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Author Topic: Charlie's 15th century - Some long-overdue Burgundians! (Feb 28)  (Read 152615 times)

Offline DintheDin

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - a parade of pikes!!!! (Jan 18)
« Reply #300 on: January 27, 2020, 08:34:46 AM »
A sight to behold!  :-* :-* :-*
Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates. – Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi

Offline Eric the Shed

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - a parade of pikes!!!! (Jan 18)
« Reply #301 on: January 27, 2020, 03:02:36 PM »
What a wonderful thread...

Online Charlie_

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - The Germans are coming!!!!! (Feb 19)
« Reply #302 on: February 20, 2020, 12:26:12 AM »
This post doesn't have that many new figures - it's all about rebasing, reorganising, new flags and the first steps into a new project.

Up until this point this project has not been set in any real historical conflict, it's just been imaginary private wars in the late 15th century. The plan always was to do that, and later be able to adapt the same collection to interesting (and obscure) wars.

Well that has now begun, as I take the first steps into taking this collection into the War of Burgundian Succession!

I plan to write lots more about this war in the days to come, as I've been doing a lot of research. I'll briefly summarise it for you though.

Charles the Bold died in 1477, and the extensive Burgundian territories all passed to his daughter Mary. Obviously everyone then wanted to marry her, and become the next Duke of Burgundy themselves. Louis XI of France wanted her to marry his son Charles (who would become Charles VIII), but Mary was having none of it. So Louis invaded instead, planning to take back all the Burgundian lands he felt were part of France (and a few over the border too!). Mary did find a husband in Maximilian of Hapsburg, the young Duke of Austria and son of the Holy Roman Emperor, who rushed to defend her inheritance from France. Though his titles made him sound very impressive, he actually had very little money or resources (his father the Emperor just left him to it). So the newly married couple had to raise armies from their ever-rebellious subjects in the Low Countries, and mercenaries who they really couldn't afford to pay.
The French were generally successful in taking territory, though Maximilian did win the one major pitched battle of the war (Guinegate in 1479). They came to a truce in 1482 and signed the Treaty of Arras, which the French came out of much better than Mary and Maximilian. However Mary died shortly afterwards, and suddenly Maximilian was struggling to keep things together - the Flemish in particular weren't his biggest fans, and they held his son Philip. Maximilian tried to rule as Philips' regent, but didn't have an easy time of it.
However the French weren't able to make the most of the situation as Louis XI died in 1483, and his son Charles came to the throne as a minor. For most of the 1480s the French regency government were concerned with events in Brittany, so Maximilian was able to busy himself combating various rebellions in Flanders, Liege and Luxembourg. Border warfare against the French did continue, and various towns and castles changed hands. Eventually the treaty of Senlis was signed in 1493 - this time Maximilian came out of it well, and regained lots of territory, because Charles VIII, now come into his majority, was more interested in invading Italy than fighting with all his neighbours. Maximilian also was now set to become Emperor with the death of his father, and the Flemish were happy to accept his son Philip as their ruler.

This is a great conflict for wargaming in my opinion. There isn't much info on it in English, so at first I was worried all there really was to it was one battle and various treaties. But now I've managed to find some French sources and got the hang of translating them with google, I'm happy to report this war is full of all sorts of small-scale actions - sieges, ambushes, raids, night attacks.... And its populated with lots of interesting characters I'm looking forward to painting up.

The 'Burgundian' armies of Mary and Maximilian are also full of potential, with room for pretty much every type of late medieval unit. Ordonnance company cavalry, Flemish militias, German, Swiss and English mercenaries..... Everything I have so far painted up for this project can be repurposed for Maximilian's armies, or indeed rebels for him to fight against.




So, first off, here's my re-organised and re-based polearm infantry. If you've been following this thread for a while, you will have seen most of these models before - but now I have FINALLY got them arranged how I like, helped with my switch to multi-basing at last. I've got them in two units, one of 40 and one of 48. Lots of these models are very old, painted years ago, but I've been merciless and just chosen the very best - I want these units to look good from every angle, so there are quite a lot of rejects which aren't being used.

These are going to represent German mercenaries fighting for Maximilian, and so I've given them flags with the Burgundian cross.





Some different angles and close ups....









I'm quite critical of the Foundry Swiss range... but this one figure is fantastic, one of my very favourites in the entire collection! The pose is just perfect.





Now, the pikemen from my last post have also been designed for this war - I now have some proper flags for them. All three pike units have the flag-bearer individually based so they can be swapped out. So I've now got enough Burgundian flags for all three units. They can all represent Germans -  the unit with all the feathers of course can be Swiss, and the two smaller units can be from the Low Countries (sometime in the future I'll do some state flags for Flanders and Brabant at least). The Swiss actually fought for both sides - they were brought in by Maximilian at first (both Germans and Swiss, which could possibly have been the same thing), but many of them switched allegience and fought for the French, which was later confirmed by a treaty. So I've also got a French flag for the Swiss unit.








Offline DintheDin

  • Galactic Brain
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Re: Charlie's 15th century - The Germans are coming!!!!! (Feb 19)
« Reply #303 on: February 20, 2020, 07:46:25 AM »
Apart from your excellent painting, you based your units so wonderfully! The choice of postures giving them an aggressive forward motion!
Fantastic collection! Congrats! 

Offline fred

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - The Germans are coming!!!!! (Feb 19)
« Reply #304 on: February 20, 2020, 07:51:52 AM »
Looking great, I like the close ranked nature of your troops.

The individually based standard bearers is a very good move.

Offline Stuart

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - The Germans are coming!!!!! (Feb 19)
« Reply #305 on: February 20, 2020, 08:21:37 AM »
Excellent work Charlie, I really like the idea of a seperate base for the standard bearer, that’s really neat  :)

Offline Chimpfoot

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - The Germans are coming!!!!! (Feb 19)
« Reply #306 on: February 20, 2020, 08:39:08 AM »
Not that you need any more complimentary replies...but bloody crikey!
Achieving individualism on miniatures on this scale is hard ask but it's exactly what elevates these units and gives a air of realism that could have been otherwise lacking.
First rate inspiration for the rest of us.
Thanks for sharing
chimpfoots-tavern.blogspot.com

Offline Atheling

  • Elder God
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Re: Charlie's 15th century - The Germans are coming!!!!! (Feb 19)
« Reply #307 on: February 20, 2020, 09:52:14 AM »
The individually based standard bearers is a very good move.

Excellent work Charlie, I really like the idea of a seperate base for the standard bearer, that’s really neat  :)

Agreed, it's actually a bit of a stroke of genius!  8)

I wish that I had thought of it a long time ago- it would have saved me a lot of painting time!  o_o

That pike block looks beautiful Charlie  :-* :-* :-*

Offline painterman

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - The Germans are coming!!!!! (Feb 19)
« Reply #308 on: February 20, 2020, 12:17:01 PM »
Bravo!
being able to use your collection for different wars is fantastic and they really look the part - great to see a different campaign/war being covered too.
Cheers

Offline Captain Blood

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - The Germans are coming!!!!! (Feb 19)
« Reply #309 on: February 20, 2020, 02:12:47 PM »
Awesome. A winning combination of quantity as well as quality. The thought you’ve put into posing has really paid off.

Offline Breazer

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - The Germans are coming!!!!! (Feb 19)
« Reply #310 on: February 20, 2020, 07:21:11 PM »
Awesome stuff Charlie. It's indeed a very interesting time for wargaming. I'm also really curious about the unit from Brabant (thats where i'm from and I don't ive seen many people make those). Keep up the great work!

Offline HappyChappy439

  • Mastermind
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Re: Charlie's 15th century - The Germans are coming!!!!! (Feb 19)
« Reply #311 on: February 20, 2020, 07:21:51 PM »
Great work! These blocks have turned out fantastic!

Nice job on the idea to keep them faction-agnostic too!

Online Charlie_

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - The Germans are coming!!!!! (Feb 19)
« Reply #312 on: February 21, 2020, 01:38:52 AM »
Thanks all!

Yes the posing is something that I think is really worth getting right. I think having them close-packed like this really is the way to go. I love the idea of a 'forest of polearms', which is what I'm trying to achieve.
It means you've got to put more thought into getting them to rank up right, a bit like a jigsaw puzzle.

A lot of these have been re-based TWICE in the past year - the two older pike units, most of the front ranks of polearms.... Though hacking into bases with clippers seemed tough at first, and I wasted a lot of tufts to do so, I'm glad I did. First time round, too many of the best sculpts weren't positioned right and were hiding in the second rank, and too many dodgy ones were right at the front. So second time round I made sure to get all my favourite ones in prominent positions (most noticeably the front corners) and the ones I wasn't quite sure about where they could be hidden away a bit. Also I realised I needed to avoid having too much of an obvious gap between the bases (as in open space between the models either side of the join), so I made sure to position and glue them all down unit by unit, checking the joins between bases.

I'm also really curious about the unit from Brabant (thats where i'm from and I don't ive seen many people make those). Keep up the great work!

Well from what I've read, whenever Maximilian raised an army to go campaigning in the Low Countries, Brabant seems to be the most reliable in providing him with both troops and money. In contrast to troublesome Flanders. They never rebelled against him, and off the top of my head I think they provided him with troops when he marched against the rebelling Flemish, and when he sent an army to Liege.
Brabant also has a great-looking flag - a gold lion on black! So it seems worthwhile doing one Brabant flag for my pikemen at least to mix in with the Burgundian crosses.

Offline Muzfish4

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - The Germans are coming!!!!! (Feb 19)
« Reply #313 on: March 06, 2020, 02:02:35 AM »
Wonderful thread - thanks for posting!

Online Charlie_

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Been a while since my last update, so thought I'd show what I'm currently working on. No finished units yet.

I'm currently in cavalry mode, working on opposing heavy cavalry for the French and Burgundians, for the War of Burgundian Succession (a summary of which can be found in my last post, on page 21).

When Charles the Bold died at the battle of Nancy, his army pretty much died with him. Obviously there would have been some survivors who made it home, and many who weren't at the battle scattered across his territories, but suddenly leaderless and seemingly without purpose his Ordonnance companies seem to have ceased to exist as a functioning military force. Towns were surrendering to the French occupiers in both the Low Countries and Burgundy itself, and many of his military commanders defected to the French (including his own half-brother Anthony). So when Mary and Maximilian started getting things together to resist the French, they had to raise new armies. They formed new Ordonnance companies, but they weren't able to raise them in very big numbers, and they struggled to pay them.

So both the French and 'Burgundian' sides have Ordonnance comapnies, based around mounted men-at-arms, i.e. heavy cavalry. The French were more numerous and I'd like to think better organised and motivated. At least that's how I'm going to interpret it - the Burgundian cavalry will be a bit more hit-and-miss, and should be outmatched by the French. That is indeed what happened at the Battle of Guinegate in 1479.

I already have lots of cavalry, so to 'convert' these into French and Burgundians I really just need new flags. I've decided that the French will have smart livery jackets, whilst the Burgundians will not. So I need to paint up several new standard bearers, and some French in livery jackets to scatter throughout the units (perhaps 1 in 4 will have jackets). I currently have enough cavalry for 4 units - I think a good goal will be to have 5 by the end of this, 3 French and 2 Burgundian. All my heavy cavalry are individually based on large movement trays, so the size and number of units can always be mixed up, and no doubt will be every time I paint a new figure.

The question of flags is one I pondered over for a long time. There are lots of Burgundian flags available, but almost all of them are specifically connected to Charles the Bold, often featuring his personal motto ('Je Lay Emprins'). I needed to find some Burgundian flags that are not obviously connected to him, and are more 'generic' so can be used for the decades after his death. Happily I found a few. Pete's Flags has a small sheet of 5 Burgundian cavalry flags, 3 of which are 'generic', all featuring the Burgundian cross. There is/was also a fantastic website, the name of which escapes me, which has lots of free flags, including loads of Burgundian ones. All of varying quality. I found one which was apparently captured at Grandson in 1476, but looks generic enough for my purposes, and luckily comes as a very high resolution image.

So here are three Burgundian standard bearers. The two on the left are from Pete's Flags, the one on the right from that website which doesn't seem to exist anymore.

The models themselves are a mix-up of Perry and Steel Fist. The Steel Fist late medieval men-at-arms scale perfectly with Perry, and you can happily switch the horses and riders between the two..... though not without a little saddle surgery. For a metal perry rider on a Steel Fist horse, you need to sculpt the front part of the saddle yourself. For a Steel Fist rider on a plastic Perry horse, you need to slice off both the front and back part of the saddle from the horse, as they come on the SF rider, and smooth over the join with a little putty. I've also got some metal Perry riders on plastic Perry horses - in these cases you need to remove the rear party of the saddle on the plastic horse.

The Steel Fist riders also come with separate heads, and in most of the following examples I've actually given them Perry heads instead.

So the three Burgundians... the first on the left is simply a metal Perry on a SF horse. The middle on is a SF on a plastic Perry horse, with a (metal) Perry head. The third one is just a metal Perry on a plastic Perry horse.




On to the French.... There is a serious lack of French flags available for the 1450-1500 period. But 'that website' had some, including the two below. Now for some reason these came as much smaller, low-resolution images, so I wouldn't sure if they would work, but I think once on the finished models they look fine. I like the black flag in particular. They are variations of the same flags that come in the Perry plastic box sets. I believe it's St Michael fighting a dragon, surrounded by sunbursts. I don't know the historical source for these flags, but they'll do fine for me regardless.
(The guy on the left is SF rider on SF horse, with a plastic Perry head. The guy on the right is metal Perry rider (with a plastic headswap) on a plastic Perry horse.)




I also made some simple flags myself on photoshop - the white cross of France on a variety of different colours, to match the liveries of their units. I'm going to have one big French unit in green and red, and most other units (both cavalry and infantry) in just red. That's the current plan anyway.
(On the left is SF rider, SF head, plastic Perry horse... On the right is SF rider, plastic Perry head, plastic Perry horse.)




So that's enough flags now for up to 4 French units and 3 Burgundian..... I think extra-large units will get 2 flags.


And here's a couple of new French men-at-arms I've painted in their smart green and red livery. The heads are conversions, with added plumes to make them look extra fancy. The sallet and bevor combo on the right is also a combination of two different heads.




And here's a cool conversion I rather like, a captain for one of he Burgundian units. He's the Perry metal Richard III model, with a Steel Fist headswap, on a plastic Perry horse. The horse head is from the Agincourt knights set, with an added big feather from the WOTR cavalry set.




And finally..... a German light cavalryman. It seems lots of German horsemen were hired by the towns across Burgundy who resisted the French. They were paid less than men-at-arms, so presumably were a lighter / poorer sort of cavalry. I'm going to interpret them as light cavalry, in small numbers.
This guy is a metal Perry with a headswap, from the Steel Fist swiss set.... on a Steel Fist horse. I think he works rather well, and looks suitably Germanic!






So that's it for now. Hopefully I can have some finished cavalry units to show you in a few months!

 

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