Late 100yw English in France

For the past few weeks/months I’ve been working on a new project, which is building a new late 100yw Castillion era force. 

The English Castillion era force as it currently stands, 2 x units of archers at the back with, men at arms and bill at the front.

 

The units from the rear.

I started with the English and as you can see I’ve built a unit of men at arms, billman and 2 x archers. Given the era I used some WOTR figures as they would be almost contemporaneous with the Castillion era. I think they could work reasonably well in the final decade, though some of the men at arms in more advanced armour may be a bit off. 

To mark them as English I’ve done many of them in St Georges crosses, the standard outfit for English expeditionary forces in the era. You’ll notice this wasn’t 100% with a few of them in unmarked padded jacks, brigandines etc, but for the most part most of them have them. You’ll note the commander of the men at arms is wearing sir Thomas Everinghams coat of arms. If I want other commanders for them I can build other specific command bases, but for the most part I’ll be using these in a Castillion only context so should be fine. 

Sir Thomas Everingham and command

 

Here you can see more of him, I've given him Sir John Talbots coat of arms here as he was his standard bearer (that and I couldn't find his specific flag).

I intend to add more bill and archer units, commands and build up a French force. These are my long-term plans anyway, my next immediate project is casualty bases to give myself a bit of a break. I’ll also likely get side tracked when I get other ideas for other eras in the 100yw, but over time I intend to build out forces for all the major eras (early, Agincourt and late), so that’s 3 eras with 2 respective armies for each one. I may even do a Scotch army eventually specifically for the battle of Verneuil (which I also realise would also necessitate Italian mounted men at arms), but all in good time as it were. 

I've assumed the billmen were generally more armoured than the archers, though this isn't universal. They're mostly equipped with bill, but there are a couple of spears and a halbeard somewhere.

 

 

Further detail of the bill unit. This is a good illustration of my painting abilities (see last para), the man at arms on the front left is pre my new tools and the rest are post. You can see they now have reasonable attempts at faces and eyes.

 

More bill. I'm reluctant to call it a bill unit, while the bill was certainly more common by this period I don't think they were arranged into units of billman like Total War would have you believe. I've seperated them here for wargame purposes, but in reality I don't know if there would be much distinction between them and men at arms in terms of how they were treated. 

The final bill unit. I like the mix of armour types in the perry Bill and Bow box, it allows for a lot of variation.

In terms of the battle itself it was a closer affair then I think a tertiary glance at it would indicate. The English actually defeated the French prior to the battle in a priory at St Florant, where the English force could have been led by Sir John Talbots standard bearer Sir Thomas Everingham, though information is scarce. After the French had retreated to their fortified artillery position, after a tough rearguard action, the English retreated back to the main force led by Talbot himself. It is here that Everingham (if we assume it is him) reported back to Talbot about the fortified camp he had witnessed. Talbot gave pause and was going to wait, but then heard a separate report from Castillion that the French force was retreating. Unfortunately despite Everingham's cautions Talbot elected to attack, which led to a bloody assault on the French position. 

English archers advancing.

Captain with a more heavily armoured colleague.

Being able to paint the faces more easily really helps me bring the figures to life.

The battle is detailed at length elsewhere, but suffice it to say that the English reached the French position in reasonable shape and we’re comprehensively engaged with them. Casualties mounted on both sides and while the English seemed to gain some advantage, they were ultimately undone by the intervention of a Breton cavalry force. This shattered the English line and they were routed, with Talbot himself and his son slain on the field. Thus ended Englands ambitions in France (with the exception of Calais). 

Lastly you may not be able to see given my poor camera work, but I’ve got myself some new painting aids that have really boosted my abilities. For along time I’ve been wondering to myself, how the heck so many painters paint with such lovely crisp detail be it pouches, knives, faces, eyes etc. Well I answered that question for myself when I got proper lighting that clamps to my painting desk. Suddenly the penny dropped and it showed me that I’d been almost using guesswork for a lot of my painting. Then I got myself a magnifying glass (which again fixes to my desk) and with that help my painting really tightened up. Now I can take on jobs which used to give me a headache with relative ease, and I can actually do faces pretty well where before I struggled. So I can only recommend investing in these tools, it really has improved my painting abilities significantly. If you’re a competent painter I really think it could elevate you to being pretty good, so check it out.

Final unit of archers

The captain of the unit confers with his subordinate.

Love the different armour types in this one.

Edward The Black Prince

For this post I’m only doing a small update. I’ve been busy with some non-history related painting, but with this out the way I can now concentrate on my principle painting love. I have got a new project in mind, so hopefully the next post will be a little more substantial.

For todays post I’m showing off my work on one of the new(ish) Claymore commands, this time Edward Woodstock more commonly known by his nickname the Black Prince. The interesting thing about this particular model is the use of the Crest on his helmet. From what I understand reading the Osprey book ‘The Armies of Crecy and Poitiers’ no one is sure if these were worn in battle, this is based on the fact they are not generally depicted in illustrations of battles from the period. I can understand the case for why not, they may have been impractical and added weight to a helmet hindering movement. That said I would have thought the wish to be more easily identifiable to your men combined with the shock value would have meant they were not unattractive to consider wearing. From what little I can gather it seems probably they were not worn, but as I said this is not certain. So while it is a little historically questionable, Claymore are not operating in the realms of complete fantasy, and given it made the model more interesting to paint I have no complaints.

It was overall a fun little job and while the Coat of Arms was tricky it made the overall outcome more satisfying.  The other two models represent part of his retinue, with simplified outfits corresponding to the basic colours of the Coat of Arms.

The Black Prince certainly ranks amongst the most impressive of the senior English nobility during the earlier period of the Hundred years war. He cut a fine career being present at Crecy, leading the army at Poitiers, commanding Chevauchees and a victory at Najera among much more besides. So quite the life even if it was cut short in his 40s by dysentery, denying England what would have no doubt been a fine king.

One of these days I’d like to visit Canterbury Cathedral to have a look at his effigy and the various artefacts of his that remain there (I think his jupon, gauntlets, helmet and shield are still there). So well worth a visit if you have a burning interest like me.   

The Black Prince, note the shield which uses transfers from Claymore by Little Big Men Studios and  Flag by Flags of War.

The Coat of Arms for the Black Prince would have mirrored those of the Kingdom, differenced by 3 points Argent (the white bar with three points), which were used to distinguish the English Prince from the King in Heraldic terms.