More Burgundian Ordonnance men at arms

I've finally completed my second mounted men at arms for my Burgundians. They've been slow going - from the prep and enhancements done to some of the horses (see previous posts), the addition of cross of St Andrews to the riders' harness, to the final painting (which the horses seems to be a longer process than the men, as the plate armour is largely a wash and dry brushing) - although other pieces have got picked up and completed during that time.

The only metal figures are the Company's captain (the converted Perry Joan figure from their HYW range) and the pennon bearer. The remainder are plastics, largely from the box except for the addition of the St Andrew crosses made from Procreate - another slow process as one 'arm' has to be done and left to fully harden before the other is added. I now start to appreciate how long the process must be to sculpt a full figure from start to finish. Some have had metal plumes attached.

The pennon is of the 15th Ordonnance company, showing St Peter holding the keys to heaven. This company was formed in 1473 by ducal decree and was present at the siege of Neuss in 1475 and at the battle of Nancy two years later, at which time the conductuer was Phillipe de Loyette.

I think that the next men at arms will be in more aggressive poses, to compliment the movement of the horses.

Hans Waldmann

This is Hans Waldmann, a leader of the Zurich contingents who was at the battles of Morat and Nancy.  He originated from Zug canton and through marriage he appears to have risen through the social ranks within the city of Zurich by the time of the Swiss-Burgundian wars. His successful leadership on the battlefield enhanced his political career and he was elected mayor of Zurich in 1483. However he was to be deposed some years later, following his attempts to raise tax rates on local villages that led to an armed peasant uprising against him. He was subsequently tried, found guilty of corruption and executed in 1489 – as depicted in the Luzern Chronicle of 1515 (below).

These are all plastic figures from the Mercenaries box.  Waldmann has a sallet from the mounted men at arms sprue, as is his right arm – with metal halbard attached. His flagbearer also uses an arm from the same box, with the gauntlet replaced with a bare open hand from a longbowman’s arm (...oh the joy of these plastics!) and a metal Swiss head. His style of beard is shown in the Schilling Chronicles for some of the city elders and I’m quite pleased (and somewhat surprised) by my addition using Procreate, to try and represent a man of some status being entrusted with Waldmann’s personal arms. The accompanying halberdier is another plastic and metal head combo; the only addition being his bend – a fairly common method of identification in the later fifteenth century and again shown in the Swiss chronicles. The section of wattle fence is Renedra, cut down and bent to shape. The flag is another one from Pete’s Flags sheet of Swiss commanders (see the previous entry for a link to purchase from ebay).

Now, time to get back to those Burgundian men at arms that have been on the painting table for far too long…

Hans von Hallwyl

Finally a posting…. the first of a number of Swiss commander vignettes that I intend to do. 

This is Hans von Hallwyl (1433 to 1504) of Aargau canton and a leader of Bernese troops, who is known to have been present at the battles of Grandson and Morat. He also continued as a notable Swiss captain, including fighting in the Swabian Wars of 1499.

I’ve had the figures painted and based for a short while and have been awaiting the excellent flags sheet of Swiss leaders for the late fifteenth century Confederation. These are available from Pete’s flags on ebay (in both 28mm and 15mm) and they complement the sheets done for the Swiss cantons - as well as other medieval ones he does. They’re printed on cloth (which is a finish that I prefer) but can be purchased on normal paper too.

These figures are a mix of metal and plastic Perrys; nicely painted for me by Chris Thompson. The figure of Hallwyl is a plastic man at arms on a metal horse, as there are no static poses in the plastic box set; the only enhancement being the plumes (nicked from a Foundry Swiss head) attached to the front of his chapel de fer helmet. The pointing halberdier is plastic with a metal Swiss head, a plastic sallet hanging from his waist.  The flagbearer is a metal Swiss figure from the EA range. The wayside cross is a plastic model railway piece.

Another Swiss captain coming soon…

Joan - converted

A very quick post - taken with a poor picture so my apologies - of the converted 'Joan to a Burgundian man at arms' Perry figure with paint now applied. The highlight tones on the horse have not come out well under the desk lamp (usually I try and take all pics in natural light). However I'm pleased that the idea has turned out well in practice as a nicely posed figure, who should fit well into the next Company (or perhaps the one after that when I make a final decision on basing, we'll see).

The other men at arms are making very slow progress - the horseflesh and trappings seem a bit tedious to paint - at the moment I'm getting more out of assembling and seeking new poses and variations.  So I'm guilty of having diverted into a couple of other vignettes, which I'll post when I have some outstanding items needed to finish them off.

More soon.

Ordonnance men at arms - variations on a theme

I have to admit to making slower than planned progress with my second Ordonnance Company of mounted men at arms. It does take more time to prep and assemble the excellent Perry plastics, but I've been attempting to make modest enhancements to the figure before painting. This has resulted in me having a go with the ProCreate putty,  and a combination of my rudimentary modelling skills and needing each stage of applied putty to harden before moving on,  has all been rather time consuming.

So this is another interim post, with some pics of some of what I've done so far. I've varied the horse tack again on some of the mounts. 'The Count of Wymborn' suggested that I use putty rather than metal foil and despite my misgivings beforehand, I've cleaned off all the moulded tack on a couple and replaced with different styles of trappings, taken from contemporary illustrations. I'm pleased with the results and will be doing some more on each unit.

I've also pinched ideas from The Lead Adventurers Forum (where several people are doing some really wonderful conversions on the Perry WotR plastics) to cut assembled horses into front and rear halves and reassemble to obtain different and more passive poses. More Procreate work (and time) required to fill and smooth the inevitable gaps when halves are glued back together.

Most of the men at arms have had a cross of St Andrew added - again with putty - and I'm happier with the results compared to my first unit which were done with foil. The last conversion is to use the Perrys Joan of Arc figure from the Agincourt to Orleans range. Although the figure wears harness of approx 40 years earlier, and is of a young woman, I had a spare casting and love the pose. So after a compassionate beheading, I added some slightly larger pauldrons and tassets with putty to try and 'modernise' the armour. I removed the square besagews, as these do reflect a distinctly early fifteenth century style, and glued on plastic 'german' style ones cut from spare plastic arms. A plumed sallet was then added and I think it'll fit in OK when it's part of a unit.

Now, on to the painting...

Burgundian Ordonnance - 13th Company

My first mounted completed unit of mounted men at arms, the first of several which will form the offensive backbone of Charles the Bold's army, representing the 13th company of the Ordonnance.  This unit uses the most recent Perry plastic box, with a couple of metal scurrors from the WR range.

The 13th company had several captains during Charles' dukedom. Around 1475 following the siege of Neuss, Thanaseor de Capoue was appointed. This was a time when an increasing number of italian condottiere were being sought and recruited by the duke in a deliberate policy to increase the professionalism of his forces, so superseding many of those originally appointed from his Burgundian territories. Capoue is denoted in the central stand, wearing a coat with his personal coat of arms. The guidon for the 13th Company appears to have portrayed the image of St John, so I've used one of the excellent downloads from the Krigsspil website. The sharp-eyed amongst you will notice this is a different guidon to the previous post, as I realised that I'd attached the wrong one!

I decided to represent these 'chef de chambres', as contemporary documents refer to them as, on unbarded horses. I also plan to do this with the remainder of the contingents. There is no hard evidence for this approach. The 1471 ducal ordinances stated that such men at arms must provide a horse with a combat saddle and chamfron. Near contemporary illustrations are also inconclusive; the 'Master WA' drawings show a group of men at arms or coustillers all on unbarded horses. Diebold Schilling's chronicle of c1480 shows most of the Burgundian men at arms at the battle of Morat on plate-armoured mounts bearing various Charles' devices, such as crosses and flints (which may just be an artist representation to denote them, rather than reflective of actual men at arms). The reality was that such armour was expensive and so unlikely to be very widespread, even with the deep pockets of the Burgundian dukes.  So I'll save the barding for units with the main commanders, to denote them more easily on the battlefield.

The coustiller used is carrying a heavy lance, which again is a bit of licence on my part. The 1471 ordinances required them to carry a 'good javelin'. The assumption is that coustillers formed a second rank to the men at arms and if so, then I believe it's reasonable to assume that some may have used a lance, rather than a spear, to add to the impetus of a charge.

I've also added to some of the figures another element of the Burgundian Ordonnance troops - the red saltire emblem that denoted them in the field. As laid out in 1471, they were provided with crosses made of cloth to attach their harness. I've cut these from thin foil  and superglued on - but in future I'll try pre-cut plastic strip to try and achieve thinner crosses.

Horse tack variations

Just an quick interim post, as I slowly continue to paint my first Ordonnance Men at Arms contingent.

I wanted to create a little variety with the horses's tack, as most of this unit will be unarmoured mounts and the consequence of interchangable horse halves in the Perry mounted men at arms box is that the tack is all the same (very similar to the horses illustrated in the 'Beauchamp Pageant'). One of the benefits of plastic is that such changes are relatively easy to attempt. I have therefore scraped away with a sharp scalpel the existing retaining straps on the horses rump and smoothed down the other tack on the flanks. I then cut to shape some replacement tack out of thin foil (from puree tubes that I've saved), loosely based on some medieval illustrations. These have then had a covering of GW Green Stuff brushed on in order to give them a bit of texture before undercoating and painting.