I kind of did a thing...
Micro Mini Medieval French!?
I'm not entirely sure HOW I even got thinking about this... but I happened to be looking in on Wargames Atlantic last week... I knew they'd made a few fantasy boxes in this 10mm "Grand Battle Scale" and also Samurai and Ashigaru... but I'd not seen the Agincourt boxes before... and somehow I happened to check on AMAZON of all places and found there was ONE box of the French... listed for LESS THAN HALF what Wargames Atlantic was selling them for... with FREE Prime One-Day Shipping?!
So... obviously... the very next day (Friday), I had a box of "Grand Battle Scale" French for the Hundred Years War!?
There are a LOT of miniatures in this box...
Like... a LOT!!!
There are:
- 351 French Knights/Men-at-Arms on Foot
- 108 French Knights/Men-at-Arms Mounted
- 246 Genoese Crossbowmen
- Casualty figures for every troop type including 18 horse casualties
over 700 wee little 10mm infantry and cavalry....
WTF am I going to DO with all of these...? Well, first of all the plan was to put together a Medieval French army for De Bellis Antiquitatis!
IV/64c Medieval French Army 1401-1445
- 1x General (3Kn/4Bd)
- 1x Rich Nobles on Barded Horses (3Kn)
- 4x Men-at-Arms (3Kn/4Bd)
- 2x Archers (3Bw) or Pavisiers (Sp)
- 1x Crossbowmen (4Cb)
- 1x Voulgiers (4Bd) or Scots Men-at-Arms (3Kn/4Bd)
- 1x Detached "Gross Varlers" (CV) or Bombards (Art) or Scots Archers (Bw)
- 1x Bidet or Breton Javelinmen (Ps) or Peasant Levy (7Hd)
The General and Rich Nobles and Men-at-Arms are no problem. Same with the Crossbowmen. The Voulgiers or Scots Men-at-Arms is more of the same...
The tricky bits are the two stands of Archers or Pavisiers and then the single stand of either Detached "Gross Varlers" or Bombards or Scots Archers... at some point I'll probably also pick up the English Army box and that has just piles and piles of archers which I will steal enough of to make the there elements of Archers. At SOME point I'll probably place an order with Pendraken (who makes 10mm metal minis) and get a Bombard of some sort (just to have that artillery option) and a bag of Peasants to make the Levy and maybe some camp followers?
Seven elements of Knights assuming I put four (or five?!) miniatures on each base will use up 28-35 of the 108 knights/mounted men-at-arms!? I will only need about twelve of the 246 Genoese Crossbowmen included in the box for the French army and about 72 of the 351 French Knights/Men-at-Arms on Foot!? so what else can I put together with this...
Enemies of the IV/64c Medieval French Army 1401-1445
- IV/13b Medieval German Army 1151-1439
- IV/61 Itallian Condotta 1320-1515
- IV/62b English Army 1334-1414
- IV/62c English Army 1415-1422
- IV/62d English Army 1423-1455
- IV/64c Medieval French Army 1401-1445
- IV/76 Early Burgundian Army 1263-1471
- IV/79a Later Swiss Army 1400-1424
- IV/79b Later Swiss Army 1425-1477
So... maybe make TWO of these French armies...? PLUS the English...?
I will need to use 12-15 of the extra mounted for the English army as the English box CONTAINS NO MOUNTED KNIGHTS OR MEN-AT-ARMS!? It's just PILES MORE foot men-at-arms and even MORE archers...
The Knights/Mounted Men-at-Arms will be the limiting factor... If I did only four on a base I could EASILY make at least FOUR (or five!?) armies out of what I've got here!! Two Medieval French armies and a Hundred Years War English army and the maybe a few purely fantastical armies - to use in Hordes of the Things!? and try to use up some of the spare foot from both boxes!?
Over the weekend I thought I'd try and knock a few out to see how they painted up..
This first batch I tried painting on the frame... which... was a bit of a pain in the ass... so I might need to figure out something else.
But eventually I got them all done and based them up. One frame (of eight in the box) got me the three elements of Knights (with only four on each base) and three elements of Blade (with TWELVE foot on each base!?).
Three elements of Knights (with four minis per base)
Three elements of Blade - Men-at-Arms on foot
Three casualty markers - I remember these were handy for making battle reports to show exactly where losses took place in a round and not make the reader go back and forth between photos for comparison to work it out on their own!
I'm kind of torn about leaving the mounted knights as is with just four on the base or if I should rebase and do all the others with FIVE on each base - to make them look a little more densely packed?! I guess maybe I should try doing ONE element like that and see how it looks. If I looks WAY better I might just do that... if it isn't significantly better... I might just leave them as is... because it will give me more standing armies I can build!
I'm kind of excited to finish up a couple of armies - if I can put together two out of this box... without SOME other elements I won't be able to put together any actual historical De Bellis Antiquitatis armies... but I could get two 12-element "semi-historical" armies together to play some Hordes of the Things to get started! I do miss playing DBA and HotT! I don't even HAVE any Hordes of the Things armies anymore. I rebased ALL of the fantasy armies onto single bases for use with... other skirmish games or Dragon Rampant.
I am tempted to just go out and buy the English box... and the Dwarf and Orc and two skeleton boxes... AND the Samurai...
But that would be silly...
I REALLY need to see if I can get motivated to get two armies painted out of what I got and see if I can get playing again first!?
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