shrubs' 15th Century Germans other Medieval shenanigans

[shrubs]

Since Breezer asked so nicely in his thread, and not wanting to hijack his thread and detract from his wonderful painting, I thought I'd start my own.

The idea, much like Breezer's, is a 15th Century Germanic warband, based on the robber-barons that were prolific at the time as the power of Holy Roman Empire was weakening. Or so I gather from Wikipedia and my one Osprey book on the subject. I'm all ears for more, I know that there are folks around here that are much more proficient historians than I, and I am always happy to learn 

So the robber warband, or 'Raubritter' as a certain Sigur squirrel handily pointed out. Nothing more than a force for various skirmish games, mostly SoBH, LoTR and Frostgrave. Still need two longbowmen, a halberd, and a hand gunner for Frostgrave options.



A handy thing I've learned, take picture before you varnish. Varnish does not want to photograph well, and my painting needs all the help it can get. There is something like two coats brush on gloss and three of matte, because these are gaming miniatures and not for display! Or at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it 

I'm working on expanding/creating a new force for Lion rampant. Standard mix and match Perry plastics, going for what looks and creates an impression of a German force rather than 100% accuracy. I have about 26 guys for priming, but weather hasn't been cooperating on the when I've been ready. ahhh, spring.

The real thing holding me back, and yes it is silly, is what color I want to paint the new force. Should I expand and continue with my favorite Prussia blue and white, or start fresh with a green and yellow force? It's been over six weeks and I still can't decide 

Thanks for looking!

[Breazer]

very nicely done and thanks for posting. I'm curious what you are planning to paint up as in terms of units. Also fun to hear sigur helped you out a bit here and there. I talk a lot with him about the hobby.

The blue and white always does well.
I would also love to know what osprey book you got because I should really look into that.

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Hullo.

Yeah, I also take photos before I varnish (usually I don't varnish at all, unless customers ask for it specifically. On my own stuff I very rarely varnish at all. Messes with the colours.)

Anyway, good stuff. I'll keep an eye on this.


P.S.: Oh, and do not enrage the Breazy one. His wrath is legendary and rumour has it that he named his fists "left fist" and "right fist". That's how no-nonsense about punching people.

[Breazer]

Wait wut?

[Charlie_]

Nice! I like the guy in the middle drawing his sword. What's that on his back though?

[Arlequín]

The same goes for you as I said on Breazer's thread, interesting stuff! 

Have you considered red and white, or just red for your other force? You could check out coats of arms for German cities, they will give you ideas of what colour mixes were popular back then. Even the colours of the various Warhammer Empire armies can give some ideas.

[hallmarkFPS]

very nice, its great to see some more Germans out there!

[shrubs]

Why hello Sigur, fancy meeting you here Thanks for the kind words. I always worry about losing paint without varnish, how do your miniatures hold up over time?

Breazer, thank you!  I was thinking either being really boring and using the German list in the back of the book or something like:

6 pts Mounted Men @ Arms
4 pts Foot Serjents (pikes)
4 pts Foot Serjents (pikes)
3 pts Foot Yeomen (habreds to differentiate from the pikes)   
4 pts Crossbowmen
2 pts Bidowers (handgunners)

23pts (24 w/ drilled Mounted M@A)
                        
I have a vague .txt file that I copied that had someone's mods for Lion Rampant, War of the Roses style. Rules for pikes, etc. I'd repost/link it but I can't give credit where it's due. Hopefully someone know what I'm talking about? There were options to represent handgunners as bidowers, and actual pikemen.

The book I own is German Medieval Armies 1300-1500, Osprey Men-at-Arms 166. It's a good easy read with plenty of pictures, about what you'd expect from Osprey. It's where the idea for the robber warbands came from, and it has a short but interesting bit on troop levies, how they were armed, etc. Which is handy if one was inclined to make a very authentic host.

Charlie, thanks! He's tied with the pikeman with the deep sallet for my personal favorite. Good eye too, I actually forgot about that. My intrepid leader has a warhammer strapped to his back. 100% wargamey for sure 

Arlequín- thank you! I'll probably base the new force on Memmingen, given family history, coat of arms and its interesting status as an Imperial Free City, which gave it some autonomy in the HRE. Which begs the question, would their uniforms follow the coat of arms, or be something else. From a painting perspective, I can see my blue/white complementing the coat of arms, especially with a banner and pavises involved. Then again I'm not sure how these things would work historically.

I just found this from 1510- an interesting option and definitely a royal pain to paint. Might be worthwhile 

thanks hallmarkFPS, with two other 15th century German threads, I thought I'd jump in too 

[bluechi]

this is the heraldig of the Wittelsbacher(Bavaria). Most time not real confirm with the emporer .blue and White stands altough for Villingen. For Memmingen paint an eagle and a cross like there banner in the 16th century used...maybe. The City colours are black,red,white since 1488.

[Arlequín]

Memmingen's 'colours' have stayed black, red and white since at least 1488, according to Wikipedia and a couple of separate sources. So in this case they are colours taken from the coat of arms, with the exception of 'gold'.

While badges seem to be constant, livery colours seem to have changed over time. Presuming towns of the HRE followed a similar code as Flemish ones, you might have municipal employees in one livery and men levied for a particular campaign in another. Then there are guild liveries and mercenaries hired by the city.

Taking Ghent as an example, municipal employees apparently wore blue, with different coloured hoods or caps to denote their job, the 'police' wore white and iirc artillery and train wore blue and red respectively. Bruge had a similar but different colour set.

Troops raised in revolt in 1450s and 1480s seem to have wore a black livery, while 'ducal levies' wore blue and white in the 1470s and white and 'purple' (probably 'murray') in 1478-79; ducal colours being shared by all Flemish contingents.  

Ghent's 'shooter guilds' wore red (crossbows) and possibly red and green or blue (bows). Trade guild banners seem to have opted for red or blue fields, so possibly their members' liveries matched.

In all that's quite a set of liveries for one place and it may be the case that a single livery was worn by all on a campaign, or maybe not, it seems unclear. Ghent's arms are black with a white/silver lion, so the city in rebellion wearing black makes sense.

When you have hundreds or thousands of troops to outfit, I imagine cost and availability of cloth, contrasted with civic pride, might dictate what was worn more than 'city colours'. If it was me and I'm not saying I'm correct, I would opt for a core of professionals in the fetching three colour scheme, with the bulk of the force in a more simple one or two colour design.

The other possible option might be that a 'league' might all wear a single scheme, perhaps Bavarian blue and white. That being said the Swiss were a league and each contingent wore its own livery, so that might not be the case after all.

Sorry it's all a bit vague, but I expect we are looking for uniformity where there was none. I expect uniformity within a single 'company', but not probably across an army. Certainly the landsknechts apparently did not even have that if the legends are true.

Edit: Some places issued coloured hose as well as (or even instead of) livery jackets. Sometimes it seems to have matched the jacket colours, at other times it contrasted. So you could have black/white jacket versus white/black hose to create a checked effect, or maybe black/white jacket with red hose.

[bluechi]

so it is....red and black are expensive colours....the most colours would be white,brown,green for the poor ones. And the most cities or barons have no money for uniform. They could be happy to have enough weapons and Equipment for the soldiers.
It could be usefull  to paint every second or third miniatur in that colours. it makes it more realistic and it Looks altough a little bit uniformed.

Here some historical Raubritter who works together...Werner von Schienen,Hans Rechberg, Eberhard and Heinrich von Lupen and Albrecht and Hans Klingenberger(Hohentwiel). Altough famous is Bigerli von Heudorf .

[Arlequín]

This comes from Wappen des heyligen römischen Reichs teutscher Nation (1545), which the Bavarian State Library has kindly digitised here;

https://bildsuche.digitale-sammlungen.de/index.html?c=viewer&l=de&bandnummer=bsb00059192&pimage=00001&v=&nav=

bluechi makes an important point about Germany, in that knights and cities were mostly quite poor in comparison to those in some other areas. This would impact in many ways, not least that fully armoured men at arms were less common. The Perry 'Light Cavalry' box will supply your needs I would think.

[bluechi]

It is not better to make the seargants with helbards and the other with pikes ?

[Arlequín]

Perhaps, I think I would probably go for higher status troops with halberds and the rest with pikes. With so many citizens 'buying out' of service in the Late 15th Century and towns hiring mercenaries instead, you could argue either way I think.