French ordonnance archers

This is my first unit of French infantry - archers of the compagnies d'ordonnance. These were established in 1439 by Charles VII and formed a full-time professional force loyal to the French crown, often considered the first example of a national standing army. Each company was organised into lances, each of which consisted of a mounted man-at-arms and two mounted archers (plus non-combat personnel and possibly a coustillier as well). My ordonnance archer units are supposed to represent these archers dismounted for battle. In contrast to my Burgundian units (most of whom were mercenaries or hastily raised militias), my French are all decked out in smart livery jackets to give them a hopefully more disciplined, better organised feel.

The archers are based on the Perry WOTR plastic infantry, with some metal archers from Crusader Miniatures mixed in - these scale pretty well with Perry. However I made the decision to replace all the bow hands with those from the Perry Agincourt plastic set - these are much better proportioned and realistic-looking in my view, being longer and more slender. The pic below should show what I mean - on the left is the original WOTR bow, on the right is the Agincourt bow.

The Crusader Miniatures bows are noticeably smaller, and being metal are prone to bending, so they definitely benefited from the swap too. I also gave a few of them headswaps and replaced some right hands too (in retrospect I should have done all the right hands), plus a few extra plastic accessories.

And here's the finished unit of French archers!

Something else you might notice is some of them have been given new tall riding boots, to help suggest they are mounted soldiers on foot - these were sculpted with green stuff (not by me, they were a small commission job).