https://fullharness.blogspot.com/French infantry reinforcementsAt last, here's another 'proper' unit. More French heavy infantry.
This unit is 20-strong and in stationary/defensive poses, whereas the last one was 30-strong in advancing/attacking poses. These two methods of basing seems to work well, and is what I'll stick to from now on for close order infantry - advancing units in three or more ranks, and defending units like this one and all my archer units in just two ranks. I'm part way through another unit like this for the Burgundian side, and there will be more bases to expand them both in different ways in the future.
This unit features the three painted examples of my commissioned sculpts I showed the other day - more of them will be appearing in future infantry units! As you can see they fit in very well alongside Perry sculpts (helped by the fact that they mostly are using Perry plastic heads). One of the other bodies is also from the same sculptor, one of the 'dollies' which is now sold by Steel Fist Miniatures. There's also three of the original Steel Fist foot knights in the unit. There's various other conversions in here, but I think I've shown the most interesting ones previously. My favourites are the two plastic Perrys with new riding boots. I put special care in to how all the figures are positioned in the units, so the most interesting ones are in prime positions for photography - I don't want them to get lost in the middle of all their less interesting friends!
This unit is supposed to represent a somewhat informal grouping of French soldiers - dismounted men-at-arms and others from the ordonnance companies, grouped together with francs-archers and other lower-ranking types. I think I prefer this approach to having them all in separate units. After basing them I felt there was a bit too much empty space at a certain place in the unit, so filled it with a solitary pavise, which I think has worked quite nicely!
I've given them two flags - one is an ordonnance company standard, the other a heraldic banner which can be swapped out to represent different nobles - currently the unit is under the command of Jean du Bellay, who was captain of an ordonnance company in 1475 (and I'm presuming was still there from 1477 onwards).
25 January 2014, 08:31:28 PM
