La Journee

It's Not Often That.......

2012-02-10T14:03:00.000Z

Hi,

It's been what seems like a very, very long time since my last 'real' post. Indeed it most certainly is! I've been unwell of late and have been unable to get much done in the way of painting and modelling. I'll be making an announcement as regards my illness on a couple of the wargaming fora that I will be returning to in the near future but for now it's best to concentrate on the matter at hand! Wargaming of course!!

Todays topic then, is Claymore Castings. This range sculpted by Paul Hicks and commisioned by David Imrie and Andrew Taylor does indeed show great promise. The miniatures are based on the Battle of Otterburn and the sculpts that I have seen really conjure up the look of the Scottish force lead by Douglas on that fatefull day in Northunbria. The stylistic difference between other companies versions of the Scots in the Late 14th C is a subtle but marked one and works very well indeed- the Scots Spear really look then part. Again, based upon what I have seen much of the the Claymore Castings range would also be great for other armies in North Western Europe at the end of the 14th C and many would be fine for earlier in the century as well.

I should be receiving a sample or two soon which I'll paint up (immediately!) and post a pic or two here. In the meantime I'll let the pics do the talking:

OK, that's about it for now. As I've said, I hope that I'll soon have a few painted up in all their glory. You can follow the news of how the range progresses on Dave Imrie's Saxon Dog Blog.

Gripping Beast Late Roman/Justinian/Heraclian Byzantine Army For Sale

2011-12-20T16:41:00.002Z

A bit of a change.......

Hi,
This army has won "Best Painted Army" at a couple of events. All the miniatures are very well painted and are of a high standard. The army was all painted within three weeks before one of the WAB events (Beyond the Golden Gate organised by the guys at Gripping Beast and hosted at GWHQ if anyone's interested?). As such, the army is not in my usual painting style but that's not to say that a great deal of man hours have not been spent painting the army- rather, I just dropped everything and spent three weeks painting it up.

I'm looking for £800 for the whole army as one job lot. I can deliver the army to Cold Steel at Gripping Beast HQ or arrangements can be made to post the army- which will of course be very well 'wrapped up' and I can get a quote on the postage as soon as I have a prospective buyer. As well as posting to the UK I'm happy to send the army overseas (Japan, USA, Europe etc) but as it's such a large consignement I would insist on the army being insured which the buyer would have to pay.

Cavalry mini's work out at £15 per figure and Infantry at £4. (Skirmishers are free)

If you're interested please PM me or send an e-mail to:
darrell.hindley@googlemail.com

Here's what you would be getting for your money:

Late Roman Comitatus:

Late Roman Bucellarii Unit 1:

Late Roman Bucellarii Unit 2:

Hun Horse Archers Unit 1:

Hun Horse Archers Unit 2:

Late Roman Infantry and Archers:

Late Roman Skirmishers:

Thanks for taking a look chaps/chapesses :O)

Simple but Effective Longbowmen Conversions

2011-05-03T16:38:00.001+01:00

Hi,

One of the advantages of putting on a game with others, be it demo or at the club is that you get to have a good look at all the new ideas that they have come up with regarding painting, modelling and conversion work. In the case of the two longbowmen below, now awaiting their opportunity to see some paint in the que that used to be my other painting table, both have been inspired by some of Simon's conversion work which can be seen on his blog.

The first chap has had his arrows removed from behind him and a plastic small 'sheaf' off arrows added to his belt. These were taken from the 'spares' box and are from the Wars of the Roses plastic box set from Perry Miniatures. The second chap if from the has had his front oringinally from their Handgunners pack has had his hand holding the match removed and this has been replaced with a plastic one holding a longbow from the plastics bits box. The first archers arrows have then been glued behind the second archer and thus we have a nice simple conversion that looks effective and will add that bit of variation to one of my Longbowman stands.

I think that the second conversion is great as it actually looks as though the archer is twisting around to reach his arrows.

More Salute Pics

2011-04-29T17:27:00.001+01:00

Hi,

Credit for these pics and the former must go to Joe Dever, Phil Steele and Ray. without the generosity of these gents I wouldn't have anything to show for our efforts and this blog would be a less happy place. Lesson learnt- always check your camera for the battery before you leaqve for a show!

Thanks again guys,

Darrell.

Verneuil Vignettes

2011-04-28T12:14:00.001+01:00

I threw together some vignettes from mostly already painted miniatures for the Verneuil demo. We use them in Impetus to mark units that are Disordered, essentially they act as a kind of casulaty marker, something absolutely crucial when putting on a demo game as the last thing you need is card markers cluttering up what would otherwise be an impressive view. Despite already having a number of these already made up, as it happenned on the day we didn't really have enough of these so there will be plenty more to come.

Announcing Gewalthaufen!

2011-04-27T20:19:00.003+01:00

I've turned some of my attention over to building a Swiss army based on the different types of forces used by the 'Swiss' in fighting the armies of Charles the Bold during the Burgundian Wars. I've had a number of interesting ideas, all now made much more affordable by the release of Perry Miniatures Continental Mercenaries hard plastics. Please feel free to peruse the pages of Gewalthaufen and hopefully you will find something of interest to you there.

There's a link here and one can be found on my list of Blog-a-licious list of sites on the sidebar.

Darrell.

Salute and The Battle of Verneuil Demo Game

2011-04-27T19:31:00.001+01:00

OK, picture the scene; terrain all set up- check. Mini's all set out- check. Sets tripod up and get's camera out of case- check. Fixes camera to tripod and switches on- check. Nothing happens!! Takes camera off tripod and thinks "this feels a little light"! Remembers! Battery is recharging in Durham!! This is the reason that this battle report covering our demo game at Salute is so late.

It was all a bit of a coup really as all the organising was done via the internet and one Skype conference call! Madness? Maybe, but we pulled it off in the end :O)

The decision was made in the early stages of the games' metamorphosis our version of the battle would be based on Mike Jones' academic paper, Michael K Jones essay The Battle of Verneuil (17th August 1424): Towards a History of Courage. The Lombard and French mounted men at arms were to form a line at the fore of the French battles instead of the starting on the flanks thus launching their attack as soon as the opening shots of the battle started and head straight at the English centre- see earlier post here details.

We had four players, Simon Chick took Salisbury's battle, Nigel Cook Bedfords, whilst the Franco-Scottish were played by George Moriatis as the French and Lombard mounted men at arms and the French Left and Nick Palmer the Scots.

As hostilities opened the Lombards and their French comrades came charging across the battlefield surprising the English and hitting them hard in the centre. The English centre looked hard pressed as the Lombards heavily harnessed mounts ploughed into the English men at arms and archers. For a moment or two it looked for all intents and purposes that the tabletop reenactment was about to take the same turn as the battle proper! However, following some fluky dice rolling the English were saved- or Bedford rallied the English troops exorting his men to fight on! As the game wore on the French and Scottish missile troops made their ponderous way forward followed by the bulk of their dismounted melee troops. It was at this point with things beginning to look very grim for the English- the table we had been given was not wide enough for us to deploy all of our terrain tiles and there was to be no room for the English reserves to make an appearance around a flank! Something we will certainly remedy when we show the game again! All things considered, in a turn or two poor Bedford was going to lose more than his worldly possessions.....

And the rest of Salute? OK, as for buys, well, I continued my quest for Ancient/Medieval rules and bought Hail Ceasar from Warlord Games and was kindly given a copy of Clash of Empires by Stuart of Great Escape Games for some of my painted mini's that feature in the book. Thus far I haven't found the time to do anything except look at the pretty pictures but as soon as I'm able to give them a read I'll report back to you. It was then a short trip to Dave Thomas' stall where I procured three packs of Perry Miniatures Scourers which will be converted into Mounted Crossbowmen for my Swiss army (more on this later) and a couple of packs of Helmeted Halberdiers/Pikemen, Swiss Heads and Swiss Halberdiers Marching. All these models will have some minor conversion work done so I have as much variation as is possible in my phalanx. This task will be made a lot easier by the purchase of a box of the Perry Continental Mercenaries which provide no end of conversion possibilities. It also ties in nicely with my promise to myself to teach myself to sculpt this year- and probably into the next! :O)

Oh, I actually nearly forgot to mention that we won Best Demo Game which came as a really big surprise!! None of use were expecting this and it wasn't even on our agenda in terms of putting the game on. A real bonus. After Simon and I collected the award from the chap that plated Rifleman Harris in Sharpe (a bit of a surreal moment I can tell you!!) it seemed only right that Simon should take home the trophy as all the scenery was his and I think it was that which was to win the day for us in the eyes of the judges.

My thanks to Nick, George and Nigel for helping play the battle through to it's (almost) conclusion. Thanks to Dave Lanchester for organising the space amongst other things and special thanks to Simon (Painterman) for supplying many of the miniatures and the outstanding scenery and terrain.

A fantastic day of wargaming combined with meeting folk that share the same passion for Late Medieval warfare as me.... what more could you want? OK, some dice might have been an idea :O)

Darrell.

M. K Jones Essay

2011-04-13T14:37:00.003+01:00

Just a quickie...

In my last post I mentioned one of the influences that inspired our demo game namely Michael K Jones essay The Battle of Verneuil (17th August 1424): Towards a History of Courage. For those that may wish to investigate further it is available from Saga publications:

HERE!

Darrell.

Verneuil Pamphlet Sneek Peak...

2011-04-13T14:18:00.001+01:00

As there hasn't been a post here for a little while I thought I'd add the map thatnwill be appearing on the handouts for Salute this weekend. It'staken from an old edition of Hobilar, No 24 and also contains an article by Pat McGill on the battle. there are a couple of other old Hobilar's that have info on the battle and these along side Michael K Jones essay The Battle of Verneuil (17th August 1424): Towards a History of Courage have formed the background for our demo game.

I'll dig out the other Hobilars pertaining to the battle and let you know the relevent editions. for those of you who aren't aware of Hobilar.... it's a bi-monthly journal published by the Lance and Longbow Society and is available from the link above if you join the society. Well worth the money IMHO. The Lance and Longbow Society also have a series of publications covering many battles, heraldry and many other aspect of Medieval history that have served me well over the years.

Mike Loads on Verneuil and Plate Armour

2011-04-07T05:43:00.004+01:00

Here's a few vids of Mike Loades from Channel 4's Weapons that Made Britain series televised about six years ago. In these he discusses the relative merits of merits of plate armour for both man and beast and the effect plate horse housing on on the English during the initial stages of the Battle of Verneuil. Love him or loath him, he's got a paassion for the period and has some interesting takes on the battle (I'm firmly in the 'love him' camp).

It would be very interesting to hear what you guys think of the videos and in particular Mr Loades ideas about combat.

UNPAINTED FOUNDRY LATE MEDIEVAL SWISS FOR SALE- NOW SOLD!

2011-04-02T21:35:00.004+01:00

Hi chaps,

Title gives the game away :) .

So, the army consists of:
1x Mounted Commander £2.
24 x Foot Command £24.
22x Handgunners £22.
12x Crossbows £12.
102x Pikemen £102.
55x Halberdiers £55.
12x Mounted Crossbowmen £24
16x Mounted Men at Arms £32.

NOW ALL SOLD
Darrell.

Twenty Mil Impetus Run Through.....

2011-03-14T20:40:00.001Z

It's been a while since my last post as there's been some quite serious stuff happenning in my life.....

Anyway, that's about as much of a 'blues jam' for you ought to to suffer on my account- so..... it's on with the blogging!

Last Thursday I actually managed to get to the club and get a 20mm HYW game of Impetus under my belt. Thoroughly enjoyable game and just as well really as these are the rules that we have settled upon using for our Battle of Verneuil demo! It would be a bit too late for a U-turn now!!

The lists for both English army and that of the French with Scots force were used as they are published in the Extra Impetus I supplement. I've been humming and harring over whether to make any modifications to the lists for the actual game. In particular I'd like to see the Scots Archers at least given the stats on Levy Longbows from the Wars of the Roses lists (see Extra Impetus III) which would at least raise their status to Longbow B- something more akin to DeWaurin's description of their prowess on the battlefield. We had them as Skirmishing Archers with Shortbows (!) which made them woefully under perform. The other problem stats-wise would be the Lonbard Mercenary cavalry employed by the French. On one hand it seems reasonable to strengthen Lombard to VBU 8 and drop any notion of them being Impetuous. On the other hand the game played out well as you will see. Tempted but not convinced is the verdict at present. On to the action:

Below you will see the armies post deployement.

OK, so the French and Lombard Men-at-Arms make their intitial moves forward gathering pace as they go. Unfortunately their lines become too fluid and thus unable to keep in unison (ie Disordered). Note the massed ranks of the the Scottish Schiltrons and the French dismounted Men-at-Arms the order to follow up the heavy cavalry.

And here they go too- nice and orderly! Makes a nice change!

Unlike at Verneuil the English manage to place their stakes and both Men-at-Arms and Archer alike wait for the cavalry to get into range before unleashing a barrage that disorders the enemy cavalry- not really what they needed as they were already in a tangle but ho- hum...

There's something altogether unsettleing about being being on the receiving end of an arrow storm (Yeah,I know what you're thinking... well, actually I've received many.... spot the white lie). This disordered the Lombards who start taking quite serious casualties (they abviously forgot their horse harness- think Genoese Crossbowmen at Crecy and you start to get the picture). Seemingly oblivious to the plight of their comrades the murderous effect of massed archery does very little to deter the French who just keep ploughing forward!

Here's a nice overall pic of the goings on:

Then, the lines clash and the unthinkable happens.... the English line, so steadfast a few minutes ago starts to crumble..... all is lost? Well, that's roughly as far as we got. We have another game planned this coming Thursday eveing so I'll make sure I give a better account next time... or at least an ending :O)

A Horse is a Horse of Course of Course.......

2011-01-25T17:12:00.005Z

Lombard Cavalry.

Both man and beast amously harnessed in 'arrow proof' armour at Verneuil.

How to model them on the table top? As there is almost no contemporary illustrations that I know of depicting horse barding from 1424 or there abouts I decided that the best route to go down would be to purchase some barded horse flesh from a later period. For this I chose the mounted Men at Arms from the excellent Venexia Late Condotta range. The harness on the horse dates almost certainly from a later date but rather importantly the Perry mounted Men at Arms are a good fit and consequently there will be a lot less sculpting to be done- something at which I am certainly no expert!

There are alas only two barded miniatures in the range but this has been remedied by some simple head swaps. I don't think thay have lost much of the dynamic in terms of pose in transition so as soon as I fill in some gaps with putty and start upon the daunting task of sculpting I'll let you have more pics:

Don't forget you can click on the images to enlarge :O)

Filler!!

2011-01-20T12:34:00.002Z

Hi,

OK, topic for today is what filler to use on my bases? On 60x120mm impetus bases. I've used different materials with varying results in the past and they have all been applied to smaller bases to varying degrees of satisfaction. This is something that i have to get right the first time so I thought I'd pick your brains......

Oh, the important thing is to avoid warping.....

OK, Milliput- I found I had to apply a little water to smooth the stuff out. This may have added to the degree of which some of the larger bases warped. Has anyone tried using Milliput neat? If so what grade did you use?

B&Q/ Quick Drying Polycell Filler- again, prone to warping as the solvent and water content evaporates. Has anyone any experience in using filler that dries in a 'normal' time span? Did it make any difference?

Any other suggestions?

In the meantime, to keep you all going, here's the first Archer base- note the ubiquitous archer showing his contempt to the crowd opposite:

Don't forget to click on the images to enlarge

Composition is Everything?

2011-01-18T17:45:00.006Z

OK, it seemed as though the transition from basing my HYW English from Warhammer Ancient Battles over to Impetus should have been a doddle given that Impetus affords a much larger basing area and thus more room for adding those vignette style bases that I'm so fond of......

For those who don't- you can see what I mean by vignette style on my website here:

http://darrellhindley.co.uk/?page_id=245

Easy? Well, actually no! The extra space afforded by Impetus seems to have guided me 'back' towards putting the units together so they look like a more coherent mass of Medieval soldiery and away from leaving too many spaces on each base. I'm almost at a loss to explain it. Since I was eleven I've had it drummed into me that the essential thing about composition was to have some sort of balance in each 'scene'. Art college did away with a lot of these notions, where I learnt that dis-chord in an image could as easily and was sometimes the only way of conveying a message.

So why the back peddling? Maybe it's something as simple as losing my bottle on the larger bases and not being as willing to experiment these days? I'm really at a bit of a loss to explain all of this.....

So, whilst I ponder, here's a couple of pics of the finished Men-at Arms bases (OK, so they need some filler- save that topic for another day!)

Don't forget, you can click on the images to enlarge them.

They think it's all over..... well it's not! :O)

2010-12-17T10:49:00.001Z

Hi,

Just a quick note to let you all know that things are still "go" with La Journee. As a full time professional miniature painter it's sometimes difficult to fit things in and get stuff photographed as much as I would like.

There are a couple of things that I've been working on that will be gracing the pages of this blog soon- Lombards, which have taken a little conversion and a slight historical liberty (but they are as close as I'm going to get using miniatures on the market at present). Also, there has been a lot of re-basing of my WAB HYW English army with a few additional miniatures. Unlike most re-basing, a phrase that usually has an awful resonance with wargamers, it has been a pleasure to re-base much of my collection as it has given me licence to base the miniatures in my usual vignette style but with a bit more flair.

Anyway, pics coming very soon which will include the conversion and painting of the Lombard cavalry.

English Men at Arms: Step by Step III

2010-09-29T12:39:00.003+01:00

Ok, so a bit faster then last time, here is the third and final post for the English Men at Arms step by step.

As you can see they are now complete. Final colour selection was not too difficult for the men at arms as they are in full harness and it was really only a matter of choosing what colours to do their respective belts, shoes and scabbards etc. I chose a very dark blue and a very dark green (both from Foundry)- applying the paint in three layers paying attention to follow the contours of their equipment.

That out of the way, this being Bedfords main battle, I decided to keep with the theme of liveried retainers so one was chosen as one of Fastolf's men and the other was to wear the livery of Bedford and the Lancastrian kings.

Fastolf's livery is red and black. I used the Vallejo Dark Rust for the red from one of their Panzer Ace sets and added Vallejo Scarlet to highlight. Having just been delivered of the Black Andreas paint set it seemed the perfect moment to try it out of Falstolf's man. His gambeson was painted Vallejo Black and then highlighted with No's 5 and then 6 from the Andreas Black set. I think that it came out very well and is a very subtle way of highlighting black.

Bedford's man. I started with Foundry Midnight Blue(B) and added progressive layers of Foundry Sky Blue (A) then Vallejo white to the mix. The White being done with the Foundry Arctic Grey set but instead of using their white I use Vallejo Model Colour White as it is both strong and vibrant, all the better for painting up Late Medieval armies.

The leather work was GW Scorched Earth with Black, then Scorched Earth by itself and finally Dark Flesh. Polearms were Scorched Earth with a little Black and a highlight of a medium brown- any will do as long as it's not too light.

English Man at Arms Step by Step II

2010-09-28T11:28:00.003+01:00

Sorry this post is a little late; it's been a very buisy time here in sunny Durham.

OK, here's the pic of the men at arms with the armour fully painted. In the time since my last post the PO delivered the Andrea 'Silver' metal set to my door. I have used the lightest colour in their set to add an intermediate hue to the fully harnessed knights. With the 'lesser' man at arms I just stopped at the Andrea highlight and dropped the Mithril Silver- I think that it has had the desired effect in that they are hopefully looking slightly less bling! Note that I have also made a point of going over any areas between the plates where my brush may have strayed, this gives greater definition to the armour and neatens everything up to boot.

Next up will be the painting of the gambeson, the coat of plates and everything else. Should be done in a day or so.

Darrell.

English Men at Arms: Step by Step I

2010-09-22T09:54:00.009+01:00

Having not managed to make a post in over a week and finding myself painting a few men at arms I decided to do a quick step by step of how I have painted the more generic men at arms/knights. These will go towards making up the final base for Bedford's battle

As you can see above we have four Perry Miniatures knights in the early stages of painting. Basically what we have before us is the figures cleaned up, given a dusting of black spray undercoat. This is then followed up with a 50/50 coat of Vallejo Matt Black and water. Into this I mix a small amount of Matt Acrylic Medium to give an excellent flat surface which nicely elucidates the detail on the miniature.

The next stage is to drybrush the mail and add a wash to the flesh. Any 'medium' flesh colour will do for a base- you will no doubt have your own preference. The flesh is given a couple of washes of Citadel Devlan Mud ready for highlighting later on. As for the drybrushing the mail, I start with a darkened mix of GW's Boltgun Metal (90% boltgun/10% Valejo Black) then progress to GW Chainmail then GW Mithril Silver. over the years I have found that the GW metallics are about the best in terms of quality. On the 'lesser men at arms' I then add a diluted wash of Citadel Badab Black over the mail. This helps indicate their status as the riguers of campaign and the lack of a page to clean up their armour means that they are likely to look quite shabby next to their gentlemanly superiors

The layering over the armour is done in much the same way but instead of drybrushing the paint is applied carefully in layers. It is important to take a look at a few suits of full harness before applying these layers. I have a collection of photo's that I've taken at various exhibitions and re-enactments but there is plenty available on the internet if you are stuck. Oddly enough the thing to do to get the impression of light bouncing off the surfaces of the armours is not to attempt to copy it direct from the pics. Instead try to create a general impression of what you see on your source material. This in my opinion gives the best results.

It is essential that the undercoat/earlier preperation is left showing through the different pieces of the plate. If you make a mistake, don't fret, you can easily rectify this by blacklining or in the case of the figures we are painting, just add some Vallejo Black to some Boltgun Metal and use this to line mistakes.

OK, that's it for now. Next I'll be adding the flesh tones and colour to the clothing and fabric covered armours.

Darrell.

English Vignettes

2010-09-04T14:35:00.001+01:00

I've posted these on my other website in the Gallery, I wasn't really going to post them here but they are just as relevent to the demo game of Verneuil as to sitting pretty in the Gallery on the other site! Also they are perfect to be used in the role of Impetus markers for the game and will look a lot better than placing counters on the table. The idea is that each unit will have some casualty markers or such like on round bases that will be used to determine how much VBU a unit may have lost etc.

I'm not a great fan of putting down tokens and that sort of thing, though I do recognice that it is often a necessary evil in many games. These vignettes will eliminate this factor and hopefully add something to the aesthetic of the game.

Well, that's about it for today. Partizan is tomorrow and I still have a load of work to do for one or two of clients so I had better get to it :O)

Darrell.

Bedfords Battle III

2010-09-02T14:19:00.002+01:00

Here are the final two mini's in the formation. Quite simply, a man at arms runs forward with his bill slung over his shoulder. He wears little in the way of bady armour except his gambeson and a kettle hat. The other soldier is better armoured than his brother in arms, wearing a coat of plates, mail shirt, padded leg armour and a bascinet helm with a mail aventail. He confidently strides forward whilst punching with his buckler before 'making hay' with his falchion, a terrible slashing sword capable of producing monstrous wounds if it struck home, although relatively slow to wield when compared with other comtemporay swords. Although it should be mentioned that the bill is not reported in large numbers until the ending stages of the HYW and the beginnings of the Wars of the Roses. I would hazzard a gues that the bill was favourite weapon of the lower classes- the falchion being used by these very same men from the time of the Third Crusade and possibly earlier.

Next up there will be an expansion of another 60x60mm base to give the unit the right 'feel' and re-base of the whole unit painted thus far onto two more 60x60mm bases. making a total of three bases There will be a nice big frontage and a reasonable depth to the unit that should leave it looking the part.

Finally, for today, I have a pic of the whole unit as it was based for WAB:

Darrell.

Bedfords Battle II

2010-09-01T07:54:00.000+01:00

OK, now it is the turn of Sir John Fastolf, Knight Banneret. Here he is wearing his "cote amor", thrusting forward a fist, joining Bedford in egging his men forward. He carries his poleaxe in his right hand ready for the ensuing melee. Behind Fastolf a knight is in the process of finishing off one of the poorly armed and untrained French men at arms after jabbing him in the face with his cruel battle axe. Not all of the men at arms in the French contingent at Verneuil would have been so poorly armed and negligently trained but I felt compelled to include quite a few as a substantial number are likely to have been so bearing in mind the arriere ban had been enforced to put the army together.

Sir John Fastolf was created knight banneret by Bedford and thus had the right to bear his heraldic banner. His banner bearer wears quite old fashioned armour in that he has a gambeson covering a coat of plates and little else by way of plate covering his torso. Nevertheless, the protection afforded by his armour would more then likely be adequate for the job at hand. Next him a man at arms is in full swing with his bill, often a dangerous manoeuvre during the press of combat, not only for himself as it leaves him open to a counter attack but for his friends too if too tightly pressed as is probable at Verneuil.

Bedford's Battle

2010-08-29T15:52:00.002+01:00

Here we have Bedfords Battle for the WAB army that accompanied me to Havok! at Gripping Beast HQ, Evesham. The first unit I will be putting together for The Battle of Verneuil demo game will contain many of these miniatures, if not all of them. I think Simon and I have settled upon the idea of using Impetus, with some modifications, as it is probably for the good that we keep the rules simple as we are hoping to be chatting with a few folks as we play the game!

As the unit is based for WAB it gives me an opportunity to talk a little about the composition of the stands and what prompted me to paint up the miniatures in the manner that I have done. As I have said before long the mini's will be based for Impetus..... I'm thinking of 60mm by 60mm bases as this fits with other rule systems like Foundry's Medieval Warfare, and as many Medieval wargamers will know, it is not always easy to find a fellow enthusiast that plays the same rule system as one another. I will be adding another 60x60mm base in order to make the units 180mm wide as this will look much better on the tabletop and will make no difference whatsoever to the way in which the rules operate.

As you can see from the pics above featuring Bedfords stand, his heraldic attire is not in what you might expect from the third son of Henry V and the uncle of Henry VI. As will be explained later, in an indepth introduction leading up to and including the battle, Bedford made a great deal out of Heraldic Pageantry prior to the battle in a dramatic display designed to bring a strength through unity and a sense of purpose to the army. He wore a surcoat combining the white cross of France with the red cross of England in order to convey the message of union between the two kingdoms and that Bedford alone had the right to bear this coat of arms. I have painted him up with the white cross of France quartered with the red cross of England instead of superimposing the images as is suggested in de Waurin's account (you will hear more about this chap later). Bedford is a from Perry miniatures as are most of my collection. The actual mini is taken from their French High command at Agincourt on Foot pack and is the Duc de Orleans figure. His heraldry was beautifully sculpted on to the miniature by Michael Perry which in this case was actually an impediment to getting the effect I wanted! So, I took a Dremel to the heraldry (yep, you heard me! A Dremel) and carefully ground off his coat of arms. This was smoothed down by hand with a needle file before priming.

Next to John of Bedford stands John Talbot, known for his prowess in battle and his daring. There is only one chronicle that indicates his presence at the battle but I have included him as the rest of the 'cast of characters' were present and there is no reason to suppose that such an important figure would not be in amongst the action. Talbot wears his heraldic coat of arms and wields a vicious poleaxe as appropriate.

The musician advancing behind Bedford and Talbot wears the Lancastrian livery of Bedford. Musicians of this type would have had a limited but important role on the battlefield, indicating where the banners were, at what pace to advance etc. It has to be said that once battle was joined they may have become superfluous.

This brings us onto the next base. Sir Henry Tilleman was given the right to bear Bedfords Heraldic banner. Tillemen was over 70 years old and had been active in the Black Prince's expedition to Spain and fought at the Battle of Najera, 1367! Bedford, by honouring Tillemen was making a deliberate link to the past and the Battle of Najera, which recalled the days of the Black Prince as a commander of renown enhancing the martial prowess of his army. Of the two other knights, one wears a surcoat and is evading a blow, perhaps as a feint, wielding his poleaxe. The other advances without bearing his arms as was often the practice of the English at that time.

Next I'll be taking a look at Fastolf and his retainers as pictured in the unit at the top of this page.

Darrell.

Welcome!

2010-08-29T11:05:00.001+01:00

Welcome to this my new Blog that will be centred around putting together a demo game of the Battle of Verneuil fought on 17th of August 1424, between the forces of John of Bedford acting Regent of France for Henry VI of England and France and The Duc d'Alencon on behalf of Charles VI, titular King of France.

This struggle was to prove to be one of the most epic of the HYW, yet the battle has often been reduced to a few pages or a footnote in most history books dealing with the HYW in English. This is a strange turn of events as Verneuil was equally as hard fought as Cravant and Agincourt, certainly two of the more famous battles of the conflict.

Over the coming weeks I will be posting up pics of my English (actually Anglo-Norman), French, Scottish and Lombard forces as the army is put together. This is a joint venture with my friend Simon Chick. As of yet, we have never actually met but our passion for Late Medieval warfare and wargaming has inspired much correspondence and the idea of putting on a demo of the battle with the aim of the game making it's debut at Salute next year.

Darrell.