1st post on a new blog - small selection of late 100yw commands

Hello all, my name is Tom and this post marks my first entry to my new blog on the 100yw.

The intention is to cover various eras of the conflict, early late and perhaps right at the end, depending mostly upon whether manufactures cover the respective eras. For now it's focused on the later periods because it has more interesting armour and more developed artillery, but I will flit around depending on whichever project I happen to be working on at the time. 

So for that reason for now the focus is on the Orleans period, and this can be seen in the selection of commands pictured below. This was the turning point in the war for the French, who after this managed to almost consistently trounce the English for a number of reasons I won’t delve into here. This decline accelerates particularly after John the Duke of Bedford dies in 1435. Bedford’s is quite a sad tale really, given he made a reasonable fist of maintaining Henry VI’s possessions in France. Still even had he lived the tide was turning by this point anyway. 

First up on the English side is an attempt at Sir William Glasdale. Rarely I’ve actually done a coat of arms for him, it looked reasonably simple to do, but actually pulling it off was quite another matter. 

Sir William Glasdale (in the red coat of arms on the right)

View from the side

View from the rear

Glasdale was one of the principle English Captains in the siege and is reputed to have exchanged words with Jeanne d’Arc herself.  He also died in the battle when the Siege was broken by the same women. 

Next up is Jean de Dunois or Batard d’Orleans as he’s commonly referred to. Again a coat of arms, though it’s not really showing through in the pictures very well.

The Bastard of Orleans (in blue in the left), I've put him with La Hire as he was also at the battle, though that was just to use up the spare standard bearer I had (I doubt they fought right next to each other). When I do some generic French flags I can swap them out as needed.

View from the rear, you can just make out the coat of arms detail, such as they are.

In the 100yw he was one of the then Duke of Orleans (later Charles VII) principle military commanders in the siege and led the forces, which included Jeanne d’Arc, to ultimately lift the siege.  My depiction of him is slightly improbable given he’s holding a two handed sword, which  was unusual for a nobleman to do himself, it was likely a prestige/intimidation thing given to the beefier companions in a retinue.  At least that’s the theory put forward by Scholar Gladiatoria in their Youtube videos. This would seem credible to me, it also seems you needed to be very skilled (more so than normal) to use them as they have a very different dynamic to normal sword use. 

The next command is a more generic one, which most of mine will be, though the intention is to do more specific character one’s like royal commands and other characters like Bedford, Falstoff etc. Here it’s a generic French one, though I’ve got interchangeable banners and in this case have depicted Sir Guillaume Gaucort (the French Captain of Orleans as I recall). 

The Captain of Orleans up close.

Here he is again, you can see why I balked at attempting this coat of arms!

Finally as any good Siege of Orleans post should include, this is my attempt at Jeanne d’Arc herself or the Maid of Orleans as she was otherwise known. Hers is an interesting tale, which I won’t go into here other than a couple of highlights as it’s well-trodden elsewhere.

Jeanne d'Arc with La Hire (the figure for Jeanne d'Arc is one of the Perry give aways when you buy 3 sets of their plastic men at arms).

I used a circular base for this one as I wanted it to stand on it's own. Where I've used square bases the intention is to include them with a wider unit. The IHS on her banner stands for Jesus if you were wondering.

What I love about the 100 years war is the mix of quite primative armour like padded jackets and mail, alongside early full sets of plate. Painting the coats of arms are a chore, but they do look gorgeous when their finished (espechially when you get more used to doing them). 

It’s interesting to know what role she actually played, she never really got into combat, but sort of acted as a kind of mascot who rallied and encouraged the men through both her force of personality not to mention fervent piety, effectively turning the war from a political to one almost religious in nature. She certainly seemed to at least be involved in pulling France back from the brink. While not a commander like say La Hire (also depicted on the base, he’s the chap in the black coat of arms - don’t get too used to these with me) or Batard d’Orleans, she did none the less seem to be listened to, though whether this was because her advice was sound or the nobles thought her to be divinely inspired is open to debate.  When reading about her what was shocking was how young she was, she started at 16 and was burned at the stake by 19! I certainly wouldn’t have been up for that in my late teens!

Hope you’ve enjoyed my random segways into various things here. I shall be posting other projects, both new and past over the coming weeks and months. So feel free to follow and keep an eye on this blog if it interests you.