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.

Perry Mounted Men at Arms - brief review

I have been very fortunate to assemble and paint half a dozen of the new Perry Miniatures plastic Mounted Men at Arms. I was sent some of the test shot sprues to paint by Michael for the Perrys display stand at today’s Salute.

It’s been a year since the first of these 3-ups were shown at Salute and whilst it’s felt like a very long wait, it’s most defiantly been worth it for those who want both historically accurate and finely sculpted figures. A word to describe this box set is ambitious – both for what it manages to achieve in the detail of late medieval plate armour and weaponry and in the quality of mouldmaking that reproduces the sculpting detail so very sharply and also in the breadth of components in the box that have been well planned and thought through in order to offer the maximum amount of build options. I don’t believe that such detail could be achieved in metal castings.

There are two specifics that take this box set to new levels of what can be achieved in 28mm plastic wargame figures, to my knowledge. The first is the weapon attachments. All the weapon shafts (apart from the two couched lances) have fingers moulded in situ. All the right-arms have a flat in-cut behind the gauntlet to locate the weapon; so creating a flat contact area for a strong bond and also allowing any weapon to be used with any arm. The second is the horse barding, which is moulded as separate pieces- front and back for each side for the German style (based on pieces in the London Royal Armoury) and as two side pieces for the Italian (based on that made circa 1450 and in the Historical Museum in Vienna). This allows all the horses to be used as unarmoured or armoured and effectively recreates the armour as to-scale pieces to be attached. Care needs to be taken to ensure that the rear plates for the Italian barding meet when glued to avoid a gap showing – but given the scale of these figures the accuracy of the fit for these pieces is really impressive.

My words of advice are “get to know your sprue”! There are a lot of variations for the riders in this box and it’s worth taking your time to make sure that you align the right bodies with the correct options for the weapon-bearing arms. There are 3 styles of armour, all typical of the later fifteenth century – Italian, German, Flemish/English and Italian with a coat. All of these have three arm options at various angles. Close inspection with the armour style for the body is required before selecting the arm. Also one of the arms (bent at a right angle) is best for attaching an upright lance. There are a large number of variants that can be assembled from these sprues before any poses are repeated and it’s worth taking the time to do some dry-runs to discover combinations that look the best.

Another ‘lesson learned’ was with the horses. I‘d not constructed any plastic horses before and whilst there are locating pins and holes for the two halves, there is also a small degree of tolerance when you glue them together. I was not sufficiently careful to ensure that the joint across their backs was good enough, which resulted in a small ridge being visible – normally easily remedied with scalpel and file, but because of the trappings on the backs of these horses it’s difficult to smooth away and I had to resort to brushing on GW Green stuff to cover up (not visible on the pics). I will aim to avoid repeating this error next time.

Twelve new heads also extend futher the options that can be used with the previous Wars of the Roses plastic sets (or to convert metal figures). There’s a useful bareheaded figure (perhaps with a passing resemblance to Gerry Embleton?), one wearing a chaperon, with end flowing in the breeze and an closed armet with upright plumes straight from a Paulo Uccello painting.

In summary, the box contents do not disappoint in any way. These are exceptionally well sculpted figures that have been well thought through to maximise the options and have been matched by Renedra’s mouldmaking that I think sets a new standard for 28mm wargame figures – all for £18. I’m now looking forward to using them, mixed with a few metals, to create the backbone of my Burgundian Ordonnance army.

I’ll post pictures of the other painted samples later this week. Happy days...

Swiss Fortified Church

Painting progress has been slower than planned this month as work has kicked back in and my ebay sales have taken up spare time - never have I wallowed in so much bubble wrap! Anticipating that this may happen I squirrelled away these photos to bridge the gap.

This is another lovely John Boadle model, which was made for me a few years back. It's based on contemporary illustrations and pictures of walled churches that still stand in Switzerland and the French alps. It comprises of the gateway and walled section with a separate church building that slots into place but which is also usable on it's own. As usual John executed my sketchy outline ideas perfectly and then added a whole load of details which just made the model look so convincing. The thickness of the walls is exaggerated somewhat by my requirement to have wide parapets to stand figures on, given the depth of my gaming bases.

The figures manning the walls are the recent Burgundian handgunners, before they were mounted on bases.

Hopefully I will get some more Burgundians and/or Swiss done shortly, before the release of the plastic mounted men at arms at Salute - after which I expect they'll be the focus for me.

Burgundian Ducal Guard - test figures.

I've started a couple of figures that are planned to form a contingent representing Charles the Bold's household bodyguard. Charles is known to have established a body of guardsmen before he ascended to the dukedom. After becoming duke they formed part of the household, that group of officials who were closest to the duke's person and who performed tasks for the duke's administration.

Briefly, it appears that there were two bodies who were termed 'guards'. Firstly a group of bodyguards, recorded as numbering between 110 and circa 900 at different times during the duke's reign. These appear to have been led by Olivier de la Marche and were organised for battle (according to the documented plan of May 1475) with other members of the household, who I envisage being men at arms. In addition there was also a contingent termed 'squadrons of the guard', who were attached to form a larger fighting unit when required. It's likely that these were drawn from the 1st Company of the Ordonnance, who were also referred to as 'archers of the guard', and who were most likely to have been English in Burgundian service and who's captain was also de la Marche.

Therefore for my army I'm proposing the creation of a unit of ducal guards and a seperate unit of household troops (probably as dismounted men at arms).

The ducal guards will be a unit of mixed halbardiers and longbowmen, reflecting the illustrations of Burgundian troops by the 'Master WA' (one of which is seen here) with front rank of archers and rear of polearmed troops. For the bowmen I'm going to use the Perry metal archers pack, which are great figures, and I've started a couple of test ones here. I want them to look distinctively different and to be ones whose appearance the duke has invested his wealth on. I've therefore added plumes, attached with a pin and small bead (to represent the fitting device). It is known, from a description by Jean de Haynin in 1465, that the duke's guards had a paletot bearing the St Andrews cross in white on black and purple cloth. I've copied the drawing of the interpretation of this by Gerry Embelton (picture here) - although it's unclear if this was worn throughout the duke's reign - but it contrasts nicely with the other livered Burgundian troops and I can just about manage to paint it on the figures as a simplified version. I've kept some reference to the blue and white livery colours in the plumes and hose.

I want to carefully select the figures used for the halbardiers and command and so this unit will be collated gradually, as new usable Perry figures become available.

Burial Party

This is a vignette that should have some generic usage, a post-battle burial of casualties. Those who died in medieval battles who were of non-noble status were most likely to be buried in grave pits, rather than individual plots as I've done here (but I don't have room to model a complete grave pit!).

The model uses some of the new Perry figure releases - the labourers, the clerk and corpses the from the tipping wagon pack. The overseer is the William Longstrother figure from the Lancastrian command pack; I was unsure how I'd use him but always had him in mind as I really like the figure. I made him a little more generic, perhaps as a member of the Burgundian household, by removing the cross of Jerusalem that's sculpted on his coat. The friar saying prayers for the souls of the dead is an old Foundry figure from my spares box. The figures are mounted on three bases, so that I have a little extra flexibility when using them. Ideally need to concentrate on core troops now, rather than these more interesting distractions of vignettes (...more keep coming to mind and are logged in my notebook for future).

My recent high levels of output are now likely to drop back to normal for this blog, i.e. just a couple of posts per month if I can manage it, as I start a new work contract next week. More funds coming in, which is very welcome (as I'll be buying a lot of boxes of Perry plastic mounted men at arms pretty soon!).

Burgundian Halbardiers

Pictures of the first Burgundian Ordonnance halbardier unit, started a couple of months ago and now based up following the addition of a Perry casualty figure on the middle base.

Figures are a mix of Perry metals and plastics. The mounted conductor has undergone the most surgery - a head replacement and alternative sword-bearing hand, taken from the Perry Mercenaries box, grafted onto a metal Scurror figure. The flag is a free download from and is recorded by the Swiss following it's capture at the battle of Morat, as a flag belonging to Burgundian troops from Savoy.

I'm pleased with the overall sense of movement in this contingent - I want to try and replicate this approach in the Swiss pike bloc that I will use the same figures for on the front ranks (...which is some way off in my plans at this stage).