Blood and Crowns

For those wanting to have  an in theme drink whilst playing this Christmas, I can recommend a cup of warming Wasail.

The authentic recipe is really easy to do.

Ingredients

Third of a pint of apple juice

Juice and zest of 1 lemon

Eighth teaspoon of ground nutmeg

Quarter of a teaspoon of Cinnamon

Quarter of a teaspoon of ginger

28g of sugar

1 pint of Ale

Teaspoon of honey

Add everything together in a big pan heat it gently and don’t boil and then drink.

Since getting the rules, I have done very little.  What I have done is getting models red. So it’s all the archers are based now, just waiting to be undercoated. Unfortunately the snow hasn’t given up, so it will have to wait.

On an interesting aside I found this book in the library.  It’s a perfect example of the old adage never judge a book by its cover. It may look the a cheap romance novel but it a really interesting read on medieval Christmas customs.  It also includes a recipes for things like Wasale, which might end up been added to this project log, for those that want a true emercive game.

The rules have now arrived. It may be in PDF form, but its a start. I can figure out what I need to built, paint to play the game.

Now that Terrainfest has finished, I should really start to consider the tables I’d be playing on. The problem with playing games like 40k is that most of my scenery is really gothic.

I wanted to go with a cinematic pallet version of the middle ages rather than a brighter historical look.

So starting with a black undercoat and then I dry brushed to give them a more grimmy feel

Since ordinary soldiers seem to have worn padded hauberks, metal-studded brigandines, chainmail shirts, even steel breastplates, and certainly steel helmets, spearmen could undoubtedly have taken their place alongside fully armoured men- at-arms in the main battle-line.

There’s guys.  I have loads sitting in a bits box. Since the Perry’s sculptured them to be perfect in period, it would be rude not to.

So what does an archer wear? The problem is no one seems to really cares. As far as I can find there is no written primary sources saying what archers wore. (if anyone knows of any please comment below) They might be the great heroes of the 100 years war, but a peasant is still a peasant. The only thing we have are images from the period.

Those images so that they fought with little or no armour. On there heads they seem to wear, some kind of bacinet up to 1,000 are recorded in the Royal Armoury inventory. . Other, smaller skullcap-like helmets may have been worn as well. For defending the arms and torso, a cloth defense (sometimes called s jack) was most common. These could be made of padding quilted into cloth, or simply of multiple layers of cloth, generally linen. Though these armours do not look like much, they appear to be very effective – a 30 layer of jack protects well against sword slashes, longbow arrows and spears.

The equipment of archers at Agincourt is much murkier than the men-at-arms and knights. They were armed with a warbow with a draw weight of somewhere between 90 and 150 pounds. They would be armed with two dozen or so very stout arrows of around 30 inches in length However, the archers also fought in close combat with the French – they didn’t just shoot. Accounts of the archers joining the melee mention them taking up axes, swords, spearheads and ‘mauls’. What the mauls in particular were is unclear it is likely they were simply mallets used to drive their stakes into the ground.

I don’t really do Historical Wargames

Back in what seems to be another life now, I was an archaeologist. I’ve worked on a lot of medieval sites and even did a the ground work for a big project at Towton which I have seen quote the findings of neuerous times on her. So when people talk about the bone structure of archers, that was me. (I found the bodies clever people put it all together quite literally in some cases).
But I never did historical wargames.

Later I went on to do a masters degree to medieval history, and have written papers on the plague and the role of knights in society.

But I never did histocial war games.

I’m not sure why? Properly because thats what I did professional, when I wanted to relax I would rather paint or play games with Space Marines and Orcs than what I did during the day.

So what changed? Age I suppose. When a friend showed me the kickstarter for Blood and Crowns I was instantly hooked.

Now I do have some models already. I have a load of old Bretonians and if any of you have ever been to the Royal Amrouries in Leeds you will have seen the huge display of Argicourt in 28mm, done by the Perry’s using mostly the old Bretonian models.

So this project will be a mix of subjects, it will cover not only getting my old models cleaned up and ready to play, but also the various notes and research I plan to do to make the army as close as I can.