Just picked up on this thread and have to say that it is totally bloody brilliant...
*Snip*
...I have quite a few units, all marginally different, some weighted more to bows others more to bills, some with less MAA and some with more.
Thanks on behalf of anyone who's contributed to it. To be honest, I thought you would have been here earlier. I hope you have a note?
For me, 'skirmish' forces have a much easier time of representing 'real' formations. You can build the forces of one 'Lord', drawn from one 'Manor' and within reasonable parameters give a fair approximation of such a force. If you want to crib from the various Tudor musters that survive, you can virtually reproduce the real thing.
https://sites.google.com/site/winterbournesteepletonopc/tudor-muster-rollsThat's one example and despite being from 1542, would probably not differ overly from one from 1475... almost certainly the family names would be identical in the main too. Despite the 'decline of archery' that is supposed, there are still a lot of archers.
http://www.wing-ops.org.uk/muster1522.htmlThis one takes a bit more working out, but is also closer to our period. Add together value of land and goods and you'll see where they were supposed to fit into the schematic in my other post. Seemingly there was some shuffling of commitments, as some people are supplying multiples of a weapon type, instead of 'rising a class' in the hierarchy... so there was some flexibility in play too... presumably at the Commissioner's discretion.
Obviously women landholders, like the 'Prioress', would have to find hire someone to fulfil her commitment, in her case a Spear and an Archer. They might hire a professional, or in the case of the archer, perhaps find a volunteer amongst their 'unfree' tenants.
The main point though is that one village/hundred/county will not be the same as the next and there was no even distribution of types, other than as a general overall 'trend'. By varying your forces, you are, in my opinion at least, doing it right.
Arlequin:
Thanks for your opinion.
My take on Skirmishers in Armati is that they are the peasants armed with simple weapons or crossbow skirmishers to harass the enemy and put a few hits on them.
You're welcome... though what my opinion is worth is suspect.
I'm sure there were guys who could skirmish with the best of them, but they were also the same guys who stood shoulder to shoulder with their fellows. Restricting them to be nothing but skirmishers is perhaps doing them a disservice historically speaking. That being said, it's very hard to build in that kind of flexibility into a set of rules... so no easy answer to that really.
Ok, I'm going to throw another wrench into all of this:
What are the differences from the WOR period to Renaissance. In particular early period.
This query is due to the Burgundian army I am currently painting. We are trying to decide the best way to handle Longbow within this army.
During the WOR, Armati 2 allows for Longbow to stand in front of Bill then melt into them once melee is imminent.
They add their fighting power to the melee Bill as well.
However the Burgundians did not do this, or did they?
I know Charles tried to mix bow with hand weapons on occasion but was it successful? Would the above rule be to liberal for this period?
The other discussion we had was to just make Longbow a Skirmish type unit.
Burgundians aren't my speciality by any stretch, although I'm currently digging into the period after Charles's death (and I thought WotR was hard going!). The main point is that effectively the Ordonnance Companies were a standing army (not quite literally, but close enough), they drilled, they tried out innovative ideas... quite advanced stuff for the day. We have no proof that these ideas were actually used in battle, or whether they were shelved after they didn't work out in practice.
The bow/pike experiment appears to have involved the archers forming up within a combined unit, with several ranks of pikes to the front. They would kneel, allowing the archers to shoot over them. No counter-marching or exchanging of ranks required. How many companies tried this out, we don't know and even if universal within the Ordonnance Companies (very doubtful as the border garrisons were almost constantly involved in raiding and counter-raiding), it wouldn't apply to the contingents raised from the Flemish cities for the duration of the campaign, as well as the English and Italians hired, who almost certainly contained 'native' troop types and compositions - in other words they weren't organised like the 'Burgundian Companies'.
Contemporary illustrations that have survived (believed to be c.1475), show a single row of archers in front of a single row of voulgiers (as opposed to the 'mounted' pic, which has the archers to the rear). As the archers in the 'Infantry' picture are wearing riding boots, I'm almost certain that these illustrations represent the mounted archer and 'coutilier' of the companies, especially as the third illustration shows a single row of men at arms without other troops.
What is odd is that the 'Infantry' picture shows a single rank of archers, instead of a double rank, like the 'mounted' picture does... besides the fact that both infantry and mounted troops (and men at arms) are depicted behind a row of stakes of course. How much 'artistic licence' has been used therefore is hard to determine, but they are the best 'evidence' we have. As the book they came from belonged to one of Charles's senior commanders and Charles himself would almost certainly have had a copy (he was an avid book collector), I suspect they would not be too far from the 'truth'.
There are a few 'Burgundian' fans on LAF, who may have overlooked this thread, themed as it is for the WotR. I suggest a separate topic including 'Burgundians' in the title, which is sure to draw a much more knowledgeable response than mine... which has been largely composed of information that I've discarded from what I've needed, rather than the actual focus of my research.
24 July 2012, 01:41:45 PM
