Dante's Wars

Magyars

2012-01-20T22:28:00.002Z

As with various other projects, these started largely because I bought a couple of packs just because I liked the look. I was spurred on because I didn't have a suitable army for Warfare 2011, the theme for DBMM being the 'Horrible Huns'.
I decided to use the figures to form an Early Hungarian army which covers the period from the foundation of the kingdom until the Mongol conquest. The competition only allowed armies until 1150 so this directed me to the style of heavy cavalry to paint.

Unlike the slightly later period I have concentrated on, the amount of source material is pretty scanty for 11th century Hungary. There is the Chronicum Pictum - see the picture on the right - which shows events from the early kingdom, but this is actually 14th century. It does, however, show various figures in top coats and is some guide to reasonable colours.

For the mass of the Magyar horsemen I used these figures from Donnington's New Era range.
The shooting archers are 'break waist' allowing a nice range of poses. It means you can get a lot of movement on the bases.

Pechenegs formed a part of the army from before the foundation of the kingdom. They may possibly have been settled by the kings in colonies to help to maintain royal control. A paper called 'Pechenegs, Cumans and Iasians' gives some interesting background if you like the academic detail - it is available on scribd but I'm never sure of the copyright status of such things so won't link to it!

These are the Donnington Pechenegs. The beards are supposed to have been a particular feature of these tribes. Again, some of the figures are break waisted.

I also have a few of the Donnington 'Bulgar' figures. Over time, the costume of the Hungarians became similar to this - in fact you can see elements of what would become the traditional hussar outfit. You can see this outfit in such as Mirliton's later period Hungarian cavalry.

This shows some Bulgarians facilitating the martyrdom of some Byzantines. Other pictures from the same period show other trouser colours incluidng red. The Donnington figures have these long trousers but I decided to keep the look similar to the Magyars and painted them as if tucked into longer boots.

This shows Donnington figures compared to Black Hat figures including one of their Hungarians. I used my Black Hat figures - mostly a mix of their Cumans and Hungarians - to stand for the Szekelers in the Hungarian army.
The figures are a pretty good match for size and style.

These are the Donnington cavalry. I use them for the traditionally armed heavier cavalry. I like the figures though perhaps a couple of different armoured archers would help with variety. The bowcases are separate and I'm afraid I left them off most of the figures.
The horse tailed banner was used by the Magyars and other steppe origin armies. They seem to have continued to use them for a while after occupying what became Hungary.

The first king of Hungary, Stephen I, was helped in his struggle for leadership by Germans. Bavarians provided the bulk though over the next couple of centuries the origin of these troops became more varied; they were know as 'Saxons' though there origin was from various parts of Germany, especially the Rhinelands. There were also Flemish, French, Spanish and English immigrants.
This later portrayal of Stephen shows the apostolic cross which was sent to him by the Pope. It is debateable whether he used this as his arms - this was before true heraldry. It does form part of the modern arms of Hungary and Slovakia. The stripes may date back to this period, being replaced as the main symbol by the cross but later returning to pre-eminence.

This is my first go at a Hungarian general, carrying the striped flag and shield. The three figures on the central base are part of the Donnington Norman range. The figure on the left wears a helmet which is shown in the Osprey book on the Normans though he is supposed to be 12th century. I think he looks better as a semi-westernised Hungarian. The bird is the earlier, re-Christian symbol of the Arpad dynasty.

The possibly 11th century Legenda Maior of St Stephen* says that he carried the banners of St George and St Martin (...sub vexillo Deo dilecti pontificis Martini Sanctique martyris Georgii ducibus...) against his pagan uncle. I decided to paint one in a Byzantine style since there was some influence from there despite Stephen adopting catholicism. This can be seen in the decoration of the crown known as St Stephen's (which is fairly likely to post date him).

I already have a banner of St Martin on some of my Ghibelline cavalry, so I decided to do St George. There seem to be two traditions - one is the familar fight against the dragon but there is also a more portrait style which I decided to use.

The red cross on the shield may be from a slightly later period.

The figures are from QR Miniatures, a Polish compay which has lately added a couple of Early Medieval ranges. These are the Early Polish and Eastern Franks which can be bought as complete DBA packs. I only bought the cavalry. These are the East Franks and I thought they gave a nice mix of style representing the transition of gear. The previous picture shows that they mix pretty well with Donningon. The style of sculpture is slightly more basic than some other recent ranges but I like them and there are some great poses. The Poles are not quite so well posed but there are some very nice figures amongst them. The middle figures of each of these bases is from the Polish range - the pointing 'general' on the left is particularly nice.

*Incidentally, St Stephen is, amongst other things, patron saint of brick layers...

More Baggage

2011-12-29T21:16:00.001Z

It's been far too long since my last post so I thought I'd put up a few more photos of different types of baggage.

A while ago I made a version of de Montfort's carriage. At the time I wasn't entirely happy so I thought I'd have another go.

The draught horse is by Donnington. The rider and infantryman are Old Glory. The wheels are from Langley Models, a fantastic source for all sorts of size and type of wheel. Good service too!
For those who like such stuff, the rider bears the Lambton arms - possibly those of Sir John of Lambton Worm fame.

The lower body of the wagon is plastic card. I then bent some florists' wire to shape for tilt supports. I tried tissue but that was too porous. The original pictures also make the upper porion look quite rigid so I used thin card. I wasn't sure whether to have the ends rigid or open but I settled on making curtains out of Green Stuff. I then thought I could take advantage of the curtains and have a go at making a passenger out of Green Stuff too.

I was quite pleased with the result.

Some DBMM Medieval armies can have pack horses as baggage elements so I have these from Donnington. The various bits of cargo are separate so can be arranged as you wish.

The wagon behind is also Donnington and again the cargo which comes with it is separate, allowing a variety of loads.

Quite some time ago, I bought some Alain Touller Mongol Baggage. This is a nice little set with a rider, a family on foot and a few Bactrian camels.

The tent is from Baueda.

The pony and camels are pretty small compared to other companies' - not necessarily unrealistically sized but small enough to not mix well. The humans would mix pretty well with Essex and similar sized figures.

More recently, thanks to a post on TMP, I came across QR Miniatures. Most of the range is Renaissance although they also produce some Poles and Eastern Franks from the 11th century which aren't yet on the website.

I ordered some of their horses since a number of DBMM armies have pony herds for their baggage elements. There aren't many suitable horses lacking tack so I jumped at these. I was pleased with them though I'd still buy some shaggy steppe ponies if I could get them.

EDIT: Thanks to Geoff on TMP; another source of ponies are QRF's 'Yellow Ribbon' range. Some have a halter but no saddles or blankets.

Romans, they go the house?

2011-10-07T23:43:00.000+01:00

'"Romanes eunt domus"? People called Romanes, they go, the house? '

Just a quick post.

At Newbury, I bought Magister Militum's new 10mm Roman buildings. I saw these on a flyer I received from them but as far as I can see they aren't yet on the website.

Roman - indeed most ancient - buildings are pretty hard to come by in most scales. I have picked up various examples in the past but most didn't really appeal. An option I've considered, and seen used to good effect, is to use the paper buildings from 'Roman Seas' . However, I wanted something with a bit more heft and which I'm less likely to squash. There is also Lurkio's Roman Villa. This looks nice though to be a bit hypercritical I think they could have used a better roof tile effect. It looks like theirs uses either Slater's or something similar. For scratchbuilding, you can get some very nice pantiles in various scales from Noch, though at something of a price. I have some sitting around waiting to be used one day.

So, here are the buildings:

Basically, a fairly high status but single range villa house with two outbuildings.

I've used the classic red and white look. I've seen a description of a very colourful villa exterior, but have lost the link! In the flesh the terracotta roof stands out more. I used GW terracotta paint for them with a lighter highlight. Walls are ivory highlighted in off-white to bring out the texture. The red band was, iirc, scab red with Foundry British red coat light as a highlight.

Final picture shows the 10mm buildings next to some 15mm Warmodelling Romans. While obviously the figures are out of scale the difference isn't too jarring and it allows sensibly sized buildings on the battlefield.
Hopefully the range will expand. A small shrine would be nice, or some lower class buildings suitable for a small town.

For more info,
http://www.romanbritain.freeserve.co.uk/villa.htm by Guy de la Bedoyere
This villa is quite near where I live.
Museum of London - possibly the inspiration for MM's model.
A nice overview of Roman paints is here though most would have been for interior decoration.

The Marcher Lords and the Welsh

2011-08-08T12:38:00.000+01:00

The English conquest of Wales was largely driven by the actions of the Marcher lords, those who held lands along the English-Welsh border. These were some of the most powerful subjects of the Kings of England at any time. They had far more independence than the majority of the barons with legal powers "like unto a king". These powers are summaried in the Wikipedia article. One point I would disagree with is the opening staement that they were 'trusted'. That was the theory but in practice their power meant that they had to be carefully handled by the king.

At the time of the 2nd Barons' War, the three Marcher Earls were those of Hereford, Pembroke and Gloucester. The Earldom of Shrewsbury had become extinct and the Earldom of Chester was held by Prince Edward. Another earldom, that of March, was created under Edward I and first held by Roger Mortimer.

I've already mentioned Hereford and Pembroke, so here is Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester and of Hertford. 'Red' Gilbert (probably on account of his hair) had inherited the earldom at an early age - he wasn't actually knighted until de Montfort did so just before the Battle of Lewes. He threw in his lot with the Barons despite being married to the king's neice who was also daughter of the Earl of Pembroke. His actions probably led to their estrangement so that they were legally separated after the war.

He led the central division of the Baronial army at Lewes. However, he fell out with de Montfort and began to aid the royalist party, joining Edward for Kenilworth and Evesham. He reaped the rewards, being given further lands in Wales. He had various disagreements with Llewellyn and led Edward's southern forces against the Welsh though without success.

He even engaged in a private war with de Bohun, Earl of Hereford. This was within the rights of a Marcher Lord but Edward stamped on it, prosecuting both parties and briefly imprisoning them to make the point.

One feature of Marcher warfare were the muntatores, the light cavalry known to have been used in Staffordshire and Shropshire from the late 11th century. They are described as having hauberk, iron helmet and lance. The lack of any mention of shields may not be significant - they are also not mentioned for the infantry the Assizes of arms and it is generally assumed that the infantry had them so the muntatores may also have done so. This article describes them and proposes a link between them and the hobelars which are often thought to have originated in Ireland.

There may not have been any noticeable difference between the muntatores and the lesser equipped part of the Welsh cavalry. For my muntatores I have simply used some of the Legio Heroica sergeeants, mostly with no leg armour, on unbarded horses. However, for my Welsh cavalry I have used some Outpost cavalry and these may also be suitable for muntatores. Outpost's later sergeants are also suitable - they have kettle hats and cerveillieres. I don't have any comparison photos for Outpost yet but I would judge them pretty compatible with Mirliton and similar.

The English conquest of Wales relied to some extent on the fractious nature of Welsh politics. The Marcher lords and the King often involved themselves in a dispute between two Welsh parties and came away with gains from the loser. Some other gains were made through marriage and others through blatant annexation.

The Welsh also involved themselves in English politics - much of de Montfort's army at Evesham was composed of Welsh infantry and Llewellyn 'the last' was married to de Montfort's daughter.

By the mid-13th century, most of the south of Wales was under Marcher control and this seems to be the main area where archery was dominant.The north seems to have been fonder of spearmen and there were various occasions where they stood up to and defeated English knights, though often with the aid of favourable terrain.

The dress of these spearman is somewhat debateable.There is evidence that the standard form of dress found over most of Western Europe was becoming normal but there is other evidence that a more distinctive mode of dress remained in use. This has been dismissed as being English writers dismissing a more barbarous style of dress but the description seems no more outlandish or unsuitable than the broadly similar clothing worn in the Scottish highlands i.e. linen shirt and woolen cloak. Note - I don't think the overall appearance of these two forms of dress would have been similar, just the components. This article summarises the evidence. You can find Giraldus Cambrienensis' 12th century description here and some later depictions of Welsh soldiers here. This is one of the pictures from the National Archives of Wales.

There is a Flemish description which seems to confirm the appearance of the Welsh at the end of the 13th century. The Flemish version of van Velthem's Spiegel Historiael is here - the relevant section is around line 90. The link above has a translation into English.

One thing which I've pondered is the translation of 'roden rocke'. These are the red tunics which are mentioned in various books. I have absolutely no evidence for this, but I wonder if there is a Medieval Flemish equivalent of 'rude' (from the latin 'rudis') which this could represent. 'Rude garment' is a phrase which crops up in English to mean a simple or rough piece of clothing often used for something like St Francis's garb. The usual explanation however is that the king donated red cloth to them as an early form of livery. I have painted up some of my Welsh spearmen in red and the remainder in a motley collection using colours in the laws of Hywel Dda and here.

These are some of my Welsh spearmen.

From left to right they are from Lancashire, Donnington, Khurasan, Donnington, Khurasan and Lancashire.

Overall, my favourites are the Donnington figures. They have a proper hood and the proportions are IMHO the best. as can be seen, the three makes are very compatible in size. These are the first Lancashire figures I've used for a while and was largely as a result of them putting photos on their website. There is a third pose which I haven't used - it may well paint up well enough but I didn't like the figures as much. For the price it is affordable to discard the odd figure! Incidentally, their English foot such as these spearmen are very good figures - despite the number of feudal infantry I already have I shall have to find a home for them. I shall also probably use their Welsh archers as I seem to have accidentally found myself in possession of most of a Welsh army! I already have a few as samples but haven't painted them. They have a lot more action in the pose than Essex's Welsh.

Beasts of Burden

2011-06-05T23:39:00.005+01:00

I have a bit of a weakness for getting baggage animals for my armies, especially when I see ones I haven't seen before. Here is a bit of background for some of the beasts used in ancient armies.

Donkeys

Tribute from Apadana - photo I took at the BM

(Rather irrelevantly, the word 'donkey' wasn't used in English until a couple of hundred years ago and is one of those which seems to have appeared from nowhere to become the common name. (Another is 'dog' which appears in late medieval times...) The older name, which is still used for a range of related animals is the 'Ass').

Several different species of ass are found in Asia and Africa (and a species in Europe may have survived into historical times). Studies show that the likely ancestors of modern domesticated asses lived in North Africa - probably the ancestor of the Nubian and Somali asses. The Asiatic asses seem to have been hard to domesticate though they may have been used to pull Sumerian chariots. These were known by the Romans as onagers, hence the name they gave to some catapults because of their kick. The Greek name - which in English is hemione, literally means 'half-ass'...

There are various references to asses in Ancient texts and it isn't always clear which species is meant. Biblical references include dometicated asses. Pliny refers to Cappadocian mules which can bear young - these are likely Asiatic (probably Syrian) Wild Asses.

Donkeys were commonly used as beasts of burden, especially where horses were in short supply for the breeding of mules. Other than the Egyptian painting at the start of this ramble, there are some Greek images of baggage donkeys such as here .

Despite their common use in Ancient times the number of 15mm donkeys available is very limited. I used some from Tin Soldier. There is a single pose and no variation in load, though the heads and legs are fairly easy to bend as can be seen from my photo. If I hadn't been in a hurry to get these painted I might have put some green stuff baggage on some for variety. Tin Soldier figures can have a slight cartoony feel to them and these remind me a little of those in Disney's Pinocchio. I rather like them though :) The drivers are from Xyston. Other bases use women and children from the Thracian range.

Mules

Mules are of course a cross between a horse and a donkey - to be specific a female horse and male donkey. They are almost always infertile - so much so that the rare instances of a female mule bearing a foal was considered portentous. Mule use requires a decent number of breeding mares and some societies have not had the horses to spare. Egypt, for instance, seems to have used mules fairly rarely. (See here page 60) . The chariot pulling animals of Sumeria mentioned above may have been a similar hybrid though of domesticated donkeys and wild (Asiatic) asses.
Mules have various advantages over donkeys and horses. They tend to be larger than donkeys though often not by much. The shape combines features of horse and donkey - in terms of figures the tail is like a horse's and the mane may not stick up as much.

Since I had no suitable figures at the time, I painted some of Essex's mules to look more like donkeys. These are much smaller than the Tin Soldier donkeys, and to me would be far too small against Xyston figures.

Camels

Apadana tribute - BM

The Bactrian camel and the dromedary are both found being used as baggage animals in ancient times. Hybrids also found their place (see here). The most famous uses of baggage camels are when Cyrus the Great is supposed to have used his to scare Lydian horses and when the Surena carried plenty of spare arrows for shooting down Crassus's Romans. Plutarch says that Mithradates used them - he berates Sallust for saying that it was Lucullus's soldiers who first saw them and that they had previously been seen during the Pontic invasion of Greece (as well as a century earlier being used by Antiochus). These could have been either type of camel since,as in modern English, ancient usage can often refer to either form. Persian carvings show both types being brought in tribute.
Note, camels seems to have been known about in Egypt long before the Romans, since various terracotta and otehr images have been found there. However, these are likely to represent animals used by traders from the East rather than indicating wide use of the animal with Egypt proper. Camel drivers are mentioned in Ptolemaic documents and these do seem to have operated in the country itself rather than in Syria.

There is a nice image of a dromedary being used by Assyrians here.

For my Persians, I have Bactrian camels. These are figures by Essex and have a lot of character. I think there are three variants in pose. The drivers are Xyston - various levy troopsI had spare.
My pictures don't really do them justice - there is a clearer one on Madaxeman - you'll also find some nicely done Essex dromedaries too
Alain Touller does some nice Bactrian camels with Mongol 'civilians'. They are quite a lot smaller than other companies' offerings though I shall eventually paint them. If and when I do, I'll add them here.

For my Islamic armies, I have a choice. I originally use Peter Pig's camels and drivers. Like most of their figures the drivers are small compared to other ranges. The camels are similar in size to other companies, including ones by Irregular and Tin Soldier which I haven't shown.

Though the Peter Pig beasts are decent enough figures, I got carried away and bought some of the fairly new camels from Donnington. These have the baggage separate from the camels allowing a great deal of variety. They are the biggest of the camels I have though they don't dwarf other ranges.

Finally, here is a comparison shot of the three manufacturers:

Plutarch's Wars: The Shahenshah

2011-05-12T17:01:00.000+01:00

The Persian Kings tend to be seen through the eyes of the Greek historians - generally as rather effete and luxury loving despots. Yet Xenophon praises many achievements and habits of the Persians which shows the rather ambivalent attitude which existed.

The 4th century saw the rule of four Persian Kings. Artaxerxes II and III ruled for most of the century. Artaxerxes II saw a challenge from his brother Cyrus at the start of his reign, details of which are covered in Xenophon's Anabasis. He had various further dealings with the Greeks with much playing off of one side against the other. The treaty which ended the Corinthian War was known as the King's Peace - Artaxerxes essentially threatened that he would aid those who wanted to accept the agreement against those who wouldn't.

There were various revolts by territories of the Empire against the central authority - the most successful being the Egyptians who maintained their independence through much of the century. One of Artaxerxes's attempts to regain control was led by Pharnabazus supported by the Greek Iphikrates, though the campaign failed due partly to disagreement by the two men.
Artaxerxes III regained control of Egypt, taking two campaigns to do so. Diodorus says that he and most of his sons were murdered by the eunuch Bagoas. The sole survivor was elevated to the throne as Artaxerxes IV but he too was removed and replaced by the man who assumed the name Darius III.
Darius was probably a case of a man having greatness thrust upon him and he doesn't seem to have been up to the job. Perhaps if he'd had time he might have made a better showing but he was up against Alexander the Great.

It was traditional for Persian kings to be depicted in a chariot, such as this seal. Note the position of the axle. Some other depictions seem to indicate a further forward axle though there has been a lot of online discussion about this.

The studs on the wheels are very noticeable though the 'Alexander Mosaic' may overexaggerate them, producing what this blog terms the marshmallow wheels.
The studs doubtless help traction but also help to fix the tyre in place. Sections of tyre have been found, including the nails, and could be bronze shaped around the wheel in a U shape rather than a shrunk on iron tyre.

I used the Xyston chariot. The wheels in the set are smooth - I tried to show the studs by using a blob of paint which was enough to show them but quick enough to do. I tried as much as possible to use the colour scheme from the mosaic.The purple tunic with broad white stripe may well have been a royal feature, as were the upright tiara with diadem tied around. The figure wears a cloak - I think it may have been likely that the king wwould have had a coat worn as a cloak, so I could have added some arms to it.

The reins were made from dental tape. This is a bit wider than floss but probably too wide - I ended up splitting each strand in two.

This is a bit of baggage I put together. The Greek historians could be rather snearing about the finery and family which could accompany a Persian king so I thought I'd give them something to sneer at.

I had a pack of Xyston 'Eastern levies' and some of the same company's women. The younger women has had sleeves and a veil added to make her a bit more Persian. The men have been painted using some of the designs shown on the clothes of the Immortals on brickwork of the previous century. Since these chaps are defending the tents I'm letting them keep ceremonial gear.

The tent is from Baueda. It is quite small compared to these rather large Xyston figures but it nice all the same. If I played something like FoG where the camp is a single large base I might be tempted to build a single grand pavillion. Part of the booty of Plataea in the fifth century was the King's pavillion which is siad to have been the model for the original Odeon in Athens. This article gives the theory that since the Odeon and the Hall of a Hundred Columns at Persepolis were of such similar size that the pavillion would have been modelled after the one and used as the model for the other. It would have been at least partly wood. Alexander's tent could well have been a similar design, though with fifty columns.

I still have a fair few unpainted 'Kardakes' who may yet find themselves forming a second arc of honour guard.

Plutarch's Wars: Thracians and Mercenary Peltasts

2011-03-02T18:29:00.003Z

A quick post with some of my troops which can be used with Greek and Persian armies of the early to mid 4th century BC.

These are Xyston 15mm Thracians. I think they are possibly Xyston's best with a great deal of variety - you need to go to the website to see just what a large mix is available.
They wear the traditional dress with foxskin cap - some also wear a patterned claok. This fashion seems to have gone out of style in at least part of Thracian society going by the tombs of the late 4th century. For all sorts of links and discussion about Thrace, see the Thracians Yahoo group.
The shields are handpainted but you can buy transfers for the Xyston Thracians from LBMS.

These are my attempt at Iphikratean peltasts. They are used in the Thracian, Later Hoplite Greek and Later Achaemenid Persian DBMM lists and count as fast pike.
Iphikrates was an Athenian who served as general for his own polis as serving a variety of other employers including Pharnabazus and Seuthes and, later, hisThracian father-in-law. His career is covered by Diodorus Siculus (see p.34 especially) and in less detail by Cornelius Nepos.
He is credited with introducing a form of boot which became named after him (quite appropriate as Plutarch says he was thought to be a shoemaker's son). He is also said to have reformed the arms of his men, converting hoplites into a lighter form of troop, though presumably some time after using more conventional peltasts to defeat the Spartans. There is a theory that this may have been connected with shipbourne service. The spear and sword were lengthened and the shield reduced in size. The Loeb translation renders the shape of the shield as being oval though I have seen discussion that it may be round - this being in contrast to the traditional crescent shaped pelta. Nepos also says that they received linen armour rather than metal, though he may be mistaken.
I went with a simple star symbol for the shields as this is shown in a number of places including Persian contexts. The figures are a mixture of various 15mm Xyston Greek peltasts. Many have had arms bent to a better pose for holding the long spears.

Medieval Village

2011-02-24T18:08:00.001Z

A while back, I posted about a model church I built. I used the same method to construct some vilage houses and have finally got them finished (more or less!).

I based the church with a small graveyard.

There are some crosses to mark the graves though they are so difficult to see that they are actaully more trouble than they are worth. The fence is from Hovels as part of their Dark Age range.

There are records of a bishop ordering the enclosure of the area around the churches in his diocese dating from this period. This was seemingly a twofold reason. It kept animals from wandering around the graves. It also helped to stake a claim to the land - there was often dispute between church and village over the rights to wood grown next to the church. When I took the photo I forgot to include a tree which I bought for the purpose. It is a Skale Scenics oak though it does a fair job of being a large yew.

These are two of the three houses I built. They are cruck houses as in this diagram
They were often quite standardised in size. This was due to various factors; many villages were planned by the local landowner so plots were of equal size. The building width was influenced by the size of the animals kept inside since they shared the dwelling with the humans. This continued in many areas of Europe until really quite recently. There is a diagram of a 19th century house - French I think - where the animals tails are tied strategically to avoid slurry being sprayed around the kitchen.
This article gives a table of house widths - they are pretty close to being 16' (around 5m) across. The length of houses is given by the number of bays - again, each bay is around 16' wide - with two or three bays being typical.
The pig sty is from Hovels. It comes with lengths of fencing. I used Donnington pigs though the ones from Hovels are fine. For England the pigs should probably be similar to Tamworths with upright ears and ginger hair. Those on the Luttrell Psalter are really quite lithe by modern standards.

I've based the buildings individually for convenience and to allow the village to be varied in size. The hight of the bases is actually an advantage since each house was built on a toft - a raised area. These would have been larger in proportion to the houses than I have shown. The raised area helped with drainage and would often have continued to rise with time compared to the roads due to erosion of the road and deposition on the toft. Much of the toft would be given over to vegetables and would often have been fenced to protect against wandering animals - for much of farming history fences etc. were for keeping animals out of an area rather than keeping them in.

While I'm discussing farming, there is a great site which is useful for the whole history of British farming. It shows a typical landscape at various points in history and discusses factors such as tree cover. One of the things which surprised me was that there was less tree cover in England at the beginning of the 14th century than there is now. More land had to be cleared for farming, partly because so much was left fallow, and many marginal areas were planted which were abandoned due to the various scourges of the 14th century. By the time the population had recovered, farming was more efficient so much of the marginal land was never recleared, despite the subsequent massive rise in population.

This is a place I must get round to visiting: Cosmeston Medieval Village.

More Spear comparisons

2011-02-10T17:34:00.002Z

A while ago someone asked whether I had some comparison shots Donnington and Khurasan.

These are, from left to right - Khurasan, Donnington New Era, Old Glory (from Crusader range) and Black Hat (feudal range).

Plutarch's Wars: Successor Generals

2011-01-30T16:12:00.003Z

There were a number of interesting characters in the Successor Wars. Some had held high office under Alexander whereas others made a meteoric rise in the confusion of shifting alliances or only attained maturity as the wars raged.

The careers of these men is covered in many places, so I won't go into detail. If you are interested, then reading the appropriate Lives by Plutarch is a good place to start although by his own admission he is interested in the moral aspects rather than straightforward history.

For my Successor armies, I painted a variety of generals. I wanted at least 6 so I can field two armies at once, plus some on foot. With so many theoretical elements, I decided to add a few details to give a bit of differentiation.

This is one of the foot generals. Figures are by Xyston. For the phalangites shields I made some transfers. The general's aspis was inspired the the decoration in the Tomb of the Erotes.

The picture at the beginning of this post shows some of the mounted generals I use. All figures are by Xyston.

The central figure wears a helmet as shown on some depictions of Alexander. He gets used as Alex and as various others of the Successors.

I use this as Eumenes of Kardia. He raised a large number of Kappadokian cavalry and some of these may have formed his personal agema. I have kept them on armoured horses as may have been used by Kappadokians at Gaugamela a decade earlier.
The Xyston Kappadokian figures are a little bigger than their Macedonians which makes Eumenes look quite young!

This rear view is the figure I use for Peukestes. He was an enthusiastic supporter of Alexander's move towards mixing the Persians and Macedonians and is noted for wearing Persian dress. For these figures I used the Xyston xystophoroi figures. These are larger than most others - the cloak and feathers add to this impression. As can be seen, I removed the feathers from all except the general. I also added some sleeves and a collar to turn his cloak into the distinctive Persian coat. This is shown in Achaemenid art, is worn by Easterners in Roman art and continues to show up in the area even today - Hamid Karzai frequently wears a coat in this fashion.

I know a lot of visitors to my blog are interested in the comparison shots. Here are some Xyston cavalry alongside Old Glory 15s Seleucids.

Here are, from left, Black Hat (ex-Gladiator) Kappadokians, Essex Companions and Xyston Companions.

Plutarch's Wars: A Successor Battle

2011-01-30T14:56:00.003Z

The Wars of Alexander's Successors have interested me for a long time and make for good wargames. A number histories have quite a lot of detail about the battles and the troops who fought them. The various generals have armies which are similar enough for generalship to play an even larger part than normal while each having their own quirks to make them distinctive.
We recently fought a Successor battle with DBMM at our club. The armies were equal points - 500 apiece - one being based on Antigonus One-eyed's forces (Asiatic Early Successor) and the other being Seleucid. It was similar to the clash at Ipsos which resulted in Antigonus's death. It is possible to recreate the coalition force at Ipsos using the Lysimachid list but I was slightly short of some of the necessary troops, especially the eight elephants needed for one side.
I feel Successor battles work best at 500 points (or more) as it gives you enough points to have a sizeable phalanx while still having the troops to fight a good battle on the wings.
Here are a couple of pictures - the club lighting isn't up to much and using the flash didn't improve the pics much :(

Here is the Antigonid phalanx, flanked by a vineyard. The Seleucid elephants are advancing. They should be towerless at this point but I haven't finished the basing of the ones I have - it was a last minute decision to use these armies!

The whole field near the beginning of the game. Seleucids on the right.

The clash of pike. The Seleucid argyraspides initially killed a number of enemies but overall there was enough toing-and froing that the Antigonid's were beginning to threaten the Seleucid flank. Out of shot, the rest of the Seleucid pike were beginning to beat the rest of the Antigonid phalanx.

The situation on the Seleucid left. This was the major clash of cavalry as the right was partially covered by a marsh. The Seleucids moved their right flank general and his agema to this wing. This didn't create a superiority in numbers but did improve the command situation. We had a clash of elephants as well as a swirling cavalry battle. The Seleucid's broke the Antigonids but it is unlikely that many of them could have avoided pursuing the enemy from the board.

We called time here. The Seleucid's didn't need to inflict many more casualties to break the Antigonid phalanx but their own left was beginning to falter and this could have had a devastating impact on their own phalanx.

Next - some photos of some Successor generals.

Plutarch's Wars: Skythians and lots of Green Stuff

2010-12-05T21:14:00.007Z

...or Scythians if you prefer!

I've never really fancied a Skythian army, but I seem to have always had a few figures for using in a variety of armies as far back as when I was using Peter Laing figures. I have a mixture of various sources although they are mostly stored away now that I have some Xyston figures.

For sources, I didn't go much further than the Osprey on these chaps. However, be careful! Virtually all of the figures in the plates are armoured and only one shows the typical Skythian cap which is worn by many of the figures in Skythian art as well as depictions made by other nations. The Falcon figures range, which has some nice figures, follows the Osprey and as a result few of the range wear the caps.
One source which is worth a look is the Persian depiction of a fight between them and some Skythians. You can find it here - do a search for 'Scythian'.

For my Persians, I wanted to have some Massagetae armoured cavalry. There is a lot of discussion about how and whether they were linked to the western Skythians and what differences there would be in armour. Roman Army Talk has a discussion with loads of links - many are in Russian but if you don't read the lingo then you can still look at the pictures! I did a lot of searching for suitable figures. There are various ones available for 'Scythian Heavy Cavalry'. Here are some I looked at.
Falcon: a good variety, based on the Osprey book. The figures are quite nice but perhaps a bit lacking in animation compared to more modern figures. Also quite small and reportedly difficult to get hold of.
Alain Touller: I was quite tempted. I've been told that the figures are small compared to other Touller figures.
Essex: Only seems to be one pose and lacked the full armour I wanted. Their Later Saka figures have potential, though perhaps more for the period after the one I'm doing. The horse armour lacks a certain something too.
Khurasan: I think they have some Massagetae on the way.
Old Glory: Quite nice figures but again the armour wasn't what I wanted.
Donnington: One of the older ranges. Paint up quite nicely I believe.
I got very interested by the Tin Soldier figures on Madaxeman's very useful site - but they are actually 28mm!
Xyston: Used to list a Massagetae heavy in their range as being for future release, but no sign after many years. However, I had some spare figures so thought I would turn my hand to some conversions, aided by Green Stuff and snippers.

I had some Xyston 'Satrapal Guard' figures and a few 'Northern Thracian Cavalry' which I thought would fit the bill. Ideally, I would like all of them to have armoured horses but may end up mixing them. The main textual source for their appearance is Herodotus:
[1.215] In their dress and mode of living the Massagetae resemble the Scythians. They fight both on horseback and on foot, neither method is strange to them: they use bows and lances, but their favourite weapon is the battle-axe. Their arms are all either of gold or brass. For their spear-points, and arrow-heads, and for their battle-axes, they make use of brass; for head-gear, belts, and girdles, of gold. So too with the caparison of their horses, they give them breastplates of brass, but employ gold about the reins, the bit, and the cheek-plates. They use neither iron nor silver, having none in their country; but they have brass and gold in abundance.

I would like all of them to have armoured horses but may end up mixing them. I referred to the sources available in the Roman Army Talk discussion, the Osprey, Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars, the Montvert Persian book and Gorelik's book on the Eurasian nomads.

With much chopping and Green Stuffing, this is what I got.

I had many goes with the caps unti I had something which I think I'm happy with.
The first ones I did were trying to look the same as those shown in Persian carvings, but they looked a bit too much like garden gnomes.
The next I was happier with, and weren't too different to the Xyston caps. However, I decided to go with something between the two, trying to look like those worn by some of the figures on Skythian gold artefacts.

They also needed to have bow cases added. These were pretty straightforward. I cut them more or less to shape before adding to the figure. Before it cured, I added it to the figure which allowed it to adapt to the shape of the figure. The bow was made as part of this and carved to shape when the case had hardened. If I did them again I would probably shape the bow with at least a core of brass wire (probably flattened) first. Hopefully they will be robust enough.

The bit which took the most time was making the shields. I did think of using Xyston peltas but the shapes weren't quite what I wanted. I had read a while ago about using Green Stuff to make push moulds and thought this would be an opportunity to try it out.

Firstly, I made some blanks out of plastic card. I mixed up some Green Stuff (apparently, a higher proportion of blue helps to retain detail). This needs to be coated with a release agent. Various things would work - I used something as high tech as olive oil from the kitchen.

I left it overnight to cure.
The blanks can be removed fairly easily as the Green Stuff is still slightly flexible. I could have put some detail on the shields to begin with, but thought it might be easier to carve it into the Green Stuff. It worked reasonably well, but for the second attempt I put a think layer of the material in the bottom of each mould and worked the detail onto that. It also made the moulds shallower as the first shields came out a little thick.

To use the moulds, oil first then take a small blob of Green Stuff. This is squished and pushed into the mould, trying to make sure it gets right into all the detail. Leave overnight. These are the final results.

The excess trims off easily enough. The shields are slightly flexible but should be fine - I hope.
A couple of figures have had a wrap around shield added onto their backs as shown in some reconstructions.
Now I need to paint them which may well be a Christmas holiday job as I'm rounded off various other bits and pieces first. I also have to decide what length spear to give them - it'll probably be a longish spear but nowhere near as long as a Macedonian xyston as longer lance use on the steppes seems to have been later than the 4th century BC.

A real marsh - of sorts

2010-11-12T21:28:00.001Z

I thought that I really ought to visit my local marsh since I have only been once and it was covered in snow and frozen solid at the time! I only live about two minutes drive away so it is a bit pathetic that I haven't been before.

It is one of the only remaining sizeable bits of marsh in the Midlands which isn't simply part of a floodplain. It is formed as run off from the nearby hills with the local geology preventing it from draining. There is reckoned to be about 5 foot depth of peat which has accumalated. Man has left his mark on the environment especially through the collection of wood. This has been going on for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years - pre-Roman settlement is known in the area. Without human intervention, wetland in this area tends to be wooded with trees such as alder surrounding numerous bodies of open water. As well as being used for things like clogs, in post-medieval times alder was one source of charcoal for gunpowder making.

This map is from one of the information boards at the entrance to the marsh. The roughly horizontal line of trees seems, going by a nineteenth century OS map, to be the remains of a hedge line. The area has become more wooded in the last century with the decline of wood gathering though this is one method of keeping the meadows relatively clear...

Mowing machine

A small herd is maintained on the meadows; they keep down the grass and much of the scrub although the photo shows how much of even the drier area is covered with low reeds. The herd roams into part of the marsh area as well. I could follow some of their tracks as far as the pond. Parts of the marsh may be too deep for them - the path crosses the main body of the marsh on a duckboard causeway and it looks decidedly wet underfoot. If you ever go - beware. I was wearing army boots and almost ended up pitching into the mire; the duckboards are decidedly slippy!

There are a couple of sizeable areas of open water surrounded by pretty dense reeds and bulrushes. Much of this is pretty tall.

Swampster in the bulrushes.

As for wargaming....
In DBMM terms I think I calculated that the marsh area would qualify as a 1 ME piece. Whether it is wet enough to be 'marsh' in rule terms is debateable though it is certainly far enough away from a river not to count as the marsh allowable adjacent to a water feature. It is certainly at least boggy ground. It did strike me that the rushes would be tall and dense enough to hide light infantry though their presence would likely to be revealed quite quickly if there was any movement.
The wet meadow is much drier (or was when I visited in October, though the autumn had been relatively dry) and might count as either open ground or some kind of rough going.

On a closing note... one of the reasons for the survival of this area of marsh (now an SSSI) was through the work of my father and his colleagues during the expansion of my town. Draining of the area had certainly been considered. He also helped to ensure that the route of the ancient and Roman road was preserved as the area was built up. Thanks, Dad.

Plutarch's Wars: Romans of the Late Republic

2010-11-11T22:39:00.004Z

The army of the Late Republic was led by a succession of generals who have made their mark on history. Julius Caesar is of course the most famous. But this is also the period of Marius and Sulla, Lucullus and Sertorius, Antony and Crassus. It is the time when the Republic's most deadly enemies were probably its own generals but it is also the time of Spartacus and Mithridates, Tigranes and Vercingetorix, Cleopatra and Surena.
I wasn't particularly interested in this period when I was buidling armies 25 years ago, but I liked the look of the new (at the time) Freikorps Romans and I ended up buying a few. The metal was pretty brittle then, but most of them survived in my possession unpainted for the next couple of decades.

Once I had built a Pontic army I decided to start painting some Romans as an enemy for them. Since I had these Freikorps figures I decided to continue using them, especially as I wasn't keen on most of the others then available.
In the past year or so, the range has been redesigned so these figures are no longer available. Their replacements look pretty good though.

The figures were designed for the period covering the late Republic and into Augustus's reign. It isn't really clear how early the squared off oval shields began to be common, so I have included some with the others.

I painted the shield designs based on some from Armies and Enemies of Imperial Rome. Designs like this seem to have appeared on the monument to Actium so were probably used in the Civil Wars. Other shields may have been plainer and at least some seem to have had the name of their commander painted on. Actual colours are debateable though Amato's book shows a fresco with a red shield. I have some others painted with a blue background and some with black. (Incidentally, if you are interested in ancient paints, Pliny, book 35, goes into some details. Some paints would obviously be more common than others).

The Freikorps range includes some interesting looking generals for the Romans but unfortunately the horses are substantially smaller than most other ranges now avaible, so I have never painted mine. Instead, I have a variety of generals.

These are from the Warmodelling range. When I bought them, the company only produced Mid-Republican figures but these are equally suitable for the later period. The main feature of Warmodelling figures which lets them down a bit is that the horses tend to have stumpy legs, but from a normal wargamers viewpoint this is not as apparent.

The legionaries from Warmodelling look pretty good although I think the shields are a bit too broad. I'm tempted by their 'auxilliaries' in the same range for use in a Slave Revolt army which I am very slowly building.

These are from the Alain Touller range. They mix well with the other companies' figures. Their legionaries have pretty accurate looking shields although I'd prefer a wider variety in appearance.

I have a few of the Corvus Belli legionaries which will get painted some day. I'm not sure whether they will become the most experienced troops of a Slave army or a second Roman army for Civil War use. Either way, they are probably the most dynamic range of legionaries available for this period.

Plutarch's Wars: The Why and wherefore!

2010-11-11T21:43:00.001Z

Over the past couple of months I've returned to the period which first interested me in Ancient Wargaming - the Wars of Greece, pre-Imperial Rome and their neighbours.
My first ever ancient figures were 15mm Peter Laing hoplites and my first proper army were Carthaginians - again Peter Laing - put together originally using the old Airfix Guide (the so-called Purple Primer). I tried to read as much as I could about the period and my interest soon expanded to the whole Hellenistic period.

I pretty much stopped Ancient wargaming for about 10 years but when I restarted I still had quite a lot of figures which covered this same period.

One character who had interested me was Mithridates the Great. I read as much as I could about him (and managed to do a uni study on him) and as well as putting together a Pontic army, I began to have a lot more interest in this period of Roman history.

This meant that my main area of interest coincides pretty well with the period covered by Plutarch's parallel lives, most of which fall into a period just before 400BC to 1BC with the occasional later or earlier entry. Because of that, I've decided to label any posts from this older period as "Plutarch's Wars" and may well start a sister blog to help organise any links I put in.

Marsh

2010-10-14T20:59:00.003+01:00

I've been concentrating on non-Medieval stuff for the last month or two so I though I'd put this up.
I decided that it would be nice to have a go at making some swampy terrain pieces which could be either boggy ground or marsh in DBMM terms.

I did think about showing a step by step method, but forgot until part way through. I think it is pretty straightforward though.

This one is a trial run to see how it looked. It is a half sized feature for DBMM - roughly 20cm across.

The main base was cut from perspex bought as a sheet from Homebase (about 2' by 4'). This is a bit of a pain to do. Score as deeply as possible with a Stanley knife and then carefully snap away the excess. Experiment - it can easily start to split in the wrong direction. You can alternatively cut it with a bandsaw but the recommended method is to sandwich it between some wood first.

(EDIT: I cut some more today using a cutting wheel on a Dremel type tool. This was much easier (but wear goggles!) Even if you don't cut all the way through the gouge should be enough for an easy snap. The edges are smooth but there is a ridge of cut material most of the way around. This should get covered by the terraforming even if it isn't sanded off).

The perspex is actually a bit matt so needs help to give a water effect. I'm sure shinier stuff is available.

I then sprayed it on the reverse with a chocolate brown aerosol. Spraying helped to avoid brushmarks showing through.

Whn dry, I covered the top with a layer of shellac which I happened to have. This is a transparent darkish brown colour and dries gloss. It gave the colour I wanted and gave a bit more depth to the 'water'.

I then used some brown window sealant to form the dryish land. Read the label - some says it can be painted and some that it can't. Obviously the paintable stuff is wanted. Apparently it is acrylic and the rest is silicone. I found the best method was to splurge an area and the use a wet finger to spread it a bit. Trying to use a wooden spatula left smears which needed cleaning up - in some places this scratched away the shellac.

Next stage was to paint the sealant, though the original colour would have suited.

I then gave a coat of acrylic gloss over the water to give further depth (and cover over the areas where the shellac had been damaged).

When this had dried for 24 hours, I started adding the foliage. I have a whole load of different colours and lengths of Silflor tufts so I placed these first. One of the packs I bought with this marsh in mind was the one which has white and yellow 'flowers' which I thought might work for bog cotton or various wetland flowers.

I also bought some tacky glue called Scatter Grip. This goes on far more precisely than something like Scenic Cement and does hold the static grass very well. A bit of a shine is visible so I might have a go at matting it down in some way. I used Woodland Scenics 'Summer' mix for the majority of the area. I 'm not sure about it at the moment and might go for something shorter, perhaps even scatter rather than static grass.

The perspex does get enough static charge to attract the grass so a wet paint brush is needed to remove some of the excess. I still need to get some of it off!

Flemish Crossbowmen and Knights

2010-09-02T22:21:00.001+01:00

Common to a number of Low Countries cities were the guilds of crossbowmen - the Guild of Saint George. They were separate from the trade guilds and are shown in the Leugemeete fresco. There is still a Guild of St George in Ghent which has a nice bit of background.
As mentioned in this link as well as various other places such as Verbruggen, de Vigne and de Liebaart, the crossbowmen were accompanied by 'boys' who carried the pavises at a ratio of two crossbowmen to one pavise. The current draft of the DBMM Book 4 list covering the Low Countries actually suggests basing them in this way after a couple of us mentioned it on the DBMMlist. I suspect that this ratio may have been common in Europe at the time in the period following the adoption of the pavise. David Nicolle's essay on the Genoese at Crecy suggests that the pavises left behind would have been carried by pavise bearers rather than on the back of the crossbowmen as often portrayed following a late 14th century picture. I don't know of any evidence that the Low Countries bearers had any form of spear - certainly at the various battles where the Fleemish crossbowmen are mentioned they withdraw rather than facing hand to hand combat, suggesting a lack of defensive weaponry.

I did try out two crossbowmen and one pavise per base but the effect was a bit sparser than I liked. It would really look best, I think, with a deeper base and one firing and one loading crossbowman per pavise. An Impetus or similar sized base would be a good place to do this, or a double depth DBMM base. After a bit of experimentation I decided to have a rank of bases with pavises and another without, giving a ratio of three crossbows per pavise.

I spent quite a while looking for figures suitable for the pavise bearers. I actually converted a couple of Khurasan's Swiss halberdiers and would have used these but when I ordered some Welsh spearmen (bearer on the right if this picture) from Donnington I thought the pose and clothing would fit quite nicely.

I hoped to have finished them for Britcon but ran out of time. This was quite good though, since I bought some Donnington peasants and some of those also made good bearers.

The figures wearing a hood actually come wielding a polearm in two hands in a sort of baseball pose. I cut off one arm and built another using green stuff in a pose as if the bearer is holding the pavise to his left.

The crossbowmen are mostly Donnington with some Touller figures, including the flag bearers. another factor which influenced my choice of basing was that I had exactly the right number of crossbowmen unpainted to do it this way, as long as I used the standard bearers.

The pavises show a mixture of arms, including those of Bruges, Ypres and Ghent. The others are those of Guilds of St.George from various cities as well as those of Guilds of St. Sebastian. This was thoeretically a guild of archers although the fresco showed them with the same mix of weapons as other guildsmen. However I used a bit of licence and included some of their shields as I had the details and liked them.

To finish off my pictures of Low Countries figures, here are some knights. First of all mounted:

The general is marked with a flag and represent Jan de Renesse, a nobleman from Holland who led the forces at Kortrijk - possibly he was experienced. For the other knights I used a variety of arms from the Gelre armorial and Rietstaap as well as a book of seals of 13th century Low Countries knights. I wasn't too careful about whether they had fought for or against the French though - time was pressing and the details were sketchy; sometimes I had names but no details of arms. The arms of the burghers or patrician class were even harder to come by for the 14th century. A few are mentioned such as de Conninck's and, for a later period, van Artevelde's but I couldn't be sure of many others. The regulations have survived which show the expectations of these 'nouveaux riches' as far as equipment goes - the two richest classes were to have armoured horses as well as the rest of the men-at-arms' panoply.
Some of the Donnington knights come with a bird crest - I adapted some of these by cutting or adding Green Stuff so a few have the crest shown in the Gelre Armorial. Wearing crests in battle was becoming rarer as the 14th century progressed but I kept a few as traditionalists or show-offs.
The figures come with smaller shields than this but I got some of the slightly larger ones - partly as it made painting easier.

I have already posted some pictures of Old Glory dismounted knights but I also have some more specifically Low Countires ones. They are figures from Mirliton and IMO some of their best. They are actually designed for a period earlier than the mounted men-at-arms which I used but they match the figures on the Kortrijk chest pretty nicely apart from the ailettes. To get the real Low Countries look, I have converted some to carry gepinde stafs (or whatever the plural is!) You can see the unconverted ones alongside the converts. The staves were made from a dressmakers pin with a covering of greeen stuff or Milliput. Once I knew what I was doing they could be made pretty quickly. Note that I also put a Milliput cerveilliere on one of the knights as shown on the Chest. Overall, I think the central figure gives a nice effect of the picture I have linked to before

Flemish Fortifications

2010-08-22T11:49:00.003+01:00

At the battle of Mons-en-Pévèle, the Low Countries forces used their wagons as protection. They deployed on a hill in a line which which wide and thick. Their camp was behind them. Between the troops and the camp were the wagons; wheels were taken off to make it difficult for the French to shift them. DeVries and Verbruggen discuss the battle in some depth.

These are my attempt; I used Magister Militum's wagons (they have a huge range!). The tents are Baueda - the small straw ones have since been redesigned. The camp followers and (IIRC) the pavises are from Donnington.

Once I had painted and installed the pavises, I realised I had done the arms of Ypres in reverse - they should be a red cross on white. The modern arms with a section including vair date back to the late 14th century.

See the side bar for a great webpage with loads of links to pictures of medieval carts.

I used this in my first DBMM competition this month. It counts as TF. It is quite useful as it can be placed anywhere in your deployment area, not just around the camp, and successfully helped to defend my flanks in at least two battles.

Scratchbuilding a 15mm Rural Church

2010-08-16T13:45:00.003+01:00

When I went to Henley last month, I also visited a couple of old local churches. One of these was at Wootton Wawen. The exterior of the church has continued to evolve since it was first built so the original form is hidden, but it has a an area withn the church which is Saxon. This is used for an historical display about the area including some great pictures of how the village and church probably looked at various points in history. Well worth a 10 or 20 minute visit if you are in the area - they also sell a nice little booklet.

I also went to the church at Morton Bagot. This is a Warwickshire hamlet which has never been large. The church has remained almost untouched since the 13th century. There is a description of its history and likely alterations in the very useful British History Online site.

The first thing that struck me was how small the church is. Building most churches in actual 15mm scale (roughly 1:120 or 1:100) results in a very big building but I thought this one would probably work on a table. The description in the above link gives the width and length. I had to try to calculate the height from the photos. Even though the church was quite small, as there is evidence that it was slightly extended in the past I took this as licence to make it slightly shorter than it is now.

View approaching the west end of the church. It is on a spur which also seems to have been built up into a mound. The belfry is only a couple of hundred years old!

The south side of the nave. Some rendering is on the wall next to the (relatively recent) porch. The land on this side has built up by over a metre. This may have been the effect of centuries of burials as I believe the south was the favoured side although there are actually burials around all faces of the church.

The east wall. You can see how much higher the land is here. It could be the original level. However, about 10 metres to the south the land drops vertically by 5 or so metres where there are farm buildings and the driveway to another farm which I think is on the site of the old manor - you can see its earthworks from the church.

Note how there are no buttresses along the length of the south wall.

The north wall.
The buttresses were apparently added sometime after the church was built. There is a noticeable lean on this wall which they guard against. What I was pleased to see was the rendering here. It has obviously been painted using modern materials but it gives a good idea of how many medieval buildings - including castles - once looked. We are so used to imagining them as hulking grey bastions that it is difficult to picture the effect of rendered walls. How frequently they would get limewashed is another matter but I suspect many churches would get the treatment as a priority. The render itself could also be very pale once dry. The reddish stones of the mullions are exactly the same as used at my local abbey - I know because the chief archaeologist gave me a piece as a momento when I worked on the dig there.

As an experiment, I had a go at using Google's CAD, Sketchup. There is a program called Pepakura which will convert a CAD design into the net for making a paper model. This wasn't really necessary for a simple design like this church, but it might be useful one day for me.

I used this as a maquette for making the church using plastic card and a stuff which I think is called Depron. I bought it last year from Antenociti's Workshop for something else and never used it. It is a thin polystyrene foam which cuts easily but can have detail etched in quite easily.

The first attempt came out quite well but I wasn't happy with the height. It could well be right, but it is one of those instances where something which is right looks wrong. We are so used to looking up at a church roof that the angle looks foreshortened.

I then thought I would see how it looked in roughly 10mm scale (about 1:180). This came out quite well, though I rushed the window details a bit. I haven't painted it, but I think I might take it if I enter any more competitions with a Medieval army.

That should have been the end of it, especially as I had to get my Flemish finished for Britcon but I thought I'd have one more go, especially as I'd got used to working with Depron.

These are the main pieces cut to size. The walls are plastic card with a layer of Depron on top. The windows are cut out of the Depron to reveal the plastic card. Stone work is etched around the doors and windows.

I used Green Stuff to make the window details and doors. I had only used Milliput before and had assumed that Green Stuff would be reasonably similar. However, as I'd just bought some Green Stuff on impulse I thought I'd give it a go. I found it was much better for this kind of work - it is stickier which means that it stays where you put it (as long as it doesn't stick to your knife!) Putting the metal work on the doors took very little time and I was pleased with my results with this being my first effort.

I hadn't intended to put on the buttresses; the church was built without them and I thought they'd be awkward. Howver, I experimented by using some blue foam which I have. Stone work was carved in and all in all it didn't take a long time. The render is simply tile grout mixed with some ivory coloured paint.

This is the finished article. Rather than the Georgian belfry I put on a stone equivalent as found on various other old churches. I also had a go at giving it a thatched roof - I was surprised to find that not only was it very common in smaller churches but that some English churches are still thatched. I thought of using the various methods described on a number of websites and experimented by etching into the Depron roof and using short static grass. However, pictures of most European thatched buildings show very little texture. I did think that it could be another of those things where you show something as you expect it to be, rather than as it is, but I thought I would go with a different method. This is made out of grey felt, wrapped under the plastic card roof to give depth.

A second layer of felt was used for the apex. I wondered how to do the ties across the roof but luckily I had bought some very thin florist wire. It was cut into lengths which could then be poked into the felt.

The religious chaps celebrating and consecrating the new construction are Donnington, left over from the Papal project.

I have some crosses and headstones so I will probably make a small base - perhaps a low mound with a graveyard, some kind of boundary and perhaps a yew tree.

The de Montforts

2010-07-07T00:33:00.007+01:00

The name of De Montfort is effectively synonymous with the 2nd Barons' War.

There were actually two families of that name prominent in the conflict, both on the same side. One branch had come over with the Conqueror and were soon given the manor of Beaudesert in Warwickshire. The other branch was headed by Simon de Montfort. They had recently arrived in England - rather ironically one of the main complaints of the party headed by Simon was thhe influence of foreigners on the King.

First, the de Montforts of Beaudesert.

The head of the family was Peter de Montfort. His arms are still used by the local high school as their badge. He was a major player in the 1250s and was apparently involved in various embassies. He could also be claimed to have been the first to hold the office which became the Speaker of Parliament.

He was a leader of the party which opposed much of the King's policy and his seeming dominance by his half-brothers and other foreigners.

He and his son were captured at Northampton and so missed the fighting at Lewes. He was with Simon de Montfort at Evesham, dying in the battle there. His son, Piers, was wounded but survived, regaining his father's lands after the treaty made at Kenilworth.

Beaudesert has now effectively been absorbed by Henley in Arden, a small but pleasant town in Warwickshire near where I live. The parish of Beaudesert still exists and rather oddly the parish churches of Henley and Beaudesert are little more than 100 yards apart. The Beaudesert church still contains much of its Norman structure. (I went there for a wedding once!) It sits at the foot of a fairly long ridge which is now pretty much hidden from view by the town. However, once past the houses you can see it rise abruptly above the surroundings.

This ridge was the site of Beaudesert Castle, long since disappeared. It is, however, possible to see the earthworks which formed part of the defences and may even date back to pre-Roman times.

Here is a photo I took a couple of days ago (this was in July).

What looks like a slight depression is a substantial ditch. You can only see about half of the steps (and the treads of each one are far too high, and I'm not short!) The grass is kept short by rabbits and the main area of the castle is covered by scrub and wild flowers. A nice walk :)

This is a view from the foot of the steps. It's always tricky to get a good impression from a photo, but this gives some impression of the steepness of the bank.

This is a view of what once would have been the park around the castle. The area was once far more heavily wooded. It is quite rolling (and IMHO the best countryside in the world!) The grass looks short but was around two feet deep.

This was a patch of marsh at the foot of the ridge which I though would be useful for modelling. At least, it would be marsh of we weren't having a long dry spell round here.

The Time Team carried out an excavation of the castle which is available on 4oD, though you have to forgive them the references to the prevalence of the longbow in the Barons' Wars. I think they must have mown the whole hill top which wasn't exactly environmentally friendly!

I've added a link to the Gatehouse site, a great resource for castle hunters. It shows the position of a large number of fortifications in England and Wales, and their state of preservation as well as some pictures. I found out that a place where I used to sit around on an escaprment as a teenager was actually the site of the Beauchamp castle just outside Alcester.

The other de Montfort family was headed by Simon.

He had come to England as a young man to claim his father's English lands - his elder brother received the French inheritance. He soon married the king's sister. Henry later claimed that Simon had seduced her and that the marriage was to prevent scandal. He certainly managed to gain a great deal of influence at court. His career is covered by a number of websites and various books, so I won't go into detail.

Interestingly, his arms are shown by Matthew Paris as the reverse of these, as are the ones showing his gruesome end at Evesham. I have kept to the ones shown in most of the rolls and the picture of his father linked to below.
The banner is shown in a picture of his father and is said to be borne in honour of the lands at Hinckley. Some of the rolls of arms give these as the de Montfort arms.

A while before Lewes, Simon had been injured in an accident and had needed to travel in some kind of carriage. Various accounts mention this as he cunningly placed this conveyance in view while deploying for Lewes, with his banner displayed next to it. The histories say that the Royalists focussed their attentions here although the only souls contained in the carriage were three Londoners who had opposed his entry into the city. They were held inside the carriage and some accounts say that they were killed by their own side as their entreaties could not be heard.

The actual type of vehicle is debateable. At least one author believed it was suspended between two horses. Another, almost contemporary account, said it was made of iron specifically to hold the Londoners. I decided to scratchbuild a canopy on top of a Magister Militum base and wheels to create a similar effect to the one in the Lutrell Psalter. I think I have overdone shape of the top and it could perhaps do with being longer. It currently looks a bit too much like a Romany caravan! However, it is pretty similar to this later carriage.
EDIT:
I've found a picture of a carriage which looks very similar to mine. It's in a 19th century book - the pictures aren't originals but are to help painters with getting the right look and are based on earlier source material. It was written by the same man who produced the book I used for my Flemish. The book is available as a full view in Google books here.

Advancing on the carriage are some Legio Heroica peasants. One banner is that of St. Edward, the other is St. Edmund's. Henry had a particular reverence for these English saints, hence his choice of names for his sons. There are some nice pictures of these banners used in decoration at the now lost royal chambers of Westminster. There is a picture of them in 'A Great and Terrible King' - copies were made after the rediscovery in the early 19th century which was just before the palace was damaged by fire.

One of the only 'names' killed on the Barons' side was Simon's standard bearer, Blount. He commanded the guard left around the carriage and banner. I've put him on the same base as Simon, as I liked the heraldry :)

I don't have any pictures, but I've also painted a couple of de Montfort's (with Mirliton figures) to use with my French and Florentines. Two of Simon's sons, Guy and Simon the younger escaped from England after Evesham. They joined Charles of Anjou's invasion. Guy became Charles' Vicar-General in Tuscany and led some forces alongside a Florentine army. He gained the title of Count of Nola. However, their cousin Henry of Almain, son of Edmund of Cornwall and grandson of Henry III, passed into Italy while Edward carried on to the Holy Land. He may have had a mission to repair relations with the de Montforts but it ended in tragedy. While he was praying, the de Montfort brothers stormed into the church and hacked at him even as he clutched the altar. Pleas for mercy were met with the response that their father and brothers had been given no mercy - though it seems that Edward had actaully tried to save Simon the Elder at Evesham. While Henry lay on the church floor dying, the brothers left, but once outside they were reminded of the mutilation meted out on their father, so they returned to do the same. Henry's bones and heart were returned to England

The two were excommunicated and forced to flee, though there are suggestions that they were not pursued as vigourously as they might have been. Simon soon died, but Guy soon returned to the favour of Charles of Anjou. He continued to work for the king though he was later captured in the war of the Sicilian Vespers and died in an Aragonese prison. For his crime against Henry, Dante placed Guy in the Seventh Circle of Hell, up to his neck in boiling blood: "Within God's bosom he impaled the heart that still drips blood beside the Thames"

The Londoners

2010-06-05T22:59:00.002+01:00

A substantial portion of the Baronial army at Lewes was provided by the London Militia.

The citizens had not endeared themselves to the King or his son - they had pelted the queen with refuse and insults as she escaped the city by boat. Virtually all the Londoners seem to have been in favour of the Barons, though four who tried to bar de Montfort's entry into the city were held hostage by him and met a sticky end which I may relate another time.

The (theoretical) arms and armour of the English militia of this period are set out in a 1253 Assize (p.431). As in many such cases, these are ideals and not necessarily adhered to. I shall be doing some other militia as armed peasants. Hopefully Legio Heroica will one day produce some spearmen with gambesons but no mail.

Incidentally, this assize has been cited by the US Congress in support for the right to bear arms.

I based the flag in this source: it dates from the time of King John*. The flag of London, since sometime in the 14th century and before Wat Tyler's rebellion, has been what looks like the cross of St George but with a sword in one corner (as shown here). This is the flag of St Paul**. I really couldn't decide what kind of flag to use. I originally painted it as a banner, which is perhaps more suitable for the description of Fitzwalter carrying it on horseback. I then saw a modern version which is a vexillium type, still used by churches. Since the flag was donated by the cathedral, I thought I'd do this kind. Unfortunately, I prefer the painting I did on the other banner! I think I shall have a third attempt, with this seal as a guide.

The arms on the shield of the 'officer' are those of Fitzwalter. This is Robert Fitzwalter's seal (from the British Museum) from around the time of John's death. As shown in the above source, the Fitzwalter's, Lords of Baynard's Castle, had the right to be the bearers of the banner of London. I have used some licence in this case - at Lewes the militia were not lead by a Fitzwalter as the young head of the family had been captured at Northampton. He was freed as part of the treaty after Lewes.

Instead, the wing containing the Londoners was lead by Nicholas Segrave who had escaped from Northampton.

Segrave was the step-son of de Somery, a leadiing royalist, and this may have helped his rapid rehabilitation after Evesham. He, and his sons, are mentioned in the Caerlaverock roll. He changed the family arms from the bushels to a crowned lion, though it is unclear when he did so. I have hedged my bets and shown his banner with the older arms and his shield and caparison with the newer version.

*I went to Worcester Cathedral today and while I was there I went to see King John's tomb again. There is also one of the 14th century Beauchamps there.

** Worcester Cathedral is also St Paul's - I didn't know until today that they use the same arms as London.

Henry's Brothers

2010-05-23T00:05:00.002+01:00

Henry III's mother, Isabella of Angouleme, was betrothed when still a child to Hugh of Lusignan. Soon after John became King of England, he annulled his marriage and effectively kidnapped the 12 year old Isabella who was already considered a beauty. John married her and they had five children. The oldest was Henry and the second child was named Richard. A daughter, Joan, was betrothed to her mother's erstwhile suitor and she was sent to live at his court.

However, when John died, Isabella returned to her lands in Angouleme and soon after married Hugh - her daughter instead being promised to Alexander of Scotland. Isabella proceeded to have another nine chidren. All fourteen of her offspring survived to adulthood - her daughters married a variety of notables including the Emperor Frederick II, Alexander II of Scotland, Raymond of Toulouse and Simon de Montfort.

Her second son, Richard, was from the age of 16 Count of Poitou and Earl of Cornwall. His Cornish lands provided a considerable amount of wealth and he became one of the richest men in Europe. He would later build his property portfolio through some shady purchases of debts. He also made a rich marriage and was paid off by the King on several occasions after rebelling.

One way in which he spent his money was on the reconstruction and expansion of the fortifications at Tintagel. This was an era which was fascinated in the stories around King Arthur and it seems that the castle was built because of the legend rather than for any strategic purpose. It is an interesting place to visit - unless you dislike heights!

Richard went on Crusade from 1240-3 although he fought in no battles. On the way home, he met his soon to be second wife, Sanchia. She was one of four sisters - the others married Henry of England, Louis IX of France and Charles of Anjou. Soon after, the Pope offered to sell Richard the throne of Sicily. Matthew Paris says that he replied by saying "You might as well say 'I make you a present of the moon - step up to the sky and take it down'." His brother Henry had less sense, purchasing the right for his son which accomplished nothing except to strain the royal finances.

However, Richard was more tempted by the title of Emperor and bribed various Electors to acquire the crown. However, his title was challenged by Alfonso of Castile and neither could enforce their will on the Empire. Contemporary historians refer to Richard as King of the Germans and his son was known as Henry of Almain.

Richard had opposed Simon de Montfort at various points and joined the King when war broke out. He commanded a battle at Lewes but when things went badly he tried to take refuge in a windmill, coming out when the rebels threatened to set it aflame, calling "Come out you bad miller!" He remained in captivity until after Evesham. See http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/luttrell/accessible/page14lge.html for a roughly contemporary windmill.

Richard's son, Henry of Almain, was later murdered by two of the de Montforts while journeying through Italy. This earned them a place in Dante's Inferno - I'll add more when I get around to posting pictures of the de Montforts.

A possible link between Richard of Cornwall's arms and those of Richard I is covered here - go to the section on 'tricky arms'. This may also explain the lion of the de Joinville/de Geneville arms (I've painted a couple of figures in variations of these arms).

Henry's ties with his Lusignan brothers were one of the causes of the Barons' War. The English nobility resented the foreigners gaining land and influence - though French was still their main language and many held French lands. The ultimate leader of the barons, Simon de Montfort, was of course of French birth himself.

Henry does seem to have favoured his half-brothers excessively - he made Aymer de Valence Bishop of Winchester despite him being decidely unqualified for the job.

Another brother was William de Valence who acquired the title of Earl of Pemboke in right of his wife. He fought at Lewes and fled into exile. He returned the following year, landing with various other Royalists and a sizeable force in William's Welsh territory. They seem to have been in communication with Gilbert de Clare and soon met up with him. He fought at Kenilworth and at Evesham. One of his postwar gains was the manor of Inkberrow which is just under ten miles from where I live.

The picture of my figures at the top of the page shows the arms of Richard and of William. The other armigerous figure bears the arms of Oddingseles. They held land at Solihull and the arms are still part of the badge of Solihull School.

The Beauchamps

2010-05-11T23:05:00.000+01:00

Well over a decade ago I took part in my one and only archaeological dig at my local abbey's ruin. After a few days washing industrial slag, they asked if I would mind helping to clean some skeletons as this was the last dig for a few years and they wanted to get quite a few up.
I then spent a couple of weeks cleaning bones, including a number of skulls. From the context, they were believed to be 13th century - as it happens the same period that I now cover in this blog. The preservation varied according to the soil - the boundary between two types passes through the site so in some cases half of the bones were very well preserved while the other half instantly crumbled.
I think I dealt with about half a dozen skulls and some were so well preserved that even the ear bones survived, washing out as I swilled the skulls round like some kind of macabre Tom-Cruise-in-Cocktail. One particular skeleton stays in my memory. It was a man and going by his long bones he was probably around 6 feet tall. He had marks on his bones showing that he'd had a lot of muscles - the on-site experts said that they showed he had probably been a rider and likely a knight which would explain his presence in a high status part of the abbey. A number of bones had broken at some stage in his life, including a leg, some ribs and one arm I think. They had all healed very well.
The most impressive injuries were to his head. There were two cuts in the skull, probably from a blade. One went from front to back along the top left of his skull and the other went from side to side across the upper back of his head. Although some healing had begun, the experts thought they were serious enough to have led to his death. A possible victim of Kenilworth or Evesham perhaps - the abbey lies within easy reach of both. Of course, it may have been some kind of accident or a local brawl, but I can daydream!

What does this have to do with the Beauchamps? When I was helping there, a couple of people mentioned that the Black Dog of Arden was buried there. I knew nothing of the period then and only recently found out that he was one of the Beauchamp Earls of Warwick, dubbed with that name as an insult by a favourite of Edward II. His grave had been discovered years ago, but it was nice to know that one of the great magnates had apparently chosen to be buried in my hometown.

The Beauchamps made their mark under Edward I, acquiring the Warwick title by marriage. Various branches gained land in the area, including at Alcester. It seems that the Beauchamp arms were originally a simmple gules, a fesse or but cross crosslets or martlets were adopted as differences - the crosses being taken from the traditional arms of the Earls of Warwick.

In the photo, Beauchamps are second, fifth and seventh from the left. I haven't worried too much about whether the arms are suitable for the Barons' War. Others in the line up include Hastings and Mortimer. Mortimer was an especially major player in the war.
One of the branches of the d'Abitot family is to the extreme left. I haven't found out much about them except that they had various branches holding lands in my area of the country and that they had some nice looking coats of arms!

Incidentally, my output of Medieval figures is on hold for a while as I'm working through a backlog of Classical period stuff (Simon de Montfort sits on my painting table half-finished!). I may set up a different blog to cover some of this stuff but continue to update Dante's Wars in my current lacksdaisical manner.

The Nobility of England

2010-03-22T20:46:00.000Z

For a few months, I have concentrated on English knights of the reign of Henry III.

The reign was a period which saw some conflict in France and Wales as well as the Second Barons' War. Many of the same characters saw action in the next reign as Henry's son, Edward Longshanks, fought in Wales and Scotland.

The figures are all 15mm by Legio Heroica. I used a mix of the early 13th century and mid 13th century ranges. The early period helmets would have been obsolete by the time of the Barons' War, so unlikely to have been worn by the nobility, but the figures are nice and it gives me more variety plus some of the poorer knights may have still used them. By Edward I's wars, helmet styles had evolved even further.

I originally decided to just do a few English, representing my local area. However, the more I read and researched, the more carried away I became so that I have ended up with a full size army.

A major resource which I used was British History Online. This includes many county histories. I live on the border of Worcestershire and Warwickshire and luckily these two are covered. The histories give a great deal of detail of who owned land where through most of recorded history. I think that at times the heraldry is inaccurate but it is a very useful starting point. Early Rolls is very useful for checking the heraldry though be sure to cross check as some arms vary from roll to roll. I also used Grazebrook's Heraldry of Worcestershire, trawling through to find places which were local to me and arms which were carried in Henry or Edward's reigns.

Over the next couple of weeks I'll upload a series of photos of various figures, with a bit of gossip about many of them.

To start, here's Humphrey de Bohun, 2nd Earl of Hereford and Constable of England.

He was at times in opposition to the king, but was in the King's army at Lewes. Some books put him on the Barons' side at Evesham but this is probably a confusion with his son - also called Humphrey. The younger Humphrey can be seen to the rear. He was a commander for the Barons at Lewes and again at Evesham. He seems to have earned de Montfort's displeasure at Evesham for choosing to remain in command of the Welsh. He probably did not flee with them immediately - he was mortally wounded and died soon after the battle.

The arms in black are those carried by the de Spineto family who held land at Coughton, about 5 miles from where I live.

Henry of Winchester

2010-03-08T23:42:00.001Z

Henry of Winchester - Henry III of England - became king at a young age, crowned with a simple circlet as the crown jewels had been sold or lost in the Wash. His father, John, died while still at war with many of his barons. In some ways, this set the tone of the next fifty odd years, with frequent disagreements between the King and many of the most powerful men of the realm. Frequent political strife broke out into open warfare - the Second Barons' War. Much of the strife was down to the King's failure to recover land lost in France; the Saintoge War being the main example. Another cause of tension was Henry's attempt to buy the Kingdom of Sicily for his younger son. The cost was huge - Henry's brother had already declined the offer - and the chance of success was low. In the end, the only result was that the King was desparate for money.
The various twists and turn of the Barons' War can be followed in many place. One old but seemingly useful source can be found here. One useful section is the appendix where participants of the two factions are named. I think there are a few errors, but handy nonetheless.
This has a variety of primary and near secondary sources covering the War.
Dante mentions Henry as one of the group at the base of the mountain of Purgatory, alongside some of the other characters I've covered.
"You see the king who led the simple life

seated alone: Henry of England—he
has better fortune with his progeny."

I hadn't originally intended painting an English army, but decided I'd just do a few of the local lords. I already had a fair number of Legio Heroica's figures which I started to paint as French, but I quickly decided that they wouldn't work too well alongside the French I'd already done.
I soon found myself researching the various nobles of England and within a short time I'd commited myself to paint up a full army. I'll go into some of the sources I used another time.

Legio Heroica do two kingly figures. The one which I used for Henry is designed for the early part of the 13th century and in theory is too early for Henry, especially for the Barons' War period. His seal show him in a full helm and riding a horse with no caparison but artistic licence was mine to take! I especially liked the pose - in DBMM Henry is an inert general and this pose leant itself to a level of inertia.

I was heavily influence by the style of painting used for this figure on the Legio Heroica site - I even copied the ermine trim.

I was intruiged by the description of a dragon standard used at Lewes. Hobilar (the magazine of the Lance and Longbow society) had a bit of a debate about whether this would have been a flag or a windsock style. After a bit of deliberation, I decided on the windsock. This was for a couple of reasons. The first was that Henry seemed interested in his Saxon predecessors - using the names Edward and Edmund for his sons was very unusual at the time. It was their saintliness which was their main draw, but he may have been aware that the Saxon kings probably carried dragon standards, as shown on the Bayeux Tapestry.

What swayed my decision finally was coming across this picture. It seems to have been from the time of Edward I, who is also known to have used a dragon standard. The picture is an illustration of the story of King Arthur, another subject which was of interest to Henry - he probably ordered the construction of the Winchester Round Table.
I scratchbuilt the dragon using fuse wire and milliput. The first attempt was okay but I decided to try again and even then had to rebuild the head.

The arms of his standard bearer are, I think, those of the knight who held the land where our wargaming club meets.

I shall post some more pictures of the flower of English chivalry once I get the basing done!

The Song Dynasty

2010-01-27T19:40:00.001Z

Once the Mongols had conquered the Jin Dynasty in Northern China, they were faced with the prospect of conquering the Song Dynasty.

A good (I think!) history of the Song and its neighbours and successors can be found in Mote's "Imperial China".

The Song (or Sung) Dynasty had emerged from the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period and fairly rapidly subdued the majority of China. However, on the northern border the Liao Dynasty had been founded by the Khitan. The last of the states to fall to the Song, the Northern Han, was a client of the Liao so its conquest created tension between the two states. Further tension was created by Liao occupation of lands once held by the Tang, which the Song claimed.

The Song attempted to regain these lands by force but were rebuffed with great losses - the emperor fleeing the battle in an ox cart. There were several further campaigns over the next twenty years. The Liao invasion of 1004 was bought off with what the Song called gifts and the Liao called tribute - a massive 200000 bolts of silk and 100000 ounces of silver per year.

The war party in the Song court thought that the Liao could have been defeated but the peace party prevailed. The policy has divided opinion ever since - the cost was high but less than would have been needed for defensive troops. However, it also encouraged a military decline which would make future defence more difficult.

This was shown to some extent with the rise of the Tanguts or Xi Xia. They were neighbours of the Song and the Liao. Initial Xia success led the Liao to again threaten to invade. The Song renegotiated the tribute to the Liao - the Tanguts were seemingly disgruntled that their hard work had produced gains for the Liao. The Song used this to their advantage - the Xi Xia were persuaded to attack their erstwhile allies, receiving substantial gifts from the Song as a reward. Over the next century, Xi Xia and Liao relations veered between war and negotiation - Song diplomacy seems to have help to manipulate the states to cut down on the threat of a new alliance between these two states.

The Song had further conflict with the Xi Xia. During one of these wars, the Chinese infantry are said to have begun to use a large sword for killing horses, the zhan ma dao - also see here.

The Liao became increasingly settled and apparently unaggressive, so that when their subjects, the Jurchen, revolted the Liao armies rapidly crumbled. The Song tried to take advantage by occupying the land they claimed but this led to war with the Jurchen. This time, the Song lost all of their northern territories. The period before this is therefore known as the Northern Song, the period after as the Southern Song.

The Jurchen estabished a new dynasty known as the Chin or Jin (depending on which system you are using). There were a number of wars between Song and Jin including a massive waterbourne assault by the Jurchen across the Yangtze. This was repelled with massive losses and led to most of the remainder of Song-Jin relations being pretty peaceful. Just before the Mongol invasions began, a Song invasion of Jin was defeated and a further invasion in alliance with the Mongols ended up annoying the nomads.

The Mongol invasion of Song went through several phases, interrupted due to the death of the Khan. The final invasion began with a siege - this webpage has some very useful information about Song armies.

A major problem with putting together a wargames army for the Song is that 15mm figures covering this dynasty are few and far between. Those which are available are generally based on the WRG 'Armies and Enemies of Ancient China' which is very patchy in its accuracy. Eureka Miniatures has the Song in its '300' club and probably only needs a few more subscribers to reach its magic number. The Song's southern neighbours - the Nanzhao - are also in the '300' club and rumour has it that sculpting is in progress.

I used mostly 'Grumpy' miniatures available from Eureka and East Riding Miniatures. These are pretty nice figures and easy to paint. They are produced for the Ming and Koreans rather than the Song so I took some liberties and did a bit of conversion.

The cavalry in the picture at the top of this post have very distinctive horse armour which would be nice to see. I made do with unarmoured horses except for a couple of SHQ horses I have. The Central Asian Turkish armoured horses from Outpost are also pretty suitable. I cut away the plumes and flags from the Grumpy cavalry and replaced them with Milliput plumes. Most also have little wings added to the helmets which gives a more Song profile.

The armour on the figures is textile covered. While appropriate for the Ming, this would seem to have been rare for the Song period or even non-existant. Lamellar or 'mountain pattern' armour would be better.

The flag is homemade. The Chinese had a system which used symbols standing for the five cardinal directions - you can see examples on Wikipedia.

These infantry represent poorly equipped militia with some better equipped troops in front. I use the better ones to represent foot generals.

I also use some of the Grumpy figures with helmets so that I can distinguish regular and irregular troops.

A major feature of the Song army was its use of artillery.
The fire lance troops are conversions from Grumpy figures. Fire lances were apparently popular with peasants although in an Imperial force they would probably have been better armoured.

The bolt shooter is a double crossbow from Outpost's Tang range.

The man-powered catapults are mostly Donnington - I replaced the arm with a bundle of florists' wire to give the impression of bamboo.

A very useful source for artillery and other aspects of the later Chinese military is here. Most of the pictures are Ming or later but they draw on earlier texts.

Comparisons of Knights

2010-01-04T21:31:00.002Z

Here's a comparison between the knights from various companies.

First, the horses. From the left

Legio Heroica, Essex, Mirliton, Black Hat, Alain Touller.

The Touller horses have been redesigned since I bought mine and I haven't seen them.

Again, from the left

Legio Heroica, Essex, Mirliton, Black Hat, Touller

The Black Hat knights aren't quite as versatile as their infantry, being noticeably smaller than other ranges. The Legio figures are a bit taller but it is their bulk which makes them stand out next to other figures. Their shields are just about identical in size to the ones from Mirliton though a little thicker. The Mirliton figure is one of the later ones in this range. Some of the earlier ones are a little smaller though not so much that it couldn't be natural variation. The Essex figure is one of their Spanish range wearing obsolete gear for the mid- to late-13th century.

From some pictures I've seen elsewhere, the Old Glory 'Crusader' range is a pretty good match for size and build of the Mirliton figures. Most of this range carry heater shields more typical of the mid 13th century than the 3rd Crusade. The ones in the 'Holy Order' range have larger shields which are of an earlier form though still more early 13th than late 12th century. The range seems to have a mix of early 13th century 'face mask' helms and mid century full helms. Both of these were found earlier, but full helms in particular seem to have been extremely uncommon pre-1200 and not predominant for another generation or more. The Old Glory figures also have most of the knights on barded horses which were probably uncommon before 1200.

I've used Mirliton figures for my Italians as well as French and German forces which are in progress. I used Touller figures for the Spanish. My current project is a Feudal English army of roughly the time of Simon de Montfort. I've had the urge for a while to paint a few figures bearing the arms of the nobility who held lands close to where I live. I've found even more information than I hoped and so now I shall do a whole army. About a dozen figures done so far so watch this space.

The Horde from the East

2009-12-29T17:33:00.009Z

Incursions into Europe by the people of the great Eurasian steppes had been happening since before the end of the Roman Empire. The Kingdom of Hungary traced its roots to the Magyars who settled in the Carpathian basin in the 10th century. Cumans, the western part of the Kipchak group, arrived in Hungary and the Balkans in the early part of the 13th century. They were refugees, fleeing a threat from the East.

The meteoric rise of the Mongol Empire is covered by many websites. Their own account can be read in the Secret History. In short, a combination of absorption through alliance and conquest created a force which was strong enough to take on a succession of settled empires. The Xi Xia, of what is now Western China, were one of the first to feel the strength of Ghengis's force. They fought a series of wars against the Mongols. They eventually submitted but did not send forces to aid the Mongols when called upon. Further war resulted - Ghengis died during the final war of conquest. The Jin dynasty of northern China was also under attack during this early period and although losses in territory and life were huge, the resistance was sufficient for the Jin to retain some of their lands until after the death of the Khan.

Ogedei, Ghengis's successor, continued the process of conquest. There was something of a pattern - Mongol emissaries or traders in various places seem to have got themselves killed by the local authorities and an army was sent to wreak terrible vengeance. The Song dynasty, rulers of Southern China, managed to incur the wrath of Ogedei while allied with the Mongols against the Jin. The Song forces tried to retake land which had been lost a century or so earlier and killed a Mongol emissary who presumably voiced the Khan's displeasure.

To the west, a series of campaigns conquered the Islamic lands - eventually conquering as far as Mesopotamia with incursions into Syria. The impact on Central Asia was immense and may well have caused a permanent decline in the economy of the area through the destruction of cities and even the grazing of huge numbers of horses. In this campaign, and others, locals were driven in advance of the Mongols as a human shield - especially during sieges. Catapults of various sorts were used extensively. During the campaigns in the Islamic region, the Mongols seems to have acquired the means to build counterweight catapults - the hui hui pao.

A relatively small force was sent to conquer the Kipchaks in what is now Russia - this expedition continued through the various Rus lands forcing them to become vassals of the Khan. Again, it continued to the west. It split into three, one part defeating a Polish/German army at Liegnitz - the involvement of Teutonic Knights at this battle was probably minimal and may have been non-existant despite many claims to the contrary. Even today the city of Krakow commemorates the attack of the 'Tartars' with a midday bugle call which cuts off short, as if the musician has been hit by an arrow.

The main part of the army confronted the Hungarians as a punishment for the King allowing the Cuman refugees to enter the country. Ironically tensions between Hungarians and Cumans led to the death of the Cuman king, most of the Cumans fleeing to the south.

The Hungarians met the Mongols at Mohi. The battle was hard fought but it resulted in the destruction of the Hungarian army and the death of much of the royal family and nobility. The Mongols pillaged the country though guerilla tactics by the populace meant that the kingdom remained unpacified.

These forces left Europe on hearing of the death of Ogedei. Tradition meant that the new khan should be chosen by the whole army. Further attacks on Hungary occurred but, importantly, they tended to lack the same ability to conquer cities.

The campaign against the Song dynasty proceeded in stages - again the death of a khan resulted in a hiatus. The nature of these wars was far more of a slog, characterised by long sieges, compared to the campaign in Russia and the rest of Europe. Even the succession of sieges in the Islamic areas were short by comparison. There is an essay about one of the longest here. It also gives some insight into the Song dynasty and its army. I'll post some more about the Song fairly soon.

I used Old Glory figures for my Mongols.

These are some of their Heavy Cavalry with Melee weapons. There are certainly references to Mongols with shields but there is debate as to whether they would use them on horseback. Portrayals of earlier troops in this area do lack shields, so I decided to cut away the ones moulded onto the figures. This was not quite as daunting as it seems and it was possible to create the arm fairly easily from the remains of the shield.

These are a mix of the heavy cavalry and medium cavalry archers. The main difference is really that the heavy cavalry are slightly bulkier figures, including the horses.

These are the Old Glory light cavalry with bows. I did these around the same time as the Turcoman cavalry and again I've overdone it when it comes to making them look as if they are firing sideways. It makes it confusing in the table-top!

The Mongol armies was made up of troops from a number of origins. Overtime, the appearance probably showed increasing degrees of homogeneity but I still have some which preserve the differences.

I use these as Jurchen cavalry. They are from the Outpost Manchu range. This is actually designed for a period about 400 years after the one I want, which shows mostly in the bowcases. At least some of the Jurchen had armoured horses - I may well use some of the Outpost Turkish horses which I have sitting around as the armour is pretty suitable. I could have just used the same figures as the Mongols but it lets me see which are which more easily and I liked the figures!

About half of the Outpost range are wearing the fabric covered 'brigandine' armour which became popular especially during the Manchu period. However, some seems to have been worn during the Mongol Yuan period. Even so, I asked Outpost to just send figures in lamellar armour after my initial order and I've even made some of the fabric covered armour into lamellar using milliput.

These are Black Hat light cavalry - a mix of Cumans, Hungarians and the occasional Lithuanian.

They mix pretty well with the Old Glory figures though the horses are smaller

The 'human shield' figures are a mix of Donnington and Alain Touller figures. The AT packs come complete with a Mongol 'herder'. The Touller range looks pretty nice and I might well have gone with them if I hadn't already bought OG15s. The ponies do look very small compared to other companies' figures. This may well be accurate but the difference may be offputting. Since I bought mine, the horses have been redesigned so could be larger. I did buy the Korean infantry from Touller, which are based on the figures from the Invasion Scrolls. These may actually be Southern Chinese rather than Korean but either way they will find a place in my Yuan Dynasty army once they are painted. (edit: - they may even be Northern Chinese. The Yuan hadn't conquered the Song at the time of the first invasion of Japan. However, apparently some Southern Chinese troops had transferred to the Mongols even at this point, so it is hard to be sure who they are!)

Schild en Vriend

2009-10-31T16:03:00.006Z

The title of this post is a shibboleth, a phrase which Flemish revolters against the King of France demanded that those they encountered said - if they couldn't pronounce the words correctly they would be taken to be French and killed.

This happened as part of the Flemish revolt against the rule of Philip IV 'the fair' of France.

The build up to the revolt is fairly complex but in a nutshell the King had placed Flanders under his personal rule due to a dispute with the Count. The royal appointee in charge of Bruges made himself unpopular through such matters as tax and eventually this led to the outbreak of open war. Not all of the cities of Flanders were initially involved and some, such as Ghent, had some history of loyalty to the French crown.

The first major battle was outside Kortrijk/Courtrai. It bacame known as the Battle of the Golden Spurs. This is covered in depth at the excellent Liebaart site (Liebaart being a nickname for the anti-French party). The battle is also covered in various levels of detail by a number of books including Verbruggen's and Fegley's. See also the account from the Annals of Ghent. The battle is a major part of Flemish culture, commemorated at a museum in Kortrijk
The war continued with some more minor battles, the next major one being at Mons en Pevele. More cities sent their troops here, with Ghent's contribution being greater than at Kortrijk. The battle is an interesting contrast with Kortrijk as it shows the Flemish pikemen taking the offensive. The battle was a victory for the French but was a close run thing, with Philip being nearly killed or captured.
A peace treaty was signed soon which showed how close the French thought the battle - some cities remained under French rule but the majority of Flanders achieved de facto independence.

The Flemish revolt is often seen as being part of a major change in warfare in Western Europe with infantry achieving greater success on the battlefield. This also helped to alter the political balance between nobility and commoner. To see it as a peasants revolt is probably overstating the case - the equipment used by the Flemish infantry was expensive, representing many months wages of a skilled craftsmen. Most of the men were organised by guild, representing the various crafts and trades within the cities. They distinguished themselves by wearing uniform liveries and by carrying guild flags - more on this later. The weapons were less uniform though this may have been deliberate - one of the accounts describes how the men were placed so that a pikeman was alongside a goedendag wielder.

I won't enter into the debate about the nature of the goedendag - you can read more here. The illustrations are taken from the Kortrijk Chest which can be seen on the same website. I think it is likely that, while the common term for the weapon was a 'gepinde staf' or 'plancon a picot', a chronicler picked up on a nickname for the same weapon and referred to it in his history.

Here is another illustration, taken from the French Grande Chroniques. The way in which the plancon can be wielded as a club is obvious, while the spike allows it to poked as a short spear.

There are times when a spontaneous purchase can lead you to spending a lot of time and money on something you hadn't intended! As I mentioned in some previous posts, I liked the look of Donnington's new era figures and bought a few. I originally thought I'd just use a few of the Low Countries figures in German or French armies, but with a bit of reading I decided to take the plunge and start another new army. I already have some knights painted as Flemish since these appear in various other armies- though going by the Kortrijk Chest I really ought to have knights wearing cone topped helms and ailettes.
I originally only bought a few plancon wielders as, in the DBM list, these are separated out as Blade(X). However, after reading the various acounts where the majority of these troops were side by side with the pikemen I decided to mix them in. I did a couple of bases as an experiment and liked the look. The Chest also shows some with falchion and buckler, so I mixed some of these in too.

The mixing had the benefit of increasing the variety on each base. I also found that the plancon wielders can easily be converted to using pikes. The figure carrying his weapon over the shoulder can be fitted with a pike at various angles. The other, with his plancon horizontal, can have his hand drilled out to give another pikeman at the ready. The left hand is a bit ill-defined to look as if it holding a pike, but I decided not to bother adding any milliput.
I used the figures with vertical spears as flag bearers and I'll also use some if I want a fourth rank of pikes, though the Flemish don't seem to have used their pikes in as great a depth as some. For the third rank, it is a mix of plancon wielders, some refitted with pikes, and swordsmen. I still wanted more variety. I had bought some of the figures using their spears overarm so I experimented with bending these to look as if they were holding a vertical pike. I liked the result, so added these into the mix. I also had some Alain Touller spearmen which were a bit big to mix with Black Hat figures and I found that they mixed nicely with the Donnington figures. I decided against putting any Mirliton spearmen into the mix - I wanted the pikemen to all have surcoats and most of the Mirliton ones don't have them.
The othe minor conversion I've made is to round off the helmets of figures wearing bascinets to give the appearance of an earlier helmet. The figures are designed for the mid 14th century and the bascinets match this period well. I'd have preferred to have seen more of the figures in these rather than kettle hats though, as the Chest and Leeguemeete paintings show a lot of uniformity in the headgear.
The majority of figures and reacreations I've seen of placon wielders have been based on the Ian Heath pictures in Armies of Medieval Europe v.1. He based his on the Leugemeete paintings of Ghentish militia. When I looked at these, the shields all seem to be carried by men with spears, not plancons, so I left the shields off. I don't know how possible it was to use a shield with a spear like this, but I put a few on pikemen at the ready. They'd probably be more accurate if they were hanging on their backs, like some re-enactors I've seen.

I painted my first few bases using a yellow and blue livery mentioned by Heath (from Froissart's mid 14th century description). Rune's description of the Flemish guild flags mentioned the use of de Vigne's book. When I read a review of this, it mentioned that it had colour versions of the Leugemeete paintings, so I bought it. It does have some great plates - though none of the guildsmen are in yellow and blue. The liveries are either red, white, red and white or red and yellow. However, the text mentions that various other colours were worn by various guilds and cities and the availability of cloth seems to have been a factor. The shield of the vieux wariers guild (basically second hand clothes dealers!) shows a tunic in yellow and blue, so I gave the figures I'd already painted a flag based on the shield.

Apart from the blue and yellow livery , the others are based on the paintings. De Vigne identifies one with a damaged flag as the butchers, based on the cleavers which some carry instead of spears or plancons.

I made the flags by drawing free hand a much larger version, scanning and colouring using Corel. I used a texture to give the effect of creases in the material, though I still need to play with the settings to get the highlights rights.

Rune has doem some very nice flags on the Krigsspil site but I wanted to include some guilds he hasn't covered and so for consistency I decided not to use any of his.
Note that at this earlier period the flags are still much taller than they are wide. Within a generation or so they became more or less square.

For the generals on foot, I am going to use some of Mirltons dismounted knights. These are wearing either coifs or a cervelliere which fits the look on the Chest nicely. I've added a milliput cervelliere over the coif of one which took very little time. So far, I've also convereted two of them to carry plancons. I cut away the swords, drilled out the hands and put a pin in place. The point of the pin forms the spike of the plancon and then I built up the body of the weapon with milliput and much cursing. I'm pleased with the result, giving a similar pose to the one in the illumination above. I'll post a photo when I've painted them. I may do some more when I start painting the bases which just have plancon wielding Bd(X).

One of the slightly disappointing things about this army is the heraldry of the commanders. I looked at who commanded the various sections of the army at Mons and then looked up their heraldry. They were very closely related and their heraldry shows it - most have the lion of Flanders with some kind of distinguishing label.

Syria and the Turks

2009-10-11T17:02:00.002+01:00

The period I'm covering saw the last gasp of the Crusades in Egypt and Syria, with later efforts being concentrated elsewhere such as Spain and Prussia.

Part of the reason why the remanants of the Crusader states lasted for as long as they did was that their Muslim opponents could be as fractious as their European counterparts. After Saladin's death his territories were divided amongst his sons and other family members. At various times, one of these coud claim to be the overall leader but conflict between the cities was frequent. One result of this internecine warfare was the hiring of Khwarizmians, refugees from the Mongol Conquest. These were employed by first one side and then another in the wars between the Ayyubid Sultan in Egypt and his uncle and others. While crossing Palestine, the Khwarizmians took Jerusalem from the Christians, resulting in Muslim rule of the city for the next 7 centuries.

As might be expected for a 14th century Christian, Dante consigned Muhammed and Ali to one of the lower regions of the Inferno. Saladin is also in the Inferno, but on the first level, the region for those who

"did not sin; and yet, though they have merits,

that's not enough, because they lacked baptism,

the portal of the faith that you embrace.

And if they lived before Christianity,

they did not worship God in fitting ways;"

Saladin is notable as the others are almost all Classical figures, ranging from heroes of the Trojan Wars , through the philosphers and writers of Greece to renowned figures of Ancient Rome. Indeed, Saladin is noted as standing slightly apart from the others.

These are some 15mm Old Glory figures which I use as Ayyubid Syrians. They are a mix including not only their Syrian figures but also some OG Seljuks. Spears have been replaced by wire - the last few ranges from OG have seen them switch to very thin lances instead of the open hands on other ranges.
This OG range has some nice figures but others are nowhere near as good. The size of riders and horses varies greatly and details such as bowcases and quivers are often far too small. I think the Syrians and Bedouins are probably the best of this range. The Seljuk range is generally much more consistent and better detailed.

These are Outpost Ghilman (with and Old Glory drummer - the Outpost one is very big).
The horse of the man with the mace has had a bard made of a J-cloth added.
When I first got the Outpost figures they seemed much smaller than most ranges but placed side by side the difference is due to the more natural proportions. Some of the horses are very nice, others aren't quite so good.

Turcoman cavalry - Outpost on the left, Old Glory on the right.
I tried for a dynamic basing with the OG figures, with most of them looking as if they are charging across the opponents front, firing as they go. Trouble is, it gets confusing as to which way they are actually facing, despite the base width and depth being different. I may well rebase these.

The Fateful Land

2009-09-11T19:21:00.002+01:00

In wargaming there tends to be a payoff between terrain which is attractive and that which is practical for the moving of based figures acoss it. I try to reach a happy medium though this can take a bit of trial and error. Some of my hills are far too steep and troops slide down them like sinners into the inferno :)

I like to try to use some terrain features which are distinctive for an area. This is often the style of building being used. A certain amount of licence can be necessary since manufacturers do not necessarily make houses which exactly match a particular region or time period. Chimneys and windows can often show a building to be from a later period, but beggars can't be choosers.

For Italy I initially went for 10mm Timecast buildings. They are nicely made and based on real examples. I used 10mm because terrain scale is so far out of figure scale that accurately sized buildings for 15mm can be very big, especially churches. 10mm gives a good compromise, allowing a size which isn't too far away from figure scale but which lets you put enough buildings on the table to look like a small built up area.

A common feature of Tuscany and surroundinga areas is the hill top settlement. This shows my attempt at one

The tower was scratchbuilt using textured card from Slaters. The roof was made by texturing some milliput - this took ages!

The hill was made from extruded polystyrene. This is much tougher than the white expanded polystyrene and carves well.

I may well make another at some point, with one side vertical to allow the hill to be placed against the table edge as a part of a larger city. This will also allow a larger area on top for the placement of more buildings with even more levels.

I'm still not sure I like the green building, though I based the colour on a 14th century picture by Fra Angelico.

One reason I'd like to have more area for buildings is that I bought quite a few JR Miniatures buildings from Magister Militum . These are 15mm but, as with many ranges of buildings, they are slightly underscale - especially when most '15mm' figures are now larger.

They fit in very well with the 10mm Timecast buildings:

The three buildings on the left are JR Miniatures. The block on the right is from Timecast.

Another key feature of this landscape is the olive grove. I bought some trees from Realistic Modelling Services.

As with the buildings, I bought ones which are underscale. This emphasises the difference in height between the olive trees and ones in woods - like most people I use trees which are substantially undersized at perhaps 5 time the height of a figure rather than a more realistic 10 or 20 times taller. I have some poplar trees too, from the model tree shop though I haven't yet based these.

I scratchbuilt some vines.

These are based on 'tongue depressor' style sticks. I drilled a number of holes along the length and put in some thick wire uprights. Wooden poles would have worked too but I wanted something fairly thin and strong. I then used some Woodland Scenics Fine Leaf Foliage. This comes on twiggy material which can be selected for the most vine like strands. A couple of pieces of this placed horizontally give good cover. I made half a dozen or so of these in about an hour and had loads of the foliage left over. I put them on a piece of painted and textured MDF to show the extent of the vineyard. Sometime I may make some hills with terraces onto which I can put some narrower versions of these strips.

Spear Comparison updated

2009-08-30T14:46:00.000+01:00

I've added some photos of some more spearmen to my earlier entry.

Awake the Iron! - the Almughavars

2009-08-30T14:43:00.001+01:00

A notable feature of the Aragonese and, to some extent, the other Iberian armies was their use of the almughavars (or almogavars). These were infantry who, despite a lack of armour, soon gained a reputation for their fighting ability. They formed part of the armies used in the conquest of Valencia and were a major component of the Aragonese forces in Sicily. After the treaty of Caltabellota, a large number left Sicily and became the Catalan Company, working for various employers in and around Greece. Eventually they carved out their own state. Not all almughavars joined the Company though - some, for example, seem to have been part of della Ratta's mercenaries in Florence. These were paid for by their old enemy, the Angevin king in Naples.

The 13th century chronicles have a great deal of detail about the Almughavars, especially Muntaner's Chronicle.

A pretty modern good summary of their career is here, with many sources listed. There is also a more general review of Spanish tactics which includes the almughavars here.

In wargaming terms they are difficult to portray since their lack of armour would make them very vunerable in many sets of rules. Sometimes they are categorised as if they were more protected to give them a chance of standing up to knights as they did on occasion such as the Battle of Falconaria. The circumstances in which they fought may also have helped, so it makes for much discussion.

As I write this, the DBMM lists which covers the Sicilians and the Catalan Company are being looked at before the publication later this year.. In the armies with Almughavars which have been published they have been categorised as superior auxilia. There has been discussion about them being fast blades in the new list, which may mean a change to the Book 3 almughavars.

In 15mm, the companies which make almughavars that I know of are Essex, Eureka, Irregular and Touller. I only have the first two - there are various pics of the Touller ones around such as here.

This is a comparison shot of my Essex (on the left) and Eureka figures. There are, I think, 3 variations in the Essex range and an impressive 18 or so in the Eureka range. The Essex ones are perfectly decent but are a bit two-dimensional. Some of my figures have had arms bent so that the upright spears in particular are at more varied angles.

Some of the Eureka figures are a bit taller than the others but nothing which can't be explained by normal height differences.

Both ranges have the cap as the dominant headgear, as in the Heath books. This is mentioned in a description by Desclot as being leather, possibly red despite my painting. Other descriptions mention a sort of net for the hair which may have been metal. Some of the Eureka figures have this.

The flags carried by the Catalan Company are described in Muntaner (p.409 in the edition linked to above). He mentions that the foot carried 'pennons' of the King of Aragon and King Fadrique - i.e. the King of Sicily. I haven't looked to see what the original Catalan word translated as pennons was, but it is likely pendon which had a pretty broad meaning rather than just the small triangular flags.

A Siege and Relief game

2009-08-25T20:36:00.008+01:00

I've posted a few pics of this game before, but here are some more.
You'll need to click on them to see the whole view.

The rationale behind the game was that Henry VII didn't die but received the Sicilian reinforcements (which were actually on their way when he died) and returned to besiege Florence.

Florentine forces protected the city while the Pope led Roman and Tuscan relief forces. In reality, by this point the Pope was based in Avignon, but we took some artistic licence.

The total size was around 800 AP per side, bigger than a normal DBMM battle.

This is a scratch built siege tower - WWg(S) in DBMM terms. The perrier on the tower is also scratch built. (Click on the photo to see it). I'll have to add some figures to these sometime.

Angevin paid French and Almughavar mercenaries take on the Emperor and Veronese supporters.

The figure with the ladder arms is based on Cangrande della Scala, ruler of Verona. The figure to the right of him bears the Montecchi coat of arms. This may have been the family on which the Montagues of 'Romeo and Juliet' was based.

The Pope under pressure from Aragonese Sicilian knights. Most of his guard crumbled rather quickly (despite being Sp(S)) and, with the Roman knights already eliminated, his command broke and fled soon after this picture was taken..

Luckily for the Guelphs, the Emperor was also in trouble - this was his final turn.

The battle was close all the way through and in the end a Florentine general who had sallied forth managed to survive two flanked combats while a Sicilian general survived one flanked combat but lost the second, breaking his command and the rest of the Ghibbeliine forces.

We intend doing something similar again. I'm currently trying to make some resin towers which look more Italian, though it has been quite a learning curve.

2009-08-20T15:14:00.004+01:00

Just a quick post today.

I went to Caliver a couple of days ago and picked up some books from the period. Two of them I hadn't seen before, though I have some others in the same series. These have both been published in the last 12 months.

One was about the Almughavars:

And the other covers the conquest of Valencia by James I of Aragon.

Both are in Spanish with some nice Osprey style plates. There are a fair few black and white photos of original sources although, as with Osprey, there are also several pictures from later periods (e.g. 19th century) which aren't so useful. Most of the primary source pictures are ones I've seen online but some are new to me and it saves looking for them if you haven't already found them.
I can't read Spanish, but as with other non-English books I've bought the specialist vocabulary can be picked up quite quickly, making captions reasonably straightforward to translate. Online translators also help, as long as you take the translation with a sizeable handful of salt.
The publisher's website is here.

Figure Comparisons: 15mm Spearmen and Donnington Review

2009-08-16T11:10:00.018+01:00

Yesterday I bought some of the 'New Era' figures from Donnington. I'd looked at them before but had assumed that they wouldn't be suitable for the period I wanted. The cavalry are certainly designed for the mid to late 14th century and beyond bit there turned out to be quite a few figures which would be suitable for my period.

The website is pretty good and representative figures are shown although I think there are a couple of misplaced pictures. The useful thing to know for many of us is how well they mix with other brands, particularly if, like me, you are going to get other troop types from different manufacturers.

From the left - Black Hat, Donnington, Mirliton, Touller. I've already based all my Essex and Legio Heroica figures, so they'll have to wait until I do some photos of based figures. The LH figures are a bit taller than the others (as with the crossbowmen). They'll look fine next to other makes but I don't think they'd look right in the same base. I shall keep mine as separate 'units'.

This Touller figure is a bit taller than the others - it isn't just the way his base isn't quite lined up. The other Feudal spearmen I have from Touller are just a bit shorter and are about the same size as Black Hat. I've put a few of these taller figures in with Black Hat figures and they don't stand out. All four companies could mix well although the ones with cast on shields may not look right next to the ones with separate shields.
The Donnington and Mirliton figures are very similar in size and style. Even the bases are similar shapes.

The figures are generally designed with the mid 14th century in mind. This does mean that not all are suitable for the late 13th century - leg armour and helmets in particular. The range includes some plancon bearers for the Low Countries, and these are the best I have seen so far. They are in kettle hat, which is fine for Courtrai/Kortrijk, or in bascinet which is better for the mid 14th century. However, a bit of filing should make a nice cervelliere as worn by the figures in the Kortrijk chest. The shields are separate on these which is useful - depite Heath's illustartion in Armies of the Middle ages, the three primary source pictures I know of which show this weapon show the wielders without shields.

In some cases the only noticeable bit of the leg armour just looks to be knee protectors - poleyns. These could probably be filed off or painted over. This gives then gives a nice range of polearms wielding figures in active poses.
LCF 8, LCF 10 and HYF 20 and probably some others will be particularly useful for 'Auxillia' types - there aren't many figures around which are suitable for these.

I like these figures and will be getting some more. It might even tempt me to do a DBA Low Countries army although this tends to start me on the slippery slope of a full DBMM army. At least Rune has already done the flags!

Update:
Here are some Alain Touller Spanish spearmen:

Only the ones with the mail coif are sold as Spanish and have the distinctive round bottomed shield. The others have a more pointed shield. Since I wanted a bit of variety of headgear but all with the same shield, I used a file to round off the points. It was pretty quick to do this.

Here is a comparison of, from the left, Mirliton, Alain Touller and Legio Heroica:

The Touller figures are more simiar in height to Mirliton than the unpainted example above. The Legio Heroica figures are a bit taller than the others but don't look out of place.

Spain: Royalty and Flags

2009-08-13T10:39:00.007+01:00

This is my 15mm King of Aragon. The figures are Alain Touller with two Mirliton horses.

James I - the Conqueror, was king of Aragon through most of the 13th century. Much of his fighting was against various Muslim states, including the conquest of Mallorca and campaigning in Murcia. His life is covered by a chronicle which he authored (no doubt with the aid of a ghost writer). This is an excellent read. It is available on-line here.

He was succeeded by Peter III - the Great. He fought against rebellions at home and then led an expedition to reinstate Aragonese suzerainty over Tunis. From there, he led his army to Sicily to fight against Charles of Anjou. Peter was given a large sum of money by the Byzantine Emperor to assist this endeavour - Charles had set his sights on taking Constantinople to re-establish the Latin Empire.

At one point the two kings agreed to end the war by a duel in Bordeaux, though only Peter turned up.

The Pope excommunicated Peter for his invasion of Sicily and, declaring him deposed, a Crusade was called. This involved a huge French invasion of Peter's territory. Initially successful, the Crusade collapsed into a rout due to disease and the defeat of the French fleet.

On Peter's death, he left his Spanish possessions to his son Alfonso III and Sicily to another son, James.

Peter and Charles of Anjou are both placed by Dante outside Purgatory, singing in harmony.

Alfonso conquered Mallorca from his uncle (another James) and then Minorca from its Muslim ruler. His six year reign ended with his death at the age of 27. Dante placed him at the foot of the mountain of Purgatory with the inefficient rulers.

James of Sicily inherited the Kingdom of Aragon. In order to achieve peace with the Angevin Charles II, James agreed to give Sicily to Charles. The Sicilians disagreed and made James' brother, Frederick, king. James briefly made war on his brother which largely took the form of naval actions - James was even appointed Captain-General of the Papacy. As a further inducement, James was given Corsica and Sardinia - even though these were not in the Pope's control.

Dante is not complimentary about the Aragonese kings of Sicily

That book will show the greed and cowardice
of him who oversees the Isle of Fire,
on which Anchises ended his long life;

and to make plain his paltriness, the letters
that register his deeds will be contracted,
to note much pettiness in little space.

And all shall see the filthiness of both
his uncle and his brother, who dishonored
a family so famous—and two crowns.
Paradiso, 19
Ferdinand IV is also criticised in the book of bad deeds, for his "life of treachery and ease."

Various chronicles cover the reigns of Peter and James. The most complete one available in English online was by Muntaner, available here. It is also a valuable source for the Catalan Company which campaigned in Byzantine lands. Others include ones by Desclot and San Juan de la Pena, though I don't know of any complete English versions of these online.

This is my representation of Don Enrique of Castile. Figures are Alain Touller.

He was a younger son of Fernando III of Castile. He fought against his brother, Alfonso X, and although initially successful he was forced into exile in England. After three years he had to leave and went to Aragon. He conquered the small Moorish Kingdom of Niebla but was again induced to leave Spain. He worked as a mercenary for the King of Tunis and then went to Italy.

There seems some disagreement as to whether he joined Charles of Anjou in time for the battle of Benevento. He certainly received the post of Senator of Rome. He considered this insufficient repayment for his support of Charles and joined Conradin's invasion, providing Spanish and Roman forces. He was in the successful van at Tagliocozzo but fled when the apparently victorious army was defeated.

He spent the next 23 years in prison and may have written the poem 'Amadis'.

For wargaming he is a most useful figure, being suitable for Castillian, Aragonese, Hafsid Berber, Medieval German and possibly Charles of Anjou's French armies.

I found his arms using Wikipedia, so I hope they are accurate! I used the same style of arranging the quarters as on this picture of Alfonso X

(Picture from here)
Note the purplish hue to the lions and the cross on Enrique's flag. Even the modern Spanish arms should have a lion in purpure but they are often shown in red. The actual original colour of purpure is debateable and even the above picture probably shows a change due to time. A pruplish red is probably the safest bet, though I've used a more (probably inaccurate) lilac colour on Enrique's flag
I have also painted a Castilian king but the photo is too blurred to use. Another time perhaps!

The following pictures show a variety of types of flags in use by Spanish forces. All are 13th century.

Fresco from here

From a fresco depicting the conquest of Mallorca. The senyera - the Catalan flag - is fairly unusual in that the bars are horizontal on the flag but vertical on shields. This shape is also unusual. A similarly shaped flag from the period still exists in Valencia. The description says that the yellowing is due to age, which seems odd when so many flags are depicted with a yellow field. The conquest pennon has probaly lost a longer tail as on the above picture.
The most common, and traditional, portrayal of the flag is with 4 red pales but as can be seen this was not always adhered to.

A nice picture which not only shows flags and bards of Castilian knights but also some early jinetes. I'm planning to get some suitable figures by Essex at the weekend.

Spain

2009-08-11T12:38:00.003+01:00

The Iberian peninsula was divided between various kingdoms and other states, some Christian and some Muslim. Through this period there was conflict between most of the states at some time or other.

My initial interest in the Spanish armies was because of the involvement of the King of Aragon in Sicily, a conflict known as the War of the Sicilian Vespers. In brief, once Charles of Anjou defeated Manfred he gained control of the Kingdom of Sicily which included the island and the southern part of Italy as far as the Papal states. He had his eyes set on building a Mediterranean empire - I'll post something about this another time.

Peter III of Aragon had invaded the lands of Tunis to re-establish the suzerainty over Tunis that his father had imposed. While he was there, he was visited by emissaires from Sicily, inviting him to take over the kingdom from Charles. Peter had a claim on the Kingdom of Sicily through his wife and in his own right, and accepted the invitation. There is speculation that the journey to Tunis was actually a smokescreen and that it was only ever intended as a stepping stone to Sicily. The best book I've read on the background is Runciman's "The Sicilian Vespers" though I've included a link to an even older free download book in the sidebar.

The actual number of land battles in this war suitable for a wargame is small - most of the major actions were naval. The final land battle of the war, Falconaria, is perhaps the best for playing.

These are Alain Touller figures (with two Mirliton horses). As far as I know only Touller and Essex do specific Spanish figures. The features which are particular to Iberian knights are - many of them wear a bowl shaped helmet, often with a face veil of mail; the surcoats have a sort of short sleeve; horse barding often leaves the head and neck bare and the shield has a far more rounded base than the more widely used heater shield. Touller has since redesigned the horses, which I haven't seen. The ones I have are pretty good although there aren't many poses. The great helms of the figures sold as Leonese knight look a bit rounded in places such as the vision slits. This initially put me off them but a very quick bit of work with a knife made them look how I wanted them.
Touller also does some Military Order knights wearing a hooded surcoat - I'll get some pictures of these eventually.

The Spanish nobility seem to have liked showing off their heraldry. Unlike the illustration in the Manesse Codex where most caparisons have a sprinkling of small heraldic devices, Spanish illustrations tend to show the barding with a single large form of the arms in each quarter of the housing. Sometimes the arms are split across front and back, as on the seal of the Kings of Castile and Leon.
These are not figures to paint if you don't want to do the heraldry. Some of these have the arms repeated on - the shield, four quarters of the caparison, each of the sleeves and often on the helmet.

Usually the heraldry aren't on the main body of the surcoat but there are exceptions.

Interestingly, in many of the early pictures showing surcoats from across Europe they don't show the coats of arms, so that probably isn't the original reason for surcoats being adopted.

More Spanish another time, including some of the personalities.

The Pope and the Papacy

2009-08-03T18:21:00.003+01:00

The history of the Popes in this period is far too complex for me to go into detail here. In short, the period began with struggles against the Hohenstaufens which led to the Pope selling the claim to the Kingdom of Sicily. Henry III of Engand bought it for his son but this resulted only in Henry getting severely into debt, helping to create the circumstances for the Barons' War.

Charles of Anjou then obtained Papal backing for a claim to Sicily and finished off the Hohenstaufens.

With Ghibelline influence on the wane, the Papacy was able to extend its power further north, gaining lands which it then held fairly continously until the 19th century. Bologna was a major acquisition.

Relations with the Angevins and the French monarchy varied over the period. The populace of Rome were not always welcoming to the Pope and the danger of riots was used as a reason for the papacy moving to Avignon, although it also allowed the French monarchy to have more control over Papal policy. Rule of Rome itself was actually in the hands of the Senator. Sometime this was the Pope, at other times a native Roman of one of the great families but for some time the post was held by Charles of Anjou. Henry of Castile was a notable Senator - more of him another time.

Various Popes are mentioned by Dante. He finds Nicholas III in the 8th circle of the Inferno, buried head down with his feet on fire as a punishment for simony. This pope forsees the arrival in hell of Boniface VIII and Clement V - both of whom being political enemies of Dante.

In DBMM, the Pope is represented by a Bge(S) element. One of the benefits of this is that it gives room for a vignette and this is my attempt. The Pope is probably the most ambitious conversion I've made - he started as a mounted Hungaraian archer from Mirliton. The figure had a fur lined cap which was easy to make into a mozetta. The rest of the papal garb was made from Milliput. The litter and bearers are fantasy figures from Black Raven Foundry. They are moulded with nothing but a loin cloth so I used Milliput to give them a tunic. The throne is plastic card.
The two guardsmen at the front are from Mirliton as are the figures carrying the flabella fans and the umbraculum. The various monks are from Donnington. My original plan was to use these and their nice priest figure with the papal litter placed on the ground.

The Papal armies were, in this period, more often controlled by the Captain General of the Church (not the Gonfaloniere, apparently). This was, at times, an allied king but I have painted mine as Guillaume Durand, Captain General and governor of various Papal territories in the last two decades of the 13th century. His arms are copied from his tomb.
The figure is Mirliton, modified with a bishop's mitre of Milliput.
The figures in the background are Papal guards. I think the DBMM list is quite generous in classifying these as Sp(S) since the picture on which they are based seems to be pretty similar to other pavise carrying spearmen of the 14th century.

The DBA list for the Papacy doesn't, in my opinion, work well for this army. Normally, allies are added to the normal 12 elements but for this particular army the allies are a far more integral part of the army so should be represented as part of the normal army.

If you have access to JSTOR articles, you can download D. Waley's "Papal Armies in the Thirteenth Century". This has a lot of detail about the way in which the tributary cities owed service.
The 19th century "History of the City of Rome" by F. Gregorovius is available as a partial preview on Google books or as a pay download from here . There isn't very much military detail but it puts a lot of the events in context.

Guelphs

2009-07-28T13:54:00.008+01:00

The Guelphs were the political opponents to the Ghibellines. They opposed Imperial control in Italy and generally supported the Pope or, later, the Angevin rulers of Naples. As with the Ghibellines, many states changed their allegiance at different times as different parties gained the ascendency. Within a city, different areas could support a different party. This was often the result of following the patronage of a great family although party differences could exist even within families.

This shows a game using my Guelph figures. The cavalry are Mirliton with Black Hat spearmen and peasants.

This shows the main Guelph standard bearer at Montaperti, Jacopo del Nacca, of the house of Pazzi. He was the victim of one of Dante's most damned characters, Bocca degli Abati. I haven't painted this individual for two reasons - one is that his arms aren't very interesting but the other is that I didn't want to put a traitor in the midst of my forces - no point in tempting fate :)
Abati was a Ghibelline from Florence but hadn't gone into exile. He was in the forces facing the Ghibelline from Siena and elsewhere at Montaperti. Once the battle, Abati made his way towards Pazzi and, without warning, struck at his arm holding the banner. The severed hand and Florentine flag fell to the ground; the Guelph cavalry facing treachery and the assault of the Germans, soon broke. The infantry were less able to escape and although they put up substantial resistance the battle ended with thousands dead.
In his poem, Dante was crossing the lowest circle of the Inferno, the circle of traitors, when he accidentally kicked the head of a sinner embedded up to his neck in ice. Dante thought he recognised the face but the traitor refused to give his name, though he alludes to Montaperti. Dante tried to get his name by pulling out the damned man's hair though he only discovered that he had been talking to degli Abati when a neighbouring soul gave away his name.

Crossbowmen comparison

2009-07-28T11:36:00.006+01:00

Here are some painted 15mm crossbowmen.

The stand on the left is Black Hat and Touller, the next stand is Essex and the stand on the right is Mirliton.

This is a close up of the Black Hat and Touller figures. They mix well, including the crossbows which are different styles in the other makes. The outer two are Black Hat, the centre two are Touller

One of the distinctive features of Italian warfare was the wide use of pavesarii, shield bearers protecting the crossbowmen behind.

These are Mirliton figures. The Mirliton figures with pavise, CO11, are the same as the 'Assorted infantrymen' CO10. I decided to replace these with the ones attacking with lanze longhe - CO12.

The pavises were marked in the colours of their state. http://www.heraldica.org/topics/national/tuscany.htm has some information from Villani. Much of the information is in Italian - unfortunately for me only some of Villani is easily available in an English translation.

Before the Battle of Campaldino, the shortsighted Bishop of Arezzo is said to have asked "Whose walls are those?" receiving the reply that they were the enemies shields. Dino Compagni's account is here

If you can get access to a copy of Sercambi's illustrations they are chock full of examples of painted pavises. They are from the later 14th century but are still useful. My local university library has a copy.

Incidentally, David Nicolle says that the Genoese at Crecy had spear carrying pavisarii with them and that it was their pavises which were left with the wagons. His essay is here
I haven't read much about Crecy, so I don't know how secure this idea is.

The Emperor and the Empire

2009-07-25T14:54:00.021+01:00

Dante's "Divine Comedy" features a number of the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire.
Frederick II is shown as a heretic, burning in a tomb on the sixth level of the Inferno. Henry VII was reserved a seat in Paradise. These two are the only ones in this period who were technically emperors, since they had travelled to Rome to be crowned. Henry's journey is shown in a splendid set of pictures made by his brother about twenty years after the event. They can be seen here
It is a great resource for heraldry although the armour is more representative of the time it was made (c.1340) rather than the period it depicts (c.1310). Fashions changed fairly quickly at this time.

Those who had been elected as ruler of the Empire bore the title "King of the Romans". Others were appointed or proclaimed as King of the Germans (rex teutonicorum), such as the sons of Frederick who had been left in control while the Emperor was campaigning in Italy and beyond. Frederick's opposition to the Pope led to the creation of Anti-kings such as Willian II of Holland.
See the sentence of deposition here

Incidentally, Frederick was a great fan of falconry, writing a book on the subject. This is an illustration from it - useful for painters with its portrayal of clothing:

The period from 1257 to the mid 1270s was known as the Great Interregnum. There were two claimants to the throne - Richard of Cornwall and Alfonso X of Castile - but neither had any effective power in the Empire. Once Richard had died, Rudolf von Habsburg was elected as King of the Romans. He later renounced any claims in Italy and referred to himself as King of the Germans. Dante put him amoungst the negligent rulers at the base of Mount Purgatory.

He who sits highest, and the semblance bears
Of having what he should have done neglected,
And to the others' song moves not his lips,

Rudolph the Emperor was, who had the power
To heal the wounds that Italy have slain,
So that through others slowly she revives.
(Purgatory, Canto VII)

Dante's disdain aside, I decided to paint a figure as Rudolf. Charles Oman's "Art of War in the Middle Ages" has a description of the battle of the Marchfeld in which Rudolf defeated his rival Ottokar (another of Dante's negligent princes). Oman quotes from the Salzburg Chronicle which gives some useful information for painters. Rudolf was accompanied by a large red flag with a white cross, carried by the Burgrave of Nuremburg, Frederick of Hohenzollern.

Figures are Mirliton 15mm, from CC29 - Frederick II command group. Usefully, the standard bearer in this pack has the right 'horned' crest for Hohenzollern. Note the single headed eagle - the double headed eagle was used earlier but is not always used, even by Emperors.

This is a picture from Villani. The picture is supposed to be of Heinrich IV, Emperor at the end of the 11th century, but is a better representation of an emperor in Villani's time - the early 14th century.

In DBA and DBM much of the German cavalry of this period is based with double depth. Various discussions on the TNE and DBMM groups suggests that this depth is not appropriate until later in the Middle Ages so the new Medieval German list is likely to lose 13th century double based elements. If it does, I shall probably rebase mine although I do like the look of them. Luckily I haven't many of them.

This represents the German mercenaries sent by Manfred of Sicily to support Siena against Florence in 1260. The story was that he initially only sent a small number with his banner (probably the eagle on white). The Sienese were dismayed by the small numbers but, according to Villani, they got the Germans drunk, promised them double pay and persuaded them to attack the Florentine camp. The Germans initially did well, catching the Florentines by surprise, but were eventualy overwhelmed and Manfred's banner was dragged through the dust back to Florence.
When Manfred heard about this he sent a further 800 knights to support Siena. One of these was Walter von Astimberg, who demanded that he be allowed to lead the charge against the Guelphs at Montaperti. The figure at the front shows him, followed by his wyvern standard. Note how the wyvern faces the flagstaff - arms on the reverse of flags were reversed like this. The figure carrying Manfred's eagle is based on one of the plates from the Manesse Codex, the opponent in this plate.

The leader of this group, Albrecht von Heigerloch, is again from the Manesse Codex. One of the interesting points in the original plate is that the banner bearer holds the staff in his left hand, allowing him to wield a sword. Perhaps a figure manufacturer might oblige!
There is a problem with this paint job. Like many of the plates, the arms are shown as including black. I'd already noticed that arms I knew included white had black instead - apparently the colour had oxidized and there probably aren't many places in the Codex where black is right. However, I only recently thought to check this one and the Heigerloch arms should be white over red.Checking the plate, a couple of traces of white can be seen. I like the look of the red and black combo so may leave it, but it will nag at me!
The character at the rear with the very bucket shaped helm carries the arms of Frankenstein.

This is the Archbishop of Cologne with his standard bearer Adolf of Nassau, later King of the Romans. Adolf was the Archbishop's brother in law and carried his standard at the Battle of Woerringen.
The figure of the Archbishop is a slight conversion - I added a mitre made from Milliput to the top of his helm. The story of Medieval bishops avoiding the use of swords seems to have been apocryphal - there is a picture of the Bishop of Trier splitting a man's head in two with a sword in the pictures of Henry VII journey to Italy linked to above.

Ghibellines

2009-07-16T22:59:00.004+01:00

The period I'm covering in this blog is characterised by the conflict between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. These were essentially two political parties with, broadly speaking, the Ghibellines favouring Imperial control of Italy with the Guelphs opposing it. Many Guelphs saw the leadership of the Papacy as the best way of removing Imperial interference although once the Angevins took control of the Regno* they were increasingly seen as being more vital in opposing the Emperor than the Pope was.

In many cases, a city or families within a city chose the allegience of one party because their political opponents had opted to support another. When Henry VII made his journey to Rome, he found that the old rivalries having survived the previous 4 decades of minimal Imperial interference. He began by trying to treat each party equally but the Guelphs resisted him more and more, leading to open conflict.

*"the Kingdom" - Southern Italy and, at first, Sicily. More on this another time.

These are some of my Ghibelline cavalry - again 15mm Mirliton figures.

The majority are Sienese, with coats of arms taken from this book:
Montaperti . Where information on heraldry is available, I try to use it as much as possible, rather than relying on my imagination! This has led to spending too much on books just for a couple of nice pictures, plus many hours scouring the web. I like handpainting the shields although many are available as cut out and glue paper versions from Mirliton. Most of my flags are homemade although some nice ready made ones are available from various sources to download or buy. One method I have used is to paint a much larger version and scan it in to a computer, printing at a smaller size. This takes a bit of playing around until you are happy with the detail, but it can help with some of the fiddly details as well as making sure that the reverse is a correct reversed copy of the other side.

The red flag with white cross is that of one of the terzi of Siena - these are the three main areas into which Siena was divided at the time. The white and black flag is the banner of Siena. The flag with the leopard is that of the Ghibelline cavalry at Montaperti.

The leading knights are Florentine exiles, carrying the original colours of the flag which became associated with the Ghibellines. The centre one is Farinata degli Uberti, placed by Dante in the Sixth circle of the Inferno. He was excommunicated, after his death, for heresy - supposedly having denied the doctrine of life after death. He had been a leading Ghibelline in Florence and was one of the leaders at Montaperti "The rout and massacre
Which stained the stream of the Arbia red"
(Inferno, Canto X).
After Florence's defeat, the neighbouring Ghibelline states wanted to raze Florence but Farinata opposed them, putting loyalty to his city above his party allegience.

Figure Comparisons: 15mm Crossbowmen

2009-07-14T22:46:00.005+01:00

A lot of threads on various sites ask about comparative sizes of various makes of figures and whether they would work together.
There are some good sites around but I thought I'd do a few comparisons of my own with my narrow focus.
First up are crossbowmen - unpainted to begin with.

Left to right on each row: Black Hat, Alain Touller, Mirliton, Donnington, Legio Heroica

The last two are a bit heftier than the others though part of the LH height is due to the helmet. I have mixed Black Hat and Touller figures on the same stands - and I'm pretty fussy about such things :)
The LH figures are from the Crusades range, representing late 12th century, as I ordered the wrong codes. They'll find a good home somewhere though.

I have some Essex crossbowmen too, though none unpainted. I really like the look of the Vexillia ones though they are designed for a later period so only a few have the right headgear for the period I'm looking for. I shall keep my eye on the Khurasan Swiss range which is in progress to see if crossbowmen are included as these should fit.

I'll try to get some pics of painted crossbowmen figures soon.

Personalities: 1 - Dante Alighieri

2009-07-13T18:44:00.012+01:00

Dante Alighieri became one of Italy's most famous poets with his composition of the Divine Comedy.

In his youth he was a member of the Guelph party in Florence and fought as part of the avant garde at Campaldino.

Soon after, the victorious Guelphs split into two parties - the Blacks and the Whites - and eventually Dante was exiled.

When Henry of Luxembourg travelled to Italy to be crowned as Holy Roman Emperor, Dante wrote to him, demanding that the Black Guelphs ruling in Florence be removed. Henry did besiege Florence but Dante is thought to have left Henry's army, possibly to avoid attacking his home.
Wikipedia covers Dante's life in more detail:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Alighieri

You can read a roughly contemporary account of his life in Giovanni Villani's Chronicle

This is my figure of Dante (the one on the right of the photo).

The flag carried by his companion is the banner of Guelph Florence. The original flag, as later carried by Ghibelline exiles, had the colours reversed.
Figures are 15mm Mirliton.

2009-07-12T13:21:00.006+01:00

Our most recent game.

The Pope's Catalan mercenaries fight the Emperor's Germans

2009-07-12T11:45:00.004+01:00

This blog will cover a wargamer's perspective of the wars of the 13th and early 14th century - roughly the lifetime of Dante Alighieri, author of the Divine Comedy. He fought in the service of his home city, Florence and mentions many of the main players of the events of the wars in Italy and beyond.

I was first drawn to this period by the appearance of the armies but I also became interested in the history. This is the time of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, of the Sicilian Vespers, of Popes and Emperors. It saw the end of the Crusader States in the Holy Land and the establishment of the Mongol empire.

I play wargames using 15mm figures and usually the De Bellis... sets of rules - most frequently DBMM and occasionally DBA. I try to play games with historical opponents - or at least ones which are reasonably close to being historical.