Ottoman Sipahis and Guns

March 15, 2020, 9:23 am

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The next instalment of the Ottoman army is complete. A pair of Ottoman guns and a unit of Sipahis, a word meaning "Soldier" in Persian. Those shown here are "Timariots". In some ways they were similar to the earlier feudal Knights of Western Europe. Timariots were the cavalrymen in the Ottoman army who were given a "Timar", being an area of land allotted to the Timariot from which he would collect revenue from the agricultural output in return for military service. There were also Sipahis of the Porte, salaried household cavalry, which I intend to cover at some point as well.

The Sipahi figures shown below are a mixture of Old Glory and Assault Group riders on Assault Group horses. The shields are from a variety of different manufacturers. There have been small conversions to some of the helmets and the positioning of the miniatures. Most of them are well equipped in a mixture of mail and plate while a couple are poorly equipped with just helmets. Perhaps these are "Cebelus", the men-at-arms that would accompany wealthier Timariots, who have not managed to equip themselves very well or possibly just poorly armed Timariots. They were meant to be suitably equipped in order to retain their Timar. Timars were not hereditary and were handed out as new lands were conquered. This meant that Sipahis from newly conquered lands were often Christian rather than followers of Islam.

Most of the horses have also had plumes of feathers added to their bridles to make them more flamboyant than the horses of the Akinji. The standard bearer carries an Ottoman horse-tail or tug, deriving from the Persian tuq. These originated from the 13th century and were used to indicate the authority vested in a chieftan by the Sultan. According to Ian Heath (Armies of the Middle Ages Volume 2) a Sancak Bey, provincial governor, would have a one horse-tail tug. A Beylerbey, essentially a senior provincial governor, or vizier, a high ranking leader in the Ottoman State, would have two. Grand viziers would have three with the Sultan himself having four or later six horse-tails. Although the Sipahis also carry bows, implying that they could fight in a looser skirmish style, I have based them in a closer formation to differentiate them from the Akinji who were a lighter form of cavalry.

Ottoman Sipahis, late 15th - early 16th Century.

28mm Ottoman Sipahis.

The Sipahis are a mix of Old Glory and Assault Group figures.

Ottoman Turk Sipahis.

The Sipahis from behind, note how a lot of them also carry bows.

The field guns, shown below, are from Old Glory, with the crew being a mixture of Essex, Assault Group and Old Glory miniatures. The figure in the fur hat is a really old Essex figure but I think he works well here as an Eastern European master gunner. The Ottomans often employed European specialists to oversee their artillery, the most famous probably being Orban, who was most likely a Hungarian although his exact origin seems open to debate. Orban cast a medieval "super gun" for the Siege of Constantinople in 1453.

This is hopefully the start of a siege battery that will comprise half a dozen Ottoman guns, a couple of which will be really large. I also intend to work on some more gabions and mantlets so the gunners in the battery can be well and truly dug in and protected as they operate the guns.

Ottoman Turkish guns, note the master gunner in the fur cap.

Ottoman field guns.

In my last post I mentioned that I would try and get some photos of the whole force so far. Here it is below. It's been a lot of work (I hated painting all those shields!) but has turned out better than I had imagined it would which is great, especially as a lot of the figures are quite dated now. There is still along way to go with the gun battery mentioned above to completed along with a sizeable force of Janissaries, more Akinji and the Sipahis of the Porte. I would guess what is in the pictures below is just under half way to what I currently envisage the army to look like. On that note I better get back to some painting!

The host so far.

28mm Ottoman Turk army.

The Ottomans from above...

...and the army from behind.

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Dacre's attack on Ferniehurst, 1523

April 1, 2020, 7:03 am

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In the middle of last month I visited Stuart, https://stuartsworkbench.blogspot.com/,  to continue our series of Renaissance Rampart battles. Following our games at the end of last year focusing around Suffolk's 1523 campaign in France we decided to fight an Anglo-Scots battle this time. Once again we turned to Hall's Chronicle for inspiration and found a campaign under the Earl of Surrey and Lord Dacre that was taking place in 1523 while the main English army was campaigning on the continent.

Dacre's attack on Ferniehurst, September 1523

With Henry VIII's renewal of war with France in the early 1520s Scotland had to be taken into account. Following the death of James IV at Flodden by 1521 Scotland was under the regency of John Stuart, Duke of Albany. When England had invaded France under the Earl of Surrey in 1522 Albany had attempted to lead an army across the border but as the English responded and levied an army under the Earl of Shrewsbury to meet them the force lost heart, not wanting a repeat of Flodden, and withdrew.

Prior to England's larger invasion of France in 1523 Surrey, now returned from the continent where the Duke of Suffolk would take over, led a chevauchee style raid into the Scottish borders to ensure the Scots were kept quiet during the French invasion and cause enough chaos to discredit Albany's regency. This was a raid against Scottish strongholds that achieved little other than the capture of Cessford Castle. In September of 1523 Surrey led another raid with Lord Dacre, Warden of the English West March. While Surrey took Jedburgh in a vicious assault Dacre was despatched to sieze Ferniehurst castle held by the border lord Andrew "Dan" Kerr.

Ferniehurst was surrounded by woodland and rough terrain where a fierce fight took place before the siege could begin. Hall states:

"Duryng whiche time he senty lorde Daker of Gyldersland to a strong hold of Doncar called Fernhurst, the whiche castle stode very evil to come to, for the wayes wer hylly, stony and full of marishes, and the Scottes had bent their ordinaunce that way: yet for all that the Englishmen so fiersly set on that they gat the Castle, notwithstandyng that the Scottes fought valiauntly, and many of theim were taken, as Dan Car the lorde, the lorde of Grandon and divers other which were there taken"

The games were played using our modified Lion Rampant rules. Stuart took command of the English while I was in charge of Kerr's force of Borderers. All the photos are from the games and reading the captions is the best way to follow the action.

Ferniehurst Castle, home of the Kerr Border family. The Scots deploy in secret at this end with the English assaulting through the woods, again in secret, from the other.

The Assault on Ferniehurst

For this scenario the English had to attempt to clear the field of Andrew "Dan" Kerr and his troops. The stream, hills, rocks, trees and foliage were set out to show the "evil" terrain and counted as difficult terrain in the game (see the photo above).

To represent the chaos in the terrain “battered” markers were used to represent each unit. We wrote down in secret which unit each marker was for. Three "Dummy" counters were allowed per side, just to add to the confusion and give us both a chance to keep the other guessing. A unit was revealed either by an enemy unit attacking or shooting it once it was within 8” of the marker or by an enemy unit simply moving within 3” of it. Retinue leaders could not apply their morale bonus until revealed and all counters could "move" activate on a 6+ and move 6” until they were revealed. If units wanted to “reveal” themselves earlier, for example if the Retinue Leader wanted to give his leadership benefit, they could do so by declaring this when they activated. Once “revealed” a unit did not disappear again.

The retinues were as follows:

Dacre's English

2 Units of Foot Knights ( one is Lord Dacre and his retainers)
1 Unit of Garrison Archers                 
1 Unit of Garrison Billmen                               
1 Unit of Shire Archers                       
1 Unit of Border Horse                     
1 Culverin                                               
1 Organ Gun                                       

Dann Kerr's Scots

1 Unit of Foot Knights (Dan Kerr)                     
1 Unit of Foot Knights (Lorde of Grandon) 
2 Units of Border Horse                                                                                           
1 Unit of Garrison Archers  (Borderers)       
1 Unit of Garrison Bill (Borderers)
1 Culverin                                                             
1 Organ Gun                                      

The action begins when English billmen advance into a Scots organ gun and Border horse on the English left flank.

On the other side of the marshy ground English Border horse ride into some tough Borderers armed with polearms and a Scots field gun, the Scots having "bent their ordinaunce that way".

Dacre's men counter with a light field gun that has been manhandled through the rough terrain.

Scots Border horse in the foreground ride down the English while English Borderers can be seen in the distance.

The first fighting in this game started on the two flanks, outside of the terrain that was "hylly, stony and full of marishes". On the English left flank a detachment of Dacre's bill, bow and foot knights ran into a Scots Organ gun which was supported by Border horse and foot knights. This combination proved too much for the English and they were defeated fairly quickly, being pushed back by these combined units.

On the English right it was the opposite. The Scots had pushed a field gun into the rocky ground to defend the castle but the English had also wheeled a gun up. With archers in the rough terrain and with Dacre's Border horse riding around the flank this force of English soon knocked out Kerr's gun and moved in on the castle. A force of tough Borderers armed with polearms checked this advance for a while but the weight of numbers was against them.

The "lorde of Grandon"and his men at arms engage with English gentlemen who are leading the asault through the woods.

Outside Ferniehurst some Border archers are pushed back by the ferocious English assault.

A force of Kerr Borderers is surrounded in the woods but continues to fight on...

...while on the other side of the woods the Scots have outnumbered the English and hold their ground.

A sentry in the castle looks out onto the bitter fighting in the surrounding countryside.

The English hold the woods and launch volleys of arrows at the Scots.

It seemed the Scots had left the castle itself weakly defended. A group of Borderers armed with bows  attempted to fight off the advancing English centre but they were soon over run by the ferocity of Dacre's assault. The axis of the fighting swung with the Scots holding what had been the English left flank and the English pushing in on the right. The group of stubborn Kerr Borderers on the English right continued to put up stiff resistance but were eventually over run in the rough terrain.

The centre of the battlefield now became the main scene of the action. Dan Kerr emerged only to be caught out by an organ gun which Dacre had ordered his men drag over the rough stony ground. His retinue survived the volley of shrapnel and Kerr himself launched into a melee in the out buildings of Ferniehurst. A unit of Kerr retainers armed with pikes pushed some of the English bill back but Dann Kerr was captured in a brief melee with Dacre and his bodyguard. The morale of the Kerr force shook, with some of the Scotsmen fleeing through the marshy terrain to avoid death or capture.

Help was on hand for the defenders and with the Scots pike rallying, more Border archers emerged from Ferniehurst and the remaining Scots forces began to break the morale of the advancing English. The fighting in the rough terrain had taken its toll on the English units with many of them breaking in quick succession. Dacre and his retinue were left surrounded and with his troops running back into the rough terrain he sounded a retreat.

The surrounded Scots Borderers are finally defeated.

Dann Kerr himself emerges from the castle but walks straight into a hail of shot from an organ gun Dacre's men have pushed up to the fortress.

In an attempt to prevent Ferniehurst falling Kerr retainers armed with pikes launch a counter attack on the advancing English.

In the melee Lord Dacre (shown here under Poynings arms) clashes with Dan Kerr and the Scotsman is captured.

Despite his capture, Kerr's retainers and men at arms fight on. The dead and wounded litter the marshy ground.

Scots men at arms escape the battle by wading through one of the streams in the woods.

More Scots archers have emerged from the Castle. Dacre is surrounded by the remaining Kerr forces.

"Dacres men sayd that the devil was sene amongest them"

After taking Ferniehurst all was not well for Dacre and his troops. We return to Hall:

"and so the lorde Daker returned with his prisoners, and then he was ordained to kepe the watche that night wiche set his watches & his wardes surely. In the night sodainly CCC good geldynges brake out of a pasture, whiche were in custodie of the sayd lord Dacres campe, and as beastes wodde and savage ranne as though they were in array of battail, whereof the noyse in the night was so great, that the  armye sounded alarme, the horse still in array ranne to the cape, where the erle lay and bare doune many persones in their waye, and so sodainly ranne away whether it was unknowen: the lorde Darcres men sayd that the devil was sene amongest them"

For this scenario the English were deployed amongst their Wagons on one side of the field. The "geldynges" were represented by 3 bases of cattle (we didn't have any bases of horses) which were placed in the centre of the table. The English were allowed one unit that acted as normal from the start of the game, termed the Watch.

To rouse the rest of the camp the Watch unit had to make an attack (ranged or hand to hand) on the Scots to identify them and then return to the camp perimeter. If they made it back to the camp all of the English could then activate the following turn.

Gervases Phillips in the Anglo-Scots Wars states that "The Exasperated  Dacre swore that the Devil himself was responsible, but there can be little doubt that Scottish knives had cut the tethers".

The Scots started at the other end of the table with the objective of moving towards the cattle to "untether" them. They then had to cause as much disruption to the English camp while keeping their own casualties to a minimum. Once a unit reached the cattle it took a successful move activation to "untether" them after which the cattle would automatically move.

Each base of cattle moved 2D6 inches in a random direction every turn. If they passed through a unit that unit took D6 minus their armour value in casualties to represent the stampede. If the cattle base rolled a double on it's random move the "devil was sene amongest them"! A devil marker was placed by the unit. Any English within 12" had to take an automatic morale check whenever a devil marker appeared. The next turn it would dissappear unless the cattle based rolled another double to move.

All English units could activate once the cattle were on the loose. If an English unit could move to a cattle base (rather than the cattle base moving through them) they could capture it and then try to take it back to their camp moving 6" a turn. If they broke or fled they would loose the cattle base and it would move as random again. The Scots could attempt to disrupt the retrieval of the cattle. The Scots units could not capture the cattle like the English units, they could only set them free to run amok.

Dacre's camp, the cattle are to the left.

The retinues were as follows:

Dacre's Camp

1 Unit of Demi Lancers (Lord Dacre) (This unit could not be the watch)
1 Unit of Border Horse  (Stuart designated these as his Watch unit)
1 Unit of Garrison Billmen                                                             
1 Unit of Shire Archers                                                                   
1 Unit of Foot Knights                                                                       
1 Unit of Garrison Archers                                                           

The Scots Raiders

1 Unit of Demi Lancers  (The Border Captain)                                               
2 Units of Border Horse
1 Unit of Foot Knights                                                               
1 Units of Garrison Archers (Borderers)
1 Unit of Garrison Bill (Borderers)                                           

The Scots Borderers advance quietly towards the livestock.

A force of Neville Borderers, the English Watch, is alerted by the advancing Scots.

Borderers clash under a brooding night sky.

This was one of those games that goes terribly for both sides! It didn't take the English Watch long to detect the force of Scots emerging out of the darkness. As the English Border horse made a fighting retreat back to the camp the Scots captain and his mounted retinue reached the cattle and set them loose. As the English camp awoke hearing the noise of skirmishing in the night followed by the sounds of the stampeding livestock all looked to be going perfectly for the Scots.

The tide of the game then turned because the cattle did not stampede into the English camp as intended but rather into the advancing Scots, running over some of the units multiple times! As the Scots were thrown into chaos by their own doing the English advanced in formation. Dacre's archers began to increase the Scots casualties and although "the devil was sene amongest"the cattle on numerous occasions it had no adverse affect on the English force. Perhaps Dacre just conjured up this tale after the encounter to cover up his mistake?

Forcing the English Border horse back the Scots manage to scatter the cattle.

"the lorde Darcres men sayd that the devil was sene amongest them"

The cattle rampage through the Scots lines causing complete chaos and scattering them!

A group of Scots men at arms engages briefly with some of Dacre's Billmen but are forced back. This is the only hand to hand fighting of this chaotic night fight.

Having been completely disorganised by the cattle and coming under a hail of arrows from the now awakened English camp the Scots retreat. They have deprived the English of the cattle but have been completely disorganised in the process while the English remain in formation.

As the Scots raiding party crumbled the dismounted Borderers and Scots men at arms attempted to advance on the English camp. A group of English billmen charged the Scots men at arms who were pushed back in a very brief melee. Under a withering hail of arrows these Scots units then began to withdraw. They had successfully driven off the herd of cattle, which Dacre's men had made little attempt to retrieve, but had been heavily mauled, by English arrows and the hooves of the cattle in the process!

These were a fun couple of games. The hidden unit technique in the first game, while denying us of the opportunity to set the armies out in their full splendour at the start, made for a very exciting and close fight. I think that may be one of the closest games we have had yet where it swung back and forth very quickly. The second game was amusing as it was such a disaster for both of us with neither Stuart or myself really achieving the objectives of our forces. It was also nice to have a chance to represent the cut and thrust of border warfare that was a common feature of Anglo-Scots relations in Henry VIII's reign. I look forward to our next clash of arms whenever that may be.

Early 16th Century Janissaries?

May 1, 2020, 5:09 am

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So here are the Janissaries, iconic infantry of the Ottoman army. I don't intend to discuss the Janissaries history or organisation in great detail here but instead have a look at how they may have appeared in the early 1500s. They have so many notable features, from their dress to their recruitment. Originally they were prisoners of war converted to Islam and then the "devshirme", a levy on christian boys in the Balkans, became the primary source of manpower for them in the 15th and 16th centuries. This post will have a look at some of the earliest images of Janissaries. I am attempting to build an Ottoman force for the first half of the 16th century that can oppose my Italian wars collection in conflicts such as the Ottoman-Venetian War of 1499-1503 and the Siege of Vienna in 1529. Janissaries on campaign in this period are what I have tried to show here with the 28mm figures that are currently available.

There is an abundance of information on the Janissaries or "Yeniçeri" literally meaning new troops or soldiers. I've read a couple of books solely on Janissaries, yet I have still struggled to find out exactly how they dressed in battle in the early 1500s. One of the stumbling blocks seems to be that the Janissaries were an organised military unit for such a long period of time. Probably emerging in the late 14th century they were still in existance in the early 1800s. This relatively long life span means that later images and traditions of the corps tend to sometimes overshadow the earlier history and make it harder to decipher how they would have looked.

An Ottoman Anthology Manuscript of 1480. Two Janissaries can be seen in the distinctive "ak börk" hats.

Gentile Bellini's image of a Janissary c.1480.  This is probably a "Solak", one of the Sultans guard as he wears a tall "üsküf" hat.

Hunting Scene,  from a Persian poem, showing another tall "üsküf" Janissary hat, c.1498.

Firstly did they even wear their distinctive white hats in battle at all? Most Janissaries wore the "ak börk" or "bork", the distinctive white hat that folds over the neck while the Sultan's bodyguard, the Solaks, and higher ranking Janissary officers wore the tall pointed hat, which seems to be known as an "üsküf". The above three images show Janissaries in these styles of hat in the 15th century. In the first from 1480 two Janissaries can be seen in the "ak börk" while in the second two images the "üsküf" is clearly identifiable. In all of these images the Janissaries are appearing in more guard or domestic roles so while the headgear is evident it does not necessarily mean it was worn in battle.

The depiction of the naval battle of Zonchio from the turn of the fifteenth century clearly shows Janissaries in combat wearing the "ak börk" or an early form of it.  Below are some details from the image that show this. While the Janissaries in the French image from 1513 appear to be dressed for the parade ground the last two near contemporary images show Janissaries on campaign in their distinctive headgear. How accurate they are is hard to say. There is always the possibility that helmets were worn below the headgear. It is interesting that in the Süleymannâme image from the mid 16th century the Knights of Rhodes are depicted in Ottoman style helmets, a good example of how difficult it can be to trust these sources. As it is an Ottoman image the Janissaries are likely to be depicted more accurately than the Knights of Rhodes.

While Janissaries in later centuries may have worn turbans in combat you could tentatively argue that from these sources it does look like the famous hats were worn in battle earlier on, possibly with helmets underneath at times. Ian Heath in his "Armies of the Middle Ages, volume 2", which has lots of useful information on the Ottomans and early sources for how they looked, suggests that Turks wore red caps with their turbans while non Turkish troops or the Sultan's personal troops wore white. What confuses me with this is that I've also read that the "Silhatars", the Sultan's personal cavalry, wore a red "ak börk"! This would go against what Heath writes unless of course the red "ak börk" came at a later date. While delving into the Janissaries early history there a quite a few confusing things like this.

Detail from the Battle of Zonchio of 1499. A Janissary can be seen in green, wearing his "ak börk" in battle.

Another detail from the Zonchio image of c.1499. Janissaries can be seen in green and red in the attacking boats.

Janissaries in Persia 1513, from a French manuscript. They appear to be in parade dress.

Detail from a 1532 wall painting of the Siege of Constantinople in Moldovita Monastery, Romania. A group of what appear to be Janissaries can be seen with polearms and distinctive headgear.

The Süleymannâme - mid 16th century, showing Janissaries at the siege of Rhodes in 1522. In this slightly later 16th century image the Sultan's guards can clearly be seen with different style hats in the bottom right. Note that some of the Janissaries on the left carry "turpans" which look very similar to bills. The way the Knights of Rhodes have been depicted at the top of the image is also interesting as they look more like armoured Ottomans than European men at arms of the 1520s.

So how have I tried to depict the Janissaries? Obviously the miniatures available limit this. We will start with the "Zirhli Nefer". The "Zirhli Nefer", or armoured soldiers, were armoured Janissary assault units. They were used into the 16th century. As this Ottoman army will be used for siege games I was keen to include some of these troops. The unit is made of Old Glory figures with the addition of a few Essex miniatures to add some variation. I don't know of any contemporary images of these armoured troops and most of the figure sculpts seem to be based of Ottoman armours that survive from the late 15th and early 16th century.

There have been loads of conversions on these miniatures. The shape of the helmets has been changed on lots of them with green stuff or added plumes, and most have had their weapons replaced with a wide variety of polearms, axes and maces. The Osprey Elite series on Janissaries mentions the assault troops carrying large shields so I have included some of these amongst the unit. I have tried to make them fairly colourful with painted and gilded armour as well as varied shield motifs. While some of them have Islamic designs on their shields others have more western style heraldic designs to reflect the Balkan influence.

The "Zirhli Nefer" wait behind the handgunners and archers.

Ottoman armoured Janissaries, the "Zirhli Nefer".

Ottoman "Zirhli Nefer".

Armoured assault Janissaries. I have used a few western style shield motifs on these to reflect the Balkan influence.

The armoured Janissaries showing some of the armour detail.

The next question to address was how to depict the more regular Janissaries? How to make them look more like they were on campaign and whether to have them uniformed or in a mix of colours? In some ways the lack of conclusive early sources has given me more leeway here. The various "Ortas" or companies of Janissaries were supplied with material for their clothing so it would make sense that they would appear uniformed, something akin to the liveried troops of Western Europe in the 15th and early 16th centuries. I decided to paint up two separate "Ortas" of Janissaries, one in green and one in red, similar to the Janissaries depicted in the Zonchio image and the French illustration from 1513. This way if I decide that I want them less uniformed I can simply mix the bases of figures.

Although possibly being uniformly equipped with clothing the Janissaries were allowed to choose their own personal weapons in this period. The combat units carry a really wide variety of weapons, including many Western European polearms, these being imported by the Ottoman State as well as being captured in their many campaigns in the West. The bill is very much in evidence as the Ottomans used a similar weapon called a turpan, influenced by the Italian bill or roncone. Janissaries are shown using the turpan in the Süleymannâme image above. In some ways the Janissaries have much in common with some of the Italian infantry of this period: http://camisado1500s.blogspot.com/2015/11/italian-infantry.html. As with the "Zirhli Nefer" I have used a wide variety of shields, some of Arabic influence and some more Balkan.

The clothing has been tricky as the "ak börk" hat and the Janissaries robes changed during this period. The "ak börk" definitely looks to have got higher and more pronounced into the 16th century so the figures shown here are probably more accurate for the 1520s and 30s than 1500s. I have used Assault Group and Old Glory figures for the bulk of these troops with a few Essex miniatures added in and a great Warfare Miniatures figure for one of the Janissary officers. The Assault Group figures all had really big plumes, they look to be quite closely modelled on the Janissaries depicted in the 1513 French illustration, shown above. To make these figures look more like they were on campaign the plumes have been removed from all of them apart from the officers. For the Old Glory figures I only left plumes on the standard bearers removing even the plume holders from the other figures. The variations in clothing don't seem to make a huge difference, in fact they help to make them look more like campaign units. For the colouring of the trousers, shoes and belts I have gone with the information provided in the Osprey Elite series on Janissaries, although this may well be for a slightly later period.

Janissary Orta dressed in red.

Janissary archers, handgunners and troops armed with a variety of polearms and hand weapons.

Janissary Handgunners.

As I wanted my Janissaries to be for around 1500 to 1530 I didn't like the idea of them carrying muskets, they are a little anachronistic for the start of the 16th century. I have chosen to include a unit of handgunners or arquebusiers instead. These are a mix of Essex and Assault Group miniatures with Assault Group arquebuses added where necessary as well as some powder horns, match and leather pouches left over from previous Landsknecht projects. To use the army for later 16th century clashes Janissaries with muskets can always be added later.

Janissary Orta dressed in green.

Janissaries armed with close combat weaponry.

Janissaries with polearms, swords and axes.

A couple of command bases have been included with the Janissaries. In the photo below we have a "Beylerbey" or "Commander of Commanders" discussing tactics with a Janissary Officer. The Officer wears a distinctive "üsküf" hat to denote his rank. This miniature is from Warfare Miniatures 17th and 18th century range but he fits in perfectly here. Wafare Miniatures have also produced the flags:https://www.leagueofaugsburg.com/shop/products-subcat-59.html. Again they are for a later period but they fit in really well with my earlier Ottomans and add a lot of colour to the collection. The Beylerbey is a converted Assault Group miniature. The second command base shows a Janissary bowing to his senior officer. This base is a mix of converted Assault Group figures as well as an Essex and Old Glory miniature. The bowing miniature was clearly in 18th century dress so this has been converted to fit into the earlier period.

A Janissary Officer, note the different headgear from most of the other Janissaries. He advises an Ottoman "Beylerbey" on the troop dispositions. The Janissary Officer is from Warfare Miniatures as are the flags. The Ottoman Commander is a converted Assault Group figure.

The Commander of an Orta of Janissaries in the centre of the picture.

The photos below show the Janissaries en masse. I fear they are probably far from perfect for depicting early 16th century Janissaries but hopefully they look the part and as discussed above it is difficult to find exactly how they looked in the early 1500s. You may notice there is no infamous cooking pot, the" Kazan",  for them yet. Maybe this is something I will add later. The next part of this project involves different challenges, an attempt to show a convincing Ottoman gun battery for the 1500s to 1520s.

The Janissaries!

The whole Janissary force.

The troops from behind.

Early 16th century Janissaries in 28mm.

Ottoman Siege Guns

June 1, 2020, 3:13 am

≫ Next: The Kapikulu Süvarileri and more Ottoman bits and pieces...

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The next part of the Ottoman host has been completed. Here it is shown outside a beleaguered Venetian fortress during the Ottoman-Venetian War of 1499-1503. The Ottomans were famed for their early adoption of gunpowder artillery and some of the enormous bombards that they used, the most celebrated being in the 1453 Siege of Constantinople. Shown here are four new pieces flanked by two smaller field guns that have remained on their carriages which I finished a couple of months ago. To complement the guns there are also some new "mantlet and gabion" bases, http://camisado1500s.blogspot.com/2016/08/mantiets-and-gabions.html, with Turks manning the ropes of the mantlets. 

All of the guns are by Old Glory except for the second largest on the red carriage which is a Redoubt Enterprises piece. For these large guns I have removed the wheels so they can be "emplaced" for siege or field works. On two of the bases the removed wheels can be seen lying close by. Accounts I have read of Ottoman set piece battles such as Mohacs also show that the guns were sometimes emplaced behind stakes and war wagons so the dug in nature of these suits them well. This was cetainly not something that was unique to the Ottomans as a previous post will explain: http://camisado1500s.blogspot.com/2016/09/a-bombard.html. Of course many of the gun crew may have had experience in Western armies as well.

Leading on from this point I have tried to include quite a few non-Turks to reflect the fact the Ottomans regularly used foreign specialists for their guns. There are plenty of crewmen in turbans but also some in Eastern European style head gear. The crew figures are a mixture of converted Old Glory and Essex Miniatures. I thought about including some clearly Western European types, in Landsknecht attire for example, but this would "date" the bases quite specifically so I have gone for a more generic approach. This way I feel these guns can be used from the 1450s right up to 1600 at a pinch although later style guns could also be added to a battery for the later 16th century.

An Ottoman siege battery.

28mm Ottoman Turk gun battery.

A view from the great bombard.

Crew members are raising the mantlet.

The Ottomans besiege a Venetian Fortress.

A view of the battery from above. Note the removed wooden wheels from the gun carriages.

The Janissary commander advises the Beylerbey on the assault.

The Ottoman Infantry mass ready for the assault.

You may notice the Camel train in the above photo. A great source of inspiration for this Ottoman army, which has been quite an undertaking, was the amazing detail from the woodcuts shown in "Landsknechts on Campaign", https://www.amazon.co.uk/Landsknechts-Campaign-Geisbergs-Woodcuts-Selections/dp/0998597740/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1RT40MC2TVEFO&dchild=1&keywords=landsknecht&qid=1590579634&sprefix=landskench%2Caps%2C145&sr=8-1. While the text is fairly limited the book is really about the details from the woodcuts, it's one of those books that you can look at over and over again and always find something new. Hans Sebald Beham's Siege of Vienna 1529 is included. It's a strange "bird's-eye view" of the siege that reminds me of a 16th Century "Where's Wally"! There are loads of little details of the Ottoman siege with Turks in boats, cooking in cauldrons, taking prisoners and engaging in skirmishes with Imperialist bands of horse. These bases of camels were inspired by the print,  I have included a detail from it below.

The Turks leading the camels are Old Glory figures while the camels are really old Wargames Foundry miniatures, in fact I think they were originally Citadel miniatures. The camel at the end of the train has not been converted but the other three have all been modified using green stuff. The ropes linking them all are made from fuse wire, as are the ropes on the mantlets. I was really please how these baggage camels turned out, I especially like the base with the Turk gesticulating to the reluctant camel in an attempt to get it to move!

Detail from Hans Sebald Beham's Siege of Vienna, 1529. The line of camels can be seen in the centre.

Ottoman camel train.

One of the camp followers is struggling to get the lead camel to move.

The Kapikulu Süvarileri and more Ottoman bits and pieces...

July 1, 2020, 6:07 am

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The Ottoman forces continue to grow. The past few weeks have seen work on a variety of bits and pieces to round off this army. Of course it will never be "completed" as such, none of my projects ever really are but the aim has been to represent at least the major elements of a late 15th early 16th century Ottoman army. So we have more Akinji, a unit Sipahis of the Porte, a command base, musician and some casualties.

The Akinji are mostly Old Glory figures with a few from the Assault Group mixed in. All of the horses are from the Assault Group. This unit fits in really well with the Akinji already completed, http://camisado1500s.blogspot.com/2020/01/ottoman-raiders-akinji-and-azabs.html. I will mix all the different bases of Akinji together for even more variety. The Ottomans fielded thousands of these light cavalry and I am currently working on a couple more specialist units of light horse to further boost the numbers.

Ottoman Akinji

Ottoman Horse Archers

28mm Ottoman Akinji

Ottoman late 15th early 16th century Sipahis of the Porte

Next we have some Ottoman heavy cavalry, Sipahis of the Porte. Part of the Qapu Khalqi, the "Gate" or "Court people" they were essentially the Sultan's own household troops and slaves, sometimes both. Perhaps better known as the Kapikulu Corps, there seem to be varied spellings. For the time period covered by this army the Janissaries were also part of this organisation, also known as the Qapu Kullari"Gate-slaves" or "Court-slaves", but from the beginning these household cavalry had formed the core of the Kapikulu. Ian Heath provides some detailed information on these formations in his "Armies of the Middle Ages, volume 2". By the end of the 15th century this household cavalry, known as the Qapukulu Süvarileri or Kapikulu Süvarileri, consisted of six companies of horse. The cavalry were also known as the Bölük Halkı, "regiment men".

The first two were the Ulufeciyan or "Salaried men" who were divided into left and right divisions as to where they stood on the battlefield in relation to the Sultan, the Ulufeciyan-i yesar and Ulufeciyan-i yemin. Originally made of Arab, Persian and Kurdish Gazi volunteers the second two companies were the Gureba, meaning poor strangers or foreigners, again distinguished by their battlefield positions as the Gureba-i yesar and Gureba-i yemin. The last units of the Kapikulu Süvarileri were likely established in the reign of Mehmed I, so the late 14th early 15th century. They were the Silihdars or "weapon-bearers", notable for wearing the janissary hat or ak börk in red rather than white, and the Sipahi-oghlan or "Sipahi children". These formed the real elite of the cavalry and were recruited from the janissaries and household slaves with members of the Sipahi-oghlan coming from slaves who were children of the nobility.

A final guard cavalry unit also worthy of a mention, was the Müteferrika, the "Seperated". It was formed of the sons of Ottoman vassals, who were being held as hostages by the Sultan to ensure their fathers remained loyal. Despite their unusual diplomatic status these youths were also trained as elite horsemen and formed a personal cavalry guard, although their numbers were never very great.

It took a while to work out how I was going to represent these troops as there a no really great figures for earlier heavily armed and barded Sipahis. I really like the Assault Group miniatures but they are definitely more for the second half of the 16th century onwards, especially as they carry lots of pistols. I wasn't going to represnt the Silihdars, with the red ak börk as this would be a lot of conversion work and really I was after a more "generic" unit of household cavalry, although perhaps there was never really such a thing. It seems they also all had their own specific banners but as the standards on these figures are interchangeable that is not too big an issue for now.

The resulting unit is made up of Old Glory Sipahis, with shields from all sorts of  manufacturers, mounted on Redoubt Enterprises steeds. I have converted half of the helmets on these figures, either by adding plumes (I knew all those ones I removed from the janissaries would come in handy) or just by making them more pointed with green stuff. The horses have also had plumes added to some of the chanfrons. The result is a clourful and unique looking unit, although I can tell some of the Assault Group figures will be joining the force to bring it into the 1560s and 1570s at some point!

Ottoman "Household" Cavalry

The cavalry from the back.

Whilst working on these units I have also done a few other bits and pieces to really fill out the army. For playing any games casualty bases are essential and eight of these are shown below. All of the figures, apart from the chap in the bottom right hand corner, are converted Assault Group janissary figures. It is very easy to add turbans to the bareheaded figures to turn them into fallen azabs or akinji. The fleeing figure on the bottom right is an Old Glory miniature.

Ottoman Casualties, 3 Janissaries are on the bottom row and the rest are Azabs or fallen Akinjis.

The Assault Group make a superb Ottoman general, shown below in all his splendour. I feel the standard bearer is such a great figure that he could be a commander himself and I am tempted to convert another of these standard bearer miniatures to make a further command base. I can imagine him carrying a mace to show his status, perhaps as a nod to Dürer's great image of an Ottoman leader from the early 1500s, shown below. Any chance to get a Dürer image into a blog post has to be taken!

An Ottoman Commander, possibly even the Sultan.

Albrecht Dürer's Ottman Commander, 1509.

The Ottoman Commander.

28mm Ottoman Captain and standard bearer.

Finally to join my kettle drummer on a camel I have converted a kettle drummer on horseback as well. This figure is an Old Glory archer with Essex Miniatures drum sticks and kettle drums, mounted on an Assault Group horse. I am really pleased with how he turned out especially as he is not a bad representation of the Bernhard von Breydenbach image that I was basing him on, see the figure in the foreground below. I am really tempted to do some more mounted Ottoman musicians and have kept back a few more Old Glory horsemen for this purpose. It is often more fun working on the supporting pieces for a collection that the actual units themselves!

Ottoman Cavalry druing the 1480 Siege of Rhodes, Bernhard von Breydenbach, 1486. Note the mounted drummer in the foreground.

An Old Glory archer converted into a mounted drummer.

Ottoman Turkish mounted drummer.

Ottoman Delis and Balkan Auxiliaries

August 1, 2020, 8:14 am

≫ Next: The Siege of Wark, 1523

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Another part of the Ottoman army has been completed in the form of two units of Balkan Cavalry. The first are Balkan horsemen who seem to have made up a sizeable part of the Ottoman Army during campaigns in Eastern Europe in the late 15th early 16th century. Ian Heath makes an interesting argument in his "Armies of the Middle Ages" that late 15th century sources which are supposedly depicting Turks are more likely often depicting various Balkan peoples with some witnesses mistaking various Albanian, Wallachian or Hungarian horsemen for Turks. This is further supported by the fact that the Akinji were more often than not archers whilst sources depict these "Turks" as lancers.

The three images below give a good indication of this confusion, with troops in Balkan headgear fighting side by side with Turks wearing turbans. Heath used the first image, from the Obsidionis Rhodie Urbis Descriptio of 1496, for his depiction of Balkan Cavalrymen which the Old Glory sculpts used in this unit have clearly been based upon. The unit is a mix of Old Glory Balkan light horse and converted Old Glory Delis on Assault Group Horses with the captain figure being a converted Assault Group Akinji. I haven't given these chaps Ottoman pennants on their lances as I want the option to be able to use this unit in Christian armies as well. Keeping with the auxiliary theme of the horsemen a variety of shields have been used for them, with more western heraldic imagery on some to indicate their non-Turkish origins. They are a really useful unit and will make great additional Stradiots if needed.

This image from William Caoursin's Obsidionis Rhodie Urbis Descriptio, 1496, quite clearly shows these type of Balkan Light Horse in their caps rather than turbans. This is the image that the Old Glory Balkan Light horse are based on.

Erhard Schön 1530 Two Turks with captives, only the heads of the captives show as some of the original image was destroyed. One of the horseman is probably not a Turk but instead a Wallachian in Turkish employ as he wears a distinctive fur hat.

An image of the "Turks" as depicted in Bernhard von Breydenbach's journey to the Holy Land, c.1483. This image of the Ottomans clearly shows the confusion that some Western artists had in depicting them but also hints at the fact that the Ottoman army was one comprised of all manner of different troops.

Ottoman Balkan Auxiliaries.

Balkan Light Horse. The figures are all Old Glory, save the leader with a warhammer who is a converted Assault Group figure. The horses are all Assault Group miniatures.

28mm Balkan Light Horse.

These Balkan troops remind me of two of the horsemen in Dürer's classic woodcut of 1498, the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. It is interesting that he chose to depict two of the horsemen in Eastern European style headgear, with one carrying a composite "Turkish" bow. Following the fall of Constantinople in 1453, an Ottoman invasion of Italy in 1480 and with 1500 looming, which served to enhance the eschatological beliefs of many Europeans, it is tempting see Dürer perhaps hinting that the Ottomans may be agents of a coming apocalypse? This is just an idea and of course it gives me an excuse to include an obligatory Dürer image in the post!

Detail from Dürer's "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse". It is interesting that Dürer chose to depict two of the horsemen in these Balkan style caps - perhaps hinting at the danger the Ottoman's posed to Christendom?

Delis, converted Serbs, Bosnians and Croats who served the Ottomans as something of an irregular elite force.

The second auxiliary unit is of fearsome Delis, light cavalry that were first raised in the late 15th century. Initially being comprised mainly of converted Serbs, Bosnians and Croats they came to form something of an Ottoman elite force. I have seen their name stated to mean daring, brave, fearless or as a corruption of the word for "guide", contradicting information as is often the case when researching the Ottomans! What sources agree more firmly on is that they regularly formed a vanguard force in Ottoman armies as well as providing a bodyguard for the Ottoman Beys who ruled the Eastern European provinces.

They were famed for being quite terrifying in appearance. They certainly would be for any of the local wildilfe as they sported eagles wings on their shields and headgear as well as draping themselves and their horses in all manner of animal skins, leopards and lions being some of the more exotic. This seems to be a precursor to the outlandish dress of the later Polish Winged Hussars and I am guessing they may have been an influence on them. I have not been able to find any images of them for the late 15th early 16th century, the era my Ottoman force is initially going to be aimed at so the earliest I can find, shown below, is from the 1570s.

A mixture of Assault Group and Old Glory figures were used to build this unit, all mounted on Assault Group Horses. I have made some headswaps on a few of the Assault Group figures as I felt that some of them looked a little too 17th century for me. Their large brimmed hats have been swapped for fur ones. They are a really interesting unit and add some great variety to an already colourful Ottoman army.

28mm Delis

Ottoman Delis

The delis from the back. Note the variety of skins being worn; bear, wolf, lion, lynx, leopard and fox are all being worn in some form or another.

This is the earliest image of a Deli I have been able to find so far, Lucas d'Heere c.1575.

Finally I couldn't resist a few pictures of all the light cavalry from the army. Quite a fearsome raiding party! The auxiliaries and Ottoman Akinji go really well together, helping to create the feel of some of the contemporary images shown above. Hopefully I will be able to get some photos of the whole Ottoman force up in a couple of months but first there are some more bits and pieces to get done for the army, including the war wagons.

All of the Ottoman Light Cavalry ready to set out on a raid.

A swarm of Akinji and Balkan Auxiliaries.

Turkish and Balkan Light Cavalry.

The Siege of Wark, 1523

August 17, 2020, 11:12 am

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The battles on the border continue. Following our games based around Dacre's assault on Ferniehurst, this weekend Stuart, https://stuartsworkbench.blogspot.com/, and I played another couple of scenarios based on the Scottish retaliation that came late in 1523. These were centred on the Siege of Wark in the autumn of that year, in which the captain of the castle's garrison led, according to English accounts at least, a heroic sally forcing the attackers from the battered walls in panic.

The Siege of Wark, 1523

Following Surrey and Dacres raiding into Scotland in September 1523, http://camisado1500s.blogspot.com/2020/04/dacres-attack-on-ferniehurst-1523.html, the Scots struck back the same year, this quick response coming as something of a shock to the English. John Stuart, Duke of Albany, raised a large force, which some English spies estimated to be as high as 60,000, including around 3,000 French. Luckily for the unprepared English the presence of the French brought back too many memories of Flodden 10 years previously and the Scottish troops would not cross the Tweed. He despatched the French force with some Scottish support, most of which was artillery, under the borderer Dan Kerr to attack Wark Castle. They reached the bank opposite the castle on 29th October 1523.

Wark was no stranger to an assault. Having originally been a Motte and Bailey style fortification, it's position meant it had been besieged three times in the 12th century, being rebuilt in 1157. It was burnt in 1399 and had been bombarded into surrender by James IV on his ill fated journey to Flodden in 1513. Since then the castle had undergone a rebuild in 1517, the keep being turned into a 6 sided artillery tower 5 stories high. A great representation of how it may have looked in 1523 can be found here: http://www.pastperfect.org.uk/sites/wark/images/later.html. Opposing the three thousand Frenchmen and their Scots supporters was Sir William Lyle with around one hundred men. Following a bombardment by the Scots guns the French launched an amphibious assault on the outer wall using  appropriated boats and makeshift rafts. Lyle was unable to prevent the French storming the outer defences of the castle.

Edward Hall's chroncile describes the action as such:

"The night before the Scottes had sent ouer the water into England. iii or iiii M. men to lay siege to a lytle castle called the Castle of Warke, whiche stadeth nere the border: the great ordinaunce of Scotland sore bet the castle, and Dan Car amd the Frenchemen whiche came out of Fraunce with the duke of Albany gaue to the castle a strong assaut: with the castle was sir Willia Lyle with a C. persones, but the Scottes were so many in nomber, that they got the vttermoste warde called the Barnkyns where the beastes and barnes were, whiche seyng, the capitaine sent in all hast to the Erle of Surrey aduerisyng him of their distres, which in all hast assembled his capitaines to reskue the castle, therby hopyng that Duke Ihon of Albany would enter into England. The Frenchmen and Scottes lay styll about the castle cotinually shotyng ordinaunce Sonday & Monday the fyrst and second day of Nouember, and then the Scottes thinkyng the place assautable, coragiously set on the castle and by strength entred the second warde. Sir Willya Lyle perceiuyng that the Scottes had gotten the false brayes and that nothing remained but only the inner warde or dogeon, sayd to his company, sirs for our honor and mahod let vs issue and fight with the proude Scottes and stately Frenchmen, for more shall our honor be to dye in fight, then to be murthered with gunnes, to whiche his company that were left agreed: for his C. men he had lost alomst xl. at the other assautes. Then they issued boldly and shot coragiously as men that shot for a vauntage, and with shotyng and fightyng they draue their enemies clene out of the place & slew of them & chiefly of the Frenchmen CCC whiche lay there dead in sight when the Erle came thither, beside suche as dyed of woundes & were drouned. Then the Scottes remoued their ordinaunce, in great hast ouer the water, and by that tyme was the Erle of Surrey come w v.M. men on horsebacke & all his great army folowed & was very sory that his enemies were gone, & muche praised sir Williyam Lyle for his valiauntnes."

Trapped in the inner ward of the castle the English garrison made the decision to sally out in a last ditch effort to push the attackers back. The fighting was at close quarters within the castle walls and the French were driven back leaving some three hundred dead. The news that the Earl of Surrey was on his way with a rapidly raised force of five thousand horse meant that the Scots gunners panicked and limbered up the guns ready to withdraw, rather than offering much support to the French. John Leslie in his "History of Scotland" from 1578, puts the defeat down to the terrible autumn weather as much as the ferocity of the English defence, his quite different account of events being as follows:

"And fra that the haill army passit to Caldstreame upoun Tweid, and send our the watter certaine great artailyerie, with ane cumpany of Frensche and Scottis men, and Dand Kar with thame, and laid siege to the castell of Wark, quhilk wes keipit be Sir Williame Lylle captaine thairof, with ane great cumpnay of Inglishmen being thairin, quhilk wes weill furneisset with all kind of provisioun and munitioune necessar. And at the first assault, the utter barmkin wes won, and the saide cumpany of Scottis and Frensche men lay within the same , pursewand the castell. In the meynteime the Erle of Surry, with xlm men, wes lyand at Anwyk nocht far fra the said castell, and send the Marques Dorset with ane greit cumpany to keip the toun of Berwyk, feiring the same suld haif bene seigeit alsua; bot the said Erle durst approche na nearrir the said army of Scotland. In the meyne tyme ane new assault wes givin to the inner barmkine, and wan the same; and tharfoire thay sett one the castell and pursewit it at ane parte, quhilk wes brokin with the artailyerie lyand on the Scottis syde of the watter of Tweid, and pressit to enter thairat, quhair thair wes great slauchter maide, and speciallie one thame quha wes within the house; and the assault lestit quhill the nycht, that thay wor constranit be mirknes to retire thairfra, purposeing the nixt day, being the feird of November to haif assailyeit the same of new; bot thair wes that nycht sic ane vehement storm of tempestious wooddar, qhairby thay weir constranit to leif thair interprice at that tyme , and to retire thame to thair army, lest be the ryseing of the watter of Tweid thay mycht haif bene cutt of be thair ennemies."

For both of the games Stuart played the English while I took command of the Franco-Scottish force. The photos are from the games and the captions underneath the photos will help in following the action.

A view of Wark from the artillery tower. The French hold the outer walls in the top of the photo while Sir William Lyle and his garrison will sally from the bottom right corner.

A view of the whole castle. The French and Scots will enter from the gatehouse and the breach. Their objectives are to burn the barn and stable that can be seen in front of the inner wall and to attempt to reach the artillery tower at the top of the photo. The English will sally from the gap in the inner wall with the objective of throwing the French and Scots out of the outer ward. The Scots artillery could support from the side of the table with the breach and boats on it all the way up to the inner wall.

The battle took place within the "Barnkyn" as Hall called it or the outer ward of the castle. The representation of the castle can be seen in the photo above. The outer ward has been enlarged to allow for more of a game to be able to take place within the area.  The English deployed inside the inner ward and the French could place up to two units at the gate and breach otherwise they deployed oustide the walls.

Terrain

The castle gate could be moved through without penalty and the breach was half movement rate and rough terrain for combat. The inner ward of Wark on the hill did not incur a movement penalty or combat penalty.

"murthered with gunnes"

To represent the fact that the English were still in possession of a state of the art artillery tower and that the French had the support of the Scots guns across the water both sides could call on the support of the artillery during the game. Each player took 8 cards from a normal deck at the start of the game. At the start of their turn they could decide to use their artillery, expending a card. The English Player was able to target any enemy unit with 36" of the artillery tower as with a Culverin shot and the French and Scots Player was able to target any enemy with 24" of the far side of the outerward (see the photo above) with a Culverin shot. The Culverin range rules would apply but line of sight wouldn't. This reflected the fact the English gun tower was so tall and also the sheer volume of guns the Scots had accross the river.

The opposing player could try and prevent this artillery shot by also expending a card. Both players played one of the 8 cards and the highest would either get to make the shot if it was their turn or if the player attempting to "block" the shot played the highest card it wouldn't take place.

"where the beastes and barnes were"

If the French and Scots could reach the barn or stables positioned against the inner wall they could try and set fire to them to earn three honour points fo each objective. To try to set fire to a building they had to have at least one base from a unit in contact with it at the start of their activation phase. As an ordered activation, they could use that unit to try to set fire to the objective (instead of Moving, Attacking, or Shooting). If there were 7 or more models in the unit the fire started on a roll of 8+ on 2D6; if there were 6 or fewer models in the unit the fire started on a roll of 9+ on 2D6. The English would earn two honour points for each building if the barn and stables were not burnt.

Honour Points

Victory for this game was decided on honour points.

English

3 Honour Points if Dan Kerr was killed/routed.
2 Honour Points for each target building, being the Barn and Stables, that was not burnt down.
2 Honour Points for each unit that could reach the shore of the Tweed to drive back the French.

French

3 Honour Points if Sir William Lyle was killed/routed.
3 Honour Points each if the barn and stables could be destroyed.
2 Honour Points if a unit could reach the artillery tower in the effort to storm the fortress.

The retinues were as follows:

The Franco Scottish Attackers

1 Unit of Foot Knights (Dan Kerr retinue leader)
1 Unit of Foot Knights - French Captain
1 Unit of Garrison Bill (Kerr's dismounted Borderers)
1 Unit of French Halberdiers
2 Units of Aventuriers
2 Units of Francs Archer Bowmen
1 Unit of Picard Pike

The English Defenders

1 Unit of Foot Knights (Sir William Lyle retinue leader)
1 Unit of Foot Knights
2 Units of Garrison Bow
2 Units of Garrison Bill
1 Units of Shire Bow
1 Organ Gun

Dan Kerr and his Borderers accompany the French Captain and his archers and pikemen at the gate house while French halberdiers, aventuriers and more archers hold the breach.

The French at the breach. A boat they have used to cross the Tweed can be seen in the background.

The English Garrison under Sir William Lyle prepare to sally out "for more shall our honor be to dye in fight, then to be murthered with gunnes".

The English charge out into the outer ward but some French aventuriers have already reached the stables.

A view of the English sallying forth!

The French captain engages with members of the garrison.

This was a tense game where the balance swung back and forth a couple of times. Initially the French charged into the castle courtyard as the English charged out. One of the groups of aventuriers reached the stables and immediately set fire to them. The French and Scots who were in possession of the gate house charged forward to engage the garrison. Sir William Lyle "issued boldly"only to be instantly struck down by one of the French captains in the close quarters melee. The Franco-Scottish force had already achieved two of their objectives and looked to be heading towards a stunning victory but the morale of the rest of the garrison held and they fought on.

It was now the turn of the English archers to show what they were made of. While hand to hand fighting broke out around the gate house the archers defended the rest of the courtyard and routed the French halberdiers and aventuriers who were unable to put up with the storm of arrows. From the inner ward the garrison wheeled out a nasty surprise from their collection of ordnance; the organ gun was fired into the oncoming French and succeeded in momentarily checking their advance.

English archers unleash a hail of arrows at the attacking French.

The fighting in the castle outer ward.

The garrison of Wark have wheeled out one of castle organ guns and use it on the attacking French.

Sir William Lyle is cut down in the early stages of the sally. The rest of the garrison do not falter.

Kerr's borderers clash with the castle's veteran garrison.

Their captain may have fallen but Lyle's retinue defend valiantly against the attacking French and Scots.

A particularly mean band of Kerr's borderers, eager for revenge after the fighting in the woods around Ferniehurst, managed to drive the English back. Many of the garrison's billmen and archers were slain in the fighting and with more French pouring through the gate house and over the breach it looked as though, despite a fierce counter attack, the garrison were going to succumb to the superior numbers of the besiegers and be overwhelmed. French archers and more aventuriers, accompanied by Dan Kerr entered the outer ward and joined the fray.

Having lost most of their melee troops in the fighting the English drew back to the inner ward and formed a last line of defence. Still keeping up a constant rain of arrows they managed to slow the oncoming French and Scots, Dan Kerr went down and the attackers morale faltered. French aventuriers and archers still held the courtyard but they were no match for the handful of men at arms that formed part of Lyle's garrison. Now was the time that the Scot's artillery on the other side of the Tweed would have been able to lend valuable support but it was not to be. The fully armoured men at arms were able to lead a second sally and send the besiegers fleeing from Wark.

In the end the French and Scots achieved two of their objectives,slaying Sir William Lyle and burning down the stables. The English garrison gained more Honour Points as they prevented the barn from being destroyed, killed Dan Kerr and managed to have three units left who could make it to the banks of the Tweed and drive the attackers back. The artillery rules provided much entertainment despite the fact the guns never fired! I repeatedly attempted to fire shots into the courtyard in an effort to push back the English counter attack but they failed everytime.

The English line holds.

Aventuriers, flushed by the success of burning down the stables, attempt to reach the barn.

Following the fierce fighting the English form a defence line in front of the inner ward.

Dan Kerr has fallen in the counter attack leaving some of the remaining English men at arms to throw the attackers out of the castle. The defenders may have been outnumbered but they successfully defended Wark in a bitter struggle.

Fearful of the arrival of the Earl of Surrey and a relief force, part of Albany's Franco-Scottish force prepares to leave the castle.

 "and to retire thame to thair army, lest be the ryseing of the watter of Tweid thay mycht haif bene cutt of be thair ennemies."

For our second game we decided to combine a couple of the scenarios from the Lion Rampant rule book to represent the besieging Franco-Scottish force beating a hasty retreat from the border with the arrival of the news that the Earl of Surrey was on his way with a relief force. The armies would deploy as per the "Hammer and Anvil" scenario on page 55 of Lion Rampant. We wanted to include a representation of a battered Wark on the table which meant the Scots deployment zone was very narrow. Due to this the English player would roll a D6 on turn 3 and on a 1-2 they could bring troops on next turn, 3-4 after two turns and 5-6 after 3 turns. English units would be brought on via a "move" activation, not being able to attack or shoot on the turn they entered the game.

For the victory conditions and wagon rules we used those from "The Convoy" scenario on page 50 of Lion Rampant.

The retinues were as follows:

The Earl of Surrey's relief force

1 Unit of English Men at Arms (Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey)
2 Unit of Demi Lancers
2 Units of Border Horse
1 Unit of Garrison Bow (dismounted archers)
1 Unit of Shire Bow (dismounted archers)

The Duke of Albany's retreating Scots

1 Unit of Men at Arms (The Duke of Albany)
2 Units of Border Horse
1 Unit of Shire Bow
1 Unit of Scots Pike
1 Unit of Borders (Garrison Billmen)
1 Unit of French Aventuriers

The surviving members of the English garrison watch from the artillery tower.

The Scots army is on the move, they leave a battered but defiant Wark behind them.

As the Scots leave a force of demi lancers and dismounted archers attempts to block their path.

The second game was not quite as close. The Scots succeeded in heading off at a real pace with the units accompanying the wagons going first in an attempt to get away before the rest of the English cavalry arrived. They were met by a unit of demi lancers and a force of dismounted archers who formed a defensive line in an attempt to prevent the wagons from escaping. The demi lancers charged the borderers accompanying one of the wagons and managed to scatter them but they were a spent force after this and fled themselves.The dismounted archers blocking the Scot's escape route began to disrupt the oncoming column with a steady hail of arrows but they were too heavily outnumbered. As the Scots archers returned the compliment and their border horse rode up to harrass the English the archers broke leaving the escape route clear.

By now the rest of the English cavalry had arrived, save Surrey himself who was taking an age to appear. The English border horse gave chase to the column but some of the surviving French and a force of Scots border horse hung back and prevented them from catching the column which was already well on its way. As the remaining two wagons headed north the English had to be content that they had prevented one from getting away and that a battered but triumphant Wark had withstood yet another assault in its long history.

A fight breaks out on the river bank.

The demi lancers charge the borderers and their baggage.

The exhausted but relieved garrison look on from the castle walls. The demi lancers defeat the borderers and prevent one of the wagons from escaping.

Some of Surrey's border horse arrive.

Supported by more demi lancers the English border horse begin to harrass the retreating Scots, some of whom turn to fight back. The main part of the column has escaped.

A fun couple of clashes on the northern border which, as always, left us with even more ideas for future games. From the 1523 campaigns alone the assaults on Jedburgh and Cessford Castle still stand out as notable actions that would be worthy of scenarios which I am sure we will get to at some point. We also managed to avoid any terrible hangovers which is always a bonus on any gaming weekend, now I guess I better get back to painting more Ottomans!

The Siege of the Castle of St George, Kefalonia, 1500

September 1, 2020, 4:01 am

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A change in scenery from the north of Tudor England and the fighting around Wark to the Venetian fortress of St George on the Island of Kefalonia. Last week my friend Tom visited and we decided to give the Ottomans a test run and play a scenario set during the Ottoman-Venetian War of 1499-1503, the Siege of the Castle of St George. This was a campaign that was made more unusual by the Venetians being joined by Gonzala de Cordoba in a effort to recapture their island.

The Siege of the Castle of Saint George, 1500

The Ottoman-Venetian War of 1499-1503 began with an Ottoman attack on Venetian held Lepanto, which was taken in August 1499. The war had continued to go badly for the Serene Republic with a ferocious storming of Modon (modern day Methoni) in August 1500 following a bitter siege. This led to the surrender of the nearby Venetian positions of Coron and Navarino. By the end of the year, aided by the diplomacy of Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, El Gran Capitan, Gonzala de Cordoba, and his Spanish veterans joined a Venetian force under Bendetto Pesaro, launching an assault on the Greek island of Kefalonia in an attempt to strike back at the Ottomans who had recently taken the island and its primary fortification, the Castle of St George.

The commander of the fortress was a tough Albanian named Gisdar Aga. He refused an offer to surrender from de Cordoba instead sending him a gift of a bow and golden plated quiver filled with arrows. He had a determined garrison of seven to eight hundred men under his command which included Janissaries. The Spanish and Venetians laid siege to the castle with the aid of Pedro Navarro who de Cordoba had recently recruited into his service.  Depsite Navarro's natural talent for mining and engineering the Ottomans held on, hurling fireballs onto the attackers and "fishing" them with iron hooks  nicknamed "wolves" if they got too near the walls. One of de Cordoba's Captains, Diego Garcia de Paredes, known as the "Samson of Estremedura " was caught by one of these hooks. Dangling and being lifted up to his death he was only saved by an arquebusier climbing onto the cliffs and shooting the defender who was "fishing" his captain.

Everytime the Spanish would approach the gates the intensity of the Ottoman arrows and the sallys from the gate were such that El Gran Capitan had his men make a large armoured box on wheels from which they could safely shoot artillery at the gate. Gisdar's men even attempted to bury their way out, building a tunnel through which they intended to assault the Spanish from and attack de Cordoba and his officers in their camp! The camp sentries heard the digging and Navarro countermined the tunnel leading to some particularly unpleasant deaths for the Ottoman miners. An indication of the savagery of the siege is given by the fact the Venetians impaled some of the Turkish survivors of the mine. An assault by 2,000 Venetians, advised against by de Cordoba was also repulsed. The castle finally fell on 24 December 1500 following days of mining and bombardment and an assault on five different points of the castle.

A view of the table from the Spanish and Venetian camp. The Spanish retinue are deployed in the camp with the armoured wagon while the Venetians are positioned around the gun battery. Gisdar Aga's troops will enter from the Castle of St George, seen at the top of the photo. The Ottoman surprise attack will come from one of the Spanish and Venetian flanks.

The Game

The game combined various events of the siege into one action. The Spanish had to try and push the armoured wagon to within range of the gates while Pedro Navarro would attempt to plant an explosive mine against the walls. At the same time the Ottoman Garrison would sally out of the gates to defend while another force, perhaps having emerged from a secret tunnel, would attempt to strike the Venetian and Spanish camp.

As normal we played the game using the modified "Renaissance Rampant" rules that Stuart and myself have adapted.

Terrain

The ditch gave +1 armour against shooting and was difficult terrain for combat and movement.

The hill was not special terrain.

The Earthworks (around the Spanish Venetian camp) were half move to cross, unless using the gate. If a unit behind them was atttacked the defender fought as normal while the attacker counted as in difficult terrain. Units defending the earthworks got +1 armour from ranged attacks.

The Venetian Gun Battery could not be moved through but the earthwork around was difficult terrain for combat and movement.

The sconce (in front of the castle walls) gave +1 armour from ranged attacks if any part of a unit was in it and counted as difficult terrain for combat. There was no movement penalty for moving through it.

Deployment

The Venetians deployed around their gun battery (see the picture above).

The Spanish deployed with the war wagon inside the camp (see the picture above).

The Ottomans did not start on the table.

Gisdar Aga and his garrison could sally out at any time from the castle gates with a move activation.

The surprise attack retinue could only arrive once the first fighting, ranged or close combat had taken place between Gisdar Aga's sally and the Venetians or Spanish.  On a D6 roll of  5+ the Ottoman player could attempt to bring them on in that turn. If this failed they could come on in the following turn on a 4+ and so on. They entered the table via move activations but the Ottoman player had to roll a D6 once the 1st move activation was successful. On a 1-3 the counter attack would arrive on the Spanish and Venetian left flank and on a 4-6 they would arrive on the Spanish and Venetian right flank. Until this dice roll neither player would know what side they would arrive from.

The "Armoured" Artillery Wagon

This started the game deployed with a Spanish unit who could push it 6" a turn. They could still fire when pushing it but could not attack. The wagon gave a pushing unit +1 armour against missile attacks. The Spanish Venetian objective was to get the wagon to the edge of the ditch in front of the castle gates. It could be pushed over the battery earthwork at half move.

If the unit pushing the wagon was destroyed then another infantry unit, Spanish or Venetian, but not mounted, could begin to push it on a move activation to the Wagon.

If unguarded, ie no unit was accompanying it, Ottoman units could move into contact with the wagon and destroy it on an activation of 8+ on 2D6 the following turn. They could make repteaded attempts to do this. It could not be destroyed by missile attacks.

The Gun Battery 

If an Ottoman unit could get into base to base contact with the sides or the rear of any part of the gun battery on the following turn they could destroy in on a 2D6 roll of 7+. They could make repeated attempts to do this. The battery itself was in difficult terrain, that being the earthwork it was on.

The Venetian and Spanish Camp

If an Ottoman unit could get into base to base contact with the large tent in the camp the following turn they could destroy in on a 2D6 roll of 6+. They could make repeated attempts to do this.

Pedro Navarro and the powder charge

If Navarro's Arquebusier unit could get to any part of the walls of the Castle of St George the following turn on the 2D6 roll of 7+ they could plant a powder charge. The unit could make repeated attempts to do this.

Honour Points

Victory was based on Honour Points. These were as follows.

The Spanish and Venetians

6 Honour Points if they could get the wagon into position in front of the castle gate.
5 Honour Points if Pedro Navarro could plant the charge against the walls.
5 Honour Points if they could kill Gisdar Aga.

The Ottomans

3 Honour Points for destroying the armoured Wagon.
3 Honour points for killing Gonzala de Cordoba, El Gran Capitan.
3 Honour points for killing Diego Garcia de Paredes.
3 Honour points for killing Pedro Navarro.
3 Honour points for killing Bendetto Pesaro.
3 Honour points for destroying the Venetian Battery.
3 Honour points for raiding the Venetian Spanish camp - to be considered to have done this they had to destroy the large tent in the centre.

The Venetian Gun Battery. In this game it was an objective for the Ottomans to try and reach and destroy.

The Armies

The armies were as below. Tom took command of the Spanish and Venetian Retinues whilst I took command of Gisdar Aga's Ottomans.

 Gonzala de Cordoba's Spanish

1 Unit of Foot Knights (Gonzala de Cordoba, El Gran Capitan)
1 Unit of Foot Knights (Diego Garcia de Paredes)
1 Unit of Spanish Arquebusiers (Pedro Navarro)
2 Units of Rodeleros
1 Unit of Spanish Arquebusiers

Bendetto Pesaro and the Venetians

1 Unit of Foot Knights (Bendetto Pesaro)
2 Units of Italian Infantry
2 Units of Venetian/Balkan Archers
2 Units of Stradiots
1 Unit of Italian Pike

Gisdar Aga's Garrison

1 Janissary Agha (Gisdar Aga)
1 Unit of Janissary Archers
2 Units of Janissary Infantry
2 Units of Azab Archers
1 Unit of Azab Handguns
1 Unit of Azab Infantry

The Ottoman Surprise Attack

1 Unit of Zirhli Nefer (Armoured Retinue leader)
2 Units of Janissary Archers
1 Unit of Janissary Infantry
2 Units of Azab Archers
2 Units of Azab Infantry

The first units of Ottoman defenders sally from the castle gates.

A view from the walls of the Castle of St George. Gisdar Aga and his men can be seen surging out of the gates to meet the oncoming attack.

Ottoman handgunners take up a defensive position in the castle's dry ditch.

The battle developed slowly with the Spanish and Venetians cautiously pushing forward, obviously aware that the Ottoman defenders may have had something up their sleeves. Gisdar Aga and his retinue emerged from the castle gates and took up positions in the fort's dry ditch. One unit of Janissaries pressed on down the rocky slopes and engaged with some of the Venetians, only to be sent back in retreat when the stradiots, no strangers to warfare with the Turks, began to skirmish with them.

The cautious start to the fighting allowed de Cordoba's veterans to push forward with the war wagon. A unit of Venetian infantry was the first to attempt an assault on the castle itself. Throwing back some of the garrison's archers they succeeded in charging into the dry ditch and taking on Gisdar and his Janissary bodyguards. In a surprise turn of events the castle's captain was the first to be slain in the melee, his bodyguards beating a hasty retreat towards the walls! Things were not going well for the Ottomans.

A unit of Janissary archers moves forward to engage with the Venetians.

The Janissaries are pushed back with casualties as the stradiots skirmish with them.

Most of the Ottomans in front of the castle take cover in the ditch as the stradiots ride forward.

A unit of Venetian infantry engages with some of Gisdar's azab archers as they push on in the assault.

The scene in front of the castle gates.

The Venetian infantry charge into the ditch and Gisdar Aga is slain!

As Gisdar fell in front on the gates a roar went up from the plain beneath the castle walls as the Ottoman counter attack was launched. Janissaries and azabs struck the Spanish and Venetian right flank. As the stradiots caught in the charge attempted to ride out of the way the two units of Spanish arquebusiers, one under the command of Pedro Navarro found themselves in the perfect position to unleash a hail of shot into the oncoming Janissaries. With two devastating volleys they instantly took the momentum out of the Ottoman surprise assault.

At the same time the fighting at the dry ditch beneath the castle's walls intensified. The Venetian infantry who had defeated Gisdar continued to fight on against numerous attacks from the Turks whilst the rodeleros pushing up the war wagon came under increasingly heavy attacks from the Ottoman archers and handgunners. The wagon provided them with extra cover but it was not enough to shelter all of them and their casualties mounted.

As the castle's commander falls the Ottoman surprise attack surges onto the field. Unfortunately for the Ottoman attackers they have charged right in front of two units of Spanish arquebusiers!

An overview of the battlefield. The Spanish can be seen pushing the wagon into position whilst the Venetian infantry are still attacking in the ditch. To the left of the picture the Ottoman counter attack can be seen.

The Spanish rodeleros push the armoured wagon into position so that it's gun can be used against the gates.

Having already pushed the rodeleros from their position defending the wagon the defenders then try and stop the Venetian commander, Bendetto Pesaro, and his men from protecting it.

The Spanish veterans succesfully pushed the war wagon, with the artillery mounted inside it, into position in front of the castle gates. Things were certainly going well for the Spanish and Serene Republic. When the rodeleros were finally forced from their perilous position by the constant Ottoman attacks the Venetian Captain, Bendettto Pesaro took on the mantle of protecting the wagon and gun. His Italian and Balkan troops continued to skirmish with the Turks in the ditch.

In the centre of the field the Ottoman counter attack did make some head way. The archers drove Pedro Navarro's arquebusiers back and he finally fled, being unable to reach the walls of St George's Castle and plant the explosive charge his men were carrying. As some of the Ottomans attempted to reach the Spanish and Venetian camp their armoured Janissary leader engaged in a duel with de Cordoba. As the melee swarmed around them both they were parted and the fight was inconclusive.

Balkan light archers in Venetian employ skirmish with the defenders in the castle's ditch.

Despite constant attacks Bendetto Pesaro and his retainers defend the Spanish artillery wagon. Behind him Pedro Navarro is about to flee the field following a sustained attack on his Spanish veterans.

The armoured Janissary captain of the counter attack engages El Gran Capitan in a brief and inconclusive duel.

The Spanish and Venetians have succeeded in keeping the surprise attack in check.

The fighting on the now bloodied slopes in front of the castle continued with the Venetian pikemen trying to force the ditch. They were sent back and Bendetto Pesaro and his bodyguards were left to fend for themselves against the Ottoman defenders. In the centre of the field the counter attack had by now been well and truly checked. A band of jinetes who had been out scouting the island returned to reinforce the camp and help fight off the Turks. A unit of azab archers did make it into the camp only to be chased down by the "Samson of Estremedura",  Diego Garcia de Paredes, who soon sent them fleeing back to the walls of the castle.

The defenders at the gate finally managed to push the Venetian Captain, Bendetto Pesaro, and his men at arms away from the war wagon. Their aim had been to capture or slay Pesaro but he managed to get safely back down the rocky hill where the Venetians and Spanish still had numbers. In a final act of defiance the Ottomans in the dry ditch managed to topple the war wagon and dismount the gun it was protecting. It had been a long and bloody day for both sides.

Back at the castle walls the Venetian pikemen lead an assault up the already bloodied slopes.

Some of the Turkish azabs attempt to get into the Spanish camp and loot it. They are stopped by the "Samson of Estremedura",  Diego Garcia de Paredes. Accompanied by his fellow dismounted men at arms he makes short work of them.

In the bloody melee around the castle ditch the Venetian captain, Bendetto Pesaro, has been pushed back.

The Ottoman's manage to topple the unprotected armoured wagon but they have suffered heavily in the engagement with the loss of nearly all of the counter attacking force and the garrison's captain, Gisdar Aga.

This was a scenario where the various objectives and the element of surprise really helped to create an exciting and challenging game. Both of us were constantly having to decide what objectives to focus on whilst letting the chance to achieve others escape. Until the Ottoman counter attack arrived neither Tom nor I knew which flank it was going to be from and this added a great element of tension. In the end the Ottomans did rather badly only managing to remove Pedro Navarro from the game and toppling the war wagon. The Spanish and Venetians did succeed in getting the war wagon into position although we never clarified whether it had to be there at the end of the game! They were also successful in killing Gisdar, the tough Ottoman captain.

I may have to revisit this campaign as there were other elements such as the fire balls launched down the slopes and the "wolves", or iron hooks, the defenders used that could be fun to incorporate in another scenario. As a final note the actual Castle of St George can be seen here: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d2/9a/c4/d29ac41b8960e744b12e86ee4deaf553.jpg. It is easy to see why it was such a tough nut to crack back in the autumn of 1500.

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War Wagons

September 14, 2020, 1:07 pm

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Building an Ottoman army for the early 1500s I had to include war wagons, especially as they can also be used for much of my 16th century collection. Developed during the Hussite Wars of the early 15th Century, in which they were found to be particularly effective when combined with gunpowder weapons, by the 1500s war wagons were used in many armies, particularly those of Eastern Europe. The war wagons may not have played such a key tactical role in other armies as they did for the Bohemians but they were useful for fortifying camps and providing a mobile defensive structure. The Ottomans had adopted them by the end of the 15th century when they could be deployed with battlefield entrenchments and manned by the Sultan's janissaries when the Ottomans fought pitched battles.

I have used resin models from 1st Corps which look to have been based on Hussite wagons. As I intend to use them for different parts of the collection I am happy to use these as they are and haven't done any conversion work on them. War wagons seem to have taken all manner of forms so I have included a few contemporary images below to give an idea of how they may have looked. The first, probably most well known, image is from the later 15th century, and shows a German fortified camp. It is full of lovely details, such as the chap going to the toilet in the bottom right and the guards at the swing bar gate at the camp entrance on the left. The wagons used to form the camp walls would probably be more accurately described as "wooden shields on wheels", similar to mantlets, although the second wagon ring is clearly of proper wagons.

The next two images show details of war wagons from the "Battle before the gates of Nürnberg" depicting the forces of Kasimir von Brandenburg-Kulmbach in his clash with Nuremberg in 1502. The city deployed forty war wagons for the encounter which can be seen in the image. For more detailed images and a write up of this battle Daniel S has written two excellent blog posts: http://kriegsbuch.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-brandenburg-troops-in-kirchweih-von.html and http://kriegsbuch.blogspot.com/2016/01/nurnberg-foot-in-kirchweih-von.html. The wagons in these images look closer in design to those I have painted up from 1st Corps.

The final image is another late 15th century one which shows a quite different style, more like a wooden "pill box". It is being used as a moveable fortification as the gate for a set of siege works. Although these images are all from the late 15th early 16th centuries war wagons continued to be used throughout the 1500s. Henry VIII took twenty to the Siege of Boulogne in 1544 which fully covered the horses who trotted inside the wagons frames! The Duke of Albany's Scots forces in 1523, which have featured in the games myself and Stuart have played recently, included war wagons covered in steel and brass, carrying men and artillery pieces. Even as late as 1573 they were used by the Dutch in an attempt to relieve those besieged in Haarlem during the Eighty Years' War.

A classic image of war wagons - or perhaps wheeled wooden barricades if you look more closely. From the House Book Master- The Camp outside Neuss, after 1475.

Detail from the "Battle before the gates of Nürnberg" 1502. A line of war wagons can clearly been seen.

The war wagons from the "Battle before the gates of Nürnberg" 1502.

Detail from the Kriegsbuch, Philipp Mönch, 1496. The gateway to the siege works is clearly covered by a "pill box" style war wagon in the centre of the image.

An Ottoman early 16th century wagon fort.

To show how they look with the figures here are two sets of photos. The first set shows the Ottoman battlefield entrenchments. A combination of trenches, stakes, gabions, mantlets and wagons protects the Turkish guns and the janissaries deployed within the fortifications. The wagons are based so that they will fit in with the mantlet and gabion bases that I made for my artillery pieces a while back. This gives a bit of continuity and means they all fit together well, presenting a formidable set of defences.

The second set shows the wagons forming the edge of a briefly paused Imperial marching column which is hastily forming a defensive set up against a river bank. I specifically painted up some janissaries to man the wagons for the Ottomans but for the landsknecht I have crewed the wagons with figures that still remain unbased from the "Great Rebasing of 2015", a laborious event that is still etched in my memory! I think they work well in both set ups and will hopefully be useful in a whole host of wargaming scenarios. They have even got me tempted to attempt some figures for the German Peasants' War but I guess that will have to wait!

A trench, stakes, gabions,mantlets and war wagons make up the temporary fortifications

The Ottoman wagon fortifications from behind.

A 28mm Ottoman wagon fort.

Note the open doors that form the steps into the wagons.

A smaller wagon with an artillery piece mounted.

A Landsknecht temporary camp.

A close up of one of the war wagons.

Some of the detail from the wagon interiors.

The defenders within the wagon line.

Landsknecht crewmen man one of the artillery wagons.

Early Sixteenth Century Ottoman Army

October 1, 2020, 3:58 am

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So here is the Ottoman host so far. Of course there are plenty of things I want to add in the future but the akinji, azabs, janissaries and sipahis that initially form the core of the army are done. It's been a lot of work and required many conversions along with a real mix of figures. The majority of the miniatures are from The Assault Group and Old Glory with Essex, Redoubt Enterprises and Warfare Miniatures also providing some figures here and there.What has made it more of a challenge is that no one manufacturer really covers the Ottomans that well for the period 1450 to around 1550 so there have been a few compromises to try and get the collection looking like a force from the early 16th century. To be honest the Ottoman Empire already covered such a vast area by 1500 that it is not surprising that there isn't a range covering them comprehensively, I am not even sure this would be possible!

I could also add the stradiots to this army, along with more Western men at arms and infantry as the Ottomans called on many of their vassal states to provide troops. Albanian auxiliary contingents could be found in Ottoman armies as early as the late 14th century and a contingent of 1,500 Serbian cavalry served under Mehmed II at the siege of Constantinople in 1453. For this set up I have stuck to the figures that were painted up specifically for this army. The photos are meant to show the traditional battlefield array of the Ottomans from the late 15th into the 16th century. The akinji form a skirmishing line in the front of the host followed by the azabs who play a similar role. Behind them wait the Ottoman guns protected by stakes and wagons and the fearsome janissaries. The Ottoman leader, on some occasions this would be the Sultan himself, is guarded by his household cavalry. The flanks are taken up by the sipahis, of which I have way too few to make this a very accurate depiction!

This is another problem with trying to collect an early Ottoman army, they had so many cavalry! Rhoads Murphy in his "Ottoman Warfare, 1500-1700" states "Throughout the period up the end of the sixteenth century the composition of Ottoman armies (even without their Tartar and other auxiliaries who were accustomed to attend campaign with several spare mounts in tow) was characterised by a three- or even four-to-one ratio of cavalry to infantry". So even without the vassal horsemen that accompanied them the Ottoman armies were already heavily dominated by their various forms of cavalry. The army shown in the photos does indeed include auxiliaries in the form of the Balkan cavalry, I would have needed way more horsemen to even get close to a three-to-one ratio. As I am keen to use the collection for siege games focusing on the janissaries, artillery and other infantry has led to a force that is far more infantry based than it would have been historically.

On the subject of siege games I am keen to do some scenarios using my mid 16th century European collection and the Ottomans in the future, something based around Charles V's conquest of Tunis in 1535 or his disastrous Algiers expedition in 1541. During the Tunis campaign Charles, armed with a lance, rode out into one of the many skirmishes that took place. He even joined his men in the trenches, firing three arquebus shots at the enemy. A skirmish involving the Habsburg Emperor himself would be a lot of fun. With that in mind at some point it would be great to add some Bedouin horsemen as well North African corsairs to be able to field a North African themed army. Adding later sipahis with pistols as well as janissaries with muskets would also take the army to the 1550s and beyond. For now I am going to focus on some other projects but I have a feeling it won't be long before I return to the Sublime Porte! A selection of oddly angled photos of the whole army are below.

Azabs form a screen in front of the Ottoman guns and janssaries.

A view of the army showing the akinji, then the azabs, then the wagons and guns defended by the janissaries and finally the commander defended by his household cavalry.

28mm Ottoman Army.

The war wagons and guns.

A view of the entire army.

A view from the other side, sipahis hold the flank. This army could do with a few more units of such troops to even be close to a historical representation!

A view of the army from behind, the commander and his cavalry are on the centre left and the Ottoman military band can be seen on the right.

The Ottoman Beylerbey in the centre of the host.

A view inside the wagon tabor. The military band is to the left, comprised of mounted kettle drummers.

Another Ottoman commander, one of the last bases completed for this army, it was inspired by Dürer's image of a mounted Ottoman commander carrying a mace, shown in an earlier post.

The janissary agha orders his men into action.

The commander of the azabs.

A view of some of the guns.

28mm Ottoman Turk Army for the 1500s.

Hussar!

November 7, 2020, 9:15 am

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With the Ottoman army looking formidable I have decided to work on another of their opponents, the Hungarians. For many of the troops the Hungarians fielded such as their Gendarmes, Militia, Artillery and Landsknecht I will be able to use my exisiting collection and a simple change of banners and perhaps the addition of a few extra bases to give a Hungarian flavour will be all that is needed. This may not be perfect, especially in terms of the infantry militia but seeing as no manufacturer really makes suitable figures for these it is a compromise I am happy to make.

One essential troop type that will really add a Hungarian flavour to the army are the Hussars. Again we return to Ian Heath and his Armies of the Middle Ages Volume 2. He argues that they were only established as a formal troop type in the reign of Matthias Corvinus in the 15th century after the fall of Serbia, although gusars or usars were a form of Serbian light cavalry in the 1300s. He suggests three possible sources for their name. Firstly that it evolved from Khazar, from the Byzantine Chosarios. Secondly that it comes from the Hungarian huszar meaning every twentieth man. Thirdly, and what seems to be the most likely, that the word comes from gusar or husar meaning a robber. Hungarians organised Hussars in twenty five strong units called turbae. It seems their employment in Eastern Europe by the end of the 15th century was fairly widespread with the Poles, Lithuanians, Austrians and some other Germans also employing them. They would of course go on to become a very famous type of horseman in the following centuries.

Early image of a Hussar, etched onto a sabre scabbard chape c. 1500.

But what did they look like in the first few decades of 1500? The image above, an engraving from the end of a sabre scabbard dated c.1500, is probably the earliest image we have, and one I have tried to model the miniatures on quite closely. We have some good images in the Leonhard Beck picture although it is interesting to note they don't have the characteristic long sleeves in these. Some more images of Hussars from the 1510s appear in the Weisskunig, although sometimes I feel it can be hard to tell if they are meant to represent Hussars or Stradiots in this.

Hussars in action agains the Ottomans, Battle of Krbava Field, Leonhard Beck c.1514-16.

Possible Hussars in the WeissKunig c.1514-16.

Another Hussar image from the Weisskunig.

The most famous images of early Hussars are from the Battle of Orsha painting, depicting a clash in 1514 between the Muscovites and forces of Lithuania and Poland. These are probably a little later in date than the images above as although the battle was in 1514 the painting is thought to date to from a decade or so later. There are lots of excellent representations of Polish and Lithuanian Hussars in this, I have included a couple of close ups from the painting. Finally we have an image of a Hungarian Hussar from the second half of the 16th century, by Jost Amman, which seems to indicate they had changed little since 1500.

A second source that has proven excellent both for working on these Hussars and on my Hungarian "conversion" army in general is Gyozo Somogyi's "The Army of King Matthias 1458-1526"https://www.amazon.co.uk/Matthias-1458-1526-Gyozo-Somogyi-2014-05-04/dp/B01FKUVRR4/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=armies+of+king+matthias&qid=1604313164&sr=8-1. While the title may be misleading, as Matthias Corvinus died in 1490, the book covers the troop types, coats of arms, banners, weapons and fortifications of Hungarian Armies from 1458 right up to Mohacs in 1526, with much of the books art covering the early 16th century. The art work is a little unusual and there is very little text, which is in both English and Hungarian, but it contains a wealth of pictoral detail for Hungarian armies of the early Sixteenth century and has been really useful for this project, once I eventually tracked a copy down. My Hussars are based on some of the details in these images and also on some from Somogyi's book.

Detail from the "Battle of Orsha, 1514" c.1520-1534

Further detail from the "Battle of Orsha, 1514". Note all the different hat styles the Hussars sport.

Hussar - Jost Amman, later 16th Century.

So how have I tried to represent the Hussars of this period on the tabletop? Apart from Old Glory no manufacturer makes these figures for the late 15th early 16th century period. There were a lot of specific features that I wanted to show on the miniatures. The distinctive shields, the lances, some kind of early frogging, the long sleeves and the plumage in the hats.  I wanted at least some of the horses to have the distinctive horse tack where the horses hind is covered. 

The resulting unit is a mixture of Assault Group and Foundry Cossack and Polish figures for the riders and the horses are all from The Assault Group. In order to get the distinctive Hussar horse tack Polish Pancerni horses have been used, with the pistols taken off and the space left tidied up with green stuff. Similarly green stuff has been used to add the sleeves to all the Hussars and to add the hair to many of the Cossack figures as these tend to have bald heads where none of the pictures of the early Hussars show them like this. There are a few head swaps in there with Perry Tudor heads having moustaches added along with plumes. The plumes themselves are all from my bits box, one of the advantages of collecting and modelling for decades is the tendancy to build up a load of useful bits like these.

With regards the hats I decided not to model the figures in any of the "Top Hat" styles as from Somogyi's book the Hungarian Hussars seem to have had hats more typical to that shown in the first, etched, image. Saying that a glance at the above contemporary depictions will show a range of hats, especially the "Battle of Orsha" which on close examination reveals a bewildering variety of head gear worn by the Polish and Lithuanian Hussars. For the shield designs my painting skills arent up to the task to paint some of the beautiful designs these shields had. I have attempted to go with some of the portrayals based on Somogyi's artwork and as always transfers have come to my aid to help make up for the painting. On reflection it may have been better to have gone with the designs shown in the "Battle of Orsha" as I could have managed those.  

The banner is taken directly from "The Army of King Matthias 1458-1526" which is superb for flags for this army. Pete of Pete's Flags, https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/petes_flags/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=, very kindly printed out a couple of flag sheets I put together using the PC for the Hungarians. Hopefully I will be able to show the rest in future posts as this project develops. For the lance pennants again I have gone with the above book and shown them in red and white, which seem to be the key colours of the Hungarian Monarchy in this era. The resulting figures are shown below. 

28mm Hungarian Hussars

Early Hungarian Hussars.

Hussars, late 15th early 16th century.

Hussars converted from Cossack and Polish 17th century figures.

Note the disitinctive Horse Tack on some of the figures, which covers the hind of the horse.

A view from the back showing the long sleeves which were sculpted on with green stuff.

Finally a side shot which shows the horse coverings quite well.

 

Hungarian Horse Archers c.1500

December 1, 2020, 4:21 am

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The second unit for my early 16th century Hungarian army is a group of horse archers. As with the Hussars much of the inspiration for them has been taken from Gyozo Somogyi's "The Army of King Matthias 1458-1526"https://www.amazon.co.uk/Matthias-1458-1526-Gyozo-Somogyi-2014-05-04/dp/B01FKUVRR4/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=armies+of+king+matthias&qid=1604313164&sr=8-1. The superb battle of Orsha painting, which I discussed in last months post, has some great detail of these kind of troops which, while not Hungarians, bear a close similarity to those shown in Gyozo Somogyi's art work. I have included a couple of close ups from the painting below. Other than this I have struggled to find many contemporary images of these light cavalry. The Weisskunig has a great image of a king, I am guessing Maximilian I but frustratingly I am never sure what all of the plates of the Weisskunig are meant to be representing, riding along with Gendarmes and what appear to be Hungarian cavalry. In this image, again shown below, a couple of Hussars can be seen in the top left with what looks to be a glimpse of a horse archer with an extravagantly plumed hat in the top right.

Detail of Eastern European horse archers from the "Battle of Orsha, 1514", c.1520-1534.

Detail of Eastern European horse archers from the "Battle of Orsha, 1514".

Detail from the Weisskunig c.1514-16. Note the horse archer in the top right of the image and the Hussars in the top left of the image behind the Gendarmes.

In an attempt to represent these cavalry I have used a mixture of later 16th early 17th century Hungarian horse archers from the Assault Group, https://theassaultgroup.co.uk/product/hungarian-light-horse-with-bows/, with an Assault Group Cossack Trumpeter and a couple of Foundry Cossacks in the mix as well. To bring these figures closer to the late 15th early 16th century I have added the long sleeves typical of Eastern European dress in these decades to all of the miniatures with green stuff and have modified the head gear of most of them with green stuff or additional plumage. Hopefully this captures the flavour of the art work in Gyozo Somogyi's book and the images shown above.You can probably tell there is going to be a theme developing with the addition of all these extra sleeves on figures in this army!

The resulting unit is shown below. As with last months post the banner, bearing the Virgin Mary and child, is taken directly from "The Army of King Matthias 1458-1526" and was part of the flag sheet I put together for this army that Pete of Pete's Flags, https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/petes_flags/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=, kindly printed for me. The archers fit in really well with the Hussars and when mixed with other figures in my collection should really help to give the army a Hungarian feel. I am not finished with the Orsha painting though, I think the next unit for this army is going to be another crack at the Hussars, this time trying to get them to match those in the painting as closely as possible. 

Hungarian horse archers late 15th early 16th century.

View of the horse archers from behind, note the long sleeves that have been added with green stuff.

28mm Hungarian horse archers.

Early 16th century Hungarian horse archers.

 

Early 16th Century Hussars - "The Battle of Orsha"

January 7, 2021, 12:30 pm

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The new year starts with another Hungarian unit, another take on the hussars. This was only meant to be a small side project, a couple of bespoke units that I could use alongside other parts of my collection as Hungarians. Inevitably the more time I've spent researching this army, the more figures I have wanted to try and convert. The "Battle of Orsha" painting discussed in my last couple of posts has fascinated me. There is an excellent article on it online, http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/artdok/3363/1/Zygulski_The_Battle_of_Orsha_1979.pdf which I would recommend. It divides the painting up into over 50 sections and then discusses each in detail. The appendices at the end are also an invaluable tool for anyone trying to model some of the troops in the image. 

The artist's depiction of the hussars has particularly caught my attention and I've converted some of the Perry Miniatures stradiots into a second unit. I have seen this done before, https://tabletopcommander.blogspot.com/2016/10/hungarian-hussars-finished-unit.html, to great effect and was keen to have ago at this, trying to match the figures as closely to the painting as possible. This hasn't been entirely achievable and some of the details have been compromised. The horses don't have the coverings depicted in the image and their tails are tied in the Turkish fashion on the miniatures, which is not common in the painting. The hussar's coats or dolmans on the miniatures also lack the detailed frogging of many of those in the painting.

But there have been lots of details that is has been possible to model. Firstly those distinctive "top hats" with the metallic bands around them and the plume holders have been great fun to reproduce on the miniatures. Small strips of paper have formed the bands with green stuff being used to model the top of the hats so that they get wider as they get taller. The ends of scabbards from the Perry plastic Wars of the Roses kits have then been used to form the plume holders themselves. This took a while but has produced some great results. I have also included a Dürer image below (is a Camisado post complete without one?) which shows what must have been deemed the typical Hungarian attire in the early 16th century. One of these Hungarian hats with a plume is clearly at the top of the "trophy" being carried. This is important as we don't know exactly what nationality the hussars depicted in the painting are meant to be, those in the painting may well have been mercenaries as they were developed in Hungary in the 15th century and the painting depicts them in a Polish/Lithuanian army. 

Albrecht Dürer, sketch of horseman carrying a Hungarian war trophy for Maximilian's triumph, 1518.

Detail from the "Battle of Orsha, 1514" c.1520-1534 showing a hussar with a buzdygan mace.

Further detail showing a hussar horse with a dyed mane and tail.

The captain of the unit is carrying a buzdygang mace typical of those used in Eastern Europe at this time. In the first detail from the painting, shown above, a hussar is depicted wielding one of these maces in battle and in other parts of the painting hussars are shown with the buzdygang mace tucked into their belts. He also rides a white steed with a dyed mane and tail. The famed Polish hussars of the 17th century, of which these are the precursor, were known to sometimes dye their horses so it was great to find this early example in the painting and be able to represent it on the tabletop. The finished captain can be seen in the photo below.

Hussar captain holding a buzdygan mace and riding a horse with a dyed mane and tail.

Detail from "The Battle of Orsha" showing a wealthy hussar captain with an ermine cloak and saddle signal drums.

Other details I wanted to represent were the saddle signal drums shown being carried by a hussar captain. The section of the painting above depicts a wealthy hussar in an ermine lined cloak. The signal drums were used to give commands on the battlefield. This hussar's dress and the drums clearly mark him out as a leader. These small drums were obvioulsy a feature of the light horsemen of Eastern Europe as the stradiots were known to use them. In the 1506 print of the Battle of Fornovo, 1495, the stradiot in the bottom left of the image, https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4577/38749523692_d2dd192254_o.jpg, carries one of these saddle drums. They were very easy to reproduce in miniature. The drums were taken off some 15mm figures and then added to the saddle with the gaps filled in with green stuff. Now I wish I had added them to a couple of my stradiots back when I painted them up! 

Hussar captain with saddle signal drums.

The hussar hats in green and burgundy.

Apart from one of the captains and the standard bearer, all of the hussars carry lances with the St George's cross as in the original image. I have also tried to stick to a palette that only uses those colours for the clothing and hats that are seen in the painting and have attempted to match the shields as closely as possible. Copying the shields also meant I didn't have to attempt loads of complex shield designs which I was more than happy to avoid! You may notice that some of the Perry stradiot miniatures used are orginally cast with padded armour. This was easy to change, the padded armour has simply been smoothed over with green stuff and I have then added long loosely worn sleeves to the backs of the models, a technique used on lots of the miniatures in my last three blog posts.

When I painted the first unit of hussars I failed to appreciate how heavily ornamented the hussar scabbards were. From the painting it is clear that many were almost entirely covered in metal and gilt placques. To reflect this the scabbards for this unit have been painted as entirely metallic in either silver, bronze or gold. This also helps to further differentiate them from looking like stradiots. 

The finished unit is below, along with a couple of pictures showing both of the hussar units I have completed. Two quite different attempts on the same theme. Which do you prefer and do you think the converted Perry figures really look that different from the stradiots they originally portrayed? I am not finished with the "Battle of Orsha" painting yet, there are at least two other sections that I want to try and recreate. As you can tell I have really gone down the rabbit hole on this one!

16th century Hungarian hussars.

28mm Early 16th century hussars.

Perry Miniatures stradiots converted into hussars.

The hussars from the back - note the long sleeves that have been added to some of the miniatures with green stuff.

Both units of hussars together.

28mm Hungarian hussars c.1520

 

Cerignola, 1503

January 20, 2021, 4:06 pm

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After focusing on the forces of the Ottomans and Hungarians in the past months I thought it was time to revisit the Italian Wars. Using the ever evolving Renaissance Rampant rules that I have developed with Stuart I played through a classic Italian Wars battle and famous victory for El Gran Capitan, Gonzalo de Cordoba. If you have read this blog for a while you will know I am particularly fascinated by the career of El Gran Capitan and his Spanish forces in the war for Naples. This is also a battle that James Roach  put on a spectacular demonstration of a few years back http://olicanalad.blogspot.com/2017/10/derby-worlds-cerignola-1503.html which served as great inspiration.

The armies from above, starting at the top right and going clockwise we have: Prospero Colonna and the Spanish cavalry, the Spanish infantry and landsknecht auxilliaries with Gonzalo de Cordoba and his men at arms in support and then the Spanish left flank held by jinetes. On the French side Yves d'Alegre his gendarmes and the French light horse, then the French infantry under Gaspard de Coligny and the Swiss under Tambien Chandieu and finally in the top left are Louis d'Armagnac, Duke of Nemours and Louis D'Ars and the rest of the French heavy horse.

Cerignola, 28 April 1503

Louis XII King of France and Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain agreed the Treaty of Granada on 11 November 1500. Although Louis XII would be the Neopolitan monarch, the Spanish King and Queen, having already been involved in the war for Naples in the 1490s, were allowed a share in the Southern Italian Kingdom, a bargaining chip Louis hoped would allow him to hold onto Milan in the north without pressure from Spain to his western borders. With hindsight it looks as though this treaty was doomed to failure as the ill defined borders between Spanish and French territory soon led to open warfare. 

Following his earlier defeat in Italy, http://camisado1500s.blogspot.com/2019/10/seminara-1495.html, and a campaign against the Ottomans in the Mediterranean, http://camisado1500s.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-siege-of-castle-of-st-george.html , Gonzalo de Cordoba, El Gran Capitan, returned to Naples having learnt from his past mistakes. He knew facing the French in the open with their heavy cavalry and fierce Swiss mercenaries would lead him to another defeat. Taking advantage of the skills his Spanish troops had learnt in the long war in Granada de Cordoba fought a guerrilla style campaign and played for time. Being outnumbered by the French forces in the peninsula the Spanish retreated to Barletta. De Cordoba refused to give in, continuing to launch raids such as the assault on Ruvo in February 1503, http://camisado1500s.blogspot.com/2014/09/ruvo-1503.html, until he was sufficiently reinforced by 2,000 landsknecht sent by Ferdinand's ally Maximilian I. 

Feeling confident that he now had an army that could face the French in pitched battle de Cordoba led his army out of Barletta. The French under Louis d'Armagnac, Duke of Nemours, took the bait and marched to confront them. El Gran Capitan earnt his sobriquet by wiseley choosing a position at Cerignola that he could entrench and roughly fortify in order to maximise the power of his arquebusiers and artillery and lure the French into attacking him. The French arrived on the heels of the Spanish army but were prevented from reconnoitring de Cordoba's position by the skirmishing of the Spanish jinetes. A row developed between the French captains over whether to attack immediately or rest and wait until morning. Nemours wanted to wait until his artillery had caught up with the rest of the army whilst others, such as Yves D'Alegre and the commander of the Swiss, Tambien Chandieu, ordered for an immediate attack. Assuming a quick victory was within their grasp the more bellicose voices in the army won the arguement and a hasty attack was launched. De Cordoba's decisive victory over them using entrenchments and arquesbusiers would become a key event in the Italian Wars and subsequent military history.

A view from the Spanish right flank under the condottiere captain Prospero Colonna's command.

A view from the other end of the field with Yves D'Alegre and the French light horse, stradiots and mounted crossbowmen on the left and Spanish jinetes on the right.

The Spanish centre is held by landsknecht auxilliaries sent by Ferdinand of Aragon's ally Maximilian I and commanded by Fabricio Zamudio. They are flanked by Spanish arquebusiers under Diego Garcia de Paredes, the "Samson of Estremedura", with El Gran Capitan, Gonzalo de Cordoba and his men at arms in reserve.

The Spanish infantry defending the widened ditch.

The French general Louis d'Armagnac, Duke of Nemours and Louis D'Ars hold the French right flank.

The reisläufer under Tambien the seigneur de Chandieu.

French pike and Gascon crossbowmen under the eagle banner of Gaspard de Coligny.

The French and Spanish infantry face each other across the trench.

The Armies

Based on what can be discerned from accounts of the battle the forces I used in the game are set out below. On the table top I really wanted to focus on the visual appeal of the game so you will notice that some of the units fielded are fairly large compared to what I normally game with. This didn't have much  of on an impact on the rules, and this didn't matter anyway as I was playing through a historical battle and taking command of both forces. Anyone who has played Lion Rampant will know that the forces take on a life of their own once the action starts anyway which is frustrating and fun in equal measure for anyone trying to control them.

In terms of the rules I divided both armies into a Cavalry and Infantry retinue while for the deployment I tried to follow historical accounts and create the "battles" deployed by de Cordoba and Nemours.

The French 

Cavalry

Louis d'Armagnac, Duke of Nemours

and Louis D'Ars in command of the French right

2 Units of Gendarmes (Louis d'Armagnac, Duke of Nemours

and Louis D'Ars )

1 Unit of Men at Arms

1 Unit of Ordonnance Archers with Demi lance

Yves d'Alegre and the French left

1 Unit of Gendarmes (Yves d'Alegre) 

1 Unit of Ordonnance Archers with Demi lance

1 Unit of Mounted Crossbowmen

1 Unit of Stradiots

Infantry

Tambien seigneur de Chandieu and

Gaspard de Coligny in the French centre

2 Units of Swiss Pike

1 Unit of Swiss Arquebusiers

1 Unit of French Pike

2 Units of Gascon Crossbowmen

 The Spanish

Cavalry

Prospero Colonna on the Spanish right

1 Unit of Men at Arms (Prospero Colonna)
1 Unit of Men at Arms

1 Unit of Jinetes

The Spanish left

1 Unit of Jinetes

Infanty in the Spanish centre

Fabricio Zamudio and Diego Garcia de Paredes, the "Samson of Estremedura"

2 Units of Landsknecht Pike

4 Units of Spanish Arquebusiers    

1 Unit of Spanish Pike 

2 Units of Rodeleros

The Spanish reserve, behind the infantry under Gonzalo de Cordoba and Pedro Navarro

1 Unit of Men at Arms (Gonzalo de Cordoba)
1 Gun (Pedro Navarro)

From above you will be able to see that the forces fielded were fairly small, although lots of figures were deployed for each unit. This meant that I could play through a large battle fairly quickly as although the units look large they could be "broken" quickly once the game started. As always the best way to follow the game is through the photo captions.

Unlike the historical battle the attack starts with D'Alegre's stradiots and mounted crossbowmen leading the assault along with Coligny's Gascon crossbowmen.

Under a rain of crossbow bolts some of the Spanish arquebusiers are forced back.

The problem with refighting this battle is once you know the ditch is in front of the Spanish lines it is very difficult to play it as it was with the French gendarmes and the Swiss heading straight into a headlong assault on the Spanish position. In this refight the game started with the French light horse under D'Alegre and the Gascon crossbowmen launching a "softening up" attack on the Spanish lines. This proved remarkably successful. The jinetes on the Spanish left flank were quickly chased off by the stradiots while the mounted crossbowmen and Gascons forced some of the rodeleros and Spanish pike to fall back. To counter this the Spanish arquebusiers moved forward, still under the cover of the widened ditch.

Once the Spanish arquebusiers were in range a fierce firefight developed but the fact that the Spanish were in good cover meant that the French had to push forward to avoid taking further casualties at their hands. At the far end of the field the Duke of Nemours gendarmes were attacked by skirmishing jinetes. Unbelievably they scored a lucky hit and managed to bring the French general down! While he may have not met his end at the hands of an arquebusier he was still obviously fated to fall early on in this refight.

As the Spanish jinetes on de Cordoba's right flank are seen off the Spanish arquebusiers enter the ditch in an attempt to draw in the French. More stradiots have arrived as French reinforcements on the French right flank.

A fierce fire fight has developed between the Gascons and Spanish shot.

A view of the fighting as it develops.

The Spanish jinetes on the Spanish right flank begin to engage some of the French heavy horse.

The Spanish left flank is being beaten back.

During a skirmish attack by Spanish jinetes, the French general Louis d'Armagnac, Duke of Nemours is slain!

Untroubled by the fact that their general had been slain the French infantry and light horse pressed home their attack on the Spanish centre. Leading the landsknecht in a counter attack across the ditch Fabricio Zamudio was slain by the Gascons. On the French left the heavy cavalry now moved into action. The jinetes who had killed Nemours were unable to evade a furious charge by the gendarmes and were quickly defeated. This in turn put some of the French heavy horse within range of the Spanish shot who opened fire on them. In an effort to avoid this fire and press home the assault the gendarmes rode into the Spanish men at arms who were waiting behind the fortifications. A chaotic cavalry melee developed and the already disordered French cavalry were defeated in the difficult terrain.

A full on attack is launched on the Spanish infantry and landsknecht in the centre.

In revenge for the death of their captain, the Duke of Nemours retinue charge down the jinetes.

As the landsknecht launch a counter attack on the Gascons, their captain, Fabricio Zamudio, is slain.

As Diego Garcia de Paredes arquebusiers begin to fire murderous volleys into the reisläufer, they are forced to attack the ditch.

A view from above with the battle in full swing.

The landsknecht briefly force the French assault back...

... only to be forced back by the weight of French numbers.

A chaotic cavalry melee has developed between the Spanish men at arms and disorganised French gendarmes.

The Spanish left flank has been completely turned.

A view of the French attack on the ditch.

As the Swiss attempt to force the ditch their numbers are thinned by the Spanish arquebusiers.

Having lost their skirmishing arquebusiers to the Spanish guns the Swiss launched a charge on the Spanish position. They reached the ditch but suffered terrible casualties as this part of the Spanish position had not been involved in the duel with the Gascons and light horse. The Swiss were effectively stopped, causing little damage to the Spanish lines. This was to no avail as although the reisläufer had been checked by now the stradiots and Gascons were within the Spanish defences having broken through on the Spanish left.

On the Spanish right flank Prosepro Colonna lead his troops into Louis D'Ars gendarmes, defeating them and then rolling up the French heavy cavalry wing. This allowed de Cordoba and Colonna to escape with the Spanish men at arms in relatively good order, in fact not a single heavy cavalry unit had been lost. For the Spanish and landsknecht infantry it was a different matter. Yves D'Alegre and his cavalry swept into the Spanish position while Gaspard de Coligny's French infantry were also in relatively good shape. As the evening drew in some of the French guns began to arrive and it was clear that the field was theirs.

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The Spanish have some luck on their right flank where Prospero Colonna leads a counter attack that pushes Louis D'Ars and his gendarmes back.

The seigneur de Chandieus reisläufer force a way across the ditch despite suffering terrible casualties.

The Spanish and landsknecht in the centre have been defeated with only the Spanish cavalry on their right flank escaping undefeated. As the light fails some of the French guns begin to arrive but they are not needed.

 This was a fascinating battle to refight and was not as one sided as I thought it was going to be, especially as once the surprise element of the ditch was removed it gave the French more options as to how to tackle the Spanish defences. With the French light horse and Gascons attacking first it really changed the nature of the fight, helped a lot by the chaotic nature of the rules! Having said that the Spanish shot behind and in the ditch were still really formidable and did manage to effectively wipe out the Swiss with them barely getting into any combat. With a few tweaks and special rules, such as the Spanish powder wagon blowing up as is reported in some accounts, this could be a game to visit again in the future.

Pieve di Cadore, 1508

February 1, 2021, 2:46 am

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Following on from my Cerignola refight I was keen to try another Italian Wars battle. So here we have Pieve di Cadore (also Pieve de Cadore or Cadore). I liked the idea of an Italian Wars battle in the snow and the fact I could use my landsknecht and Venetians. It didn't really go to plan for a couple of reasons. Firstly whilst I have chosen some photos for this write up about 90% of them were unusable. The white background just made the figures too dark and it didn't work at all. Secondly when I played through the game it went even better for the Venetians than the historical battle! A total rout of the Germans with them never clashing with the main body of Venetian infantry who were blocking their escape. As a result the write up of the actual game is fairly brief.

Pieve de Cadore, 1508

On 29th April 1507 the French king Louis XII entered Genoa in triumph having threatened it with a powerful army. With Louis also being the ruler of Milan the French were now dominant in northern Italy. This was not to the liking of Maximilian I, nominal ruler of the Hoy Roman Empire, who did not want the French closing in on yet another of his borders. In an Imperial diet at Constance Maximilian attempted to raise the funds to invade Italy, assert his Imperial rights and be crowned Emperor. The funds for 12,000 men were raised but Maximilian knew this was not enough to challenge the French.

Not wishing to pass up the opportunity of the money raised Maximilian changed his target from the French to the Venetians. He used the fact they had refused to ally with him against France as well as repeatedly refusing him passage through their territory as a pretext for a war which he hoped would expand the Habsburg territories. In February 1508 his troops began to invade Venetian territory. Despite the snow a diversionary force of around 4,000 German infantry under Paul Sixt I von Trautson invaded the Cadore region of the Dolomites. On hearing reports of this the Condottiere Captain Bartolomeo d'Alviano with a few hundred men at arms and light cavalry and a couple of thousand infantry under Pietro Monte moved over the mountain passes in an attempt to cut this force off.

On 2 March, as the Venetians drew near, the Germans attempted to retreat, adopting a formation with their baggage and camp followers in the centre of an infantry square. D'Alviano's light cavalry,  consisting of mounted crossbowmen and stradiots, held up the Germans, allowing Pietro Monte's infantry to take up a position at a dry stream bed outside Pieve di Cadore and block the German retreat. Sixt von Trautson was slain, reputedly in a duel with Rinieri della Sassetta a Venetian standard bearer (although confusingly I have also read that he was beheaded shortly after the battle) and two thirds of his force failed to escape. A grateful Venetian republic richly rewarded d'Alviano, giving him some of the captured German artillery pieces. Maximilian's main force, heading for Verona, was blocked by d'Alviano's cousin, Niccolo Orsini da Pitigliano and the Habsburg ruler was forced into a humiliating retreat.

The starting deployment of the armies. In the top left hand corner are the stradiots and mounted crossbowmen of the Venetian army. Along from them is the Venetian general, Bartolomeo d'Alviano, and his heavy cavalry followed by Pietro Monte and the infantry. In the top right hand corner are more heavy cavalry under Carlo Malatesta and more stradiots. In the foreground Paul Sixt I von Trautson and his German force surround their baggage train in preparation for an attempt to break out of the Venetian snare.

The game was played as always using adapted Renaissance Rampant rules and as in the last post the units deployed were fairly large to give the impression of a pitched battle. The aims of the two armies were simple with the Germans having to exit the table from the Venetian table edge and the Venetians having to stop as many of them as possible. All the wagons and camp followers behind the landsknecht were simply table dressing, representing the camp followers the army formed a square around to protect. They had no significance in the rules. The armies used were as follows:

Sixt von Trautson's Germans

1 Unit of Foot Knights (Sixt von Trautson)

4 Units of Landsknecht Pike

3 Units of Landsknecht Shot

2 Units of Landsknecht Halberdiers

Bartolomeo d'Alviano's Venetians

1 Unit of Men at Arms (Bartolomeo d'Alviano) 

1 Unit of Men at Arms (Carlo Malatesta)

2 Units of Stradiots

1 Unit of Mounted Crossbowmen

1 Unit of Italian Pike (Pietro Monte)
1 Unit of Italian Pike

2 Units of Italian Infantry 

1 Unit of Italian Shot

1 Unit of Italian Crossbowmen

A view of the Venetian infantry under Pietro Monte.

The Venetian right flank, comprised of mounted crossbowmen and stradiots.

The Venetian general, the condottiere captain Bartolomeo d'Alviano.

Sixt I von Trautson's Germans surround the baggage train. The force comprises pike, halberdiers and arquebusiers.

Von Trautson's force.

The German troops begin their attempt to break out of the Venetian blockade.

As mentioned above this turned out to be a disaster for the Germans. Initially they had an early success, sending one of the stradiot units that came out to meet them fleeing after one volley of shot from a unit of landsknecht arquebusiers. This turned out to be the only Venetian unit they would destroy. As the rest of the Venetian light horse rode around the German left flank and Pietro Monte's arquebusiers and crossbowmen took up position in the frozen stream the oncoming German infantry suffered. Initially the German arquebusiers fired back at the Venetians but all of the German shot were soon routed leaving the rest of their infantry to face a steady rain of missiles from the Italian ranks.

The Germans were already disordered by the time they reached the frozen stream. There were brief clashes with the Italian crossbowmen and arquebusiers holding the steam. The Italians put up a heroic defence and although the crossbowmen were pushed back Von Trautson's men could not force a way across.  Morale amongst them had fallen to such a level that when Von Trautson himself fell to the shot of an arquebusier the whole German force crumbled and began to melt away into the snow with the Venetian cavalry only too willing to chase them down.

The opening stages of the battle. The Venetian arquebusiers and crossbowmen have moved into the dried (or possibly frozen) stream bed whilst their light cavalry begin to flank the Imperialist column.

A view from the baggage train as they trudge through the snow.

The front pike blocks prepare to engage. Von Trautson is just behind them under the white Habsburg banner in the foreground.

The German force comes under attack from the Venetian shot and crossbowmen.

For a moment it looks like battle will be joined all along the front. In the top left a block of pikemen can be seen heading towards the stradiots and mounted crossbowmen in an attempt to stop them harassing the column.

Close quarter fighting breaks out as the Germans reach the stream.

The Venetian arquebusiers put up an epic defence in the stream pouring shot into the advancing Germans and preventing them from crossing the ditch.

The Venetian crossbowmen also put up a heroic defence in the stream fighting off repeated attacks.

Von Trautson's forces have faltered and failed to cross the stream and even engage with the Pietro Monte's pike and swordsmen who are waiting for them.

Von Trautson is shot dead by the arquebusiers as he attempts to lead his men in the assault.

With their commander dead the German force crumbles and flees. The Venetian light horse are not far behind them.

A view from the panicked baggage train as the German army crumbles and flees.

 As you can see it turned out to be a very one sided engagement. I think most wargamers have had these games, often more times than they would care to remember! It was interesting to see the armies deployed in the snow terrain (also known as a white sheet on the table) and this could still be a interesting battle to refight. I think the German force would need some more missile units to give them more of a chance. Von Trautson had some artillery, as we know d'Alviano was awarded some of it after the battle, but I had imagined that would have been in the baggage train rather than being deployed for the engagement. Maybe a couple of light guns, and some better dice rolls, would have given them a greater chance at breaking out of the Venetian trap.

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Captains and Kettle Drums

March 1, 2021, 9:45 am

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The eastern European theme continues with a couple of command bases and some mounted musicians, all of which will bring a more Hungarian flavour to the wargames table. The first base, with a captain in full harness and wearing a hairnet is inspired by one of the  Hungarian captains seen in the Weisskunig, shown below.  The figures are a mix of converted Assault Group and Steel Fist miniatures. The Captain has the hairnet head from the Warlord Games Plastic Landsknecht set. With the addition of a moustache he really looks the part. The drummer is a 17th century Polish Haiduk miniature with the, now ubiquitous, long loose sleeves added in green stuff and long hair sculpted on to bring him more into the early 16th century. As with the Hussars for this army, Gyozo Somogyi's "The Army of King Matthias 1458-1526"  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Matthias-1458-1526-Gyozo-Somogyi-2014-05-04/dp/B01FKUVRR4/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=armies+of+king+matthias&qid=1604313164&sr=8-1 has been a great source of inspiration for these bases. The photos below show the first command base added to a couple of my more generic early 16th century pike and crossbow units. 

A Hungarian Infantry command base.

Detail of a Hungarian Captain from Weisskunig c.1516, note the hairnet worn by the captain with the mail and sabre.

A unit of Hungarian pike for the early 16th century.

Hungarian crossbowmen, early 1500s.

The second command base is a mix of old Citadel Miniatures, Assault Group Haiduks and a Wargames Foundry priest. All, apart from the priest, have had some conversion work done on them to make them more suitable as Hungarians for the 1500s. Below are some pics of them leading a heavy infantry unit and some crossbowmen. I am working on specialist infantry for the Hungarians at the moment but I also like the idea of being able to use the generic stuff I already have. These two bases, when put at the forefront of units, help to change the look of them and give them a more eastern European character.

A Hungarian command base with a drummer, piper and priest.

Hungarian Captain, early 16th century.

Hungarian early 16th century infantry.

Hungarian crossbowmen.

German Mounted musicians, Hans Leonhard Schäufelein 1537.

Detail from the "Battle of Orsha" showing mounted musicians in German fashion.

The "Battle of Orsha" painting is still serving as a great source of inspiration. Next up is a mounted band based on the one in the painting and shown in the detail above. This will be a really useful addition to the collection as the Imperialists were also fond of their mounted musicians, as demonstrated by the Hans Leonhard Schäufelein image above from 1537, so these chaps would be great for later Italian Wars games. For my base the two riders are both converted Wargames Foundry figures and the drums are from Essex and covered with green stuff in an attempt to match the red cloth on those in the Orsha image.

The final kettle drummer was inspired by an illustration in Gyozo Somogyi's book. He is a converted Polish drummer from The Assault Group. I have added the cloth covering to the drums and painted on the Hungarian colours to match those in the illustration. The Hungarian "conversion army" is really starting to shape up. Hopefully the specialist infantry to join them will be completed in the next couple of months.

Mounted kettle drummer and trumpeter, with a Hungarian mounted kettle drummer in the background.

Mounted musicians in German fashion.

Mounted Hungarian kettle drummer.

 

Bohemian Infantry

April 19, 2021, 2:55 pm

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Following on from the command groups in my last post here are some infantry for the Hungarian army. While researching this army it has become clear that pavisiers were still an important troop type in Hungarian forces, certainly up until Mohacs in 1526. In his in depth study of the Hungarian military, "From Nicopolis to Mohács - A History of Ottoman-Hungarian Warfare, 1389-1526", Tamás Pálosfalvi states when talking about the army that was defeated at Mohacs: "Secondly, the army contained a considerable number of infantry forces, probably around 10,000. Most of these were recruited in the other Jagiellonian lands, primarily Bohemia and Moravia, the rest raised by the Hungarian lords and nobility but presumably from the same pool of mercenaries. The majority of these footmen, however, were not Swiss- or Landsknecht-type infantry armed with pikes and halberds, but handgunners (commonly referred to as pixidarii in Latin sources and scopetieri in Italian texts) protected by a considerably smaller number of pikemen and pavesiers". Similary Martyn Rady, in his essay "Jagello Hungary", when discussing the preparations earlier on in the campaign states "The muster of troops undertaken in Buda in July 1526, in readiness for the Mohacs campaign, indicates 2,500 hussars and 1,200 heavy cavalry - itself an interesting comment on the relative decline of the heavy cavalry - but then goes on to relate that overall there were 4,000 horse and 3,000 foot, mainly comprising harquebusiers and pikemen. Many of the footsoldiers were equipped with great shields and pavises that were 'as big as a man' as well as with iron-tipped pikes. Most of these were doubtless mercenaries, but we know that nobles also fought as foot soldiers". It was these pavise armed troops that I was keen to recreate for my collection. The issue was what did they look like?

Detail of pavisiers marching into action from the "Battle of Orsha, 1514" painting, c.1520-1534.

Another detail from the "Battle of Orsha, 1514" this time showing the same pavisiers in action with arquebusiers behind them.

Yet again the "Battle of Orsha" painting provided me with inspiration for these figures with its depictions of armoured pavisiers, shown above. This set me on a search for other examples of these troops and it turns out there are some great images of them. Another excellent source is Maximilian's Triumphal Arch, produced in 1515 but printed a few years later. Three of the plates in the arch, shown below, depict Bohemian style infantry both in Maximilian's employ and as his opponents. In the "Expulsion of the Hungarians from Lower Austria" woodcut, illustrating his campaign of 1490, they are depicted fighting alongside Landsknecht. In the image of Maximilian conversing in seven languages some of his soldiers are cleary armed in this style, in fact none of the infantry he is in coversation with in this image seem to be depicted in the classic Landsknecht dress. The Wenzenbach plate from the Triumphal Arch has a superb image of the pavise armed infantry, the front ranks of which are all in deep "German" sallets with bevors protecting their faces. It is interesting to compare this Wenzenbach image with one from a decade or so earlier, also shown below, where the Bohemians in the employ of Ruprecht of the Palatinate are depicted in much lighter armour.

"The Expulsion of the Hungarians from Lower Austria", from The Triumphal Arch of Maximilian I - 1515–17 - School of Albrecht Dürer.

Maximilian conversing in seven languages, from The Triumphal Arch. Note the large shields and polearms carried by two of the infantrymen on the left.

Later depicition of Wenzenbach from Maximilian's Triumphal Arch. Is that perhaps a throwing axe shown behind the second pavisier on the right?

Detail from a contemporary image of The Battle of Wenzenbach 1504.

A final image of interest is Nikolaus Meldemann's 1529 depiction of a Bohemian Hauptman and his bodyguards, both carrying ahlspiess. From all of these images it is clear that all manner of polearms were carried by these infantrymen, but the ahlspiess seems to have been something of a speciality of theirs. A dusack, a sword with a single edged blade perhaps similar to a falchion, was one of their disctinct weapons which can be seen being carried by one of the bodyguards below. The Bohemians were also known for using throwing axes. If you look carefully at the depicition of Wenzenbach from Maximilian's Triumphal Arch it looks like one of the figures behind the four pavisiers is indeed about to throw a short hafted axe.

Bohemian Hauptman and bodyguards with ahlspiess, Nikolaus Meldemann 1529.

The Bohemian infantry.

The problem was how to build units of these infantry for the wargames table?  No manufacturer makes these specific troops.  Modelling them on the images discussed I was keen to have the troops armed with a wide variety of polearms as well as the pavises. It does seem like some of these troops may have only carried the pavise, and perhaps a sidearm, but in an attempt to replicate the troops shown in the above images I wanted them armed with glaives, ahlspiess, spears and halberds. I decided to use a couple of different standing pikemen and command packs from The Assault Groups Italian and Spanish early Renaissance range. Once their heads were swapped with Perry plastic sallets and they were armed with a whole variety of polearms from various manufacturers I felt they would look the part. I worked on a few sample figures which turned out well before committing to building the whole force.

Another big issue was how to do the pavises. Anyone who has read this blog for a while will no I loathe painting shields and heraldic details of any kind! As part of their Hussite range 1st Corps make some lovely pavises and Little Big Men studios make some incredibly detailed transfers to go with them. Initially I wasn't keen to use these as I wanted specifically Hungarian infantry for the army and I also felt that many of the designs were simply too "Hussite" or "Taborite" to fit in. As I looked further into the Hungarian army of this period it became clear that Bohemians fought in their thousands in the army, the Jagiellonian monarchs also being Kings of Bohemia. It is clear that they still followed their Hussite faith, to such an extent that when Ruprecht of the Palatinate hired an army of Bohemian mercenaries to face Maximilian in the Landshut War of Succession, 1503-1505,  Maximilian was able to use this as a pretext to claim money from the Papacy and offer Crusading indulgences to those taking part! Based on this I have used the Hussite transfers, but have still tried to put the more overtly Hussite ones in the rear rank.

The decision to have two ranks of pavises was based on a few things. It makes the line look really solid and also gives some depth, similar to the contemporary images. I also wanted to be able to use the figures either with handgunners and crossbowen behind them, as shown in the photos, but also possibly in units of their own, maybe for assaulting fortified positions as they seem to be doing in "The Expulsion of the Hungarians from Lower Austria" woodcut shown above. When placed in file the double ranks also give an effective marching look, similar to one of the depictions of the pavisiers in the Orsha painting.

They are shown below in the service of Hungary with my generic pikemen, arquebusiers and crossbowmen placed behind them. The project involved 72 miniatures, pavises and transfers. They were armed with 72 polearms, 5 of which used a plastic rondel from the Perry plastic Wars of the Roses kits to turn a simple spear into an ahlspiess. Of the 72 miniatures used 63 had headswaps to make them more suitable as Bohemian infantry, with lots of sallets and kettle hats being used. This means that to make 12 bases of the pavisiers required 356 components. Not a project I would undertake again lightly! They may not be perfect, I have nagging worries that too many French and English style sallets were used and that the transfers may be a little too early but as with my Ottomans I have had to make a few compromises as no manufacturer makes a specific range for early 16th century Hungarians or Bohemians. Despite this I like the overall solid look they give and the headgear really helps to get the right feel for the unit. The faces of nearly all the front rank of infantry are covered matching the Triumphal Arch woodcuts.

Lots of photos of them are below. Not only are they useful for the Hungarian army but they can also be used for the Landshut War of Succession to face my early Landsknecht and Men at Arms. Now to get planning a refight of Wenzenbach...

28mm Bohemian Infantry for the early 16th century.

Another unit of Bohemian infantry.

Bohemians in Hungarian service.

The pikemen wait behind the pavisiers and arquebusiers.

A wall of pavises.

The double ranking of the pavisiers means that they can be put into a marching formation as above. This reminds me of the image of the pavisiers arriving on the battlefield in the Orsha painting.

Detail of a heavily armoured Bohemian with a much lighter armed comrade forming the second rank.

A view of one of the units from the rear showing the lighter armed infantry.

Another view of units from behind showing the arquebusiers at the ready.

Infantry armed with pavises shield the arquebusiers and crossbowmen.

The solid ranks of pavisiers.

 

Early 16th Century Hungarians and 10 years of Camisado

May 11, 2021, 1:04 am

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Here are the early 16th century Hungarians I have been working on for the past few months. The photos of this army make a fitting post for the 10 year anniversary of the blog as they include figures that I have only just finished working on alongside figures from the first Camisado post in 2011, http://camisado1500s.blogspot.com/2011/05/descent-into-italy.html. When I started the blog I was wondering if I could manage at least one post a month for a decade and he we are 10 years later. I guess blogging is already obsolete as a popular form of media but there are still endless scenarios to game and units to try and recreate so hopefully a few posts still to come.

The army is a combination of  The Assault Group, Perry, Steel Fist, Pro Gloria (now sold by Warlord), Eureka, Wargames Foundry and Old Glory figures although there are a few other manufacturers here and there. The pavise infantry and hussars have been heavily converted but many of the other units have also had head swaps or other changes. It's an interesting army combining some of the early 16th Century favourites, such as the landsknecht and gendarmes, with more unique and unsual troop types such as the Bohemian infantry, Hussars, Horse Archers and Balkan auxiliary cavalry. Hopefully one day a figure manufacturer will make a dedicated range. Of course there are other units I would like to add, converting some Wallachian horsemen with tall fur hats would be fun. I never consider any of my collections as complete.

With regards the landsknecht I have been searching for sources confirming how many were actually at Mohacs in 1526 and how widely they were employed by the Jagiellonians. From what I have been able to find if there were any they were probably in small numbers. Oman, a dated source I know, states that at Mohacs there were 5,500 veteran foreign mercenaries but doesnt state where they were from. Tamás Pálosfalvi's "From Nicopolis to Mohács A History of Ottoman-Hungarian Warfare, 1389–1526" states that the majority of the Hungarian infantry of this era "were not Swiss- or Landsknecht-type infantry armed with pikes and halberds"which does make me wonder whether landsknecht pike blocks in the Hungarian army of this period are something of a "wargamer myth"? Gyozo Somogyi's "The Army of King Matthias 1458-1526", which has been a great source of pictorial inspiration for this army, includes a couple of landsknecht amongst the colour plates but as this is purely a book of images gives no further details. I would be interested to know how common landsknecht really were in the Hungarian forces of the 1520s?

The photos are all below. It's an army that when I started this blog a decade ago I never imagined I would attempt to collect. Over the past 10 years the blog has covered early 16th Century Spanish, Imperialist, French, Venetian, Scots, English, Irish, Ottoman and Papal armies as well as various rebel forces that have often been a feature in the wargame write ups. I think some interesting peasant forces to game Tudor rebellions and the German Peasants War could be a future avenue to explore along with building up my Gaelic Scots and Irish to a level where I can stage refights of battles like Knockdoe, Glentaisie and Farsetmore. More units to cover the Hungarian and Ottoman border wars offer plenty of further scope for exploration as well. It never ends does it! Thank you to everyone who has commented and supported Camisado and here's to another 10 years!

Hungarian horse archers in front of infantry with pavises, arquesbuses and polearms.

Pavise infantry in the Hungarian army.

Balkan auxiliary light cavalry.

Bohemian Infantry.

Hungarian pike block.

Horse archers.

Horse archers skirmishing in front of the infantry.

The mounted band in front of a unit of Hungarian Gendarmes.

Arquesbuses and "hook guns" behind a wall of pavises.

Arquebusiers with pole armed infantry behind them.

28mm Hungarian army

28mm Hungarian hussars.

German gunners and Bohemian infantry.

One of the Hungarian commanders in discussion with German officers.

Balkan light horse.

28mm Hungarian hussars (based on the Battle of Orsha painting).

Arquebuses and pole arms.

Mounted archers and infantry.

Early 16th century Hungarian army in 28mm.

The army from above.

 

The English attack on Jedburgh, September 1523

May 24, 2021, 1:17 am

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The exploration of the Anglo-Scots clashes of 1523 continues with Stuart and myself turning to the Earl of Surrey's attack on Jedburgh of September that year.

The Assault on Jedburgh, September 1523

In September 1523, while the Duke of Suffolk was invading France at the behest of his brother in law, Henry VIII, the Earl of Surrey, based in Newcastle, was once more instructed to cross the northern border with the aim of making a damaging raid into Scotland. This was his second raid that year, having already taken Cessford in an incursion in the spring. In this second attack he led 6,000 men in a vicious assault on the border town of Jedburgh.

Writing to Cardinal Wolsey a few days after the attack Surrey explained how he liaised with Lord Dacre and together their forces surrounded the town. Surrey describes how the Scots unthatched their houses "and laid it in the streets, and set fire on the same, so that the smoke was very noisome". The town was attacked simultaneously in three places with Sir Arthur Darcy (the letters state Dacy but I think Darcy is correct), Sir Marmaduke Constable and Sir Richard Tempest's son and brother leading the respective bodies of English troops.

The Scots put up a valiant defence with bitter hand to hand fighting taking place in the streets of the town. Eventually the town was taken with some of the defenders escaping through woods or down cliffs and others retreating to the abbey which the English could not take. Surrey described the town and events as such "The said town doth stand the most dangerfully to be entered that ever I saw any, environed with great steep cliffs and waters, so that none ordnance might be brought within the same; whereby the church, being vaulted roundabouts, and a strong steeple, could not be gotten; wherefore we were enforced to burn a great part of the same". 

The Earl hoped that the abbey would fall but the defenders prevented him from blowing it up with powder barrels by filling its vaults with burning turf and straw which, while doing little harm to the abbey, made any attempt to place a barrel of powder within it very hazardous. As a counter measure to this Surrey had the powder barrels wrapped in salted hides and provided large pieces of timber so the barrels could be rolled down into the abbeys vaults "as wine doth into the cellar".

The Game

To represent the attack from various directions the English player commanded two smaller retinues against a larger Scots one. This gave the Scots the advantage of their one retinue being able to act after each of the English ones had their turn. As ever we used our constantly changing Renaissance Rampant adaptation of Lion Rampant with quite a few special rules for this game.

Defenders hidden in the buildings

At the start of the game the Scots player had the option to place any infantry units that weren't artillery or pike into any of the town's buildings. The English player did not know where the hidden units were. During the Scots turn a unit could exit the building it had been hidden in with a shooting, attack or move activation. The attack or move activation meant the unit left the building to carry out the action. If they made a ranged attack, they were also placed outside of the building facing in the direction in which they were shooting. This represented them emerging from cover to shoot. If a unit failed an activation whilst hidden in a building it was still placed outside of the building facing in the direction it would have acted. This represented the troops giving away their position but failing to act. Once out of a building a unit was commited to the fight and could not re-enter. A challenge could not be issued from the secret locations, such behaviour was deemed far to unchivalrous!

"so that the smoke was very noisome"

To represent the confusion caused by the smoke screen the defenders had attempted to create around the town if an English unit rolled a  "Blunder" result for an activation the Scots player could decide if they wanted them to role on the "Blunder" table or instead the Scots player could move them a full move in the direction of their choice as they became lost in the smoke or, if they had a shooting attack, designate them to shoot at a friendly unit who they had mistaken as ambushing Scots in the smoke.

"we were enforced to burn a great part of the same"

Victory in this game centred around the English attempting to burn down four locations in the town and also attempting to blow up the vaults of the abbey (the abbey and four locations, labelled the guildhall, watermill, inn and almshouse, can be seen in the photo below).

To burn one of the four buildings the English player had to have at least one base from a unit in contact with it at the start of their activation phase. As an ordered activation, they could use that unit to try to set fire to the objective (instead of Moving, Attacking, or Shooting). If there were 7 or more models in the unit the fire started on a roll of 8+ on 2D6; if there were 6 or fewer models in the unit the fire was started on a roll of 9+ on 2D6.

If a Scots unit was hiding in a building that was set on fire they had to succesfully roll for a move activation. If this was failed then they were considered lost in the burning building!

"as wine doth into the cellar."

The English player assigned in secret a unit in each of his two retinues to carry the necessary timber and hide covered barrels to be able to attempt to blow up the abbey. 

If the unit routed or was destroyed the demolition equipment would be revealed and another English unit could pick it up by moving into contact with it. A counter was used to represent the barrels. The Scots player would then know which unit had the barrels so the element of surprise would be lost. The Scots units could not pick up the barrels.

To attempt to blow up the abbey an English unit carrying the powder barrels had to be in base to base contact with any part of the building. Instead of an activation they could try and roll the barrels into the vaults. To do this they chose three numbers from 1-6 and rolled a D6. At the same time the Scots player would place a D6 under his palm showing a number he had chosen on the dice. If the English player rolled one of their 3 numbers the abbey vaults were considered blown up. If the Scots player's hidden number was rolled then the English unit was also blown up and removed from play regardless of whether the abbey was also destroyed!

An overview of the tabletop. The abbey can be seen in the far centre, this is the main target of the English attack. The buildings labelled the watermill, inn, guildhall and alsmhouse are all targets for the English in their attempt to burn the town.

Honour Points

Victory for this game was based on Honour points. Points were awarded as follows:

The English

2 Points for every one of the four buildings burnt.

8 points if they can blow up the vaults of the abbey.

The Scots

2 points for every one of the four buildings protected.

4 points if they can save the abbey from being blown up.

2 points for Sir Marmaduke Constable being killed or routed.

2 points for Sir Arthur Darcy being kiled or routed.

The Retinues

The retinues were as below. Stuart took command of the two English retinues whilst I took command of Jedburgh's defenders.

The English attackers

Sir Marmaduke Constable's Retinue

1 Unit of Foot Knights, Sir Marmaduke Constable and his retainers.

1 Unit of Foot Knights
1 Unit of Garrison Archers

1 Unit of Garrison Billmen 

1 Unit of Shire Archers

Sir Arthur Darcy's Retinue

1 Unit of Foot Knights, Sir Arthur Darcy and his retainers.

1 Unit of Foot Knights 

1 Unit of Garrison Billmen 

1 Unit of Shire Billmen 

2 Units of Shire Archers

The Valiant defenders of Jedburgh

1 Unit of Foot Knights - The Captain of the town and his Border Reiver bodyguards.

1 Unit of Foot Knights

2 Units of Shire Longbowmen

1 Unit of Border Pike 

2 Units of Scots Pike

2 Units of Dismounted Borderers

1 Unit of Shire Bill 

1 Organ Gun

These town clashes always turn out to be pretty chaotic but as always the photos are probably the best way to follow the action.

Sir Arthur Darcy's retinue deployed to attack the town.

Sir Marmeduke Constables retinue is deployed in a position to make straight for the abbey.

Border pikemen along with some of Jedburgh's militia and an organ gun defend the abbey.

In the town centre a unit of Scots pike stands on guard.

As the English entered Jedburgh, attacking from two different directions, the men under Sir Marmeduke Constable were ambushed almost immediately with tough dismounted borderers charging out from one of the town houses and crashing into a unit of archers. The archers were trapped and defeated but the borderers were then in turn bested in a vicious melee with Constable himself and his armoured retainers. Constable's billmen and men at arms made straight for the abbey only to see more of the town's defenders emerge onto the streets, the Scots archers stalling the English attack.

Having advanced through a less dense part of the town Sir Arthur Darcy's men met with more success. There was an incident of "friendly fire" in the smoke as one group of archers accidentally shot some of their comrades but other than that all seemed well. Darcy himself made it to the town inn and set it alight. The Scots archers who had been hiding within it had no option but to bail out into the gardens behind the inn.

As the English enter the town fighting breaks out almost immediately as borderers who have been waiting in ambush attack some of Sir Marmeduke Constable's archers.

Sir Marmeduke Constable and his retainers join the fray but it is too late for the English archers who flee.

As a group of English men at arms and billmen make an attempt on the abbey the town's militia spring into action.

A view of Sir Marmeduke Constable's troops as they make for the abbey.

As Sir Arthur Darcy leads another of the pincers in the attack a unit of Scots archers attempt to stop him.

A hardened band of border pikemen move into Jedburgh's streets.

Sir Arthur Darcy's men at arms successfully set the town inn alight.

The rest of Sir Athur Darcy's men push on into Jedburgh. The confusion caused by the smoke filled streets has already caused some of his archers to accidentally send a storm of arrows into their comrades!

Sir Marmeduke Constables retinue have been under attack from the minute they entered the town. Constable is himself brought down in a fight with the veteran borderers who have organised the town's defence.

More bad luck befell Sir Marmeduke Constable as his retainers clashed with the local borderers who were in charge of Jedburgh's defence. A duel with the Scots leader proved inconclusive but Constable's men at arms were downed and he soon followed, falling in the narrow streets. Sir Arthur Darcy's men pushed on from the other side of the town and drove back the pikemen holding the centre of Jedburgh. There were attempts to set some more of the buidlings alight but these were thwarted as defenders continued to charge from the buildings. The men at arms leading Darcy's retinue right into the heart of the town were attacked by borderers wielding jeddart staves, bills, spears and halberds while the supporting English archers were driven back as a group of Scots men at arms led an attack out of the church.

Despite the ferocious defence Darcy's forces proved too strong. The Scots men at arms and borderers eventually fled in all directions to make escapes to the abbey or through the surrounding woods. What remained of Sir Marmeduke Constable's force was trapped. Being unable to escape in the narrow streets they were surrounded and brought down by the border pikemen who were defending Jedburgh. Having defeated this part of the English attack these Scots then rushed to defend the abbey as Darcy's forces pushed towards it through the smoke filled town.

A view of the town from above. Sir Mameduke Constable's men have attacked from the top left of the photo with Sir Arthur Darcy leading his men in from the top right.

In the town centre English men at arms charge into the defending pikemen.

More Scots borderers emerge from the buildings to attack the English knights and gentlemen.

A band of Scots men at arms storm out of the church to the horror of the English archers who are advancing into Jedburgh.

With their captain down Sir Marmeduke Constable's men fight on.

A fierce melee has developed as the Scots men at arms attack the English archers.

The archers flee leaving the billmen to finally bring down the Scots men at arms.

Trapped in the streets the levied archers from Sir Marmeduke Constable's force fight a last stand against the surrounding Scots.

Some of the towns defenders armed with bows follow the English at a distance in the smoke.

The border pikemen have fallen back to defend the abbey but they are brought down in the street fighting with Darcy's billmen.

By now most of the town's defenders had either been slain or fled. The border pikemen who had defeated what was left of Constable's retinue were themselves caught as they redeployed in defence of the abbey. Unable to get into formation and use their pikes a combination of English men at arms and billmen swiftly defeated them. Darcy and his men at arms picked up the powder barrels that had been dropped by Constable's retinue and made it to the abbey's smouldering vaults. The barrels were rolled in down the timbers and into the vaults as wine doth into the cellar. To Sir Arthur Darcy's horror the subsequent explosion was not from the below the abbey but rather from Jedburgh's organ gun which had been wheeled around the abbey as a final defence. As Darcy and his men were sent reeling by the gun the English attack had clearly come to an end.

Sir Arthur Darcy and his retainers manage to retrieve some of the timber and powder barrels that have been dropped in street fighting. They fail to blow up the abbey vaults instead being themselves brought down by a hail of shrapnel from the town's organ gun.

 This was a tense game with the additional rules really adding to the chaos. In game terms the Scots forces were weaker than the English but we found that the ability to hide units in the buildings which could launch instant attacks on passing units gave the Scots a big advantage. This advantage was compounded by the turn system we were using. It meant the Scots retinue would take a turn, then one of the English retinues, the Scots retinue again, and then the other English retinue. As the game played out this proved to make a big difference. Despite this it remained exciting and tense right up to Darcy's attempt to blow up the abbey. If the English had pulled this off and Darcy had managed to avoid that lurking organ gun it would been an English victory but the defenders of Jedburgh won the day.

Leobersdorf, 1532

June 1, 2021, 1:17 am

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Keen to test some of my Ottoman cavalry on the table top Stuart and I took a break from our series of English, Scots and French clashes and pitted some of his Imperialists against a horde of akinji raiders in a refight of the running battle that was Leobersdorf, 1532. 

The Battle of Leobersdorf, September 1532.

Three years after the failed Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1529, Suleiman the Magnificent's forces again crossed his western border in strength. Vienna was not reached, the main army being held up for too long by the heroic defence of Güns in August. In conjunction with the main assault an akinji raid of 8,000 Turkish and Moldavian light horse under Kazim Bey raided into Austria. Learning of the retreat of the main Ottoman force Kazim Bey found two of the possible three valleys he had intended to withdraw through had been deliberately blocked by simple field fortifications. An Austrian force under Sebastian Schertlin von Burtenbach followed his movements and he was driven into the third escape route only to find his path blocked by 20,000 landsknecht, 1,000 men at arms and 1,000 Hungarian hussars and light horse under Count Frederick II of the Rhine, Count Bálint Török, Pavle Bakić and Johann Katzianer. 

Count Bálint Török, Pavle Bakić and Johann Katzianer were seasoned commanders in the wars in Hungary, all having been present at Mohacs in 1526, where Bálint Török was in command of the late Louis II's bodyguard. Török had commanded Hungarian forces at the Habsburg victories of Tarcal and Szina, in 1527 and 1528 respectively. Johann Katzianer, also present at Tarcal and Szina, commanded the Imperial light horse at the siege of Vienna, 1529. Due to the nature of the akinji raiding the Habsburg force comprising mainly of slow moving landsknecht and men at arms with artillery support could still have been avoided by the Ottomans. The presence of these veteran captains with their hussars ensured this didn't happen. The raiders were trapped and destroyed, many getting stuck in marshlands as they tried to escape. Kazim Bey fell in the action, his sword and turban being sent to Charles V as a symbol of the victory.

Battle of Leobersdorf, Hans Leonhard Schäufelein, 1532.

The Game

The objectives for this game were really straightforward.  By taking his force the length of the table the Ottoman player had to try and escape with as many units as possible and leave via the Habsburg and Hungarian table edge. The Habsburg player had to stop as many of the Ottoman units by routing or destroying them. If the Habsburg forces could prevent Kazim Bey from escaping then the victory would be even greater.

As ever the game was fought using our "Renaissance Rampant" version of Lion Rampant. The river counted as difficult terrain but gave +1 armour to units within it and the sloping tiles, leading up to the Hapsburg Hungarian forces also counted as difficult terrain.

Stuart took control of Count Frederick II's Imperialists and Hungarian allies whilst I took command of Kazim Bey's Turkish and Moldavian horsemen.

The Armies

Kasim Bey's Akinji Raiders

1 Unit of Delis (Kazim Bey and his bodyguard as retinue leader)
1 Unit of Delis                                                                 
2 Units of Balkan Cavalry                                           
6 Units of Akinji                                                              

Count Frederick's Habsburg-Hungarian Ambush

1 Unit of Gendarmes (Count Frederick II of the Rhine as retinue leader)
1 Unit of Gendarmes (Bálint Török)
2 Units of Hungarian Hussars (Pavle Bakić and Johann Katzianer)
1 Unit of Hungarian Horse Archers
4 Units of Landsknecht Pike
2 Units of Landsknecht Shot
1 Culverin

The battlefield with the Habsburg forces under Count Frederick II of the Rhine in the foreground and Kazim Bey's akinji army in the distance.

The combined Imperialist and Hungarian force blocks the escape route of the Ottoman raiders.

The Ottoman and Moldavian horsemen.

The Imperialists prepare for battle with Pavle Bakić and Johann Katzianer leading the hussars out to meet the akinji.

Predictably the action started with the Ottoman cavalry surging forward towards the other end of the valley. The Hungarian light horse, comprising the hussars, under Pavle Bakić and Johann Katzianer, and a unit of horse archers rode out to meet the advancing Turks and Moldavians. Brave though this action may have been the Hungarian cavalry soon found themselves outnumbered by swarms of skirmishing horsemen. It was not long before, one by one, the Hungarian units were defeated giving the Turks a clear path to the waiting Habsburg forces.

Whilst this swirling cavalry engagement took place in the centre of the valley the landsknecht officers moved their men into position at the top of the hill. Sensing glory and a chance to avenge his previous King's death Bálint Török led his gendarmes down the slope knowing that he would be able to wreak havoc amongst the Ottoman horsemen if he could reach them.Unfortunately for this veteran they managed to evade his heavily armoured men at arms and, like the hussars and archers before him, he was defeated.

The first clashes take place with Pavle Bakić's hussars taking on the Ottomans.

Ottoman kettle drummers sound the akinji charge in an attempt to terrify the waiting Hungarians and landsknecht.

Kazim Bey's akinji have reached the shallow river and are skirmishing with the Hungarian light cavalry.

A view of the Ottoman horsemen as they cross the valley's shallow river.

The Habsburg landsknecht prepare to meet the Turkish and Moldavian cavalry.

Bálint Török bravely leads his gendarmes in a heroic charge into the swarm of light horse.

A view of the Ottomans as they prepare to try and force a way through Count Frederick's forces.

The scene from above, cleary showing that the akinji will have a to punch through forests of pike in order to make an escape.

Kazim Bey's men race to the end of the valley..

..only to be greeted by a hail of shot from the Imperialist forces!

Bálint Török discovers his charge into the Ottomans has been premature and his gendarmes are overwhelmed by the skirmish attacks of the akinji.

Flushed with the victories over the hussars and Török's gendarmes Kazim Bey's horsemen made for the rest of the Habsburg forces. As they attempted to crest the higher ground and escape the valley they were met by a hail of shot from the landsknecht arquebusiers. Count Frederick's artillery opened fire hitting Kasim Bey's deli bodyguards and succeeding in bringing the Turkish leader down. The Ottoman host waivered but they knew there was no other way out of the trap and pressed on.

With their leader dead it was every man for himself amongst the akinji and they continued to launch fierce attacks against the landsknecht at the top of the slope. The arquebusiers were sent running as the horse archers rode closer, launching showers of arrows at them.  Some of the landsknecht pike blocks were then driven back as the akinji drew nearer. A unit of Moldavian horsemen looked as though they may make good an escape only to be charged by Count Frederick II of the Rhine himself and his heavily armoured gendarmes who quickly cut off their attempt.

Having bested the hussars and gendarmes the Ottomans believe they can make it and surge up the slope. Kazim Bey's deli bodyguard are brought down in a storm of arquebus and culverin fire and the Ottoman leader is slain.

With their leader dead the rest of the Ottoman cavalry desperately face the landsknecht pike blocks.

Thinking they have escaped a troop of the Moldavian cavalry are charged down by Count Frederick II and his gendarmes.

The landsknecht blocking the escape of the Ottomans give way under a constant rain of arrows, for a moment it looks like some of the horsemen will make it.

The akinji push on up the slope, the kettle drummers still beating the advance behind them.

With the drums beating loudly on both sides the fighting intesified at the crest of the slope. Many of the landsknecht pikemen fled as the akinji galloped around them and picked them off with their archery. Those akinji that were unlucky enough to be caught by the German pikes were soon defeated or sent fleeing back down into the valley. It looked as if some of the Ottomans would make it through but the culverin continued to take it's toll on the Turks and with the arrival of fresh arquebusiers Count Frederick II was able to reorganise his defensive lines. The escape route remained sealed and Kazim Bey's host failed to escape the valley it had been ambushed in.

I really enjoyed this game as it was so different from the other encounters we have played out. The two armies were very different and this made for a real spectacle on the tabletop. It was great to use the Ottoman and Hungarian horsemen and see them in action. I am keen to explore more of these clashes between the Habsburgs, Hungarians and Ottomans in the future. 

Despite the Imperialists being temporarily shaken Count Frederick II reorganises his line and seals off any escape route for the Ottoman raiders.