Help support TMP


"Livonian War in 15mm" Topic


5 Posts

All members in good standing are free to post here. Opinions expressed here are solely those of the posters, and have not been cleared with nor are they endorsed by The Miniatures Page.

Please don't make fun of others' membernames.

For more information, see the TMP FAQ.


Back to the Renaissance Discussion Message Board


Areas of Interest

Renaissance

Featured Hobby News Article


Featured Link


Top-Rated Ruleset

Armati


Rating: gold star gold star gold star gold star gold star gold star gold star 


Featured Showcase Article

Fighting 15's Teutonic Order Command 1410

Command figures for the 1410 Teutonics.


Featured Workbench Article

Black Cat Bases' Vampire Queen

alizardincrimson2 Fezian sails to the Skeleton Seas, and finds inspiration as she goes.


Featured Profile Article

Visiting Reaper - 2000!

The Editor takes a virtual tour of Reaper's new offices.


1,132 hits since 13 Sep 2013
©1994-2024 Bill Armintrout
Comments or corrections?

Prince Alberts Revenge13 Sep 2013 11:15 a.m. PST

Anyone have a clue what figures would be suitable for Livonians, Danes and Swedes for the Livonian War? I have Muscovites and Polish for the period but would love to add some other belligerents. Could later Lansknecht (like Grumpy) be suitable for the Livonian mercenary forces? Thanks!

PraetorianHistorian13 Sep 2013 2:26 p.m. PST

That's a really cool period to do. Who made your Muscovites?

Prince Alberts Revenge13 Sep 2013 5:31 p.m. PST

link

QR Miniatures, a Polish company. Very bottom of the page. Very nice figures!

Daniel S17 Sep 2013 3:29 p.m. PST

Danes are by far the easiest, you don't need any! While Duke Magnus of Holstein was indeed a prince of Denmark in name he had no Danish troops with him and instead relied on German mercenaries for his initial force as well as recruiting local Baltic-German supporters. It should be noted that neither group provided him with enough troops to face the Swedes in the open field and he was restricted to raids and garrisoning the castles he was able to aquire one way or the other.
These troops can be represented by the usual German landsknecht and Reiter figures.


It is hard to find any kind of detailed information about the last armies fielded by the Livonian Order and it's allies in the Livonian confedration. It's known that mercenary Landsknechts and Reiter had been recruited to reinforce the defences but very little is known about the knights themselves and their secular vassals, supporting native auxiliaries (if any) and the town militias in those final years. Conjecture based on what is known about the Livonian troops a few years later (in the 1560's) suggest that both the Order and the secular vassals had abandoned the lance in favour of fire arms, but it is possible that this was a gradual process during the war with pistols being carried as secondary weapons together with the lance followed by the lance being abandoned after seeing the mercenary reiters in action.

After the collapse of the Livonian order and confedration in 1560-1561 the Livonian forces split into 4 major groups. The city of Reval and the nobility of Harrien & Jerwen which accepted Swedish rule, the city of Riga which became a free Imperial City (until 1581), Gotthard Kettler who as duke of Courland became a Polish-Lithuanian vassal and the Hofleute.

The "Hofleute" was a catch all phrase used to describe a mix of former secular vassals of the Livonian order, German mercenaries left unemployed by the collapse of the Ordenstaat and adventorous sons of local German burghers who roamed the countryside in bands not unlike the 'free companies' of the 100YW. They were quite happy to serve as mercenaries, Duke Magnus would have liked to employ them but lacked the funds. The Swedes employed them in large numbers but found many to be both greedy and untrustworthy. More than once Hofleute who were dissatisfied with their pay and/or influenced by former associates such as Kettler or Oldenbokum sold or turned over a castle to the Danes or Courlanders/Poles. A special case was Casper (aka Kaspar, Jasper) von Oldenbokum who had resisted Swedish entry into Estonia from the very begining and who tirelessly conspired and fought to make Estonia a vassal state of Poland-Lithuania. By 1565 he had a small army of over 1000 Hofleute, Junkers and Landsknechts with which he laid siege to Reval. But while Oldenbokum was away in Pernau his army was defeated by a Swedish surprise attack and Oldenbokum was killed by a stray cannon shot in a skirmish not long afterwards.

The best, indeed the only choice for the Landsknechts serving in Livonia are the Grumpy landsknechts available from Eureka since they are the only Landsknechts in 15m that have proper late 16th C style clothing (pluderhose). link
I know that Khurasan miniatures is working on Swiss pikemen for the French wars of Religion which will also work well as Landsknechts once they become available.

For the Reiters and Hofleute there exists more choices, Old Glory 15s make "middle" and "late" Reiters which are just right for those troops
link
link

Essex also make several figures which are usefull as Reiters/Hofleute though they are more well armoured and equipped than the majority would have been.
link
link
link

Blackhat miniatures make a lightly armoured Reiter which could be usefull as well though I've not seen these figures "in the flesh" myself.
link

The city militias are a problem since no one does figures dressed in the style used by German civilians in this period. The militas mostly seem to have fought in the defence of the city itself and left operations outside the walls to enlisted troops. I would use figures such as the Armada figures by Essex or Essex "wars of religion" figures to give these troops an apperance that is diffrent from that of the Landsknechts.

Prince Alberts Revenge23 Sep 2013 7:57 p.m. PST

Daniel: many thanks for your very informative response. Your reply confirms that the figures I had planned to go with Will do nicely (Grumpy for management and Old Glory for my Reuters). Hopefully Khurasan will release some mid/late 16th century ranges and I can add in some more figures.

Sorry - only verified members can post on the forums.