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Author Topic: Charlie's 15th century - Some long-overdue Burgundians! (Feb 28)  (Read 152740 times)

Offline Atheling

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - Theatres of war (August 7th)
« Reply #555 on: August 07, 2022, 07:22:30 PM »

The attempted relief of Arras (1477) - A Burgundian relief force was ambushed and routed.
The failed attack on Tournai (1477) - A disorganised Flemish army was defeated by a smaller French sortie, and the Duke of Guelders was killed.
The siege of Vesoul (1477) - Guillaume de Vaudrey sortied out at night and surprised the French siege camp.
The Battle of Émagny (1477) - The French fought to cross the River Ognon, which they eventually managed after taking heavy losses.
The first siege of Dole (1477) - The French bombarded the walls but their subsequent assaults on the breach failed. They settled in for a long siege, but were again surprised and routed by a night-time sortie.
The capture of Gray (1477) - Claude and Guillaume de Vaudrey scaled the walls at night and captured the town after hard fighting, though it was looted and set ablaze in the process.
The second siege of Dole (1479) - After methodically capturing the surrounding fortresses, the French under Charles d'Amboise managed to enter the town through trickery, as German reinforcements secretly in their pay opened the gates to them. Dole was subsequently sacked.
The Battle of Guinegate (1479) - A major pitched battle. Though the French cavalry routed their Burgundian counterparts they pursued them far from the field of battle, after which Maximilian's infantry defeated the French.
The failed attack on Hesdin (1481) - John de Berghes was tricked into leading a 'secret' assault over the walls at night. It was a trap, and the French were waiting for him.
The capture of Dordrecht (1481) - The Burgundians entered the town hidden in boats.
The Battle of Westbroek (1481) - The Burgundians lured the 'hook' rebels of Utrecht out of the town, where they were outnumbered and crushed.
The Siege of Utrecht (1483) - Maximilian besieged Utrecht - after bombardment and hard fighting the rebels in the city eventually accepted peace terms.
The Battle of Hollogne (1483) - Guillaume de la Marck was defeated by Philip of Cleves.
The Battle of Béthune (1487) - Maximilian's army was defeated by the French, who captured Engelbert of Nassau and Charles of Egmont. This battle seems to have been quite significant, but I've found no information on how it actually played out.
The Battle of Dixmude (1489) - Flemish rebels besieged the town of Dixmude, but were attacked and defeated by a force of landsknechts and English allies from nearby Calais.
The Battle of Brouwershaven (1490) - The 'hook' faction leader Franz van Brederode was attacked whilst raiding along the coast by John of Egmont. The battle began at sea and continued on the shore, were the hooks were defeated and van Brederode captured, later dying of his wounds.
The 'bread and cheese revolt' (1491-1492) - A peasant uprising in which several towns were captured, before it was put down by Albert of Saxony.
The recapture of Arras (1492) - Burgundians recaptured Arras, one of the most important towns in the French-held county of Artois.
The Battle of Dournon (1493) - As Maximilian moved to retake the Franche-Comté, a force of Burgundians and Germans (landsknechts) faced the French under Jean de Baudricourt and soundly defeated them.

Well, that's 19 Late Med. battles and sieges I know little or (mostly) nothing about!

Looking forward to reading more  8)

Offline Wiegraf

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - Theatres of war (August 7th)
« Reply #556 on: August 07, 2022, 08:15:50 PM »
The Francs-archers look great. I was thinking of using some of the war of the roses Perry lads in a similar fashion for my Savoyards I plan on doing whenever I get around to doing the later 15th century stuff.

Great to see all the different Wargames illustrated minis you have received. I'll have to get Lord Callan as well as I think he'll do nicely for the later 15th century. I plan to grab their Otto von Bismarck model when they release it, so that'll be a good time to jump on that.

Offline HappyChappy439

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - Theatres of war (August 7th)
« Reply #557 on: August 08, 2022, 04:52:07 PM »
Thanks for the write-up! It's definitely interesting to see the various battles and campaigns itemised like this, a lot of writing seems to de-emphasise the 'Burgundian-ness' of the period, in favour of Maximilian, so it's nice to see the acknowledgement of the Burgundians through the period!


The table of commanders at the end is also a huge help, trying to place where everyone is in this period can get a bit hectic at times!

Offline Charlie_

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - On the workbench (August 16th)
« Reply #558 on: August 16, 2022, 08:35:40 PM »
https://fullharness.blogspot.com/2022/08/on-workbench.html

On the workbench...

I've been gathering together various infantry figures for the next units, which will be French 'heavy infantry'. I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to group them together in units yet, so am going to go about this a bit differently, and just paint loads up and decide how the units should be put together afterwards.

I don't just want to use the Perry plastics exclusively, so have been looking at other manufacturers to see which ones will mix in well, with or without conversion work. Even if a range is proportioned a bit differently to Perry, quick headswaps go a long way to help them blend in, as long as they are not far too short in stature (i.e. Old Glory and Foundry).

One reason for doing this is I have a certain vision in my head of how the unit will look, and I want certain poses yet not have many noticeable duplicates. The Perry foot knight plastics are of course great but can look a bit too 'random' in large units, and I've never really liked the bill and halberd arm poses from the WOTR infantry plastic set (at least not in ranked up units).

So here's a brief summary of what I've found useable from other manufacturers. These are NOT reviews of the ranges or quality of the sculpts, but rather a look at how they can be integrated with Perry Miniatures if you are really fussy about this sort thing, like I am.

Front Rank - Generally chunkier and a bit shorter than Perry, and some of the poses are a bit stiff, but some of them could be made to blend in well. The weapons are a bit too chunky.

Venexia - A limited range, but some are very nice, though a little bit shorter than Perry. Come with separate heads and open hands, which is useful. Sold by Lancashire Games.

Grenadier - Kind of chunky, a bit inconsistent, but some are nice. The weapons are far too chunky though. This old range is now available from Forlorn Hope Games.

Athena
- Vary in size, some are taller than Perry, and overall somewhat slimmer, but should mix in fine.

Crusader
- A tiny bit shorter than Perry, probably not noticeable, somewhat slimmer and with tiny hands. Finely detailed.

I've cherry-picked some sculpts from these ranges to be used in the upcoming heavy infantry units, plus some for a Burgundian archer unit sometime in the future. Some I've given headswaps, and have manged to drill out and replace certain oversized weapons.

First thing to point out is I think Grenadier match really well with Front Rank - If anyone was to start a Front Rank WOTR project, they could mix in the Grenadier sculpts for more variety.



Next up, here are a selection of armoured men-at-arms from Perry, Athena and Steel Fist, to be used in my French infantry units. With the open-handed ones I mixed it up and gave them poleaxes from a variety of different manufacturers, to help them blend together (and just to be different!).



Here's two of the polearm infantry form Venexia - good sculpts which take Perry heads and new polearms perfectly. I really like the armoured one, he's going to be really useful for various units (I've got four of him in total).



Next up, two polearm infantry from Grenadier. I replaced their chunky weapons with better scaled alternatives (which required a bit of hacking and drilling). Some of the Grenadier sculpts have short little legs, but these ones scale perfectly with Perry.



And here's a scale comparison of various ranges for my polearm troops. I plan to mix these all in together. The two Venexia ones are slightly shorter, but I could happily raise them up a mm or two, no problem.



I've also got some archer conversions - I want to use as few of the Perry plastics as I can for my next archer unit, so wanted to find as many metal longbowmen from other ranges that could be made to mix in. I've done this before with Crusader Miniatures -give them new plastic Perry bow hands (from the Agincourt range preferably), and perhaps right hands and new heads too. A couple of the archers form Grenadier are  nice - the one here in particular, I just gave him a new bowhand for consistency. A few of the others Grenadier archers will probably need leg swaps if I was to use them....



I tried giving the same treatment to some Front Rank archers. The poses of the shooting ones are a bit stiff, and they do look chunky alongside the rest, but I think I'll use a few of them for sure, they can always be hidden inside the unit a bit.



And here's some archers from Athena. Some of these have really great poses, but they are somewhat inconsistent in size. The one on the left is a perfect mix for Perry, whereas a certain few others are comparatively massive. Many of their bows were bent and damaged, but that's just the problem of thin metal weapons - easily improved by replacing with plastic bow hands. The one on the right has a bow in pretty good shape though, so he'll keep his unless I manage to snap it by mistake!



Don't expect to see these conversions painted up in finished units for a long time, but I might keep you updated with future 'workbench' posts as I paint them up.

Offline Charlie_

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - French mounted crossbowmen (September 1st)
« Reply #559 on: September 01, 2022, 08:34:19 PM »
https://fullharness.blogspot.com

French mounted crossbowmen

A new small unit - French mounted crossbowmen!



These could represent mounted 'archers' of the Ordonnance companies among other things. I don't think they'd ever be seen in actual pitched battles, but could see plenty of action in smaller scale warfare. Skirmishes involving scouting missions, ambushes, baggage convoys... plenty of fuel for gaming scenarios. I've shared these thoughts before on my previous posts on French light cavalry and mounted crossbowmen.

All five models are converted in some way or another. All Perry Miniatures, two are plastics and three are metal. All have had metal headswaps - two are hacked from some Wargames Foundry sculpts, and another two are from Crusader Miniatures. All of them have been put on the Perry metal horses (which are smaller than the plastic ones), and most have required at least part of their saddles to be sculpted from scratch. One of the horses is actually from the Agincourt range.







And here they are joining forces with my earlier 'generic' mounted crossbowmen, to make a larger unit of 10.



I really like the look of these and how they're positioned on the bases - I plant do more light cavalry sometime in the future!

Offline magyar

  • Bookworm
  • Posts: 58
Re: Charlie's 15th century - French mounted crossbowmen (September 1st)
« Reply #560 on: September 02, 2022, 12:14:11 PM »
A lovely unit indeed!
I like the line-up, - seems like the guys are scanning the horizon on a look-up to kick some butt  lol

Offline HappyChappy439

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - French mounted crossbowmen (September 1st)
« Reply #561 on: September 02, 2022, 12:28:39 PM »
Excellent work! They absolutely look the part for all the raids and skirmishes across the two Burgundies!

Offline Wiegraf

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 301
Re: Charlie's 15th century - French mounted crossbowmen (September 1st)
« Reply #562 on: September 02, 2022, 11:03:44 PM »
They look great. Well done. Could easily represent the Savoyards as well. Chances are when I'm in this period I'll probably come back to your blog or the forum and check out how you went about doing all the units. :)

Offline LouieN

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - French mounted crossbowmen (September 1st)
« Reply #563 on: September 03, 2022, 10:05:34 PM »
An excellent unit. 

Offline Charlie_

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - Three French commanders (September 10th)
« Reply #564 on: September 10, 2022, 08:51:04 PM »
https://fullharness.blogspot.com/

Three French commanders

Some more commanders now, this time for the French side. Here we have Philippe de Hochberg, Jean de Damas and Jean de Salazar. These three were all involved in the southern theatre of the war (see The War in Burgundy for full details), and so should make good opponents for my many Burgundian nobles. As usual all the flags are swappable, so these particular figures can be used as any other nobles.




Jean de Damas, Lord of Digoine, Clessy and Saint-Amour (1423-1481) had previously served the Dukes of Burgundy. He was governor of the Mâconnais region (which had belonged to the dukes since 1435) and had been made a Knight of the Golden Fleece in 1468. Following the death of Charles the Bold in 1477 it wasn't long before he switched his allegiance to Louis XI, and handed Mâconnais over to the French. He was removed from the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1481, and died later the same year.

My Jean de Damas is a Perry metal commander with a headswap, the new one being from the Wargames Foundry WOTR range. His standard bearer is also from Wargames Foundry, but he is on a Perry metal horse.






Philip de Hochberg, Lord of Badenweiler (1454-1503) was a nobleman who had also previously served Charles the Bold and had been taken prisoner at the Battle of Nancy in 1477. Following his release he sided with France, and was made Marshal of Burgundy when the French occupied the duchy. He was also gifted with the confiscated territories of the Prince of Orange, though he had to return them following the Treaty of Arras in 1482. In 1487 he succeeded his father as Margrave of Hochberg-Sausenberg and Count of Neuchâtel, and was later made Grand Chamberlain of France (1491) and Grand Seneschal of Provence (1493).

My Philip de Hochberg is actually from the Athena Miniatures WOTR range, though I have replaced his hands with plastic Perry parts and put him on a metal Perry horse. The standard bearer and his horse are both Perry metals.

The heraldry I have used is conjectural - I have found his heraldry for when he succeeded his father, but at this point he was just the heir, so what I've used is his family arms quartered with the arms of Badenweiler. Interestingly these are the same as the Counts of Neuchâtel but in different colours.






Jean de Salazar
(1410-1479) was a veteran Spanish mercenary who had served France for many decades, even having fought alongside Joan of Arc in the Hundred Years War. In 1477 he fought in Burgundy, and was in command of the occupied town of Gray in the Franche-Comté when it was attacked during the night by Claude and Guillaume de Vaudrey. Taken by surprise, Salazar led the defence of the castle but was eventually forced to flee, wounded and badly burned. He escaped to the duchy, and despite his injuries he later managed to lead a sortie to turn back a Burgundian raid led by the Prince of Orange that had reached the gates of Dijon.

Interestingly there was another Jean de Salazar around this time who fought for the Burgundians, known as le petite Salazar. It's not known if the two were related.

My figure for Salazar is a plastic Perry man-at-arms with a Steel Fist plume, and his standard bearer is a metal Perry sculpt with a headswap, both on metal Perry horses.






In comparison to the Burgundians, the list of identifiable French commanders in this conflict is actually quite small, or at least I've not been able to identify that many of them. And of the three here, I've only found references to Jean de Salazar doing any actual fighting. The other two were involved in the campaign though - they both led armies into the Duchy of Burgundy in 1477 when it was in danger of rebellion, and Philippe de Hochberg was with Charles d'Amboise when he victoriously entered Besançon in 1479. I've already covered Georges de la Trémoille, and also talked about Gaston du Lion on my French light cavalry post. That leaves the one notable French leader for the southern campaign of 1477-1482 as Charles d'Amboise. He will get covered sometime in the future!
« Last Edit: September 11, 2022, 07:28:19 AM by Charlie_ »

Offline HappyChappy439

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - Three French commanders (September 10th)
« Reply #565 on: September 11, 2022, 06:14:03 AM »
Lovely work on the commanders! de Damas' Golden Fleece chain is a really nice touch

Also I didn't realise how old de Salazar was! It's quite a career he had

Offline Charlie_

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - Three French commanders (September 10th)
« Reply #566 on: September 12, 2022, 05:40:14 PM »
Lovely work on the commanders! de Damas' Golden Fleece chain is a really nice touch

Funnily enough that wasn't intentional, it was already on the figure (originally it was Henry VII). I was thinking it would be a good 'chain of office', and as he was governor or Maconnias it could be for that role. But yes, it could also perhaps be a Golden Fleece chain!

Several of the other Perry WOTR commanders I've used have them, and I have tried to reserve those models for commanders with some sort of high-ranking position.

Offline Ray Rivers

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 5911
Re: Charlie's 15th century - Three French commanders (September 10th)
« Reply #567 on: September 22, 2022, 02:19:40 PM »
Stonking new additions, Charlie!  :-*

Does it really matter that some of the minis are not of the same height or body type as the Perry ones? Seems like in a large army you would have all kinds of differently sized soldiers.

Offline Atheling

  • Elder God
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    • Just Add Water Wargaming Blog
Re: Charlie's 15th century - Three French commanders (September 10th)
« Reply #568 on: September 22, 2022, 02:40:43 PM »
Very deft brushwork Charlie  :-*
« Last Edit: September 22, 2022, 08:04:23 PM by Atheling »

Offline Charlie_

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Re: Charlie's 15th century - Three French commanders (September 10th)
« Reply #569 on: September 22, 2022, 07:29:28 PM »
Does it really matter that some of the minis are not of the same height or body type as the Perry ones? Seems like in a large army you would have all kinds of differently sized soldiers.

Ah well I'm just fussy!
Indeed some can mix in nicely with different 'body shapes', some of the Front Rank sculpts in particular, and simple head and hand swaps go a huge way in tying different ranges together.
What I try to avoid is things such as a whole unit being vastly different in size to others, or a unit of cavalry on big destriers led by a high-ranking noble on a fully armoured pony!

 

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