Fribourgian Crossbowmen

Behold the brave men of the crossbow unit for my Swiss army for Lion Rampant. They have come from all over the Zugewandte Orte Freiburg (Associate State Fribourg) as is witnessed by the various crests upon their pavises.

Coats of Arms of the Baillages of Jounn, Murtten and Uberstein

Coat of Arms of the Baillage of Corsery

Coat of Arms of the Baillage of Orbach

Coat of Arms of the Baillage of Granson

These heraldric designs are taken from the Freiburg Fähnenbuch (Fribourg Livre des Drapeaux) and to be found online here. The book itself was made around 1647-48 by the hand of Pierre Crolot and has a page which lists and shows the Coat of Arms from the 28 baillages, under the rule of a bailiff, of Fribourg. The inner circle are the parishes then in existence by the 17th century, although none but one are illustrated.

Courtesy of http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch

Although there is almost 200 years between the period I'm working in and the making of the book, I don't believe that the crests will have changed a lot, if anything. Who cares anyway, as long as these men can hit the freckles on a Burgundian's face at 200 paces.

A discarded pavise bearing the Coat of Arms of the Baillage of Plaffeyen

Angrily shaking a fist obviously causes terror in the enemy line.

"Burgundians, thousands of 'em..." "Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes!" *

Next up are Swiss halberdiers.


* Not a lot of people know this but the Burgundians would've won if they kept their eyes closed.

Second Swiss contingent

A new unit of Expert Foot Serjeants for my 15th Century Swiss army.
Like the previous unit they are all from the plastic mercenaries box from Perry's mixed with the metal Swiss headpack.

 The one with the missing arm is to be the musician. I wanted him to hold a Swiss horn, so I'm currently looking for a suitable arm. The ones from Gripping Beast's Dark Age Warriors-box look good and every sprue has such an arm; so if anybody out there could help me out with this, it would be greatly appreciated.
His sword arm is a mix from an arquebus-holding arm; the sword & hand is from the command sprue's Thalhoffer-technique arms.

The wounded soldier is a normal figure from the mercenaries box which legs I bent by heating it above a candle. Just watch out because the plastic can melt rapidly if you leave it over the flame for just a second too long.

A soldier tries to help his wounded comrade.

Another sees the horror in front of him.

Nex up are a unit of Fribourgian crossbowmen.

15th Century Swiss

To be honest, I never wanted to make a Late Medieval - Early Renaissance army. I really didn't.
But at a small local convention I stumbled unto the Perry Miniatures stand and before I knew what happened I left with two boxes of European Mercenaries, a box of Foot Knights and various metal packs. (Among these were of course the Swiss heads)

Now I always had a soft spot for the Perry brothers. They were one of the reasons why I started with the hobby in the first place; and why I even bothered with Warhammer Fantasy.

So now I can only say 'Damn you, Perry's! You guys did it again. Suckering me into a historical period where before then I had no interest in with those magnificent plastic men.' And I believe I'm not the only one.

Anyhow, using Lion Rampant and seeing what could be build with these boxes; I came to the conclusion two armies could be squeezed out of these. With the exception of cavalry forces of course.

My army would start out like the Swiss example list in the Lion Rampant book:

2x Expert Foot Serjeants [2x(4+2)] 12 points
2x Fierce Foot [2x4] 8 points
1x Crossbowmen [1x4]4 points

Afterwards I can perhaps change the Fierce Foot into Foot Yeomen and use the extra two points to put in a Bidower unit. Maybe there's some room in there for a Mounted unit in there too...

Using the Osprey book 'The Swiss at war 1300-1500'; the various Chroniks and other works I found on this Swiss website; Wappenwiki; and NGW I commenced.
It will be a small local force hailing from the Kanton Solothurn; led by Herr von Rotberg, of the Herrschaft Rotberg.

Without further ado, the first unit:
Expert Foot Serjeants

The troops parading in front of an old Roman aquaduct