"Battle of Frankenhausen on the TMP front page!" Topic

Poor old Thomas Muntzer. Someone sculpted some figures for the Bauernkrieg in 20mm (?) recently. A shame, since there are so many nice Landsknechts in 28mm. One day, if I ever get around to finishing some of my current projects, this is one I'd like to get to. Or maybe the Schmalkaldic War. Decisions, decisions.

Was this a battle or a massacre of untrained, poorly armed peasants?

Never heard of it.

I guess I need to do a little research.

Was glad to hear about another battle, in my time period of interests, that I know nothing about.

More of a massacre I suppose (see link) but things might have turned out differently. The peasants could be well organized and well armed at times. There are parallels with the Hussite War. One could play out some "what ifs" and it's a good opportunity to load the table with Landsknechts. For more general info about the war see link. Götz von Berlichingen link (he of the iron hand) plays a role in the war, and wouldn't he look good on the table?

Yep, a massacre, mainly because the nobles violated a (contemporary) truce. There were a couple of battles in the peasants war of 1525, though mostly campaigns.

As on Berlichingen, we have him in 28mm here:

beside Maximilian and Frundsberg, thanks to progloriaminiatures.blogspot.de

Very nice!

The fact that the peasant army was preoccupied with a sermon by Müntzer didn't help them either.

Once the nobility had banded together to raise armies the peasant's cause was doomed. Even at their best they could not match professional troops fighting in the new styles developed in the previous decades. Once even an improvised wagenburg would have been a serious challenge, now they were breached with ease using combined arms tactics.