English Cavalry - Bannockburn (13)

Another 8 Knights for Edward´s cavalry.
sets used;
English Cavalry of Edward I
The Scottish Army of Wallace

William Latimer, 2nd Lord Latimer of Corby and Aymer de Valence, 2nd Earl of Pembroke

Edmund de Mauley has got a new steed and next to him,  Sir Thomas de Furniville

Thomas de Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley  and Rodger de Clifford, 1st Baron de Clifford

Hugh le Despenser, (Hugh the Elder)  1st and last Earl of Winchester, Chief Advisor to King Edward II

The Standard bearer. This one was  a pain. I can find the Name of Roberts Standard bearer..and his coat-of-arms but Edward´s!? If he is to hang around near Edward II then he´ll have to have a name so I´ve called him Roger Northburgh (who was the kings shield bearer and keeper of the Privy seal)

and yes..the Surcoats get the Coats-of-Arms as well :-D (as far as possible)

One mildly annoying thing with the English Cavalry of Edward I, of the 8 horses with barding, only 2 have smooth  surfaces allowing Heraldry painting, of the remaining six, two have padded barding, the last 4 chain mail. One third of all the nags in the set !. Ok, I could just paint them all up as having chainmail but that would look boring so the chainmail effect had to go.
Easiest way I found is to cover the mail with a thin layer of Pattex 100 gel, smeared across the surface with a toothpick. The final effect is a bit glossy (this helps you to find any bits you´ve missed) but...

 ....it takes paint really well. The rear of the saddle is cut off because the bods just won´t fit into the original seating Arrangement. The backs are being replaced with greenstuff

If   the actual site of such a Major and famous battle is still disputed after 699 years  (see Here) then I reckon lowly painters of bods are allowed a bit of leeway with colours etc :-D

English cavalry - Bannockburn (Pt12)

The Ist lot of  Edward´s Cavalry. So far only 16  of the (approx) 50 needed
Not based up yet, as there´s a load more that need doing and then they will be based according to which "battle Group" they belong to.
Sets used;
English Cavalry of Edward I
Military order Sergeants
Russian Medieval Horsemen (De Vescy´s new nag)
A couple of the Lances come from the Zvezda French Knights set.

To "bulk" out the numbers (barded nags are few and far between) I´m adding bods from the miltary order sergeants set. They´ll get shield Patterns similar (or in some case, the same) in  colour etc as thier bosses. Later additions will get the flags of selected "bosses" to bump up the colour of the stands.
From left to right, Aymer de Valence, Thomas Erkedekne, Gilbert De Clare and ...well I liked the colour scheme. It´s the same as the Earl of Norfolks , Per pale or and vert but it hasn´t got the lion rampant gules.

The kniggits
A couple of them like Gilbert de Clare have already turned up elsewhere on the blog so only close ups of the latest ones.

Giles de Argentine   ("For me, I am not of custom to

fly, nor shall I do so now") and  Robert Fitzwalter , 1st Baron Fitzwalter. 

One Thing worth noting about Robert is that the coat-of-arms on his shield are imprinted.   In fact a lot of the bods in the set have imprinted coat-of -arms, several of which, like Roberts, have  historical accuracy. So far I´ve noticed(after cutting off shields and slicing of heraldry on surcoats)  C.o.A´s that could pass, (apart from the obvious George cross) for;
David de Brechin, (using the pics at PSR....third from left top row)
John 1st Baron of Amand (third row from top, ist on the left)
William Sampson or alternatively  William Latimer of Corby (top row, ist on the right)


Marmeduke de Tweng, 1st Baron Tweng and Henry de Bohun. Henry will get based seperately as he didn´t spend a whole lot of time at the battle due to an unforeseen headache.

Sir Rodger Mortimer de Chirk 

William de Vescy of Kildare has got himself a new nag´.

Bannockburn (Pt11)

Another stand of english infantry. This time they have "generic" coats-of-arms but the General colour scheme for thier clothes remains.
Sets used;
Army of Joan d'Arc
Army of Henry V
Medieval levy (1)
Medieval Levy (2)
Medieval crossbowmen

More conversions...The two in the centre have head swops..the bod on the left has had his spear removed,  a head and weapon swop. .

A couple of full contact pics

A couple of additions to the scottish side, The Standard bearer for Thomas Randolph, 1st earl of Moray, nephew to Robert the Bruce.

 James Douglas, Lord of Douglas and Walter Stewart 6th High Steward of Scotland

Dead Medievals

I could (if I had the Money to spare) get a load of dead from Ykreol, but then what to do with all the unusable or repeat pose bods? Battlefield scatter! :-D
This lot are all from different Strelets sets and will make casualty markers / "Decoration" for the Bannockburn battlefield.

Based. I´m using 6cm wide bases to fit alongside normal Impetus sizes.

Add some previous battlefield "scatter" (from the medieval casualties post) and a bit of ground cover to fill the gaps between the bases...


A crows eye view.

A Knight (Sir Cobbleweed) giving some protection to Geoffrey,  his wounded horse.

 

 

Sir William de Erth of Airth - Bannockburn (Pt10)

4 more mounted  kniggit types, all of whom died during the two days of the battle.
Sets used;
Medieval Britian (Edmund)
Crusader Transport 1 (Both Williams and sir Pain)
Army of Joan d'Arc (Earl of Erths´s horse)
English Cavalry of Edward I (De vescay´s horse)
Army of Henry V (Mauley and Tiptoft´s (1st)horses)

Sir William de Erth of Airth, in Charge of the scottish army´s  baggage Train. William was  killed during the night of the 23rd by David II Strathbogie, the Earl of Atholl in an attack at on the baggage train at  Cambuskenneth Abbey. His arms were White and black..not as it appears in the pic, Grey and black.

Edmund de Mauely. Lord of Ascot. Killed on the second day at Bannockburn

William de  Vescy of Kildare, (English) Retainer  (dependent or follower of someone of rank) to Aymer de Valence, 2nd Earl of Pembroke (the guy in Charge of the archers and savior of Edward II at Bannockburn) . Here it looks like he´s watching Henry de Bohun´s  failed attempt to take on Robert de Bruce and thinking "what the......!!!"

Sir Pain de Tiptoft (de Tybotot/de Tibetot) (English)
Also killed on the second day. Sir Pain (also Payne) got a head swop using a head (Zvezda) from the spares box . I´m not at all pleased with the nag and now I´ve got hold of a full set of  English Cavalry of Edward I  , I´m going to give him something  more fitting to sit on.............

.................like this :-D

In fact, at some point,  I´m going to re-mount Edmund and both  the Williams  onto barded nags. Even though there´s not really enough barded nags in the Strelets range it´s worth the extra bit of effort. The unbarded nags will get used for untiteled types, sergeant-at-arms etc

Scottish Cavalry - Bannockburn (Pt 9)

The cavaly commanded by Robert II Kieth,  Marischal of Scotland.
Most of them come from the Military Order Sergeants set, which has conveniently divided up into two halves, one half wearing the Kettle type helmet, who will end up as part of the english cavalry, the rest a mixture of headgear who ended up as the scottish cavalry.
The second stand withthe  flag bearer carrying the Saltire.  Historically correct? To be honest I´ve no idea but it serves to make it immediately recognisable as a stand of scottish cavalry.
Sets used;
Military Order Sergeants
English Cavalry of Edward I (unamed kniggit and his nag)
Army of Henry V (Kieth´s Standard bearers nag)
Medieval Britain (Kieths Standard bearer)

The whole force charging off to scatter the english archers



This guy..he Looks a bit of a kniggit type so I´ll have to dig up a Name for him.

The Scottish Forces so far.

A lot of People don´t like Strelets "chunky" style, and although this is true of some of thier sets it isn´t always the case.

Perrier catapult

A type of sling catapult called a Perrier.
Basically a large static version of the Fustibalus (staff sling) it has no counterweight, but relies on the Crew  to pull both down and back to launch the Missile, which makes it a traction operated weapon.
Perriers range from a small, one-person devices to ones pulled by many soldiers or even a team of horses. At any size the traction-powered Perrier was a quite effective weapon because it could be  reloaded and fired relatively quickly.
The only Definition I can find for the word Perrier is this one;
Per´ri`er

n.

1.

(Mil.) A short mortar used formerly for throwing stone shot.

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, published 1913 by C. & G. Merriam Co

The Perrier is made from  balsawood, a cocktail stick and two pins,
The two Crewmen come from the Zvezda Medieval Heavy Bombard set.
Even though the device looks big, I reckon two would be enough if the arm was balanced correctly it would, even loaded, only need a small amount of force to get it moving.
I´ve left it looking a bit rough and ready, not cutting off the planks flush with the main Support Frame.

The sling is made from a bit of paper, the hook holding the release rope  made by softening the tip of the Cocktailstick in warm water, bending it adding a strip of paper and filling the gaps with PVA.

A couple of contemporary pics of Perrier´s

 Here´s a short Video of a  Perrier being demonstrated at the Tower of London.

 

They are powering it with 4 People, two..one at each side and the other two right under the arm!! This means they have to duck down to avoid being hit with the pulling end of the arm!!

Better to do it like this lot.

 

 

Bannockburn (pt8) English crossbows

They didn´t have a huge force of crossbowmen at Bannockburn so (according to any sources giving numbers of troop types) using the 50:1 Ratio  it works out to roughly 10 bods.
They are all from the Medieval crossbowmen set with head swops from other strelets sets or Accurate´s /Revell´s Hundred Years War English Men-At-Arms set.

 

The whole of the english army so far...still quite a few to get finished!