Burgundian heavy cavalry

Here's my two Burgundian heavy cavalry units, recently rebased. The French cavalry are getting the same treatment right now. As usual they are mostly Perry miniatures, not just plastics but quite a few metal sculpts as well, with a scattering of Steel Fist parts too. There are lots of conversions which I won't go into detail about in this post.

These are of course supposed to represent Burgundians after the death of Charles the Bold, to be useable for any conflict between 1477 and 1493. We could call them 'Habsburg-Burgundian' if we want. After the disaster of the battle of Nancy, the ordonnance companies who were present would have been destroyed or dispersed, though several thousand survivors made it back, and of course others would not have been there in the first place. Nevertheless the companies ceased to function as a military force capable of combatting the French in 1477. Many of their leaders also went over to the French side, and no doubt took large numbers of men with them. Later in the year Mary and Maximilian managed to raise new ordonnance companies, and by the end of the year they had 800 'lances'. These companies seemingly remained an important part of Maximilian's army into the 16th century.

When it comes to the question of flags and livery.... we really don't know. I didn't want them to have a uniform livery, certainly not the familiar blue and white of Charles the Bold's army. A few of the models I gave a Burgundian saltire on their jackets, but not in any uniform colour scheme. As well as the actual ordonnance companies, they could represent the personal retinues of certain nobles or any sort of cavalry unit hastily thrown-together for combating the French invasion, so the less cohesive look suits this just fine.

I purposefully sought out Burgundian flags that didn't feature Charles the Bold's motto. One is from Pete's Flags (link), one from the krigsspil website (link), and one from a chap calling himself Alea Jacta Est Miniautes - he's been posting them free to use on facebook, and he also has a blog where you can find them all (link). The heraldic banner I made myself - it bears the arms of Jacques de Luxembourg, Lord of Fiennes, who was one of the many nobles who remained loyal to the house of Burgundy after the death of the duke. He was made a Knight of the Golden Fleece in 1478 and the following year was appointed marshal of Maximilian's army in the Low Countries.

And here's a little trick.... the banner is removable, so whilst its Jacques de Luxembourg for this particular photo-shoot, command of the unit can be re-assigned to any other noble I've made banners for! In the picture below are the banners of the Count of Nassau, the Prince of Orange and Louis de Vienne. 

There is lots more cavalry to come in the next few weeks, old units have been rebased and expanded and many new figures have been painted. I have painted lots of horses over the past 6 months, I've even come to enjoy it, and I can happily say I took on and conquered the dreaded rebasing task! The end result I think has been very much worth it.