Swiss before the 15th Century

[jauntyharrison]

I have an idea to use the Perry Brothers Agincourt French set to make a force of the Swiss in the 1380s, sort of for the Battle of Sempach. I feel like the set shouldn't contain anything inappropriate to the purpose, so long as I exclude the Men at Arms sprue. Those knights with bevor-plates or great-bascinets won't do. I'll probably kitbash some of the torsos from the Agincourt English set to make poor infantry with no aventails.

The only trouble is I'm not sure the set would be furnished with the right sort of polearms. Should I be clipping off spearheads to make halberds? I have a handful of command sprues from the Perry 15th C European Mercenaries that have halberd heads on them, but I'm not at all sure which halberds are appropriate to the 1380s. I've attached an image of that mercenary sprue below, my best guess is that the pair of halberd-heads on the far right are appropriate. However, it could be the case that the pair of halberd-heads on the far left are appropriate, and the far right ones are terribly old fashioned.

[Johnp4000]

I think you should have a look at the French Infantry box for Agincourt and some of the metal spearmen/billmen(in the same range) on the Perries website. I think they would give a better impression of a 14th century Swiss army. It is strange but in all my years of gaming have never seen this army on the tabletop, so I am not sure if they had any distinctive style in this period. From artwork which seems to mainly be drawn 100 years later, the equipment looks standard issue for the period.

[Patrice]

Halberds and "vouges" or "grandes guisarmes" were still uncommon in France in the second half of the 14th century, but the far-right ones on this sprue were certainly already in wide use in Swiss, Italy, Germany. To be accurate I would avoid the 2 far-left ones which IMHO have a distinctive 15th century look (?)

[Charlie_]

Halberds and "vouges" or "grandes guisarmes" were still uncommon in France in the second half of the 14th century, but the far-right ones on this sprue were certainly already in wide use in Swiss, Italy, Germany. To be accurate I would avoid the 2 far-left ones which IMHO have a distinctive 15th century look (?)

What would you call those ones on the far right? I've always thought they were 'voulges'.

[But one thing I've learnt is that trying to pin names on medieval polearms is essentially pointless (and debating / arguing about it even more so!) I think most of us can agree on what halberds, bills, glaives and poleaxes are... But beyond that, just calling them 'polearms' should suffice.]

[Patrice]

What would you call those ones on the far right? I've always thought they were 'voulges'.
[But one thing I've learnt is that trying to pin names on medieval polearms is essentially pointless]

Yes, I'd call voulges or vouges the two on the far right.

"Vouge" in French also means a rather similar tool for tree pollarding (although the word is old-fashioned and no more used in modern tool shops).

The two in the center could probably be called guisarmes or glaives.

A late 14th century poem written in old French about a group of Bretons entering Italy in 1376 mentions that they were met there by
"Grant foison de gens armez, Et de vilains o grant gisarmes, Qui nous cuidoient faire nos barbes"
( = many men-at-arms, and commoners with great "gisarmes", who believed they would shave our beards)...

[bluechi]

All of this hellbards heads are posible...the production of hallberda begins in the 1250's in Straßburg.the translation of helebarde from old german into new german ans finally in english would be axe on a stick. The problem with the perry box 1450-1500 is the body armour and the fren infantry box bodies are to armoured for historical swiss in the 14th...but the weapons are perfect...axes and short pikes...take the not armored from the 1450 box and mix it with the french infantry box.

[jauntyharrison]

Assembly has begun. I ended up taking the most conservative interpretation of the polearms. To my frustration, the halberdhead that is occasionally called "Sempach style" didn't turn up in any of the timely entries that I dug through on manuscript miniatures, so that one was excluded. I'm only using the voulge style heads. I'm really liking the look of the english (no aventail) bodies. I highly recommend that people should buy the English set paired with the french set, even if you don't want any archers. There are enough hand weapons, spears and crossbows in the french set to use up all of the english torsos, and you'll end up with a more diverse looking line of troops.