Tuesday, February 12, 2019

Swiss Pikemen Unit Joins War of the Roses Project.

     This past week I completed a 10 man unit of Swiss Pikemen for my growing War of the Roses Project.  These are plastic multi-part figures that I assembled and painted from the Perry "Mercenaries, European Infantry 1450-1500" boxed set.
  As I mentioned before, I am going to be running a 6 player game using the Feudal Patrol rules at Cold Wars in Lancaster PA this March; so I am frantically trying to get all he figures I need assembled and painted.   More pressingly though, this coming Friday I am going to be running a first playtest at our club meeting, so I'm trying to get as much finished as I can.
   I am currently working on a unit of French Crossbowmen from the same boxed set to also join the ranks of my armies.  I hope to have them done in time for my game on Friday!

13 comments:

  1. Very nicely done, wonderful colors!

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  2. Ooh, those look great - love the color combination!

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    1. Thanks, Dean! I based the color off one of the Swiss flags included in the set.

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  3. There were no Swiss pikemen involved in the Wars of the Roses. There were French mercenaries at Bosworth but they nay not have been pikemen.

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    1. Thank you for the information. What about Martin Schwartz' contingent of Germans and Swiss at Bosworth, who were hired by Margaret?

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  4. Martin Schwartz was at the Battle of Stoke 1487. He was not at Bosworth. His 2000 mercenary pikemen were German Landsknechte, not Swiss.

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    1. Oops, meant Stoke, sorry. I think my brain blipped on Bosworth, because I had just read it in your comment. Anyhow, you will need to go change the Wikipedia article on Stoke, as it lists Germans and Swiss:

      " Lincoln fled the English court on 19 March 1487 and went to the court of Mechelen (Malines) and his aunt, Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy. Margaret provided financial and military support in the form of 2000 German and Swiss mercenaries, under the commander Martin Schwartz. Lincoln was joined by a number of rebel English Lords at Mechelen, in particular Richard III's loyal supporter, Lord Lovell, Sir Richard Harleston, the former governor of Jersey and Thomas David, a captain of the English garrison at Calais. The Yorkists decided to sail to Ireland, where the Yorkist cause was popular, to gather more supporters.[2]"

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  5. "you will need to go change the Wikipedia article on Stoke, as it lists Germans and Swiss:"

    Wikipedia is known for being somewhat unreliable. I base my position on the reseaWeidenfled & nicholson, 2005)rch of Richard Brooks in "Cassell's Battlefields of Britain and Ireland* (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005)

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    1. Ok, cool. Thanks! I know it's a hard period to get firm info on since there's so little firsthand written evidence. And, thank you for the source citation.

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  6. Apologies for the cut and paste error in my previous post!

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