More Hundred Years War with Hail Caesar

Last Thursday Drew and I threw the Hundred Years War collection down on the table and had another game of Hail Caesar with the Hundred Years War modifications that we are working on - I'll get them up in a blog article soon.

Again Drew commanded the French and myself the English and we fought each other to a bloody stalemate. Likely we could both have retired and rallied, but the night was late.

Some images and commentary from the game.

English Men at Arms - who actually did something in this game.

The English right advances securing the main line on a ridge and swings in creating a deadly arrow storm on the right.

The battle starts to develop with the French centre and left pushing on at the English.

The French Militia on the right secure themselves on the high ground and refused to move for much of the game.

French Knights advance on the English bowmen

Again and again the horses are thrown onto the stakes.

The English Men at Arms move in to take some of the pressure.

While the English right is pushed back the English unit on the small hill now known as Harry's Knob hold firm. 

Again the French Men at Arms climb Harry's Knob and are again pushed back.  

Again and again the French Knights come on and the English right starts to waver.

There seems to be more Knights than arrows!

At last the French Militia move from the high ground and assault the English left, only to be forced back again and again.

By the end of the game the English right was broken, but most of the French units were close to break point and unable to take advantage. The English could have sorted out their line and the French rallied and came again, but it was getting late so time to call it a bloody draw.

Hundred Years War: French (13)

I am really finding it quite relaxing to paint these Perry Miniatures Agincourt Foot Knights. Great figures, easy to assemble and a doddle to paint. With the added bonus that there is not a lot of flesh tone to be concerned with.

I'm painting the figures four at a time so you'll see the palette being reused, but as some are going in English units and some in French they should not end up with too many in the same scheme.

I know that a knight would be accompanied by other men at arms in his livery, but as these units are supposed to represent about 300 men each I'm not too hung up on that.

Again, when not painting specific nobles I don't get too hung up on heraldry and livery and am again aiming for plausible rather than necessarily authentic.

Purists may be shocked to know that this banner that of Charles II of Navarre from BattleFlag and is about 40 years to early for these troops, but could represent Joan of Navarre his grand-daughter.

Drew is round tonight so hopefully these chaps shall make it on to the table for our game and I'll get to shoot them full of holes.

Some individual shots of each figure.

I think I made a bit of a botch of the 'water budget' on the second figure. The third is a body off of the standard French Infantry sprue, but a suitable head and visor makes a good man at arms of him.

On the first of this group I was going for a 'field or sable lion rampant' but reckon it's closer to the Ferrari prancing pony.

The simple Cross of St. Dennis is much in evidence on all these figures and marks those out specifically as French, most of the others can easily fit into English units if required, although I'll try to keep them separate.

There are enough Men at Arms on the painting table in various stages at the moment that there should be another post at the weekend.

Hundred Years War with Hail Caesar

Drew and I have now played a couple of games of Hail Caesar using the Hundred Years War collection as I now have enough stuff painted for at least a dozen units per side.

Some shots from the first battle that came out as a minor French Victory.

The abbot ready to dash to the sanctuary of his monastery.

French Men at Arms advance into a storm of bodkins.

The English archers steady behind their stakes

Beer break! Something suitable

A failed blunder and a  small unit of Archers charges the Knights, then pass 5 from 6 morale saves - embarrassing!

French Men at Arms crash home on the English left

The weight of numbers can only tell.

But the French are driven back in disorder!

The French militia crash home against the English right.

This time the French are more successful and the English are pushed back in disarray.

The Men at Arms on the French right make another drive and the English start to give ground.

You'll notice no shots of the English Men at Arms. They arrayed for battle in support of the archers and failed every command roll they made leaving the archers to bear the brunt of the French attacks.

Hundred Years War: English (12)

It does feel rather strange not having to ready a post for Fridays Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge submission, this week freed from the benevolent dictatorship of Herr Robert I can make a leisurely Sunday morning post.

As you may suspect from my output of late it would be more Hundred Years War troops for the collection, this time a dozen more English Men at Arms fighting on foot with a variety of hardware.

Like previous submissions these are kit-bashed from any one of the four Perry Miniatures sets of plastics for the period and are really a joy to build. I'm working on more French in tandem with these so should have a mid-week post with another dozen French Men at Arms too.

 Here are some shots of the individual figures, all of the livery and heraldry is of my own design, but I try to use plausible designs.

We've now been able to have a couple of games of Hail Caesar with the collection and chum Drew and I are working on some house rules to give the rules a little more flavour for the period. I hope to be able to post them as a blog article over the coming week or so.

Hundred Years War: English (11)

While working on the French infantry I was also busy painting my last eighteen English archers that I assembled in sunny Florida while on vacation earlier this month. Fifteen of them were completed last week and made up part of my final entry in the 2019 Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge while the rest were done at the weekend.

As is my way lately these are not just made up from the Perry Miniatures 'English army' set but also include many bodies and heads from the 'French infantry' set as well as some components from the 'Mounted Knights' set.

I think the ability to intermingle the different sets does give a lot of variety to the builds that you can achieve.

These eighteen figures are painted in a mix of small batches in the same livery, while many are painted as individuals. Whereas some of my archer units have a common colour scheme these are meant to represent a rag-tag of troops thrown together in to ad hoc groups for the battle.

I painted 18 of these, even though my units typically are organised in twelves as I already had another group of eighteen done in a previous batch so six of these can be fielded with six of those to form a unit, else the groups of 18 could be used as large units for our Hail Caesar games.

As usual, each figure is individually mounted on a 20mm Renedra round base and then grouped on a movement tray that was a custom order to Warbases.

As they are all individually mounted as well as using them for big battles I can also remove them and use for skirmish games.

Here is a front and back shot of each of the individuals, the variety of poses does show some of the dynamic effects you can achieve by mixing and matching all the boxes.

The 'Cross of St. George' field sign is much in evidence, either on a white badge or sewn directly to the aketon.

I'm now on to painting the masses of foot men at arms I am going to need for this project, likely another dozen shall be needed for the English but I think about 36 more shall be done for the French