Burgundian Artillery Command

This command vignette is to complement the artillery bases that I've done to date. It depicts an inspection of the artillery park by a senior Burgundian nobleman, carrying a directive from the duke himself, accompanied by a retainer and flagbearer.

The Burgundian artillery was substantial; duke Charles inherited a sizeable train, ranging from large bombards to more portable serpentines and crapaudeau field pieces, all of which were housed in strongholds or towns across the dukedom. The duke took a personal, active involvement in the development of his artillery and no doubt saw his wealth and prestige reflected in the commissioning of the latest military technology. He also put his artillery at the core of his bellicous plans. However, with the possible exception of Montlhery in 1465 when the Burgundians appear to have 'out gunned' the French opposition, his artillery failed to make any impacts in his battles and sieges. The amount of artillery at his disposal is quite staggering; over 4,500 different pieces have been identified that were owned by the Burgundian dukes in the fifteenth century.

The Master of Artillery depicted here is Gauvin de Bailleul. It appears that the duke employed several men with this title concurrently during his reign. I've yet to identify if any nobleman was appointed by the duke to control the artillery, in the way that conductors were for each of the Ordonnance Companies. It is possible that Charles retained direct control over this prestigous arm. De Bailleul is known from extant letters of March 1476 from the duke instructing him to assemble guns stored at Thornville. I've denoted his identity by applying his coat of arms to a wooden box and a powder sack.

The vignette are all Perry figs, with some minor conversion work, which I did a few months ago but have just managed to paint and base. The master of artillery is one of the WotR metal gunners with a plastic headswop and an open hand replacing the linstock. The burgundian nobleman is the Henry VI figure, with a chaperon built up from putty and my very best attempt at adding a hung fleece badge to his collar to denote his seniority as a member of the Order of the Golden Fleece. the others are out of the box metal and plastic, with the flag as a free download. The baggage items are mix of Foundry, Front Rank and TAG and pavise transfers are LBMS.

Finally, my apologies for those of you with your own blogs that I follow. Due to a PC glitch, which I hope will be sorted, I've been unable to add any comments recently - instead being caught up in an infinite google blog account validation loop! So I'll comment retrospectively when it's all sorted.

Pavises

Just a quick post, to show the really lovely Burgundian pavise transfers from Little Big Men Studios, which I recieved this week and who's products I'm always really impressed with. I was aware that Stephen Hales was working on these , to use with the plastic pavises in the Perry 'Mercenaries' box. He's produced four versions with the same St Andrews cross, steel and sparks emblem of Charles the Bold. One from each sheet are pictured here. Swiss versions are to follow I understand.

The quality of the transfers is excellent and each one is slightly different in terms of the distress and dirt on them. They need careful cutting with a scalpel or scissors. The transfer design for the smooth pavise has a cut-out to align it with the proud metal spike at the base; the only marginal issue is that it really needs to be about2mm larger to cover the plastic pavise - consequently some careful painting is needed to match in the edges. Perhaps this will be remedied with the next sheets? The transfer for the pavise with the proud spine fits much better, once carefully eased over and firmy pressed down.

I will now be arming my crossbowmen with them, as I need an excuse to show them off. Some medieval books state that pavise use was on the wain by the 1470s, which maybe the case. However the Schilling Bern Chronicle illustrations show them in use by the Burgundians, in both seige and battle scenes.

Also pictured is a recent conversion, using plastic torso and arms from the Mercenaries box, attached to the metal legs of the kneeling gunner from one of the Perry WotR artillery sets. I needed someone to be using the pavises as intended; sheltering whilst spanning his crossbow. Some putty has been used to add a bag and lengthen the scarf at the back of the sallet. Hope this remains an 'original' and that Michael doesn't bring out some metal crossbowmen!

Last post on here I anticipate for a few weeks, as HYW stuff needs attention for the Salute Verneuil game - so keep a watch on 'Harness and Array' blog....

Ordonnance Handgunners (I)

First unit of hangunners completed, relatively quick to do as only nine figures. All are Perry plastics from the new 'Mercenaries' box, with one exception of a metal figure - an artillery assistant who's had the chamber removed that he was holding and a plastic handgun added, I thought he'd fit in well as he has a powder horn slung over his shoulder. I'm sure they'll be more of these straightforward conversons that can be done, using parts from the plastic boxes, as more metals get released.

No flag on this unit as they are skirmishers. Not much else to add; other than the new plastics are a delight to assemble and are really excellent figures. A couple of the new heads on the command sprue are attached at the chin, rather than the neck plug, which means you need to be careful with the scalpel when removing, but I'm guessing this maybe to lessen any mould lines? But hey, with this quality of late medieval figures, I'm not complaining - I'm celebrating!

Next I need to decide on either starting a bigger pike unit or completing the artillery? Where's that coin....?

Burgundian Ordonnance longbowmen (II)

Ok, so back on track with some pics of completed work - more Burgundian longbowmen (a year on from the first longbows, I'm a tad embarrased to say). Apologies that the images are a little 'bluish' as the daylight today is a bit dull & wintry.

These are Perry plastics, which I've been waiting to finish off, so I could use some of the new heads from the 'Mercenaries' pack for variety. I've also added a couple of arrow bags (from putty) and included one of my two-finger gesture modifications too. The flag is from Krigsspil site (free downloads ) which are really high quality for the Burgundy range. It shows a flag with an image of Saint Jude, but it's not known which Ordonnance Company this flag was associated with, so they'll remain anonymous for the time being. There is an embarassment of riches with Burgundian flags and banners, largely due to the Swiss keeping and then recording most of those they captured at Grandson, Morat and Nancy. I've been looking at how I utilise them with my planned army and I'll post more on that soon (...when I've settled on a system).

The figures are based on three 60mm square bases, effectively a 'central' base which will include commanders, flags etc and two 'wings', to form a gaming unit. This appraoch will be replicated across all the units - foot and mounted - intended to support Impetus rules, but should be flexible enough for other rule systems and could allow me to create more units by simply using only 2 bases together.
Over the holiday period I've had a modest spike in new followers, not sure why this was in a period of no posts, but it's very pleasing all the same and so welcome to you all; I hope that they'll be something of interest coming along in 2011. The Perry WotR range that I'm using for these armies, has had some great new recent releases, including Swiss metals heads, so I'm very enthused re this collection at the moment. Currently I have a first unit of Burgundian Ordonnance handgunners are at the construction/prep stage.

Burgundian Ordonnance longbowmen

Every (snow) cloud has a silver lining!

As I can't commute to work I've completed my first Perry plastics - 3 bases of bowmen, based on 60mm squares, which I'll combine in either twos or threes as fighting contingents on the table. I’m pleased with both the raw figures and the results. As per my previous blog entry, I’ve added wire bowstrings to all and scarves on helmets to some. The flag is a ‘Dansk Flag’ free download; these are particularly fine flags for the Burgundian range, but if I use more of them I’ll have to access a better quality printer to do them justice.

I’ve read a couple of reviews of the plastic ‘Bills and Bows’ box which have been a tad mixed in people’s responses to them. Apparently some have experienced prominent mould lines or small depressions in the plastic on the backs of the bodies; I’ve checked all my boxes are they appear fine. It’s impossible of course to avoid mould lines completely and most are easy to remove with the side of a new scalpel, the ones which are noticeable are on the legs and front of the bows. The hardest to clean are those running across some of the helmets, where if you’re not uber careful the fine detail of the rivets, that hold the helmet linings, can be lost – I’ve used a fine needle file here.

What you do get, for only £15 we should remember, are some beautiful, historically accurate and finely detailed figures, and the small amount of extra time required for gluing and preparing, provides you with loads of variants (and there are metals to come). I think for many, perhaps used to painting metals from other designers where undercuts are deep and belts etc sit proud, the detail on these can be too fine and hence trickier to paint. I’m wondering if the best results with this range maybe to use more washes and let the detail do the work for you, particularly on the faces, belts and folds on the jacks (the latter being where I have used a wash followed by a hand painted highlights)?

Another ‘issue’ to deal with is their lack of weight. I’m sure this is 80% a psychological response, as we’ve all been used to metal figures for so long now, and 20% a practical one, as the bases may tend to sit lightly on terrain etc. I did glue all of these onto small washers, to try and add some weight, but frankly you can hardly tell when you pick them up and it creates a deeper base to cover with filler and sand etc. I don’t think I’ll bother again and just accept it – hopefully most future bases will have at least one of the forthcoming metal castings on them anyway.

Next up on the bench are more archers and then some Ordonnance halberdiers.

Plastic WIPs

A renewal of activity; due to the long awaited, and much anticipated, first release of the late medieval range from Perry Miniatures. I'd not purchased any of the new generation of 28mm plastics until now and I am overwhelmed by both the detail of the sculpting and by the crispness of the moulding on these figures, every rivet on the brigandine is well defined and the figures in full harness are little works of art. Others have already reviewed the contents of the plastic bills and bows box, so I won't repeat that here. To me the figures seem more slender than previous Perry figures; whether this is a consequence of the 3-up sculpting, a result of the fineness which plastic production can give or merely an optical illusion I'm not sure. It will be interesting to stand them alongside the first metals for this range. Overall great value for money and surely they'll be a glut of Wars of the Roses games in 2010 and hopefully others who'll adapt he range for mainland European armies too.

Pictured above are the first ones I've done since they arrived last week, photo'd quickly under the desk lamp, and the start of the upgrade and replacement of my Burgundian Ordonnance army of Duke Charles. The figures wearing jacks have had sewn-on crosses of St Andrew added for recognition and I've attached wire bowstrings. Next step to finih and base up a couple of longbowmen units.