Battle at Morat

[Peter]

I took a few pictures of my work. Since they are painted for a bigger diorama, my focus is not on the most detailed paintwork but on the number of figures I can do for each side.

I use all the common plastic and metal figure manufacturer.



Books and internet sides make it easy to find out, which Swiss cantons sent what type of soldiers and how many. I try to match those numbers proportionally. In this case, the city of Bern and Zurich sent most soldiers and had not only pole weapons but also guns.



Even the Johanniterorden (Saint John) sent a group to help the Swiss. I used the figures of the regular available German Knights and changed the helmets to bring them up to 1476.



The Burgundian troops were counted as Lances. At the time a lance had a heavy knight, a mounted soldier with a lance, three mounted archers, a crossbowman, an arquebusier, a pikeman and a page.



No war without a villain. Charles the Bold. He is known to have a golden suit of armor and according to Dr. Toby Capwell, if you had that much money to buy a gold plated suit, you were wearing it into battle.



Not only Swiss soldiers fought at Morat against the Burgundian but German cities and even Habsburg sent some soldiers. This is actually the reason, the Swiss had mounted soldiers on their side.

It is not so easy to find a lot of different figures from that time and I have to compromise. Also I started to cut the figures and change them a little bit. Of course there is also the possibility of sculpting but I don't have the patience for that.

[C M Dodson]

Firstly, welcome!

Second, what a lovely collection of combatants.

They do look nice and as a suggestion a small application of highlighting ink may help bring out their facial features to full effect.

It will be interesting to see the larger project.

Well done .

Best wishes,

Chris

[Susofrick]

Agree with Chris! And nice and fun to have some sources to go through! Been meddling with a Swedish Medieval battle for some time, but the sources are very scarce and sometimes totally fictionary. Still, great fun to search for information.

[Minuteman]

This is a very pleasing and interesting selection of Swiss soldiers, and their opponents, from a colourful period of late-medieval history. Well done! Thanks also for the insights into the forces fighting against the Swiss, including German states and Hapsburgs.

Medieval armour is a specialist subject, and it is right to suppose that earlier styles of armour would find their way onto a late medieval battlefield. There are a few sets out there which provide quite good representations of late medieval knight's armour, including the Zvezda French Knights set (which I see you have used), a couple of Redbox sets (European men at arms, and Scottish heavy cavalry), and the wonderful Dark Dream Studio set of European knights. There are also the Miniart sets, but these unfortunately are rather poor figures - at least in my view.

These different sets are sculpted in somewhat different styles, and personal choice has to play a part of course; the Redbox figures are quite 'chunky', and the figures themselves require cleaning up and equipping with better lances. But they do provide potential for extra variety when creating models of Burgundian knights.

[Morat]

Thanks for the responds. I know, I could spend more time on the figures but I just cannot wait to start the next set.
I notice that the picture with Charles and his friends does not show up and I did not see how to edit my post. So I add it here.

[Morat]

For my diorama I need also horse drawn wagons. According to sources, Charles had about 10,000 of them. So I need a lot, even if I only want a fraction of a percent of that number. There is a limited amount of wagons in 1/72 available that would fit what I need. Since I have a laser, I will actually do them myself. So I did not have to design them from scratch, I got the laser-cut-kit from Shipyard. This is almost a one-to-one copy of their Running Gear model. This is just 'how to do' model since it is a little to modern and I did it only to figure out how I have to design it that it can be assembled quickly and looks good.



I also need cannons. Charles had the most modern artillery when he attacked Grandson months earlier. After his defeat, he had to leave every single one behind and for the Battle at Morat, he came with cannons, that he collected from all his cities and towns. Nothing really modern and a collection of different models. I have been searching the internet for different models and I started to design the wooden parts for my laser cutter.

Two of his guns, that bombarded the city of Morat, were impressive. Since nobody knows exactly how those guns look like, I use the bombard that is exhibited in Genth, the Dulle Griet. I used a plastic pipe with paper glued to it. I think, it gives the right texture. The carriage is based on the one of the Mons Meg in Edingburgh. It does not fit perfectly but in my diorama, the bombard will be on the ground in firing position and the carriage parked further back.

[Peter]

What I see looks good, so keep up the good work!

Mod Comment: I fixed that picture in the original post!

[Minuteman]

I like the look of your wagon chassis and wheels, and the bombard on its heavy carriage is an impressive-looking weapon indeed!

For Burgundian field artillery, are you planning to use the Zvezda Medieval Field Powder artillery set? This has a couple of very nice guns, and a light 'organ' gun and a useful limber, and most of the crew figures are useable as Burgundian gunners. Zvezda have also made a large emplaced siege bombard (with a barrel similar to yours) but I'm not sure if this is now easily available.

Regarding your golden Charles the Bold: When I saw your model I wondered whether armour quite as 'golden' as this would be possible?? But then I looked on line and apparently it was (!), using complicated gilding techniques; these would have been very expensive, and so only very wealthy individuals would be able to afford a set of armour like this. But Charles of course was such a wealthy individual.

Here is the link I discovered: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/fire/hd_fire.htm

[Susofrick]

Very nice! And a golden knight!!! Had Timpo knights and a castle when I was a kid and the knights were gold, silver and black I think I remember. It was a while ago.

[Morat]

Minuteman

I have a few sets of the field artillery and 2 of the bombards. The. bombard gun in the set is modeled after a Ottoman gun and will not really fit my purpose but all the other parts are perfect.

On the Internet I found an interview with Toby Capwell, curator of the Wallace collection in England, where he talks about gold and black armor. If I find it, I will post a link.

[Machno]

Nice project, Devo, very fascinating!
Some time ago I became interested in the Bernese Chronicle and its illustrations to paint a Swiss army in the future. If you are interested, the high resolution pdf of the entire manuscript is available free on the website of the Zentralbibliothek Zürich: https://www.e-manuscripta.ch/zuz/doi/10 ... ipta-85723.

[Morat]

Machno
Thanks for the link. I only new the Diebold Schilling Bernese Chronicle that you can find here:

https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/searchresult/list/one/bbb/Mss-hh-I0003

[Xantippos]

Great job, very colourful, I love the mix of sets . I recently bought the Uri and Bern figurines from Ultima Ratio, they are really great. Also you could expand by getting the Swiss Mercenaries from Hytty, which are some of the best this obscure manufacturer made.