Perry Agincourt Archers News

[Dilettante Gamer]

Sa-WEET!

[affun]

I will say that I am majorly excited by this set. 1 box is enough for an entire Lion Rampant army, and I just so happen to be starting that since I had a most excellent demonstration of the game this weekend at Horisont.
If I mix in a few of the WoTR (anakronistic heresy!) I have, that should be enough for 2 armies.

[Arthur]

Now available for pre-order with the usual three-box deal and freebie miniature for you big spenders out there :



http://www.perry-miniatures.com/product_info.php?products_id=3217

[Percal]

Damn, that Henry V is great! Shame it only comes with the deal.

[tomrommel1]

ordered a box will use it for Stark archers for GoT

[PAULSPENCE]

Shame they're not metal!

Cheers,

Paul

[Chesh]

Do I need three boxes, don't I need three boxes.  Does Henry look nice and shy, yes!

[Mick_in_Switzerland]

Going back to the subject of old armour

"By the end of the WOTR, 1485, I'd be surprised to hear of anyone in a suit of armour 60+ years old, but then again I suppose anything's possible."

I was in Bangladesh recently and many soldiers and security guards had Lee Enfield rifles that were probably made in 1939-45.
I have just seen a photo on BBC of an Indian soldier with a Bren Gun - also a WW2 weapon.
http://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-30226487

The Alteszeughaus (Old County Armoury) in Solithurn has hundreds of breastplates and helmets from the 1500s. 
The town kept large war stocks and the armoury is now a museum.
They also have hundreds of Napoleonic muskets and WW1 and WW2 rifles on display.

I think armour was very valuable and would have been preserved and repaired and reused. 
60 years old was probably not unusual.
The "throw away" society is less than 50 years old.
Mick

Mick

[former user]

armour was valuable, true, but in Your examples You compare apples and pears.
first of all, different periods, then, different social organization and different purpose of the weapons.

have You considered why we have a record of the HYW armour mostly from artistic evidence (paintings and grave sculpture) whereas so many WotR era armour sets (and of course later) have survived in armouries?

too many aspects to discuss actually

[Captain Blood]

I think armour was very valuable and would have been preserved and repaired and reused. 

I think you're right Mick.

There's documentary / pictorial evidence that late-Elizabethan era burgonets were still being worn during the English Civil War. These would be 50-odd year old pieces of armour. In which case, is it so far-fetched to suggest that someone who wore armour at Orleans in 1429 might have worn it again - or perhaps passed it onto his son to wear - at St Albans in 1455? Provided it's well looked after, armour can last a lifetime and well beyond - which is how we still have hundreds of thousands of examples of centuries-old medieval armour in museum collections all across Europe and beyond.

No doubt the very wealthy would want the latest armour style and technology, and could afford to change their full 'white' harness every few years. But the common soldier was probably happy with whatever serviceable helmet and back-and-breast he could lay his hands on, if it might help preserve his life on the battlefield...

Anyway, speculation aside, I've ordered my box. Can't wait 

[former user]

Yes, I can only speculate.
I wonder if someone could recommend some comprehensive armour book that would help illuminate the different socio-economic role of armour (the fighting role is obvious) through the periods.

As to the fighting: I wonder, since WotR armour was so much more elaborate, fluted, light, compact and covering all around - as to reflect the improved necessity of protection (or other reasons?), how this would reflect on 25 year old armour that was less elaborate and covering and relying more on chainmail, and heavier (and probably less elaborate metallurgy?). Would someone really take upon him the disadvantages of a full suit of this kind or rather prefer a less armoured role, but with few modern quality plate pieces? I am not that familiar with the changes in weapon characteristics and penetration power during the 25 years. I would however doubt that armour got better for fancy reasons?

all of these speculations in absence of real knowledge in this case....
here is btw a nice systematic typology of helmets


what I know for sure is that after the decline of the armoured knight role in battle (cost? mobility?), armour production went down the hill in quality (apart from what the wealthy could afford) up to the TYW and ECW. a late elizabethan era burgonet would therefore be superior in quality whereas it's function wouldn't have changed much. In lack of specialist armoury expertise, I am inclined towards "context matters" ;-)

[Vermis]

Blimey former user, that looks useful. Nicked!

I believe the French will have less white armour and more tabards.

Might wait for those for my own fantasy ideas. I'm too influenced by The Mountain.

It's gonna be a hard wait, though. The white armoured guys are spiffy. I could start on some Lannisters, maybe.

[Steel fist]

I think old armour would have been extant, but it would have been modernised, for poor nobility they would have had it adjusted, and maybe put some new bits on it, so you could use these new bodies with some bits from the wtor sets,
if you want to use both sets a 1440s hyw army would have seen most of these styles on the field at once, including the archers, that would give some real variation!
If you want pictures of this the osprey book for the siege or Orleans illustrated by graham turner, shows armets sallets and bacinets all on the same battlefield and that was by 1429

[Captain Blood]

Yes indeed. Also in Graham Turner's plates for David Nicolle's 'The Fall of English France' (1447 - 1453), which again depicts the crossover between styles of armour. (Graham Turner is one of the leading experts on Medieval arms, armour and combat around - http://www.studio88.co.uk/acatalog/Graham_Turner.html).

It's the classic 'wargamer's-eye view' to think there would have been a hard cut-off in styles of armour mid-way between the end of the Hundred Years War and the start of the Wars of The Roses.
These wars were part of a single historical continuum, separated by little more than two decades. During that brief lull, all sorts of local and regional hostilities continued. Warfare didn't stop.
Just because we wargamers have mentally categorised them as two separate 'periods', doesn't mean everybody stopped using one set of kit and switched to a completely different look overnight. Like most trends in technology and fashion, it would have been a gradual evolution.

[whiskey priest]

I read somewhere that the cost of a full set of plate was equivalent to the cost of a farm so you can imagine that only the very wealthy would have had the disposable income to have bought a new harness just because of fashion. Armour also takes a while to be made as you can imagine so in an emergency such as a civil war (rather than a planned military campaign in france for instance) there isn't the time to visit flanders, southern germany or northern italy to have them measure you up and get the armour made from scratch. You would have to use what was available at the time and if it happened to be daddies set then it's better than going into battle without anything on!