of a young woman, I had a spare casting and love the pose. So after a compassionate beheading, I added some slightly larger pauldrons and tassets with putty to try and 'modernise' the armour. I removed the square besagews, as these do reflect a distinctly early fifteenth century style, and glued on plastic 'german' style ones cut from spare plastic arms. A plumed sallet was then added and I think it'll fit in OK when it's part of a unit.

Now, on to the painting...

Burgundian Ordonnance - 13th Company

My first mounted completed unit of mounted men at arms, the first of several which will form the offensive backbone of Charles the Bold's army, representing the 13th company of the Ordonnance.  This unit uses the most recent Perry plastic box, with a couple of metal scurrors from the WR range.

The 13th company had several captains during Charles' dukedom. Around 1475 following the siege of Neuss, Thanaseor de Capoue was appointed. This was a time when an increasing number of italian condottiere were being sought and recruited by the duke in a deliberate policy to increase the professionalism of his forces, so superseding many of those originally appointed from his Burgundian territories. Capoue is denoted in the central stand, wearing a coat with his personal coat of arms. The guidon for the 13th Company appears to have portrayed the image of St John, so I've used one of the excellent downloads from the Krigsspil website. The sharp-eyed amongst you will notice this is a different guidon to the previous post, as I realised that I'd attached the wrong one!

I decided to represent these 'chef de chambres', as contemporary documents refer to them as, on unbarded horses. I also plan to do this with the remainder of the contingents. There is no hard evidence for this approach. The 1471 ducal ordinances stated that such men at arms must provide a horse with a combat saddle and chamfron. Near contemporary illustrations are also inconclusive; the 'Master WA' drawings show a group of men at arms or coustillers all on unbarded horses. Diebold Schilling's chronicle of c1480 shows most of the Burgundian men at arms at the battle of Morat on plate-armoured mounts bearing various Charles' devices, such as crosses and flints (which may just be an artist representation to denote them, rather than reflective of actual men at arms). The reality was that such armour was expensive and so unlikely to be very widespread, even with the deep pockets of the Burgundian dukes.  So I'll save the barding for units with the main commanders, to denote them more easily on the battlefield.

The coustiller used is carrying a heavy lance, which again is a bit of licence on my part. The 1471 ordinances required them to carry a 'good javelin'. The assumption is that coustillers formed a second rank to the men at arms and if so, then I believe it's reasonable to assume that some may have used a lance, rather than a spear, to add to the impetus of a charge.

I've also added to some of the figures another element of the Burgundian Ordonnance troops - the red saltire emblem that denoted them in the field. As laid out in 1471, they were provided with crosses made of cloth to attach their harness. I've cut these from thin foil  and superglued on - but in future I'll try pre-cut plastic strip to try and achieve thinner crosses.

Horse tack variations

Just an quick interim post, as I slowly continue to paint my first Ordonnance Men at Arms contingent.

I wanted to create a little variety with the horses's tack, as most of this unit will be unarmoured mounts and the consequence of interchangable horse halves in the Perry mounted men at arms box is that the tack is all the same (very similar to the horses illustrated in the 'Beauchamp Pageant'). One of the benefits of plastic is that such changes are relatively easy to attempt. I have therefore scraped away with a sharp scalpel the existing retaining straps on the horses rump and smoothed down the other tack on the flanks. I then cut to shape some replacement tack out of thin foil (from puree tubes that I've saved), loosely based on some medieval illustrations. These have then had a covering of GW Green Stuff brushed on in order to give them a bit of texture before undercoating and painting.

Burgundian Men at Arms - first base.

I've completed the first base of Burgundian Ordonnance men at arms. I was eager to get some of these done, as the figures are so good. This is the central base (on 60mm width by 80mm depth) of a three-based unit that'll comprise my Ordonnance mounted men at arms; so nine figures in total for each contingent. The central base will have the company guidon and any conductuer/captain figure, with the wings having men at arms plus any supporting coustillers - so effectively all the bases will be interchangeable.  I'll provide some historical context for this Ordonnance  Company when it's completed.

A note on painting the plate armour.  As previously posted the extra fine details on the figures encouraged me to try a different approach. On these figures I've undercoated on black (as usual), then given the armour a thin covering of the new Games Workshop 'Runefang Steel'. This is quite a bright colour and needs toning down, so I when dry I generously washed with a 50:50 mix of GW black wash and Ogryn Flesh wash, letting it pick out and settle in all the joints of the plates. When completely dry, a very light dry brush on the high points of the armour with Vallejo Silver. I did try the GW new dry-brush, but they are a rubbery consistency which I don't like using (and the colours not bright enough to act as the final highlight). I'm happy with the result and I'll use it on the rest of the men at arms - it's quick and easy (the horses now take the longest to paint) and gives me finish that I wanted to represent  polished plate harness.

Being too hasty in my enthusiasm to assemble - and not heeding my own advice of my last post! - I realised when it was too late that I'd attached the wrong lance arm to the man in the italian armour. Hey ho... hopefully when I've done several contingents of these, he'll be too hard to find...

Riders are already assembled (correctly!) and undercoated for the remainder of this Company. Will post them all soon.

Swiss captains vignette - WIPs

I've utilised my first plastic from the new Perry Mounted Men at Arms box. These figures will form a small vignette of one of the Swiss captains from the Burgundian wars, discussing tactics to counter the ducal forces.

I've taken a 'german' harness rider  with a 'chapel de fer' from the Mercenaries bow, to which I've added some ostrich plumes that are  so distinctive of Swiss headgear in all the illustrated chronicles of the period. His companion, in an obligatory pointing pose, has parts from the Bills & Bows box with a metal Swiss head - which annoyingly are a rather poor fit and always require pinning and filling of the remaining gap under the neck. A plastic sallet from the new boxset has been attached to hang from his belt at the back. The third figure will carry the captain's personal flag.

The plastic riders seem to fit on the already released Perry horses from the WR range really well. I reverted to a metal horse as all the options in the new MAA box create horses trotting or galloping. The only work required was for the back of the saddle - whilst the metal riders have cast-on saddle supports, the plastics have the saddle sculpted on to the horses. So a small piece of plasticard was cut to shape, glued in place and given a wash of diluted GW Green Stuff.

I'll post up the completed group when painted.

Perry Mounted Men at Arms - painted

Here are the Perry Mounted Men at Arms that I painted for display at Salute and which are now in Michael's collection. All comments on the sprues and build on on the previous posting. The Burgundian Ordonnance flag with St Thomas is from the printed flag sheet that comes with the box. They were great to paint; detail is pretty crisp and the horses (whilst initially appearing a tad on the large size for destriers) have lots of movement in the poses.

Suffice to say I now have to start work on my own figures. I'll be using plenty of the plastics mixed with components from the previous plastic sets and some of the metals too.