More Medieval French - Claymore Castings

More Medieval French goodness recently available from Claymore Castings are these French (or allied) Pavasiers. Aimed at the later half of 14th Century period they could at a pinch, creep into very early 15th Cent for the more lowly types

Good additions to the range of French types available from Claymore Casting which also include 3 packs of Crossbow.

French Perry Plastics 2

More news posted on the Perry's website on their Plastics Workshop in the form of some '3 ups' of their forth coming French Knights for the French Infantry box set and they look to be a very promising addition to their Agincourt to Orleans range.

As the pics show, and their press release indicates, there will be one frame of these knights along with 3 on the French (read European) infantry as shown on my previous post French Perry Plastics and interestingly, and probably a good move on the Bros' part, a separate box set with 3 sprue's of both the French Knights here along with 3 sprue's of their English Knights.

The release of these are promised for sometime in the New Year and once again I'll look forward to their release as they promise hours of joyous assembly and conversion ahead.

Garde Ecossaise - In the Reign of Charles VIII

Bernard Stewart d'Aubigny

During the reign of Charles VIII, the Garde Ecossaise played a prominent part in the monarch's political and military dealings and were constantly in the forefront of the French army, distinguishing themselves in the many actions of the early Italian Wars.

One of the first acts of his reign, Charles VIII sent Bernard Stewart (Captain of his Guard) to Scotland to announce his accession to the French throne and agree a treaty renewing the alliance between Scotland and France.

Around the same time the Earl of Richmond (the future Henry VII of England) had fled to France and asked for aid. In 1485, Bernard Stewart, with a detachment of troops largely made up of Scots, was sent to England and were present at the Battle of Bosworth, fighting on Henry's behalf.

In 1494, Charles launched his forces into Italy and marched triumphantly to Naples. It is documented that on his entry into Florence on the 15th September the king rode into the city, 'lance on thigh, at the head of his troops, surrounded by his Scots Guards'. It is here that one of the few descriptions of the Garde Ecossaise is encountered, describing them thus;

"Nearest the king march 25 Scots archers, denominated lifeguardsmen, arrayed in white jerkins embroidered with gold from top to bottom, bearing a crown on the breast. Now the above mentioned archers are under the orders of my Lord Stewart d'Aubigny, and are quartered nearest the king's chamber. My Lord Stewart d'Aubigny has under his orders all the other Scots guardsmen, as well as 100 men-at-arms not entered on the Guard Muster Roll; and the aforesaid Scots, as soon as it is dark, and when the officer in command has retired with his archers, mount guard, while the captain of the 100 Guardsmen [not the officer in command of the 25 lifeguardsmen] goes to fetch the keys."

French under Charles VIII enter Florence

The Guard present were described as real giants, the shortest nine hands high, all on foot and armed with halberds. The ones described above are obviously the 'Garde de la Manche' who throughout the Garde's existence are described to be wearing white.

Companie d'Ordannance - Charles VIII

The other interesting item of note is the mention of a further 100 men-at-arms over and above the Garde Ecossaise. Whether these are the still existent body of Scots gentlemen formed during the founding of the Ordinances or were a part of Bernard Stewart d'Aubigny's own retinue is not clear however.

The French march to Naples was generally uneventful, but fearing that his lines of communication were under threat, Charles left Naples a few days after arriving leaving Gilbert de Montpensier in command of 11,000 troops in Naples, with Bernard Stewart as his lieutenant.

Now, the thing of note here in regards to the Garde Ecossaise is that on the return journey to France, the French army under Charles reaching the pass of Pontremoli was forced to give battle to the Venetian proveditori at the Battle of Fornovo. I'll not go into the details of the Guards actions in the battle here (as I intend to explore this in more depth another time) but it is well documented that the Garde Ecossaise fought in this action (particularly in the well known Memoirs of Phil. de Commines) and lost nine of their number in the battle. However, Bernard Stewart, in command of the French forces also fought, this time against the Spanish-Neapolitan forces under The Great Captain Gonsalvo de Cordova, at the First Battle of Seminara where Stewart led the French forces to victory. The point here is that Stewart d'Aubigny had with him in Calabria, a number (likely to be a hundred) of the Scots Guards, though these may be the 100 Men-at-Arms '..not entered on the muster roll..'.

Cranniequinier

That he had Guards with him in southern Italy is proven by the fact that once he returned to France in August following his expulsion from Italy following an extended guerilla style struggle, it can be noted that twenty two of their number had fallen in Italy with him as he is recorded in ordering new uniforms to re-equip the Scots Guards but is only charged for the embroidery of seventy eight uniforms.

Obviously the same troops cannot be in two places at once, but the troops present at Fornovo are described by de Commines as being 'cranniquinier' and the troops in southern Italy appear to be men-at-arms (the Garde de la Manche would presumably be with the king as part of his household during the battle though they are not explicitly named).

This observation strengthens the belief that the Garde encompassed a far greater number than just those of the Garde de la Manche and the 100 Archers (or men-at-arms) as previously discussed.

On his death bed, Charles' father Louis XI had entrusted the care of Charles into the hands of the Scots Guards. On the death of Charles (only after a short reign of eight years) an archer and a butler died of sorrow showing the great affection that the Guard had for their king.

Charles' successor Louis XII was to continue the conflicts in Italy and the Garde Ecossaise were also to continue in their devotion to duty and were in the fore front of many of the actions of the French army in the coming campaigns.

Italian Wars Update 002 - Stradiot WIP

It's been a while since I posted any Italian Wars progress, but the project has been bubbling away in the background, with the lead mountain part increasing steadily and a fair bit of modelling and preparation going on too.

As a treat for my birthday, I was given (without prompting of course) a set of the Perry Stradiot which I have now assembled, based and undercoated, ready for a lick of paint.

With a mix of the 'traditional' Stradiot and the 'westernised' packs, the unit should look suitably rakish and ready to pillage anyones baggage.
 

The figures have great character of their own and the 'westernised' pack is crying out for further exploration and conversions. Very nice figures and should look good once painted up.

Marignano Trial Refight

Everyone out there in bloggy-land loves a good campaign. I am one of that number for certain and have taken part in several over the years and enjoyed taking part in them all.

One thing that puts many people off campaigns is the fact that they often run out of steam and many do not get to a conclusion, satisfactory or otherwise. One campaign that I have been involved in with friend Dave Knight was a mini-campaign based around the battle of Marignano in 1515 and the events leading up to this famous conflict, and Dave and myself started this campaign about five years ago and for one reason or another the campaign did the fizzle just before getting the final event played. Before you know it a couple of years have passed and beyond the 'we must get that game played to finish the campaign', it just hadn't happened.

So, after talking about other campaigns, Dave suggested to get the battle played, if only for rounding off the series and for a sense of 'completeness', and this was duly agreed to.

The campaign had been played out using a multitude of rules; WRG 2nd Edition Renaissance, Tercio, Bad War and the skirmish set 'Sword & Pistol' and all these had produced a fun game for the various scenario's leading up to the final match. With the current favourite at the club being Impetus, we decided to go with that rule set for battle refight.

A trial game was decided upon to test out the deployment and ruleset before the final conclusion. Our army lists were drawn up and the amendments from the previous scenario's dragged out of the depths and battle lines drawn for the pretty simple battlefield layout. 

As a tester for the battle I was pretty up for the event and was keen to try out the tactics employed by the French on the day with light cavalry out front to delay the Swiss pike blocks and give me more time to fire the artillery, crossbow etc and soften them up before the inivitable clash, and to see how the troops fared in a pretty French type 'en avant' style showing lot's of elan and perhaps foolhardiness which I could then temper this strategy for the main event next week, possibly altering the troop types and strategy based on the results.

Pretty quickly we noticed a few issues with the rules, the main one being the range of the artillery was only 30U or about 2', I also discovered that my archer cavalry under Impetus is very un-manoeuvrable and they're attempt at delaying the pike blocks an almost impossible task but the skirmish screen of crossbow and mounted arquebus did work quite well. The up shot was the heavier archer cavalry got cut to bits and shot to hell with only a couple of minor casualties inflicted in return but the lighter troops inflicted a greater degree of damage while avoiding contact. What was successful was the break up of the Swiss advance to the pikes arrived in a piecemeal fashion, though I paid a hefty 6 Victory Point price (for the loss of the archer cavalry) to do it.

As the Swiss got closer Dave picked up speed with his pike blocks (managing to get the initiative every move until contact) and allowed only one real attack on the pike blocks from the artillery and crossbow units before the crunch.

The general melle over the ditch ensued with a glimmer of hope at first for the French with the centre and right melees at first going the French way but this was just a tantalising 'what might be' before it was cruelly taken away and the Swiss surged forward and pushed back the Landsknecht and Gascon Pike (though the Gascns lasted a lot longer than expected). With a couple of pretty hefty prolonged combats the back was broken of the Fench line and pushed the army over it's break point and thus a victory for the Swiss.

We did make a few mistake's while playing, forgetting about the zone of control a couple of times resulting in some easy kills for the Swiss against artillery and crossbow, and the effect of difficult terrain (the ditch) on the Pike Blocks dice but I don't think there would have been much difference in the result if we had remembered.

We both felt a bit disappointed after the trial game and felt the Impetus rules didn't really give a good renaissance feel to the event, and decided to call that the final match in the campaign rather than revisit what was a bit of a flat experience gaming wise next week.

I feel the problem is that I the rules dictated the flow of the game. I like to play a game where you feel there is a narrative with points in it which tell a story of the event and get the imagination going. Impetus is too intrusive a game system to let you do that. Great rules for having a game and doing this fairly quickly but more of a feel of monopoly rather than re-fighting a moment of history on the table top.

It could be that we both didn't know the rules sufficiently well that the fluidity of playing would allow the narrative of what transpired on the table top to come to the fore, but I'm guessing that this is not the case and the mechanics are too abstract to allow that kind of interaction.

Oh well, a campaign completed at least, so a +1 for tidiness and back to the drawing board for finding a rule set we like for the Italian Wars - so far my favourite 'feel' wise is Bad War even though it's torture to decifer, but definitely gives a good story.

Moebius - 1938 - 2012

Arzach

Just learned today that Jean 'Moebius' Giraud the French illustrator/artist has passed away 10th March, aged 73.

The Pope of Comics, his artwork had a profound influence on my own art work from around the age of twenty and always a favourite of mine since, his works Arzach and The Airtight Garage in particular having a special place still in my library.

His original style had influenced two or more generations of artists and continues to do so and definitely ahead of his time and ground breaking back in the seventies and early eighties.

His artwork was the first I saw that had a sense of being pictures  actually depicting another world or place different from our own.

To quote him and paraphrase one of the art journals; ' He once described his life as a train racing to a full stop. ... Now Jean has reached his final stop, and left the world in a more interesting place because of his journey.'

Garde Ecossaise Update

Garde Ecossaise Archer
Montlhery 1465

I have been doing a fair bit of reading up on the Garde Ecossaise while pondering on the colour scheme to paint up my unit of Garde on foot and out of general interest.

Being always with the person of the king, they were party to all the events of French royal history for the best part of three hundred years. They are described thus; 'The Garde Ecossaise enjoys, preferable to all those that ever did service in France, place and precedence. For example, the captain of the Scots Guards is, by way of excellency, designed first captain of his Majesty's guards. He begins to attend on the first day of the year, and serves the first quarter.....When the king is crowned or anointed the captain of the Scots Guards stands by him, and when the ceremony is performed takes the royal robe as his due. When the keys of a town or fortress are delivered up to the king he returns them that minute to the captain of the Scots Guards. Twenty Five of his guard (Garde de la Manche) wear always, in testimony of their unspotted fidelity, white coats overlaid with silver lace; and six of these, in turns, stand next the kings person at all times and seasons in the palace, the church, in parliament, the courts of justice, and the reception of foreign ambassadors. It is the right of these gentlemen to carry the corpse of the deceased king to the royal sepulchre at St Denis.'

The foregoing does present a few interesting ideas for diorama's or vignette's, but they will be for another day.

I've managed to track down a rare copy of Forbes-Leiths 'The Scots Men-at-arms, and Life Guards in France V2, but I'm still on the scrounge for volume 1, but so far a copy is eluding me, mainly due to cost of the ones I've tracked down so far.

I did track down a copy of 'La Garde Ecossaise Du Roi' by Nick Saunders, which though briefer than the Forbes-Leith work, is very useful though more directly aimed at the Garde of Charles VII.

Both works are a wealth of useful information and to the end that I have pretty much decided on the colour scheme for the Garde for Charles VIII of 1495 under the captaincy of Sir Bernard Stewart and Patrick MacLean hommes d'armes. with beneath them, 25 Archiers du Corps and 78 Archiers de la Garde.

Charles VII
Grande Garde du Roi

I did manage to confirm that from the Gardes inception they consisted of archers and crannequiniers. It would appear that the term archer does not necessarily mean someone armed with a bow though often assumed, but more towards the later use of a cavalryman lighter armed than a gendarme (the term archer often being used at the time for anyone being a member of a man-at-arms retinue or a person of notes guard), though again there is some evidence for the unit being armed with longbows (along with other garde units) at certain events. It may be that they were armed with either depending on the choice of their captain (or king) at the time.or possibly the bow was used on ceremonial occasions. According to the muster roles, the term crannequiniers disappears and appears repeatedly but after circa 1464 it disappears altogether, though it is confirmed that Garde units were armed with crossbow at Fornovo in 1495. The Garde consisted of generally around a hundred who were men of rank and substance and then the 'rank and file' made up the rest of the company as a lance being made up of a MaA plus a squire, archer, valet, and a crannequinier. Like the Cent Suisse numbered more than a hundred, it is likely that the total muster for each of the Garde du Roi on campaign would be four or more their apparent number.

It is these others, that may have been armed with crossbow or bow by this time and the Garde proper would have been armed as other gendarme and archers of the French army while on campaign. In brief, pretty much anything goes that suits your chosen look as nothing can be definitely proven or not as arms used.

Francis I
Garde Ecossaise and Francais

Firstly, the Captain would wear red, so that's pretty simple, and with Messire Stewart away on kings business a lot of the time that will be Messire MacLean.

Although not certain, the standard bearer will be wearing a white surcoat with the badge of St Michael, Charles VIII being the only French Monarch of the time not having an identified 'badge' I figured the artistic licence being acceptable and used on his reformed ordonnance standards including the Garde, I figured that it would suffice. The standard bearer is currently shaping up as we speak being the test piece for the unit.

Now according to the only sources I can find stating anything about the Garde livery under Charles VIII, which is mainly Ian Heath, they also wore the green, white and red of their predessors, so I'm going to go with that scheme rather than the white I'd planned on before, being confirmed for Francis I reign. At least this is going to make the unit a bit more recognisable as being what they are.

The question of the badge however does pose questions as above and I have decided on the St Michael motif for the unit as a whole. This was popular with several of the medieval French kings, was on the livery of the Garde under the reign of Louis XI, the order of St Michael being founded by Charles VIII and several of the Garde were members of that order.

The unit paint scheme is now sorted and under way and I will post the progress as I go with the standard bearer likely to be the first with any progress.

Charles VIII
Companie d'Ordonnance

More on the Garde Ecossaise soon.

Italian Wars Update 001 - Garde Ecossaise WIP

Garde Ecossiase WIP 002
The Difficult Six

I've been working on the Garde Ecossaise foot unit recently and have now just about finished doing the modelling with green stuff on the last of the unit.

I have learnt a lot with using green stuff, and realised I've still a way to go to get to reasonable standard, but that will come with practice. The one thing I have learnt is that patience is the greatest skill for using the medium.

Garde Ecossaise WIP 003
The Easy Six

There are still a few details to be modelled on a few of the figures, sword belts and a couple of hats but these will get finished off soon and I can get into getting the unit painted.

I have decided to paint up the unit in the white livery of Charles VIII and Francis I. This is mainly because it will be a bit more striking on the table top but also a lot easier to paint than the red/white/green Charles VII livery that most may be familiar with as depicted in the 'Adoration of the Magi' painting.

Adoration of the Magi

Although the white livery can only be strictly confirmed as the livery of the 'Garde de la Manche' or Garde du Corps of the King (described on their entry into Rome, - "The Scottish Garde de la Manche are immediately next the king, and ride with white hoquetons over their mail, in token of their unspotted fidelity." - this is the only confirmed livery of the time of the Italian Wars where the Garde served throughout.

The Garde served on campaign with Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francis I and being particularly mentioned at Fornovo, Agnadello, Marignano, Naples, Pavia and Seminara among others.

Robert Stewart d'Aubigny and the Garde Ecossaise
entry into Paris (by Graham Turner)

Once the foot unit is complete and I get a few other bits under way for the project, I intend to do a mounted version of the Garde Ecossaise which should be interesting to do, and having done a fair bit of research on the subject, maybe another couple of 'regiments' from the household like the Cent Suisse or l'Garde du Roi Ordinaire. More on the Garde and the Italian Wars soon.

Trial Impetus Italian Wars Game

French vs French Impetus Trial Game

This week I had a trial game of Impetus for my Early Italian Wars French Army, Dave K kindly stumping up the opposition, which happened to be a Late Wars French Army. Interesting to see the differences in a 300pt a piece army list for one thing.

Still being a newbie to the Impetus Rules, and this being only the second game in recent history that I have played the rules, Dave K was happy to give me a 'friendly' game to help pick up the rules, aided by Dave B and Marco on the sidelines to point us in the right direction.

As is my usual want, and in the interests of picking up the rules I decided there was no point in hanging about and having won the initiative in the first round decided to go 'head down boot swinging' and with the usuial beginners luck with these things (aided by some pretty good dice throws) proceeded to demolish the whole left of Dave's French of Gendarme, Arquebusier and Pike Block, and succeeded in holding his right wing of Archers and Arquebusier, winning the initiative in the three turns we played.

As you might think at this point (as indeed did I at this juncture) that the game was in the bag and what a jolly good game it is. However, and there always seems to be a however in these things, my  beginners luck was about to turn.

On Dave taking his third turn there wasn't much left for him to do bar a bit of shooting on his right flank and the big barny in the middle where the two big pike blocks were having a scrum. So, expecting this to be his last move before the collapsed left flank disappeared altogether and what was left of his army to be rolled up from the flank, went for the jugular.

His dice improved slightly, and my dice deserted me, and his pikes proceeded to win the melee and pushed my pike back three times and each time stayed in contact, and on the third failure I threw a six. Dave pounced on this like a fox in a chicken coop and proudly presented me with the rule of....8.2.2

Yup, my General was with this unit and of course the roll for avoiding his death was...not what I was looking for. Death of General and and Command Routed. End of game.

All a bit sudden, and unexpected, but at least now I know the risk of generals being in combat. Thinking back on it, the incident was very Italian Wars with defeat being grabbed from the jaws of victory by the inopportune death of some French General getting in the way of a pike. Great stuff.

Good, blood and guts game and thoroughly enjoyed by all. Hopefully more soon. Just need to get some progress on the painting front. More of that anon.

Garde Ecossaise Standard

Garde Ecossaise Standard - Charles VIII

With my Garde Ecossaise unit coming on and the green stuff is flying everywhere, I thought I should look out the standard for the unit I was planning on using. I had tracked down the appropriate details of the standard from Ian Heaths 'Armies of the Middle Ages, Volume 1' quite sometime ago so I knew what it should look like.


Then quite a while ago I stumbled upon a very useful web site; The Danish Figure Games Association who have a marvelous selection of flags and standards for downloading from a range of periods including a good selection for French Medieval and Renaissance periods.
One of the standards there was just the standard described by Mr Heath so duly downloaded and saved said standard and stored it away for future use.


Now I have the where withall to do the unit I dug out the file and although useful I decided it needed a bit of prettying up, so with my first attempt in photoshop for doing a standard I did just that with the results above. It should hopefully grace my nice shiny Garde soon.


The Danish Figure Games Association website downloads page is worth a visit here for Medieval and Renaissance stuff. You'll be pleasantly surprised if you haven't come across they're site before.


Now that I've got the idea, I hope to refine the process and maybe produce some more standards for various units, might be fun to try anyway.

August WIP

As part of my Italian Wars project I have now started on a unit that has been in the back of my mind to do for quite some time, namely the Garde Ecossaise (the body guard of the French Kings from the mid 1400's right through to the dissolution of the French Monarchy.

An early shot with the basic assembly done and with a bit of modelling to do with green stuff to fill in the gaps and model the surcoats over some of the armour;

Garde Ecossaise WIP

A fair bit to dop but pleased with the look so far. I'm just glad that the Perry's brought the European plastic figs out, gives lots of possibilities for this kind of modelling.

Next on my desk is the next (small part) of my 'Abbey' terrain project, just a filler/sand alone piece put together while I'm casting loads of arches for the next couple of larger pieces.

Abbey Terrain 002 WIP a

Abbey Terrain 002 WIP b

A simple little piece but hopefully will add a bit of character to the final completed project.

Welcome!

'Keeping it large and loose' this week and so not huge amounts done but chilled out and looking forward to Claymore 2011 tomorrow through in Edinburgh. Not planning on mega purchases but keeping an eye out for any shiny bargains and hope to snap a few pieces of eye candy of some of the nice games put on for the show. Should be good.

Also a welcome to the Warblog is due for Paul of the Man Cave whose blogs are probably well known to many out there with lots of gaming and modelling goodness, and to Christopher(aka Axebreaker) who is also out there on the forums and whose blog is definitely worth having a look particularly for all the Dark Age figures, I particularly like the El Cid stuff, tasty.

What I have been doing this week is getting lots of planning done and thinking out things for the various projects I've got on the go or that I'm planning on doing in the future with one coming to the fore, namely a French/Bavarian Malburian army and have been reading up on this and getting a bit of background. It's a period I've been interested in since I was a nipper reading Winston Churchills (The Life and Times of the Duke of Malbourgh' with it's very nice maps and stirring accounts of the battles).

Battle of Oudenarde 1708

This project some way off but likely to start next year and I'll be looking to pick up 'Beneath the Lilly Banners 2' soon for using with this one. Will see how this goes but looking forward even to planning this one in detail before I dive in.

My Italian Wars project has also received a bit of attention and a few more French and Italian Units have been planned and I have made a tentative start on a unit that's been in the back of my mind for a while, namely the Garde Ecossaise for Charles VIII on foot. A fairly small unit but still difficult to get the figures for the basic trooper but I've got started now using some Perry figures and will need to get busy with some green stuff. Will keep you posted on this one.

'L'Adoration des Mages'
with Garde Ecossaise

Lots of other things sizzling in the pan, enough to keep me busy for quite a while, sometimes it's good just to think about stuff and enjoy the planning and getting into a topic as much as actually doing it.

Anyways, see all at Claymore tomorrow and will report back for those who can't make it.