Saturday 7 May 2011

WIP; Rank & File (1)







Hello all, here's a quick progress update to show you what I have been busying myself with lately. Further to the last post, it is not often that I get the whole army out to have a good look at them to see what I want to work on next and seeing them all arrayed gives a much better indication than looking at an army list.

I would like to increase the proportion of bill in the army and I intend to do that in one swoop, 10 more new bases which along with the rather meagre existing bases will give me 14 in total.

Depending upon which source you look at for the early Tudor period there are a number of theories as to the proportion of bill to bow; 50/50 or 60/40 in favour of the bill seem to be prevalent but it's a bit confusing as there is little mention of any mercenary input to this figure, would the landknecht pike have been included within the 'bill' in the army rolls of the time? that being the case i'll need to get more archers done, or would it be a happy medium to have around a third pike, bill and bow respectively? Answers on a postcard, all thoughts appreciated....

Anyway, I am presently working on the rank and file and will finish off with a couple of command bases with standards. I shall add some more posts as I go along - i'm particularly looking forward to the flags !


Stuart

11 comments:

  1. Looking very good Stuart; the metal Tudor heads really give them the right period feel. Were they tricky to add on - the Swiss ones are not a great fit and seem to require drilling and filler?
    Simon.

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  2. Very nice, Stuart, they really look the part!!!

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  3. The heads were indeed quite tricky to glue on, for some reason the glue seemed to take a lot longer to dry with many heads rolling off during assembly.

    I've so far only used filler on two heads but they do certainly need that little bit more attention during assembly.

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  4. Regarding infantry proportion for this campaign it was.....

    60/40 in favour of bill/pike.

    The 24000 infantry comprised;

    4000 landsknecht pike
    10'000 bill
    10'000 bow

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  5. Those are very nice.

    Jason

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  6. The more I see of these (and a couple of other blogs), the more I feel inclined to get involved in some WOR stuff, which is not at all good when I'm up to my nethers in ACW and AWI figures and three bns of Napoleonics glowering at me as well.

    You have a really attractive style, which catches my imagination (unfortunately).

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  8. Too many spelling errors and typos in my last post- here it is again:

    Yup, these units are up to the usual standards that we are used to on your blog. They look fantastic.

    Darrell.

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  9. Lovely stuff as ever Stuart....as to the ratios by 1513 the Longbow was falling out of use as it was a very specialised weapon and required a lifetime of training and not as many people were training so the bill,began to dominate...well thats my take on the readings anyway.

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  10. Thanks Crazy Joe (love the photo!)it is an addictive period, i find it fascinating and one major point that attracted me was that most army lists allow for a relatively small starting point which is great for slow burners such as myself.

    Agree WP, I think 1513 was very much a last hurrah for the longbow with any great effect / presence on the battlefield - that partly being my interest in the army / campaign. I've had mixed results with them during games as i think i overestimated their ability so it's about right i reckon.

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  11. Very nice Stuart! The Tudor heads look great. I really like your painting style.

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