Charlie's 15th century - Some long-overdue Burgundians! (Feb 28)

[AKULA]

Top work Charlie - 100 Cavalry is enough to give any Wargames army quite a punch

Clever idea with the banners 

[Muzfish4]

What a magnificent sight!

[OSHIROmodels]

Splendid 

[Charlie_]

I've started work on some French infantry for the War of Burgundian Succession.
French armies of the late 15th century were based around the ordonnance companies, which provided men-at-arms and mounted archers. Obviously the men-at-arms usually fought mounted as heavy cavalry. The archers we can assume usually fought dismounted as missile troops, either longbowmen or crossbowmen. I also believe they were more than just missile troops, and could be found fighting on foot with polearms and serving as light/medium cavalry with lances (indeed by the 16th century they had actually become armoured lancers), but this post is about them as longbowmen.

So, French longbowmen!

These are a mix of Perry plastics and Crusader Miniatures metals, with various conversions.
The Crusader 'WOTR' range is a limited but very nice one. It looks to me like a range that was started but abandoned for some reason. The archers in particular are very nice, in really good poses. They scale well with Perrys, though are on average a few mm shorter. They are very slender and delicate with fine details - lots of fiddly belts, straps and pouches. One criticism is they have very small hands. They have a nice selection of armours and clothing, one oversight though is the archers don't have arm bracers - oh well. Some of them have really nice longswords too.

The main conversion here is I have replaced all the bow-hands from the plastic Perry WOTR figures with those from the Perry Agincourt plastics. These bows seem much more realistically proportioned to me - longer, not so thick. I daresay the Agincourt plastics are technically better sculpts than the WOTR plastics. Another cool thing about them is some and clearly in a bent / drawn back position, and some are unbent. In contrast all the WOTR bows are identical.

See here, before and after. What do you think?



And I've also given the Agincourt bows to all the Crusader metals. In some cases I have also replaced the right hands too (and in retrospect I wish I'd done it to all of them). The original Crusader bows are quite short, and being metal are prone to bending of course. Most of the Crusader archers have also had headswaps. Here's the best example (though he actually isn't in this unit and hasn't been painted yet!). Before and after - a much better bow, new hands, and the slightly different position of his new head I think has completely improved his posture. What do you think?



Here are all of the Crusader archer conversions. A couple of them had the bows, the arrows stuck in the ground and their left legs all joined together. In removing the bows, I had to also remove the arrows and carve away the excess metal from their legs. I covered up the damage with new plastic arrows.



Another conversion was adding riding boots out of green stuff to some of the plastics, which helps signify that they are 'mounted' archers, dismounted for battle. Some of the Crusader metals already had boots.




And here's the finished unit! I've put them in red livery jackets with the white cross of France, but varying it a bit throughout so it's not quite a uniform.
















This chap in the blue brigandine is my absolute favourite, so I made sure he went in a prominent position.




I've got a second unit of these planned, using mostly the same figures but all converted enough to avoid clones ( and there is the one Crusader sculpt I haven't used in this first unit). I think I'll make sure more of them have the high style of riding boots.


The other sort of French infantry I need are the so-called franc-archers. These were basically a sort of part-time militia called up in times of war, whereas the ordonnance troop were full-time professionals. The franc-archers  didn't have a very good reputation and were disbanded by Louis XI sometime after 1479 in favour of hiring Swiss mercenaries (though they were recruited again under Charles VIII). For them I've chosen to use the excellent metal marching archers and billmen from Perry, mixed with a few plastics and lots of headswaps of course. Here's the first unit waiting in the painting queue!

[DintheDin]

A splendid array of archers in their livery and red Banner! 

[fred]

Great work Charlie. Impressive conversions, how did you get so many spare bows from the Agincourt set?  Changing the firing hand and the arrow bundles is true dedication!

The overall results are very impressive.

[Ray Rivers]

Another beautiful unit, mate!

Well done! 

[Stuart]

Excellent work Charlie. Really like the livery jackets and your consistently neat brushwork.

Did some of these end up at Bosworth or have I imagined that?

[Captain Blood]

Lovely job Charlie.
I agree the longer, more slender longbows in the Agincourt English set are better than the rather short, chunky ones in the WOTR set.
(I guess, in defence of Michael, who sculpted the original WOTR set, it was one of the first plastic sets they made, a good ten years ago).
The Crusader Miniatures figures are actually really nice. Might have to get a few. They don’t look like Mark Sims’ usual work at all. Much more slender and less munchkin-like. Interesting... I wonder if someone else sculpted these, or if he just changed his usual stocky style for this range...
Nice Green Stuff work too

[Atheling]

Fab work Charlie- some very fine crisp brushwork 

I agree re: the WoR plastic longbows vs the 'HYW' plastic longbows. The latter are much more the correct size.

[Charlie_]

Thank you all! I am very pleased with how they've turned out.

Great work Charlie. Impressive conversions, how did you get so many spare bows from the Agincourt set?  Changing the firing hand and the arrow bundles is true dedication!

I have a lot of Agincourt archers with no hands!!!
Well I bought a box of them when they first came out, used a few bits at the time but never really did much with them. So that gave me 24 pars of archers hands needing jobs.
I will need to buy a second box for the next unit though.... There are other useful things in it I make use of, the swords, bucklers, stakes and arrows. But yeah I do have lots of bodies and heads, if anyone needs them?

Did some of these end up at Bosworth or have I imagined that?

I'm not entirely sure... I believe there were French soldiers in Henry Tudor's army, but what exactly they were is up for debate. Perhaps otherwise out-of-work mercenaries, men who had served in the ordonnance companies or franc-archers and were looking for a new campaign to go on? In fact now that you bring it up, it would make sense that Tudor's frenchmen would have been fighting in Flanders or Burgundy just a few years ago.... In particular the 1477-1481.... so yes, some of these archers might well have found themselves crossing the channel a few years later!

I agree the longer, more slender longbows in the Agincourt English set are better than the rather short, chunky ones in the WOTR set.
(I guess, in defence of Michael, who sculpted the original WOTR set, it was one of the first plastic sets they made, a good ten years ago).

Yes, I reckon that is the case.

The Crusader Miniatures figures are actually really nice. Might have to get a few. They don’t look like Mark Sims’ usual work at all. Much more slender and less munchkin-like. Interesting... I wonder if someone else sculpted these, or if he just changed his usual stocky style for this range...

Yes they are good! I think they were from another company originally and ended up at Crusader, so no doubt a different sculptor. It's severely lacking as a WOTR range - it has 8 archers, 4 crossbowmen, 4 handgunners, and 12 'pikemen' which to me look like they were designed as standard bearers. It has a very few mounted men-at-arms but none on foot.

[HappyChappy439]

Excellent work! and agreed with everyone else, the HYW bows work great proportionately!

I also believe they were more than just missile troops, and could be found fighting on foot with polearms and serving as light/medium cavalry with lances (indeed by the 16th century they had actually become armoured lancers), but this post is about them as longbowmen.

So, French longbowmen!

The "archers aren't necessarily actually archers" thing has stung me more than once! I've seen the word "vougiers" used for polearm-armed infantry, but usually only from more recent historians, rather than contemporary musters where they just use "archiers/archers" or "gens de trait" most of the time by the looks of things. At least it gives some room for versatility!   

Thanks for showing the Crusader range too, didn't realise how well they'd work with the Perry sculpts!

Keep up the great work!

[tomrommel1]

very nice additions

[Charlie_]

Excellent work! and agreed with everyone else, the HYW bows work great proportionately!

The "archers aren't necessarily actually archers" thing has stung me more than once! I've seen the word "vougiers" used for polearm-armed infantry, but usually only from more recent historians, rather than contemporary musters where they just use "archiers/archers" or "gens de trait" most of the time by the looks of things. At least it gives some room for versatility!   

Yes, I think its very reasonable to argue that 'archer' and 'man-at-arms' are used in administrative records as a rank determining rate of pay. The actual 'archer' may or may not be armed with a longbow or crossbow, he is just a lower ranking, less well armoured soldier than the man-at-arms. It's pretty much the same argument you sometimes find with English armies during the WOTR.
Though the Burgundian ordonnance obviously do list separate archers, pikemen, handgunners etc... I wonder if the reason the French ones just listed men-at-arms and 'archers' is because the latter were more all-round soldiers, capable of fighting as missile  troops, heavy infantry with polearms, and medium/light cavalry? Charles the Bold just decided to go into more detail with what he wanted.

[Atheling]

Charles the Bold just decided to go into more detail with what he wanted.

I think you have hit the nail on the head with that one. He certainly had an eye for detail.