"Perry Plastic Light Cavalry 1450-1500" Topic

From the Perry Facebook:

Here at last are more pics of the 'light cavalry' for the 1450-1500 period. Not all of the bits are shown here but they give you an idea of what is coming, i.e., the choice of mounted crossbow, mounted archers and hobilars/coustiliers plus one or two extra bits. There will be 12 new heads, although a couple of them look very similar in style to the previous ones, including a couple of particularly Germanic, Italian, Swiss and Swedish looking ones. There is no release date yet but the greens are 99.9 per cent finished and will be heading Renedra's way very soon.

best regards Michael dalauppror.blogspot.se

Those look sweet.

I've been waiting for these to be available so I can bundle my purchase with the foot knights. Hope they'll be here by Christmas…

Oh yes I can definitely use these fellows!

Sigh I will have to add these when they come out. I have no excuse now not to collect and wargame the Late Middle Ages.

I am following the development of this range with much interest, although my preferred period is about fifty years earlier. What the Perry brothers are achieving really is fantastic.

I spy a woman's dress in the first photograph and think that may indicate a few more female sculpts from this period. And that's good news.

Hope they'll be here by Christmas…

I am afraid that this might be a bit unlikely, considering that they haven't even been sent to tooling yet. Those Renedra guys need some months to work their magic. And there is no point in trying to make them rush things.

As for the three-ups shown, they look wonderful. I especially like the new trumpeter arms and the helmet with massive feathers on it.

The helmets and heads shown are really useful – particularly for european armies.
Also the weapons carried can be used in vignettes and as baggage items too.
Hoping these will be a Salute 15 purchase, by the sound of things?
Great sculpts!

12 new heads sounds pretty promising. By my counting that will result in the Perry 1450-1500 range having a total of approximately 69 different plastic heads, plus some additional metal heads (Swiss, Tudor and Italian).

Of course all of those extra heads mean that I will probably have to buy some more infantry kits when these come out, in order to put the extra heads into a good use.

Ah, the missing bits for the Burgundians!

Excellent!

ndeed very nice and usefull addition to the plastic kits from Perrys, the army just grow and grow…

I was told that the minis are finished and now it is down to fitting into Renedra's schedule, but should be early next year, according to Michael Perry… Salut 2015 maybe?

I just put up a picture I got from Michael of the dalauppror.blogspot.se/2014/10/perry-wip-swedish-onion-kettle-hat.html he managed to fit in to the Light cavalry sprue, so now you all can start up some Kalmar Union projects ;)

Best regards Michael

Ah, the missing bits for the Burgundians!

Yep, just the right thing for coustiliers – not just Burgundians but also French ordonnance.

>Ah, the missing bits for the Burgundians!

>but also French ordonnance.

Not to miss the Reichsaufgebot. The encounter of the Burgundians and the Imperial army for the relief of Neuss had the potential to become one of the larger medieval battles, with the actual clashes on May 23 1475 just being the preliminary (though some 10000 troops on both sides took part).

I do love French Ordinance. I tend to mix all 15th century figures together, Front Rank and Perry. Admittedly they do look a little odd with all French Banners from 1420 -to – 1450's!

Good point, Puster. Had it not been for those meddling Papal envoys…

And then there is of course the Italian and Swiss cavalry waiting to be represented on the tabletop with these models.

I am sure the papal envoy had not really much of an influence when it came to politics. Charles only moved when a military defeat became an imminent and likely option, and Frederik was neither keen on hurting the prospects of his son for marriage with Mary nor destroying an enemy of Louis (yep, they were allied at that time, but Louis was a pain). Peace suited both best in May/June of 75, and if they could blame the lack of a martial decision by battle on the Pope, so much the better.

Of course we then have the Burgundian succession war, with Guinegate just being the prominent battle – the next decade would see the amalgation of Swiss, English and Italian mercenary traditions, Burgundian ordonannce, Flemish militia and German Kriegsknechte into the Landsknecht tradition. I am still figuring out what part the "German" contingent sent by Margarete, Maximilians "mother in law" to fight with the last Yorkist pretender, and to be destroyed at Stoke Field, plays into this creation, but the timing is pretty suspicious. From the late 80ies on the "Grote Gard" starts to roam through northern Germany, and Landsknechts soon show up at places like Sweden, Russia or Naples.

BTW: There will be a thesis work on the assembly of the Reichsaufgebot soon. I am looking really forward to this. More then a hundred seperate contingents contributed to it, and I hope for some detailed infos :-)

Glad to see the new cavalry will be along soon. For years I wanted to do WOR as a wargames project but no one made figures up to the standard I was looking for then along came the Perrys. My only moan is the plastic lances moulded into hands, I like to use metal rod for lances, banner and standard poles. However you can't have everything. Keep up the good work lads. A York! A York!

When the plastic lances brake which they do, I drill out the hand and replace with brass lances.

Those lances look like the standard poles in the mounted men-at-arms set, which are quite stout. That said, it should be quite simple to cut off the lance and drill through the hand, at least with the ones held upright.

I certainly prefer my plastic figures to have their weapons cast to their hands. Those with differing opinions may want to try some of the older Wargames Factory sets that come with open hands and separate weapons.

Puster, can you tell more about this upcoming thesis about the reichsaufgebot?

P.S. : The book you still hasn't arrived, bit I'd like to thank you immensely already! (:

Here is a link:
link

I recently found (and downloaded) a master thesis concentrating on the besieged citizens of Neuss in the war – once you start to look… – I have not yet read that work (86p) though.

I also just learned that the book was not send out yet, sorry! An internal communication problem for which I am to blame (and absolutely not my wife) :-)

At the North Star Facebook site you can read about how Renedra work with the 3-upīs to get them in to the mould frame seen below

Looking at that photo of three-ups, it seems that the frame is expected to hold quite a lot of interesting bits.

Those arrow bags would hopefully look good also on marching foot archers.

I am looking forward to see what a cross-usage of all five kits may produce. The spears are a welcome addition for special troops, and smaller crossbows for militia will be a nice addition, too.

Spears could also be used as banner poles, and an extra trumpet is always welcome for the variety (not that there is anything wrong with the one from basic WotR infantry set).

Spare sword arms could be combined with parts from the Mercenaries kit to make a small unit of sword-and-buckler men.

Spare sallet could look good on any commander foolish enough to walk around battlefield bareheaded (there being two bare heads available from other sets). But what are those two doughnut looking items on the right hand corners?

Also mixing and matching arms and bodies between this set and mounted men-at-arms could provide some interesting combinations – for example that brigandine wearing body with fully armoured arms, or the livery coat wearing MAA with lighly armoured arms.

>a small unit of sword-and-buckler men

Which would be more then typical for the units set to spearhead the assault. For the siege of Neuss there are 56 recorded assaults upon the walls or fortifications, and more then a dozen sallies by the besieged.

Well, patience is a virtue that one may show in abundance here :-)
I just hope that light cavalry is not the last set for this era.

I just hope that light cavalry is not the last set for this era.

Considering that this will be fifth plastic set, and that these sets all combined will provide massive amount of variety, I would not realistically expect to see more plastic sets for the late 15th century now that Perrys have undertaken to also produce another plastic range for the early 15th century. Hopefully they will keep on releasing new metal packs, though.

That said, a generic late 15th century field artillery set in plastic would be an interesting sight, though I have no idea as to whether it would be financially feasible. So far the only period where Perrys have released plastic artillery is American civil war.

Swiss of the 1470-1500 era might be a good idea, as it covers both the Burgundian and Swabian wars. There may also be a dual use for early Landsknechts or continental mercenary infantry. They also did a pretty lot of Italians so that a core set of plastics in the right fashion might bulk out their existing range.
Artillery was pretty fast developing in that era, but both the Burgundian artillery park ~1475 and the Maximilian park ~1505 would be usefull for almost all the rest of the European powers.

Well, dreaming. Given that it takes two years from first glimpse to ready product, and there is no "first glimpse", we are talking about 2017 if all goes well, which is unlikely. Concentrating now on Pro Glorias venture…

There is a bit of an commercial issue with making a specific set of Swiss, Italian, Spanish, Irish, Swedish etc. troops in the sense that it will appeal to a narrower audience than the more generic releases that we have seen so far – for example the cavalry sets can be used for a wide variety of armies from all over western Europe.

Good point, though I assume that in between us some 20 sets of Swiss would already sell :-)

Well, I have already got a whole bunch of the wonderful Foundry Swiss, scupted by Dave Andrews. So if the Perrys released a set of plastic Swiss, I might only buy one set for conversion purposes…

But what I really want now is 4 boxes of those light cavalry, to be used as Burgundian/French/Breton coustilliers, Swiss/Italian mounted crossbowmen, Flemish rebel cavalry, English scurrers, mounted commanders/couriers or whatever else use I might come up with.

Somehow I never got a bunch of the Swiss, though I have heaps of their Landsknechts. On the other hand, they already look a bit old-fashioned for the Burgundian wars anyway, and my main focus starts just there.
Well, Swiss are not on the tableau anyway – I will now patiently wait for the cavalry and (worse) the already ordered but heavily delayed foot knights to arrive.