Some long-awaited Burgundians

It seems all the units being finished lately have been French, and looking back at the infantry available to my Burgundian army, technically they are all German mercenaries or reluctant urban militias.... Now at last we have some true Burgundians on foot!

These could represent the personal retinue of some Burgundian noble.... or rather, some noble who at the time of these photos was allying himself to Mary and Maximilian - many of them were quick to make friends with King Louis after being captured and offered lots of generous gifts! The exact makeup of the 'Burgundian' troops for the 1477-1493 period is hard to pin down, especially when you consider many towns were found on the ever-shifting border between the Burgundian lands and France, and many nobles held property on both sides of this border. Maximilian did raise new ordonnance companies from 1477 onwards, and this unit could represent some of these newly re-organised troops (perhaps veterans of Charles the Bold's wars) dismounted for combat.

I've given them a blue and red livery with a white St Andrew's cross, making them the most uniform unit so far on Maximilian's side. The standard is from Alea Jacta Est, who makes lots of interesting late medieval flags available for free on his website - I'm not sure of the source of this flag, I think it's another 'unknown owner' situation, but that suits me fine as I don't want this unit to be tied to any one known character.

Again its mostly converted Perry miniatures, but with several of my own commissioned figures and a few other things - there's even a Front Rank and an Old Glory sculpt in there, suitable converted to 'Perry-fy' them.

And here they are facing off against their French opponents!

Updates

Time for some updates.

First of all, I'd like to point you in the direction of a kickstarter currently being run by Warsteel Miniatures for late 15th century infantry STL files, for 3d prinitng. This is part 2 of a series, part 1 last year was unarmoured infantry (pikemen, crossbowmen and handgunners). Part 2 has armoured versions, with a mix of plate and cloth armour. Simon from Warsteel kindly sent me some samples, which I have enjoyed experimenting with. They come with separate heads - I've put a few together with a mix of different heads and polearms from various sources. They will definitely find their way into future units of French and Burgundians. 

The kickstarter also has the same bodies without arms, for combining with plastic Perry arms of course. There are other things listed as stretch goals, so the more people who pledge the more interesting things will be unlocked.

Support the kickstarter here - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/warsteelkickstarter2/late-15th-century-medieval-gewalthaufen-part-2?ref=user_menu

I confess I'm not very up to date with 3D miniature printing technology, but as I understand it you get the files which you can either print yourself or get a 3rd party service to print for you. You can also get all the files from the 1st kickstarter, which together will give you a huge number of bodies (with and without arms), a multitude of separate heads and other things like polearms and casualties. Once the dust has settled I'll probably do some some sort of 'pick & mix' of the files I'll want printed for my project.

Here are the samples I've put together so far.

I should also point out in case anyone reading this didn't catch the announcement, that Steel Fist Miniatures have released a small range of 15th century Swiss - two packs of 6 advancing halberdiers/pikemen, and they really are fantastic. Though at the time of writing this the first batch are nearly out of stock!

As for what's on my workbench, I am slowly working my way through a mass of infantry, and imagine I will be doing nothing else for the rest of 2024. I've roughly mapped out what units are going to be built up from them, and it does seem a bit daunting... I've got a few more commissioned sculpts to be delivered sometime in the year, and some of these units will have to wait until I have these in my hands before they can be assembled and based. Until then I will just keep on painting what I have.

This is my rough plan....

- Two units of 20 French heavy infantry, defending (first one completed in January, see last post)

- Two units of 20 Burgundian heavy infantry, defending (first one nearly finished)

- One unit of 30 French heavy infantry, attacking

- One unit of 30 Burgundian heavy infantry, attacking

- One unit of 20 French archers.

- One unit of 20 or 30 Burgundian archers.

- Various extra bases that can be used to expand the above units or form small units themselves.

- Some 'wagon fort' bases with built in defenders, for both sides.

- One unit of 50 German pikemen.

There's no way I'll get it all done this year, but we'll see how far I get!

Here's a few nice figures that are sitting around waiting for some friends to form units with. The one one the left is one of my commissioned sculpts, with a Perry head. The second is a conversion put together form various parts. The last two are from the small but excellent Eureka Miniatures late medieval range - very nice sculpts.

And before I forget, here's another French unit!

This is just a small unit. I like my units to be posed consistenly, usually either advancing/attacking or defending, with weapons lowered. I don't like to see ranks of models with shouldered weapons making contact with the enemy on the tabletop, it just looks odd to me. However there are lots of very nice figures in more relaxed 'at ease' poses, and I've been wanting to find a way to make use of them for a while. I've bunched some of them together with a few other carefully chosen poses that suit the theme. There's several conversions, and even a Front Rank figure in there.

When seen on the tabletop, this little unit will probably be standing behind a hedge, wall or barricade, where lowered weapons would get in the way. They could also work as artillery or wagon guards maybe.... They won't be front line troops, but there'll be a use for them on the table somewhere, even if it's just to stand around looking smart!

French infantry reinforcements

At last, here's another 'proper' unit. More French heavy infantry.

This unit is 20-strong and in stationary/defensive poses, whereas the last one was 30-strong in advancing/attacking poses. These two methods of basing seems to work well, and is what I'll stick to from now on for close order infantry - advancing units in three or more ranks, and defending units like this one  and all my archer units in just two ranks. I'm part way through another unit like this for the Burgundian side, and there will be more bases to expand them both in different ways in the future.

This unit features the three painted examples of my commissioned sculpts I showed the other day - more of them will be appearing in future infantry units! As you can see they fit in very well alongside Perry sculpts (helped by the fact that they mostly are using Perry plastic heads). One of the other bodies is also from the same sculptor, one of the 'dollies' which is now sold by Steel Fist Miniatures. There's also three of the original Steel Fist foot knights in the unit. There's various other conversions in here, but I think I've shown the most interesting ones previously. My favourites are the two plastic Perrys with new riding boots. I put special care in to how all the figures are positioned in the units, so the most interesting ones are in prime positions for photography - I don't want them to get lost in the middle of all their less interesting friends!

This unit is supposed to represent a somewhat informal grouping of French soldiers - dismounted men-at-arms and others from the ordonnance companies, grouped together with francs-archers and other lower-ranking types. I think I prefer this approach to having them all in separate units. After basing them I felt there was a bit too much empty space at a certain place in the unit, so filled it with a solitary pavise, which I think has worked quite nicely!

I've given them two flags - one is an ordonnance company standard, the other a heraldic banner which can be swapped out to represent different nobles - currently the unit is under the command of Jean du Bellay, who was captain of an ordonnance company in 1475 (and I'm presuming was still there from 1477 onwards).

First painted samples

Just a quick post before the new year - here's some samples from the first batch of commissioned sculpts I've got some paint on. These will be being based up into a unit of 20 over the next few days.

Two of them have plastic Perry heads, one has a 3D printed Warsteel head. The polearms are all from the commission, as are two of the sidearms, the third being Perry with a Front Rank buckler.

I commissioned some miniatures!

Exciting news - I have commissioned a set of miniatures, and just a few days ago they arrived.

These were sculpted by the very talented Yannis from Talos Miniatures in Greece - you can follow his work on his Instagram page here. I'm not the only one who has commissioned sculpts from him - there are various other interesting late 15th century and early 16th century things he's working on. He also made the bodies released earlier this year by Steel Fist Miniatures, designed to be compatible with Perry plastic heads and arms. These were of course what gave me and others the idea of commissioning similar things. He was extremely easy to work with, and I'm pleased to say what we have here isn't the end of our collaboration!

They are cast in resin, which is actually something I haven't worked with before. It holds the detail very well, better than metal - I think I'm going to be enjoy working with and painting it.

What I wanted was more infantry equipped with polearms. I decided the best way to go was for full bodies with arms, empty-handed to accept various different weapons. We didn't do any heads, as of course I have a ton of spare plastic Perry heads to use with them. Separate heads would have been wonderful, but I decided for my budget to go for more bodies instead.

Yannis made several polearms - I wanted them mostly to be glaives of various shapes, which is what I got, plus a couple of more unusual weapons! You will notice something interesting about the polearms - they are cast in resin but with a thin metal rod inside to strengthen them. As you know, metal spears bend, and I didn't want resin weapons to bend or snap or anything like that. This way of doing it seems to make them really robust and strong. 

We also got separate sidearms - swords (including a couple of falchions/messers) and a few bucklers.

So here are the nine finished miniatures, combined with plastic Perry heads. 

Three are in front rank poses, and six are 'second-rankers'. Of course the idea is to mix these in with Perry miniatures (and other things) in large units, and I will be mixing the parts between the different ranges more than we see here - these polearms will also end up in Perry hands for example.

There's lots more I could say about them, but I think I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves!!!

I'll have a more detailed post about them in a week perhaps, and with a bit of luck I'll get some paint on them before Christmas!