Artillery limber

The completed limber,with accompanying crew, discussing the best route towards their new destination. As previously blogged in the WIP on this, I've taken a slightly anachronistic approach to creating a late fifteenth century limber for a typical field piece - a crappaudeau or veuglaire as contemporary Burgundian accounts refer to them as.

The horse team are from the new Perry Wars of the Roses baggage wagon packs and the limber is a converted ECW piece with box and barrel added for storage. The crew are Perrys with slight alterations. It ended up being put on a slightly wider base than planned, to accommodate the figure of the man at arms issuing instructions, so theres a bit of hedgrow added to fill in the spaces. The roadside cross is from a set made for model railways.

I'm happy with the final composition. I also managed to re-use the chamber that I'd removed from the gunner's hand, it's hanging from the elevating mechanism (which I had to replace with a plasticard one as the casting is too fine and broke) as I'd seen done by the Company of St George re-enactors last summer. After all this work I've put in, no doubt the Perrys will probably bring out their own casting next month!

I'm now considering doing a larger bombard in transit using one of the Perry wagons, attempting to re-create an image in one of the Bern illustrated chronicles that I've found.

Burgundian Ordonnance - first array of arms

I've had a couple of requests to show my progress to date with this army. As 5 January is the anniversary of the death of Charles the Bold at the battle of Nancy, it seems as appropriate a date as any other to line them up for the camera.

So here's the current state of play - excluding any that are not fully complete, i.e. painted but not yet based, and the siege bombard. Lined up like this it doesn't seem very substantial. I would estimate that, ignoring any baggage and markers, I'm about one third of the way through what I plan to do. I've adjusted the composition and the overall size of the army since my initial plan, due to each unit being comprised of three bases of figures. The largest element of whats to come are the mounted men at arms, for which the Perry plastics box will provide most of the figures. Until they're released I'll press on with as many foot troops as possible in the first quarter of this year.

Artillery limber - WIP

I've started work on a base for a limbered Burgundian artillery piece, utilising the new draught horses from the Perry baggage packs. It will depict a field piece about to set off for a campaign or siege. This is a work in progress post.

There is not much specific information on how late medieval artillery was moved and exactly when separate limbers were widely used. The barrels of larger bombards appear to have been loaded onto wagons and their wooden frames possibly rebuilt on site, by travelling carpenters, specific to the requirements of their location. There are some later fifteenth century illustrations of limbers, a couple shown here, and so I've taken the liberty to try and reflect this type.

I've used an old Foundry ECW limber casting I've had for ages as the basis. To this I added the frame for the traces from a Perry baggage wagon and a central shaft from balsa. The artillery piece is a Perry one, with a small mantlet added. These are shown on contemporary illustrations, presumably attached with hinges at one end. When erected they afforded the gunners some protection and when lowered covered the barrel against the elements for travel. This has been constructed from standing shields in Perry AWI artillery packs, re-cut to size and attached together at a 45 degree angle - the shields will have a civic coat of arms to denote their origin. The two gunners have had some simple changes; one has had the breech he's holding replaced (and saved for usage elsewhere) by a bucket and a headswop for a soft hat. The other is a Perry WR halbardier who's now carrying the powder scoop and ramrod.

Should post the completed model soon, awaiting a larger mdf base from Warbases to arrive.

Handgunner variants

I've created a few different poses for my next unit of Ordonnance handgunners. These use some selected Perry metal halbardiers. These have had arms carefully removed with a hacksaw and plastic ones added from the Mercenaries box. A bit of filling was required using ProCreate to cover small gaps and also to add some powder bags for those who've not one them on the original casting. The remaining figures, they'll be nine in all like the previous 'skirmish' unit, will be assembled from the plastic spures in the Mercenaries box.

Halbardiers - more WIP

I've painted the figures that I currently plan to use as an attacking Burgundian Ordonnance halbardier unit. The pics are taken quickly on my painting desk, so aren't the best quality. I've decided to hold off fixing them and completing the basework, just in case new figures that lend themselves to these get released. I'll probably come back to them in a couple of months and see how the land lies.

The additional bases are both metal and plastic Perrys, to which I added a couple of scarves to helmets. I'm pleased with the overall composition which I was seeking to achieve. It's nice to do a unit in fighting poses rather than the usual two ranks deep and bases such as these attracted me to Impetus and so I'm now sketching out what others I could do in future.

Halbardiers WIP

These are figures intended for the command stand for my first unit of Burgundian Ordonnance halbardiers, of two that are planned. They will have a stand added to either side to form the completed contingent. The figures are on my usual 60mm square bases and are a mix of Perry plastics and metals. The figure at the rear in the green coat will carry a banner. The mounted conducteur has had some surgery; he's a WR range 'scurror' with a plastic head from the Mercenaries box added as well as his open hand for lance replaced with a plastic sword holding hand.

The new metal halbardiers are very useful detailed sculpts, but yet again they are let down in the mouldmaking or casting process and details on the hands in particular are either distorted or lost altogther. This is very disappointing when you see the lovely greens on the web and then get to paint the castings.

I now am confronted with the dilemma, when I finish the planned figures for this unit, of to base or not to base? I'm hopeful that the EA range will be added to, specifically with foot command figures for Franco-Burgundians (as well as Swiss) and casualty figures. Any of these would potentially fit well into this type of unit and so I'm tempted to hold off gluing and basing these and await future releases. Therefore it maybe some time until these are finished. No doubt - new figures or not - I'll fiddle around with the final composition a bit more. I'll post the other accompanying figures when done.

Burgundian Ordonnance pikes

I have finally completed the first of two Ordonnance pike blocs; these have taken longer than planned, partly as I've not been working on them exclusively and as work commitments have been heavy and so not much painting has been achieved over the last 2 months (hopefully this will be rectified before the end of the year).

Most of the figures are Perry plastics, straight from the Mercenaries box with minimal modifications, with a few of the recent metal marching billmen added. I've not spent so long on detailing each figure as they are somewhat lost within a larger unit. According to the Burgundian Ordinances pikemen should have carried a buckler too, however I've left them off these and will add them to the other pike unit, to create a subtle visual distinction. I have aspirations to add another front rank of bases for them, using some of the advancing metal figures and a company captain, although I'm happy with the overall size of the unit as pike units can appear to lack the required bulk and depth sometimes (my Swiss ones will probably be at least twice the size of these).

Most wargame army lists for the period cite Charles the Bold's pikemen as Flemish or Lowland, presumably based on the use of pikes by such armies in the Burgundian territories earlier in the fifteenth century. It is not clear to me how the recruiting of each of the Ordonnance Companies related to geographic or regional boundaries. We do know that the duke contracted with mercenary leaders for specific numbers of troops to form Companies and that others would have been raised directly from lands within the dukedom, such as Flanders. Equally we know that companies comprised of different arms, such as pikes, crossbows, handguns etc and that certain territories were more likely to provide certain specific arms, notably England for longbowmen. Therefore it seems to me that on the battlefield company organisation would need to be sufficiently flexible to re-arrange the differing arms within the companies into larger fighting blocs of similiar types, i.e. pike blocs and handgun units and so a mix of nationalities could compose a fighting unit?

However, for this unit I've reverted to assuming that these are Flemish sourced troops and hence they display arms of Ghent, a flag of the stonemasons Guild for the city and the Burgundian arms. Painting and posting should speed up a bit now, as I have more free time, and will be starting on a halbard unit.