Bosworth Conference

I'm sure everyone is aware of the recent press coverage that the Bosworth battlefield site has been 'rediscovered', or more accurately relocated, to about 2 kms from the current site near Ambion Hill. I attended last weekend a oneday conference on the battle that followed up on the media coverage of the Battlefield Trust's work to review the battle site. What follows is a brief review of what I found to be the most interesting points made by an excellent line-up of speakers and academics. Read on if you're interested...

Richard Holmes (military historian) - his excitement about the event was the way that a number of disciplnes had all come together to inform on the battlefield - historians, archeologists, re-enactors, geographic analysis etc. Holmes sees this as the way forward now for sites where there is little direct recorded evidence; basically those in UK before the 17th centuty. On Bosworth he still has questions to be answered about why Richard lost a battle he should have won and why he left a good position on Ambion Hill, where he encamped the night before? On the latter he sees the role of Stanley, who Richard expected to join Henry Tudor, as the key as it forced him to act and attack.

Anne Curry (Southampton University) - gave update on work to assess size of armies, using what direct info exists and what can be derived from other accounts, notably 1475 indentures for Edward IV's french campaign. On Richard's army, Curry noted apparent low numbers of commissions of array and few peers at the battle, suggesting a likely dependence on few peers (Norfolk and Northumberland) and the royal household. Lower volume of arrayed troops may have reduced numbers of archers in the royal army? - army list writers take note! A source shows that an order was made to bring serpentines from Calais - which could be the guns that fired the cannonballs found on the site? Henry's army includes more nobility, many collected en route to the battle, and 'Franc Archers' (maybe 1-2,000?), and there was discussion about their potential tactics, as they were Swiss trained, to out-flank or attack the royal artillery. Overall 259 named leaders are known to have been at Bosworth and more work to be done to build up size of contingents.

Matthew Strickland (Glasgow University) - went thru the contmporary materials and possible military tactics, based on those of the 15th century. The typical composition was a strong 'van', which Vergil says at Bosworth was strong with archers for both armies. Apparently there is work underway reviewing whether in English battles of period archers and men-at-arms fought in their 'lance', eg with a couple of archers side-by-side assisting as a tactical unit - rather than being banded together as large bow units - which could challenge our wargame rules and basing! Strickland's summary was that success in WotR battles was likely to go to the army who could get the opposition to attack them and that defensive tactics was the traditional mind-set of most leaders.

Derek Allsop - reported on experimental firing tests, using cannonballs that match those found at Bosworth. When fired, just 1 degree of elevation of a gun barrel added over 100% to the distance that a ball travels before hitting the ground. Whilst the balls hit the ground around 250 metres, when tested they carried on for 1 km, boucing about 8-10 times, before stopping! Deviation side-to-side was minimal. Therefore more work to be done using forensics used on bullets to show what happened to the Bosworth shot, so that the possible position that they were fired from can be decided, ie where was the artillery positioned?

Glenn Foarde (Battlefield Trust lead archeologist) - went thru how historic maps had made assumptions on the battle site and how reference to the marsh has misled historians. The BT survey focussed on placenames and geographic surveys to find where the marsh had been (apparently not a large one at all, so question on what impact it may have had on the troops positioning and not found as drained in 1530!). More work planned to try and find out where the guns were. also the search hasn't looked for arrowheads, to find the main location of the fighting, as has been done at Towton. Full report by Glenn is in this months BBC 'History' magazine.

Finally a plug for the Battlefield Trust, http://www.battlefieldstrust.com/ which I joined a few months ago; it backed this project and does a great job preserving and developing UK sites. Why not join today!

Normal service will be resumed asap, am still applying the acrylics when time allows...

WIP - Wars of the Roses

I feel obligated to update the blog, so these are only some WIP shots. I've also bought myself a cheap lightbox, so I wanted to try that out too.

These are a few of the Perry plastics that I'm working on for two Wars of the Roses games planned for this year. As both require a large amount of figures to be done (large that is in relation to usual output) the dip-and-highlight approach is being refined. I'm now using both Dark and Strong tones of Army Painter selectively; although I'm a bit concerned that the Dark is too dark and tends to flatted colours after a matt varnish is applied, but it does look very effective on the armour IMHO, so I intend to continue with it. The key appears to be to use very light base colours, pre dip, to compensate. The good news, I keep reminding myself, is the quick pace that the painting conveyer belt is moving along and that basing up with improve the overall effect when they're on the table. These are gaming figures and not ones for close examination in the collector's cabinet.

Above pics are fom Earl of Devon's contingent for a 'Salute' game; the completed unit will be a body of household men at arms and billmen, with two 'sleeve' bases of longbowmen. I've drilled out the hands for flags on metal rods, partly as I do have a slight concern with the plastic ones snapping one day, but mainly as I will 're-cycle' these as alternative units for the Northampton game via a swift change of flag and standard. That said I'm hoping to get some waterslide decals made up with livery badges on, so hope no-one will be too eagle-eyed to spot this! The retainers wearing livery coats are therefore patiently awaiting arrival of the decals before a brush on of dip.

Dippers

Ho hum, there I was on the straight-and-narrow, making a good start to my Burgundians when I go and get distracted!
These are some test figures for a potential demo game later this year, not yet definetly fixed up, for the 550th anniversary of a Wars of the Roses battle that's near to where I live. I need to see if I can possibly create at least 300 figures to a decent standard, in a few months, for both armies. Given the limited free time I'll have, I've tested a dipping approach - well, to be accurate a brush-on of 'Army Painter' dip.
The figures were white-undercoated and then the main colours blocked in, in shades that are much lighter than I would normally do, using the mid & light shades in the Foundry triads for example and the black clothing was painted as dark grey. I've then brushed on 'Dark tone' dip. The non-armour areas have been matted with Humbrol Matt Cote. This dip tone seems to work really well on the armour, pooling in the right areas such as the helmet rivets and joints in plates and giving a nice worn-steel finish. Where I'm a tad concerned is on darker clothing, which get dulled and there are no highlights post-dip. Also, from previous experience, the dark tone is too strong to go on whites. I may therefore use mid-tone on clothing and dark tone on armour?
Overall, the speedier process may just allow allow me to get these done, with an acceptable level of detail (thats already in the figure castings) brought out by the dip.

More test figures needed me thinks.

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.

fiddling about...

One of the great benefits of plastics is the potential for conversions. I can recall past days of 'Military Modelling' magazine when obscure figures were created from basic Historex or Airfix plastics. Well, whilst not truly conversions, I have been fiddling about to slightly alter some figures to make them a tad more 'continental' in appearance. Using Duro putty I've added some scarves tied on helmets and a 'bend' to one figure, all to be painted in ducal colours. On others, using the excellent Osprey 'English Longbowmen' as my guide, I've added bags to the arrows that hang from the waist belts, some which were opened at both ends to enable easy access to the arrows. Some Burgundian longbowmen (probably English in Charles service), are shown in Schilling's Chronicles, carrying large semi-rigid arrow bags, so I've had a go at a couple of these - whilst they seem over-large they are roughly to size. This is the extent of my current skills with putty, so I'll probably do a few more along similiar lines, if they look Ok when painted up.
I also want to add plumes to the sallets on my Household Guard figures, but I'll wait and see if the Perrys do separate heads such as this, as they have said they plan to do.
Any other ideas to 'Burgundianise' the figures are warmly welcomed.

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.

Basing and Planning

Some progress (at last I hear someone cry!). A brief break from my HYW has allowed me to base up, and part complete, another Swiss pike contingent. These represent Zurich and Lucerne cantons. Both were part of the Confederation of eight core cantons - the Eidgenossen - that with allied cantons (and some neighbouring feudal and civic allies) fought Duke Charles of Burgundy. They provided significant numbers at Grandson and Morat (second only to Berne) and I've banded them together anachronistically on the basis of similiar blue and white cantonal colour schemes. I'm currently organising my Swiss along canton colour lines, so that theres a nice balance of colours to distinguish each of the main units and to give me a painting framework too. However I'm drawn to the idea of representing a central mass of mixed flags, as shown in the Schilling chronicles, soI may also make up a base of these for when all are collated together into a large Vorhut.
These figures are Foundry and were exquisitely painted for me last year by Gareth McCullagh, who is an even more talented sculptor of small figures than he is a fantastic painter. The final Zurich/Lucerne pike bloc will have another 3-deep line of bases added, to form the centre of the bloc with a base of flagbearers and halbard escort on the second row. Alongside the canton flags I plan to add a small flag for each leader; for Zurich this was Hans Waldmann, whose green and yellow flag will provide some contrasts in colour.
This is probably the last basing up I'll get done for the Swiss before the Perrys WofR range is released, as I need to decide whether the new range will be used for my remaining Swiss, or do I use up the Foundry lead pile that's been hanging around for some time?

I've also sketched out the Burgundian Ordonnance army plans, where I will use the new Perry range. The structure and troop ratios are based on Charles' ordinances for his army between 1471 and 1475. Each contingent will be put on large bases, like the Swiss and roughly each represents 300 foot or 125 cavalry.
So, I have the following in mind:
Household troops:
1 x Charles, Duke of Burgundy - commander (mounted men at arms & coustillers)
1 x Antony, Bastard of Burgundy - sub commander (mounted MAAs & coustillers)
1 x Count of Campobasso - sub-commander (mounted MAAs & coustillers)
1 x knights & chamberlains (foot MAAs)
2 x longbowmen

Ordonnance troops:
8 x mounted men at arms & coustillers
6 x longbowmen
2 x crossbowmen
2 x handgunners
4 x halbardiers
5 x artillery pieces

Feudal troops:
2 x mounted knights & coustillers
6 x Picardy/Flemish pikemen

This gives a tabletop force of just over 300 figures, plus some vignettes, casualties & baggage camp, which is probably well over 18 months painting work for me, and is broadly proportionate to the more numerous Swiss force I'm gathering too. I'm sure it'll be amended as time goes on, but for now I'm happy that I have a decent target to aim at. So first plastics out of the box will be done as Ordonnance longbowmen.