And so it begins.......

June 1513

Throughout June 1513 Henry's 'Army Royal' was transported to Calais in what must have been a logistical headache, planned in minutia in typical Tudor bureaucracy, with some of the smallest papers and letters signed by Henry himself - government bored him but war was another matter.

The army was transported in three waves of the fore, rear and middle wards - each a proportioned army in its own right, with soldiers, ordonnance and labourers. They would each have to pass through Calais, re-victual and move off in order for the town to prepare for the next ward to arrive, thus the Army would grow outside Therouanne each day, bringing more and more firepower to bear.

At this point 500 years ago the 12'000 men of the foreward and 7500 of the vanguard were en route to Therouanne where the siege formally started on 25th June; Ralph Lago, Bluemantle Pursuivant (junior herald) demanded in the name of Henry, King of France and England and the Earl of Shrewsbury (Lieutenant commander) that the garrison commander, Antoine de Crequy surrender within 24 hours and;

'in case that ye refuse so to do, and if he [Henry] take it by strong hand and army he shall do all to be put to fire and blood'

*  *  *  *  *

I started this project in 2009 and summer 2013 seemed a long way off but I considered it a fitting and achievable deadline. Flodden is reasonably well known in British history and among gamers but I wanted to try and show what was then Henry's frontispiece, a truly renaissance 'Army Royal' much different to the Northern Levies. History remembers these armies differently and the French campaign remained a footnote, with the English army at Flodden often seen as medieval, out-dated and moreover, indicative of early Tudor armies.

I've tried to foster an appreciation of the contrary, bring the early letters and papers to life and to show off the colour of this army as well as what can be achieved with what is available.

Sadly I don't have the kit nor the space to properly show off this army to its best for the anniversary but the nice people at Wargames Illustrated do.......

Last Saturday I had a very good day at W.I. in Nottingham with fellow blogger Simon Chick photographing the army and chatting about the hobby. The editor has kindly given me these two shots to wet your appetites, the article should be out in a few months - watch this space.



If all that sounded a bit conclusive, fear not, I'm still painting Tudors as I've got a bit fond of them and there's still a few things I want to do and people and banners I would like to represent, not to mention the addition of some forthcoming Perry plastic mounted archers - I don't think any army ever gets finished.

The French will come too, all in good time.

More soon but thanks for your support, encouragement and assistance.

Stuart

Wingfield & Demilancers complete !

Here we have Wingfield & his faithful standard bearer and below are some individual photographs of the standard bearer prior to basing;

The standard is a little unusual in its use of a tricolour ground and also the figure of the Virgin Mary in glory standing within the cross of St. George.

The figure was pretty much assembled straight out of the box with no sculpted additions other than a little filling on the horse where the moulds joined.

I don't think I've mentioned this before but with respect to the horse note how it is shaded lighter on its belly and inner thighs front and back. I use photographs of horses as a reference and this colouring occurs in quite a lot of those which are brown, bay or grey, it's a simple technique but i find it adds a sense of realism to the figure. I think from a painter's perspective this might not be immediately obvious and it's easy to have a tendency to highlight the legs and back and leave the belly darkest.

With Wingfield's base now complete this also means that I now have the full complement of demi-lancers for the army working on a 1:50 scale to represent the 600 or so that are mentioned in the muster sheets. In saying that, 600 demi-lancers are specifically mentioned but also simply 'horse' are also mentioned which could refer to further demi lancers, those for the light cavalry or indeed spare horses or those within the baggage train. I'm working on the 600 figure for now.

Here's the unit;

I may add a few more at a later date as I'd like to represent a few more knights that I'm aware of and to make the unit slightly less flag heavy (not necessarily a bad thing!) but that's certainly it for now.

Stuart

Sir Richard Wingfield

Sir Richard Wingfield KG 1456-1525

After a somewhat prolonged Landsknecht theme I'm back in the Tudor saddle with the latest nobleman and demilancer to join the ranks, Sir Richard Wingfield. 

He was uncle by marriage to Henry VII and began his career in his court, this carried on into that of Henry VIII and he developed as a diplomat. He was made Marshal in 1511 and Lord Deputy of Calais in 1513 (though I'm not sure whether this was pre or post invasion), a role which essentially made him the King's representative and head of the Calais council - also, effectively the King's ear of developments on the continent, a lot of correspondence survives from his tenancy.

Militarily he was the Knight Marshall of the King's, or middle ward during the 1513 campaign,  leading the 40 Spears (heavy cavalry) of the Calais garrison as well as 300 demilancers and 200 archers on horseback (cue reason to buy forthcoming boxed set!).

He's a tantalising character for me as given the troops under his command he appears to be an accomplished horseman with apparent / supposed experience of different types of cavalry but unfortunately there's no mention of how he performed during the campaign. One of his brothers, Anthony, another horseman, was knighted after his exploits in the Battle of the Spurs.

Given the information above I decided to include him within the demilancers, though with a half armoured horse so that he could also comfortably join the King's Spears.

Both horse and rider have undergone a fair bit of conversion work; Wingfield's face first had a beard added to help Tudor-ise the figure a little, I then wanted to give the rider's armour a feel of the early Greenwich armoury so I used some green stuff to raise the shoulder defences and apply a roped / comb effect on the ridges. I also made the breastplate more globular and removed the leather strap from the centre. The sword is also more ornate with added 'S' quillons on the hilt.

I haven't found any paintings of Wingfield but his son had red hair so I took a 50/50 chance and followed suit here.

As for the horse, I followed what has now become my standard approach to converting the Perry Plastic horse armour from 1480's to the early 1500's, you can read more about this here.

For the decoration on the horse armour and trappings I took most of my inspiration and colour scheme from Wingfield's heraldry and crest, both of which feature on his garter stall;

Next up, Wingfield's faithful standard bearer.

Stuart



Landsknecht Pike

Further to the previous post here we have a completed base of advancing / attacking Landsknecht pike.

I think I learn or try something new every time I have a period of painting Landsknechts (it does seem to come in phases for me) this time it was tri-colour striped hose as illustrated here;

I had noticed this feature when browsing through some contemporary coloured woodcuts and though it requires a little bit more patience I found that it really helps to give some added detail and make the figures appear more 'Landsknecht' if there can be such a thing.

I've added a little more discussion regarding this and some of the other recent Landsknecht updates over on my other blog. I'll make sure I do this each time I find something of interest or worthy of note so hopefully over time it will make a  comprehensive reference guide for whenever your next Landsknecht painting phase takes hold.

This latest addition now brings the total Landsknecht pike head count to 80 figures, here's how we're looking so far;

At present count I now have four units of attacking pike, each with 8 figures to a base and these are accompanied by three large bases of standing pike, each with 16 figures per base.

I am one base of standing pike away from a pike square of 96 figures in 6 ranks........

Which, ahem, is where I began 4 years ago when I started painting again after a 10 year hiatus. I found this old image which shows what these used to look like, most of the figures here have all been stripped and re-painted - some might see that as taking a few steps back (i'm glad my wife doesn't read this) but my style has changed so much that I couldn't justify doing it any other way. Please tell me you suffer from such bouts of perfectionism too !

Moving on, I'll get that square finished soon but I'm very much at the end of this painting phase and must crack on with some Tudors, the clock is ticking for the 500 year anniversary and mini goal of this project....

I'll be back soon !

Stuart

WIP Landsknecht Hauptmann

By way of an update on my current work in progress here we have a Landsknecht Captain or Hauptmann eagerly encouraging his comrades into battle. I was rather pleased with him, his face especially and considered him worthy of some individual attention.

I'm almost finished with another unit of attacking Landsknecht pike and also reading up on the next Tudor personality to get the Army Royal treatment, it's about time I returned to some stout hearted Englishmen methinks.

Cheerio for now

Stuart

A Guide for Painting Faces

Since I added a few painting tutorials on to my Painting Landsknechts blog I have had some requests to add another page devoted to faces so here it is for your viewing pleasure - you might even learn something !

http://www.paintinglandsknechts.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Painting%20Faces

All the best

Stuart

Landsknecht Pike

Presenting my latest distraction, a base of attacking Landsknecht pike.

Beautiful as they are, these were not really supposed to be created at this juncture but I got a bit carried away. The unit started life as 2 Pro Gloria figures which I used to add a walk-through painting guide over on my other blog.

I knew these fitted rather well with the existing Perry sculpted Wargames Foundry pike but to be absolutely sure I thought it worthwhile putting a base together so I've had a bit of a hiatus from the Tudors but an enjoyable one nonetheless.

My conclusion is that they work splendidly; The PG figures are sculpted with the hands at a higher angle than the equivalent WF figures which really adds to the movement you can achieve in the unit. I use the 45 degree pose as halberdiers so the PG figures represent those moving from the rear of the group with the WF figures working their way forward about to burst out of the unit so the overall effect is very complementary, hopefully these photographs help illustrate this.

This base also gave me the opportunity to experiment with my palette a little; I have muted quite a few of the colours to give a more lived in feel and also as a reflection of the natural dyes that were available. This was predominantly achieved by using the brown wash method and then only highlighting to the mid-tone of the WF 3 pot palette as the wash gives an extra shade (hope that makes sense).

As for the arrangement and basing, you can find a whole essay on my approach and thinking behind it all here.

Next up some Tudor longbo.......more Landsknechts! - I now have 3 bases of these attacking pike and well, 4 would be perfect and I've already started so I might as well keep going while I'm in a Landsknecht place.