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Author Topic: Charlie's 15th century - Some long-overdue Burgundians! (Feb 28)  (Read 152774 times)

Offline HappyChappy439

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - some mounted crossbowmen (June 2)
« Reply #420 on: June 02, 2021, 11:00:21 PM »
Great work!

The basing idea is good, gets across the 'skirmishing' feel without needing individual bases for it

The conversion and the headswaps are effective too, to give them a more solid 'continental' look (as opposed to specifically WotR). Though do you ever run into the problem of having a drought of sallets and kettle-helms as well?   lol

Offline Hu Rhu

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - some mounted crossbowmen (June 2)
« Reply #421 on: June 03, 2021, 11:28:58 AM »
They are wonderful, especially the converted Foundry figure.  :-* :-* :-*

Offline Charlie_

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - some mounted crossbowmen (June 2)
« Reply #422 on: June 03, 2021, 07:47:39 PM »
Thanks!

The basing idea is good, gets across the 'skirmishing' feel without needing individual bases for it

The conversion and the headswaps are effective too, to give them a more solid 'continental' look (as opposed to specifically WotR). Though do you ever run into the problem of having a drought of sallets and kettle-helms as well?   lol

Yes I'm very pleased with the base layout. I used to have my cavalry all based individually but realised I hated the look of light cavalry in open order like this, and they look so much better based in twos on 50x100mm bases or something similar. This was an experiment as I wanted a small unit of 5, so 2 one base 3 on the other. I'm having troubling thoughts now about rebasing all my existing cavalry sometime..... but don't know if I'd ever dare, there are over 100 of them, and most of them are plastic horses fixed to plastic bases with poly cement, so it won't be simple to remove them without risk.....

I haven't ever run out of sallets, but I do have to be careful not to misplace any of those deep-rimmed kettle helmets which I really like.

Offline Charlie_

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - Claude de Toulongeon (June 22)
« Reply #423 on: June 22, 2021, 08:29:27 PM »
Today I have the first of many commanders I have planned, to represent various interesting characters from the War of the Burgundian Succession.

This is Claude de Toulongeon, lord of La Bastie. Previously chamberlain to Philip the Good, he was one of the many Burgundian nobles who resisted the French invasion of 1477. The Burgundian heartland was divided into the French Duchy of Burgundy and the Franche-Comté (the County of Burgundy) which was part  of the Holy Roman Empire. The Duchy was quickly brought under French rule, but the County soon fought back. Toulongeon was one of the Burgundian leaders who took the fight to the French- he led a force of Swiss mercenaries west into the Duchy and raided the county of Charolais. When things started to go against the rebels in 1479, he was among the last to surrender, defying the French and retreating to the mountains. He finally submitted in the spring of 1480, and avoided the fate of many of his fellow rebels who had been executed.

I'm not entirely sure of where his allegiances lay shortly after this - he was made a Knight of the Golden Fleece by Maximilian in 1481, but apparently the French also made him lieutenant-general of the newly conquered Franche-Comté.

I've tried to trace his lineage and it is a little bit confusing. His father Antoine de Toulongeon had also been a Knight of the Golden Fleece, but he is sometimes referred to as his grandfather. It seems there was another Claude - my main source has the sons of Antoine being Jean and Claude, and Jean also having a son called Claude. By 1477 both Antoine and Jean are dead, and both Claudes are alive - the younger Claude presumably being the head of the family, with our Claude being his uncle.

My first source for his heraldry was the fantastic wappenwiki site - http://wappenwiki.org/index.php?title=Order_of_the_Golden_Fleece_-_Habsburg, but I've since found the following image, from his own Book of Hours..... It seems to show the quarters 'reversed' - this might make sense, as if my family tree is correct he wouldn't be the head of the family but a younger son, and would presumably need a way of differencing his arms from his father and elder brother? I will continue looking into it......




Anyway, here he is. Both Claude and his standard bearer are originally from the Perry WOTR scurrers command set, with new plastic headswaps, and put on stationary horses from other Perry WOTR metal sets.







And here's a secret... the flag is removable. I don't plan to paint up a command stand for every character, so on most of them the flags can be swapped out. So maybe some day in the future you'll see this same guy with a different flag!

If you want to read more about the War of the Burgundian Succession, here's my thread about it with a link to what I've been writing.

« Last Edit: June 23, 2021, 05:24:08 PM by Charlie_ »

Offline DintheDin

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - Claude de Toulongeon (June 22)
« Reply #424 on: June 22, 2021, 08:50:28 PM »
Impressive job and great flexible idea with the removable flag! Cheers!
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 Atheling

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - Claude de Toulongeon (June 22)
« Reply #425 on: June 23, 2021, 07:14:59 AM »
Excellent brushwork Charlie  :-*

Offline OSHIROmodels

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - Claude de Toulongeon (June 22)
« Reply #426 on: June 23, 2021, 07:24:10 AM »
Lovely  :)
cheers

James

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Offline Hu Rhu

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - Claude de Toulongeon (June 22)
« Reply #427 on: June 23, 2021, 08:06:53 AM »
Excellent painting and nice conversions.   :-* :-* :-* :-* 

I've stolen borrowed your idea for making the flags removable for my minor nobles in the WotR.  It works a treat.

Offline Charlie_

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - Claude de Toulongeon (June 22)
« Reply #428 on: June 23, 2021, 05:20:33 PM »
Thanks all.

I've stolen borrowed your idea for making the flags removable for my minor nobles in the WotR.  It works a treat.

I cannot claim it's my idea, I think I first saw it on the olicanalad blog (link). Though he uses some sort of brass tubing to wrap the paper flags around, I don't - mine are technically more fragile but i don't intend to be throwing them around a lot, and if a flag ever did get damaged I can just print off a new copy!

I've just updated the original post to add a link to my thread on the Burgundian Succession - follow if you are interested in reading more!


Offline HappyChappy439

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - Claude de Toulongeon (June 22)
« Reply #429 on: June 25, 2021, 12:44:25 AM »
Nice work, the conversion is subtle, but really effective to make the figures stand out as Burgundian!

Interesting point about the heraldry too, it's a shame the Habsburgs weren't quite as thorough keeping armorials of their Golden Fleece inductees as the Burgundians were! It'd be interesting to cross-reference against the Book of Hours to compare with the other Toulongeons



 

Offline Charlie_

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - Claude de Toulongeon (June 22)
« Reply #430 on: June 25, 2021, 06:00:40 PM »
Interesting point about the heraldry too, it's a shame the Habsburgs weren't quite as thorough keeping armorials of their Golden Fleece inductees as the Burgundians were! It'd be interesting to cross-reference against the Book of Hours to compare with the other Toulongeons

Having searched around some more, I can say that the Toulongeon family arms have been depicted both ways, as in A-B-A-B and B-A-B-A... There were three members of the family in the Order of the Golden Fleece, and I have found no answer yet as to which way round is 'correct', nor whether perhaps having them 'reversed' was significant, for a younger son perhaps. And I've found references to both older members of the family having their arms differenced, one with a label and one with a blue border, but also I've seen both of them just using the basic family arms.
So who knows! I guess i'll stick with the 'basic' version for my Claude for now.

Offline Charlie_

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - two more commanders (July 20)
« Reply #431 on: July 20, 2021, 08:31:46 PM »
I've got two more commanders for you today, both characters from the War of Burgundian Succession.

First off is Georges de la Trémoille, Lord of Craon. He was a younger son from a quite significant French family - his nephew was the famous Louis de la Trémoille. In 1477 after the death of Charles the Bold, Louis XI invaded both the Burgundian Low Countries and the Duchy and County (Franche-Comte) of Burgundy in the south. La Trémoille led the French invasion force that entered the Burgundian heartland, alongside the Prince of Orange (more on him in the future!). The duchy was quickly conquered, though the county to the east (which was part of the Holy Roman Empire rather than a French fief) proved more troublesome.
La Trémoille royally messed up. He offended the Prince of Orange, who switched sides and led all the Comtois nobility who were still loyal to Burgundy in a rebellion. La Trémoille wasn't very popular due to his excessive pride and ill-treatment of the locals. He was twice surprised by nighttime sorties whilst besieging towns - first at Vesoul and then at Dole, on both occasions his camp was attacked, his army routed and his artillery captured! He did win one costly victory against the rebels at the bridge of Emagny, but by the end of the year all the French had been driven out of the county. Louis Xi was not pleased, and La Trémoille was dismissed from his duties - he did return home wealthy from all his plundering though. He died in 1481, with no heirs.
Philip de Commynes described him as 'a very fat man'.

Here's my representation of him - it's a mix of Perry and Steel Fist.  La Trémoille is a Perry metal WOTR commander with a plastic headswap, on a Steel Fist horse. His standard bearer is a Steel Fist late medieval rider on a Steel Fist horse, with a plastic Perry head.







And next up is Simon de Quingey, a Burgundian who had served Charles the Bold and fought at Grandson, Morat and Nancy. In 1477 he remained loyal to Duchess Mary. He was one of the many nobles who was part of the Prince of Orange's rebellion in the south. He was actually in command of the Dole garrison when it was besieged by La Trémoille, so presumably was responsible for the successful sortie against him!
However in 1478, after the rebels had captured some places in the duchy of Burgundy, he led a force of 600 German mercenaries to reinforce the town of Beaune. He stopped at Verdun along the way, where he was attacked by the new Governor of Burgundy, Charles d'Amboise (he had replaced La Trémoille and was much more effective as a leader). De Quingey was captured, and was imprisoned in an iron cage (a fate that befell many captured Burgundians). He refused to swear allegiance to Louis XI, and was apparently kept in captivity for many years until he fell ill and was finally freed. He died in 1523.

I've used the Perry metals for Simon and his standard bearer. Simon has had a simple headswap which I feel, along with choosing a specific horse, has completely transformed the original sculpt, he's one of my favourite conversions! I'm very pleased with the white horse too...




« Last Edit: July 20, 2021, 08:39:30 PM by Charlie_ »

Offline Atheling

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - two more commanders (July 20)
« Reply #432 on: July 20, 2021, 08:47:40 PM »
Lovely work Charlie  :-*

Fab stuff all 'round but there's nothing quite like a well painted white horse to set off a base.  8)

Always great to see someone really digging into their own research too.

I was wondering, for future reference for me too, what other sources other then Philip de Commynes have you used?

Offline Hu Rhu

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - two more commanders (July 20)
« Reply #433 on: July 21, 2021, 09:46:51 AM »
Fabulous figures, great conversions and painting.  Also the back story makes the characters come alive.  Wonderful stuff.  :-* :-* :-*

Offline HappyChappy439

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - two more commanders (July 20)
« Reply #434 on: July 21, 2021, 10:32:36 AM »
Excellent work! The headswaps really make the most of the WotR command figures, and great paintwork on the horses too

I wonder why Louis XI was so keen on iron cages though! It was definitely part of his 'brand' when it came to Burgundian prisoners

 

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