Ordonnance Pike - front rankers

I've added a row of bases of front rankers for my Burgundian Ordonnance pike unit.

These are all Perry metals and will be used as an option to extend the size of the pike bloc. I may add targes at a later date, so that they can be used with my other planned pike bloc, who I intend to model carrying targes & bucklers (as required by the Ordinances set out for Charles' army). I may also use them alongside archers - as it appears that Charles trained units of pikes and longbows to work together, with the pikes providing close protection from cavalry attacks for the archers. Some kneeling open-handed figures from the Perrys in the WR/EA ranges would be really useful for these (...here's hoping).

Burgundian Ordonnance - handgunners (II)

My productive painting spell continues - largely as a consequence of being between work contracts since Christmas.

I have completed the second handgunner unit that I started working on about a month ago. Not much to add to the December 2011 post which showed some of the plastic handgun arms from the Mercenaries box that I've added to selected Perry metals to achieve a bit more variation in poses. The remaining figures are straight-from-the-box plastics.

This now almost completes the 'shot' units, with the exception of another crossbow unit that I will do, using the pavises from the mercenaries box along with the wonderful Little Big Man Studios transfers (why paint St Andrews crosses when someones already done it so well for you?).

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.