Swiss Crossbowmen

 Here are some Swiss crossbowmen on foot, after their mounted counterparts of some months ago. These are Perry plastics, with some Perry metal Swiss heads mixed in. The flag is from the excellent Pete's Flags.

 

 

With these miniatures I have tried to give an impression of mixed origins, with soldiers hailing from different cantons and dressed in their personal clothes, while still forming a coherent all. Some of the men are reloading, some are marching, some are shooting. This is to represent the skirmishers advancing ahead or on the flanks of the main body, harrasing the enemy and keeping the pressure up.

Burgundian Ordonance Infantry

 It has been a while since the last update, but I have made some progress on my late medieval project. I have added some infantry to my Burgundian force, namely some halbardiers and some skirmishing handgunners. 

The halbardiers are lead by a man-at-arm with a converted bend, the pattern for which I shamelessly copied from Simon's excellent blog. The flag is from the Krigsspil website (https://web.archive.org/web/20120117013854/http://www.krigsspil.dk/). The miniatures are plastic Perry War of the Roses figures. They are based on a 200 mm frontage. The aim here was to represent professional ordonance troops, but ones that haven't had too much money showered on them, as the basic, boring infantry wasn't necessarily at the top of Charles the Bold's priority list. I will make both feudal troops as well as more menacing mercenary units in the future, but I thought that a middling unit would certainly have its place.

Next is a unit of skirmishing handgunners, to be deployed in front of the main line of battle. These are also Perry plastics with a Krigsspil flag.

Württemberg Chevaulégers

 It has been a while, but I haven't been idle. Among other things I have painted up some of Piano Wargames' lovely metal figures, this time Württemberg Chevaulégers for the 1809 campaign along the Danube. 

Austrian Reuss-Greitz Infantry Regiment

 These two batallions are from the Reuss-Greitz infantry regiment (Nr. 55), in Rosenberg's Corps during the battle of Eggmühl in 1809. 

 

The miniatures in the batallions are plastic Perry miniatures while the skirmish screen is from Piano Wargames, in metal. The units are 32 men per batallion, on 4 bases of 60mm width. 

Burgundian Ordonance Longbowmen

 Some more Burgundians for the collection. Here are two units of longbowen, probably English in Burgundian service. Once again the miniatures are from the Perry plastic box set, 20 men per unit on 200x50mm. 

One unit is stationary and shooting, while the other is marching, some of the men with their bows still in their covers. In the marching unit I tried to create an impression of slight disorder, some of the men discussing and arguing, looking at each other, pointing in different directions. The idea was to represent the confusion created by the unexpected arrival of the Swiss, be it in Grandson or in Murten, where the Burgundians were caught unaware and struggled to find the right response. 

Swiss mounted crossbowmen

 Another cavalry unit for the Swiss-Burgundian wars, this time Swiss mounted crossbowmen. It is hard to determine exactly how the Swiss used cavalry in the period. The focus is very much on the infantry in the written sources, as the civic structures making up the Old Swiss Confederation very much placed a premium on the infantry made up of citizens and people from subject or allied regions (Burger, Untertanen, zugewandte Orte), rather than valuing an aristocratic heavy cavalry like the Burgundians, for whom the knightly cavalry was the gold standard (the little value placed on the infantry, despite its alleged importance in the Burgundian order of battle, might help explain its lack of cohesion in the field - it is hard to find motivation to stand and die when your lord thinks you inferior and of little value). On the other hand, the Schilling chronicle show a number of cavalrymen in the Swiss armies, including mounted crossbowmen, which are often heavily armoured and charging alongside what looks like men-at-arms. Puzzling. 

For this unit, I have decided to stick with the more commonly seen type of Swiss mounted crossbowmen in the wargaming community, as a force of light cavalry mainly used for reconnaissance or to watch the flanks of the main body. 

The figures are all by Perry Miniatures, in plastic. There are ten of them, on four 50x75mm bases. The flag is hand-painted, representing a Fribourg "Schützenfahne", the flag for a company of crossbows. 

I added a greenstuff "bend" to the banner bearer, inspired by the illustration of a Unterwalden banner bearer in "Historische Waffen und Rüstungen" by Liliane and Fred Funcken, which is a beautiful book full of valuable illustrations and details about medieval arms and armour. 

Burgundian Ordonnance men-at-arms

 Burgundian men-at-arms 

This is the first unit of ordonnance men-at-arms for the Swiss Burgundian Wars. The figures are Perry Miniatures plastics from the Men-at-arms box set. 

 

Burgundian men-at-arms (Perry Miniatures)

The unit is ten men strong, on three 75x50mm bases. The flags are both downloads from the Krigspil website, accessible through the Web Archive. The miniatures are mostly straight out of the box, with a couple of small modifications to make them look more Burgundian, like two crosses of St. Andrew made of Green Stuff or the addition of a plume to one of the helmets. 

The unit has a flag showing the ducal arms of Burgundy on the right, and the ordonnance flag of St. John on the left (seen from the front). The latter is found in the Altes Zeughaus in Solothurn (http://sammlungmaz.so.ch/eMuseumPlus;jsessionid=4453CE796F72AA8BCCA967814B5B4B57.node1?service=direct/1/ResultDetailView/result.inline.lightbox.t2.collection_lightbox.$TspTitleLink.link&sp=13&sp=Sexhibition&sp=SfieldValue&sp=0&sp=0&sp=3&sp=SdetailView&sp=0&sp=Sdetail&sp=0&sp=T&sp=0&sp=Slightbox_2x3&sp=0&sp=F&sp=Scollection&sp=l6385)  and is well worth a visit if you ever are in the region. The knight with the mace in the center bears the arms of Guillaume de Vaudray, a noble from the Franche-Comté. 

On one end of the unit, we find a more Italian looking man-at-arms, with a barbute and a mazzochio, perhaps a mercenary in the service of the Duke of Burgundy. The man-at-arms on the other end of the unit is mounted on a horse wearing a metal caparison with the rear half painted in Burgundian heraldic devices, as can be seen in certain illustrations of the Schilling chronicle (that only half the barding is painted is purely conjectural on my part, it looked better that way).

 

The battle of Murten from the Schilling chronicle, which has been digitised and can be found online (https://www.digibern.ch/katalog/berner-chronik-diebold-schilling).