"Medieval Scots - 25-28mm fig options?" Topic

Any early HYW figures; you want exactly the same sort of armoured infantry, longbow archers and men-at-arms as you would find in French or English armies. Most importantly of course, don't buy any 'Braveheart' figures or unarmoured wild dagger-wielders; they stem fully-formed from the imaginations of modern writers.
Claymore Castings and Foundry have excellent infantry, Essex and Foundry have excellent men-at-arms.
You raise a good point about plastics; I'd have thought a good set of plastic medieval spearmen with a mix of helmets and a mix of padded jacks and mail would have sold like hot cakes.

ebob miniatures has a range specific to the Scottish Rebellion.
link

The Ebob 'Scots pike' pack is fine, but the 'rebellion' figures are suitable only for Braveheart movie fantasy games.

The 'revolting peasant' element of medieval armies in Scotland is a firmly established part of Victorian assumptions originating with Gardiner and Oman. Historically, there is nothing to suggest that Scottish medieval troops were in any way different to those of France or England.
A considerable proportion of military activity consisted of sieges and most of the rest consisted of small-ish actions between parties of mounted men-at-arms who were quite indistinguishable in terms of equipment.
Buyers should be wary of any pack described specifically as 'Scots' and even more so of packs described as 'Highland' or 'Isles' Scots. A man from Mull or Wester Ross with a spear, a padded jack, armoured gloves and a helmet looks pretty much like a spearmen from anywhere else.
The rank and file of English and Scottish field armies were pretty well-equipped; it's worth remembering that the people who were called up were -in essence – the medieval middle class; men who could afford to buy (or to some extent make) decent kit and had every reason to do so.
If you want to go to primary record material, there 's buckets of military stuff in Bain's 'Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland' (Vols 2 & 3) which I think can be found online and in the more recent Volume 5 (Galbraith and Simpson). The most useful narrative source for military matters is Grey's Scalacronica, which is also available online.
If anyone would like a more extensive reading list I'd be happy to help; you can mail me .. thathistorybloke(AT)btinternet(DOT)com
Ebob figures… the Scots pike are fine. Some people find them a bit small/slender when mixed with the excellent Claymore castings figures, but I think they are OK – in real life not everyone is the same height and build so I think it helps to prevent unnatural uniformity.
The rest of the ebob stuff is pretty much unspeakable unless you want to play a game based on the Braveheart movie – and why not? There's plenty of wargame collections based firmly on 'Lord of the Rings' or other films.
Final thought…the idea that the best-armed men would be at the front of a unit and the worst-armed at the back stems, I think, from a description of Highland troops in 1715 or 1745; it's really not relevant to the 14th C. If the men-at-arms are dismounted it's more appropriate to think of them as fulfilling a 'junior leader' function; scattered throughout the ranks and files, encouraging those around them, preventing desertion, keeping dressing straight and so on.

Ooops…I never mentioned secondary sources…
Of course modesty would forbid a mention of the work of the Scottish medieval military specialist Dr. Chris Brown (kof kof kof) who has written a number of books on Scottish war in the 14th Century.
The key names are Andrew Ayton, Anne Curry, Michael Prestwich, Michael Brown, Colm MacNamee. It's worth avoiding Oman, Sadler, and pretty much everything that was in the (relatively recent) Wars of Independence edition of 'Medieval Warfare' magazine.

I think that the Scots of Stirling Bridge and Falkirk would look a little different from the Scots of Bannockburn. I made mine look a little "rough" so that I could use them for the early part of the wars and still fudge them for Bannockburn. I like Scheltrum's figures a lot. I know that it may be "Victorian myth", but the image has been with me since I was a kid and I want my Scottish forces to look a little less well armed than the English. Facts be damned, go with the look you like!

Absolutely…at the risk of great wrath let's remember that they are just toy soldiers after all. That said, would you really have confederates carrying longbows and dressed in scarlet jackets and kilts?
Mind you, why would one assume that troops at Stirling Bridge would necessarily look any different to those at Bannockburn or Culblean?

Also…how are you getting on with your rules? Are they going to be available any time soon? Can't wait to give them a shot.

They are really close now, I have a non gamer doing an edit for me as we speak. I need to get a copy in your hands, but it seems to take longer than I think it should. Every time I think that I am ready, I find something that I feel could be worded better. The mechanics are done, but I just need to make sure that they are not frustrating to read or difficult to understand. I never knew that rules writing, or writing in general would be so difficult. My hat is off to an author like yourself who can do it!!

As for Wallace's Scots, I see them as an army that spent most of its time using hit and run tactics, which would lend itself to being lightly armed. I also think that this force did not have as wide of support from the nobility(other than Murray), which would mean they were not as well funded. This might lead to inferior arms/armor. I see them as more of an army of the people than the later forces under the Bruce at Bannockburn and beyond. I am probably wrong in this, but it is, as I said above, stuck in my stubborn mind as right.

An easy conclusion to come to…but not very sound I'm afraid.
When Wallace first comes into evidence we find him leading a small band of men-at-arms 'well armed and well-mounted'…perhaps a couple of dozen… and 'hit and run' raids are exactly what they do. Within a short time he becomes a magnet for recruitment and the men are -largely at least – the sort of men who would generally be liable for military service plus a sprinkling of dodgy men with an eye to the main chance, but by August 1297 he is running a field army. In due course he moves around the country imposing government in the name of King John, but his 'hit and run' days are over. If he is to have political credibility the people need to see him leading a big impressive force. Of course when we get to 1304-5 Wallace is back where he started…a handful of guys with nowhere else to go.
Bear in mind that weight of armament had no real relationship to tactical practice; they did not think in terms of 'light cavalry' or 'heavy cavalry' in the style that Victorian romance has imposed on us.
Nobility…easy to forget (and most historians have) that many of the nobles who might have supported Wallace in person were POWs in England in 1297. Even so he and Murray would not have been able to impose government without at least the tacit support of those magnates in prison let alone those who were not prisoners but were not yet willing to resist Edward overtly.. Of course the magnates (John Comyn et alia) undoubtedly saw themselves replacing Wallace at the earliest opportunity…which they did in 1298.
Even nobles who had actively supported Edward's invasion might give Wallace a helping hand. It's worth remembering that Bruce (who'd previously thought Edward would make him King of Scotland) kept Surrey occupied for some weeks at Irvine while Wallace and Murray gathered troops, trained them and effected a union of their armies. The old saw about Scottish nobles defecting to Edward to save their English lands would be a bit more convincing if the evidence did not amount to one claim in once very anti-Scottish chronicle…defecting to keep their heads attached to their necks is a different latter of course.
Funding for equipment: men with military obligation had to provide their own kit. They did not get it from their lords, though there is a scrap of evidence to suggest that the crown might have imported spears for issue, but it may just as easily be an example of private enterprise…no way of telling.
An Army of the people…the same sort of men served whether under Wallace or Robert I or David II or whoever; those who were worth £10.00 GBP in lands (we assume rental rather than production) or £40.00 GBP in goods (presumably stock rather than turnover. The upper echelons gave knight service, which usually entailed exactly what it sounds like, but might mean providing a galley and armed men for service in the West Highlands or archers – such as from the barony of Kilsyth.
I have a raft ( many, many 100s of pages) of photocopied documents from various collections (that's a thing that the Victorians were really good at and we should be most grateful) which I will never use again. I can't bear to throw them out, but you're welcome to then if you don't mind paying the postage.
Have you read Nicholson's 'Scotland; The Later Middle Ages' and Grant 'Independence and Nationhood'? neither as really very informative about warfare, but they will give you a much better idea of social/political structures and that in turn will make sense of military stuff that is , at first sight, confusing or simply incomprehensible.