Betwixt days

This is just a quick post betwixt Christmas and the New Year. I thought that this period must have a name, but it appears not. So I thought that the 28th of December would have a medieval Saint's day that I could use for the title of this blog entry, but suprisingly it's one of the few that doesn't. So lets just say it's a betwixt day - one to look forward and back on (a little Janus-like).

So, looking back - a good Christmas Day for family and friends. Personally I was delighted to unwrap some books that were on my Santa list. These included the catalogue from the 'Splendour of Burgundy' exhibition of 2009-10, which despite being in three cities over many months , I'd (regretably) failed to get to. The catalogue is excellent and indeed more than just a list of the items nicely reproduced in colour, as it includes some short essays on the Burgundian politics, court and art, as well as many items that I've not seen before.

Second up, the Calais Garrison, which seems (until now) to be a suprisingly neglected topic, but I think this book will fix that. Was lucky enough to make use of a 40% off one-day deal at the publishers when getting this one, as academic books are almost priced by the page and so out of reach for a casual purchase.

Finally, a visual treat and very useful reference for north european dress and armour in the last quarter of fifteenth century, the Beauchamp Pageant.

Looking forward, I now have opened the first boxes of Perry 'Mercenaries' and they do not disappoint; the castings on the crossbows, handguns, new heads and especially the two new captain figures are truly fantastic.

New heads are now being added to longbowmen from the previous box, to add variety. These are now my WIP on the painting table. Planned for the short term are Burgundian Ordonance longbows and handgunners. Also a group of dismounted men at arms; I keep picking up the sprues each time to consider different options that could be obtained with a swift cut of the scalpel, filler and glue - am sure others will find better ideas that I will.

Here's to a peaceful, healthy and prosperous 2011 to everyone.

Two fingers (and some more)...

I'm about to re-start my Burgundians and in anticipation of the release of the new Perry 'Mercenaries' plastic box, which will provide the bulk of the Ordonnance troops, I've been starting to prepare some more longbowmen.

It maybe that the Perrys are planning to design some metal longbowmen (I'm certainly hoping so) which may include one or two giving the 'two fingered' gesture, but I thought I'd have a go myself anyway. Now it may just be a historical urban-myth that the origin of this abusive gesture came from English & Welsh bowmen, demonstarting that they still retained their bow-pulling fingers. However, whatever the actual origination is, there appears to be a Schilling Chronicle illustration showing it occuring at a siege - pictured above - and that's good enough excuse for me.

So I've turned the clock back to my younger years of chopping up Airfix and Historex plastics and done a simple repositioning of arms, with a bit of filling with ProCreate putty, to produce some English bowmen in Burgundian service. Another bowmen's arm has simply been drilled to hold the company flag. I've also changed an artillery gunner into a bowman and re-employ another gunner as a handgunner, when I see the actual 'Mercenary' sprues. The chronicle picture also shows distinctive large arrow bags used and so perhaps I'll have a bash with the putty to make some of these too?

The longer I sit looking at these figures the more conversion options and seem to arise.

Swiss banners

Just wanted to share a really excellent flag sheet, that i've just purchased on ebay. They are good quality prints on a cloth-type A4 paper and are print-outs of handpainted orginals, which cover many of the key cantons for the Swiss Confederacy for the Burgundian (and Swabian) wars. This is the picture from the ebay item.

The seller on ebay is sasha_4sale. He also has several sheets for the early 16th century, including Spanish, French and Venetians if I remember correctly and appears to be extending the range. Sheets can be purchased sized for 15mm figures too. This one cost me £12.50 inc postage for 10 flags - seems a good deal to me and I'd recommend having a look on e-bay.

'Medieval Warfare' magazine.

Just been made aware of this, which maybe of interest to some of you.

It's from the publishers of the high quality 'Ancient Warfare' , so the omens look good for original research and top-notch illustrations. Initial publication date is April 2011. I'll keep tracking progress - theres a newsletter you can suubscribe to.

Also, that lovely cover illustration looks like a representation of Burgundian Ordonnance men at arms fighting in the snow covered fields at Nancy in 1477 to me?

http://www.medieval-warfare.com/landingpage/index.html

'Dulle Griet'

The latest Perry metal WotR pack, painted as the Burgundian bombard 'Dulle Griet', or 'Mad Meg' in English. This enormous bombard was commissioned by Phillip the Good around 1450, his arms are displayed on the original, and remained part of Charles the Bold's substantial artillery train, although it's not known if it took part in the sieges of Neuss or Morat. The barrel was made up of 32 long iron staves, bound by 43 iron hoops, and it blasted out 64cm diameter stone shot. Dulle Griet is still viewable today in the centre of Ghent.

As previously blogged when in WIP, I've used the mantlet seperately and put three crew on 'sabot' bases, to increase it's utilisation with other armies. I've swopped in a plastic WotR gunner. The equipment pieces are from a variety of sources, inc Front Rank, Bicorne and Architects of War. I hope that it doesn't look too crowded, but as the gun would have been in-situ for several weeks or even months, then I'm imagining that all sorts of items built up around it over time. The wooden pallisade to protect the besiegers from any foraying attacks are Kingmaker Minis spare protective sides from their Hussite wagons with bass wood framework attached.

I'm pleased with the tone for the freshly-sut wood, on the pallisade and the bombard's bracings; my thanks to Phil Hendry for his suggestions which I've taken up - Foundry Canvas shade (8A), drybrushed with a lighter 8B and then brushed on with dip (Army Painter strong), before a final Dullcote matt varnish

The HYW version can be seen here http://harness-and-array.blogspot.com/

So there you have it - a co-ordinated synergised double-blog, surely a notable first for wargamers? (!!)

I'm now settling on the composition of my Burgundian army, designed for Impetus but which will be based with sufficent flexibility to be usable with other rules. I'll post up the draft army list sometime.

WIP - Bombard

Whilst I should be concentrating all my efforts and limited time to my HYW project, I keep reopening the box lid of the last Perry WotR metal pack, the bombard, and thinking about how I can use it. Spurred on by Phil Hendry's lovely rendition too, http://web.me.com/philhendry/Phil_Wargaming_Website/my_blog/bombard.html I've decided on how I'll base it up to make it usable for both my Burgundian Ordonnance (at Morat for example) and with my HYW.

The pic shows current state of play, having cleaned off all the flash etc. I've decided on the mantlet being based seperately, so it can be an optional piece. I've added some wooden pallisade to both sides to fill any gaps, so that it can be aligned with other parts of planned wooden siege lines.

The gun crew will have 3 'sabot' bases, to allow me to switch key personnel for folk in earlier fifteenth century garb (shown here to one side), all based on 5 pence coins. For the Burgundian version I've replaced the guy holding his hand to his ear provided in the pack (who looks most useful as an injured figure who's taken a blow to the head, to me) for a Perry plastic shouting instructions.

I've also left out one of the wooden bracings, partly to reduce the overall length and to save it to do the same job with another bombard casting I have. There'll also be other sige equipment - bucket, barrel, boxes, ramrod, spare cut wood, swords, etc - placed on the finished base.

Burgundianising

Well, 'to burgundianise' is not a proper verb of course, but I feel that it maybe a regularly appearing one on this blog.

Although I should be finishing off my HYW armies (and am indeed making some progress, as you can see over at my other blog) I couldn't resist having a small dabble at the recent Perry WotR metal men at arms. It feels a little sacreligious to tamper with these excellent castings and I know that this task will be much easier when the next Perry plastic box is released, which will have similiar style head options to reflect the european origins of these troops, but hey ho...

So I've made some minor alterations to attempt to make them more Burgundian in appearance - basically by simply adding pennons, plumes and scarves to helmets and St Andrews crosses on a brigandine and breastplate. The pennons and crosses are just cut from thin foil (an old tomato puree paste which just happens to be red one side) and the plumes are metal castings drilled and pinned. The scarves follow an Italian habit, which I felt is appropriate as many of the Ordonnance were raised from Italian mercenaries by Charles the Bold, although contemporary illustrations should it to be widespread - possibly as a recognition sign as mush as for fashionable appeal.