English Archers 1475. Lots of them!

What once was a late Hundred Years' War project has now developed into something set a few decades later.

In 1475 Edward IV of England invaded France. In reality the invasion never led to any major hostilities but instead resulted in the Treaty of Picquigny between Edward IV's England and Louise XI's France where France basically bought themselves peace with England.

As there is little room for peace in wargaming we will instead run a "what if" project. Richard, Duke of Gloucester (later Richard III), and others though such a treaty to be dishonourable. So in our setting the invasion will lead to all out war.

After a hiatus, painting has now begun in earnest. First off on the blog are English archers. Lots of them. More than a hundred to be precise. Basing etc is still to be done of course. The figures are from the excellent Perry Miniatures and their plastic War of the Roses range in 28mm.

A sample.

100+ English archers served on a plate.

The Hundred Years' War - a New 28mm Project

Graham Turner's beautiful painting of the Battle of Castillon 1453.
You can see more of his fantastic work here.

As so often a new year inspires new projects.

With our singelbased skirmish medieval wargaming - in a Swedish setting - now being reasonable sized (at least for now!) the time is right for trying something else for awhile.

Not wanting to travel too far in time from that project however the choice fell on the final stages of the Hundred Years' War (i e around 1450), with among other things the battles of Formigny and Castillon.

The period and choice of theatre is due to many reasons. One being the aesthetics of the red cross of the English vs the white cross of the French. Another being the use of the longbow - a weapon not used in significant numbers in many other theaters of conflict (the War of the Roses being an obvious exception). Playing the late Hundred Years' Wars also enables us to use the fantastic plastic sets from the Perry brothers.

Also, this will be our first multi based endeavour. At least initially we plan to use the Hail Caesar rule set but others rules will probably be tried out as well along the way.

Early stages yet but hopefully we will soon be able to show you more.

First batch WIP.

More to come.