Using Agincourt Perry Miniatures for St John's Polyptych of Stargard

St John's Polyptych of Stargard is a very neat altarpiece dating back to years 1450-1460. You can see it on Wikipedia, or even better in the National Museum of Szczecin, in all its glory; the thing is huge and feels holy. On two of its wings, it depicts scenes from the life of Christ, and so it also has its share of armed men. Someone has to do the baby-killing and crucifying, after all. 

For someone seeking references for late 15th century Pomeranian soldiers, the Polyptych is invaluable, even though it's more stylised than relatively realistic paintings of Gdańsk and Kołobrzeg. The altarpiece is from the very same Stargard from which hails one of the pavisemen I painted. 

I haven't included the Polyptych in my earlier overviews of Perry kits as, even though the altarpiece is barely 10-20 years older than the Gdańsk's "Siege of Malbork", it depicts decidedly older-looking arms and armour, which you can't really find in the War of the Roses-era models. I read somewhere that in medieval Europe, every few decades there was a quite sudden change in the look and style of military equipment, so maybe in Pomerania that shift happened between 1450s and 1470s; or maybe the painters depicted some old equipment they had lying around; or maybe West Pomerania was a backwater behind the times. We don't really know. The sources are sparse.

Using Perry Foot Knights 1450-1500 for Pomerania

 

 

My overview of Perry kits viable for my beloved late 15th century Pomeranians continues with this box that I bought quite a while ago, when I was already planning some Turnip miniatures, but knew nothing of epic highs and lows (mostly lows, though) of the Pomeranian Cow War of 1469 and related conflicts.

 

Using Perry Mounted Men at Arms 1450-1500 as Pomeranian knights

 

My Pomeranians are mostly built using plastic kits from Perry Miniatures. As I'm planning to build some cavalry, I'm figuring out what parts of Perry's Mounted Men at Arms 1450-1500 would work in my historical setting.

Note: I am not a professional historian, and what I write below are educated guesses of a hobbyist with the experience of a few days at a local university library.

Note 2: I'm checking historical accuracy for Pomerania only. The model kit by Perry may be perfectly historically accurate for other locations even when it doesn't match my own. 

Heske Dronnawen

 

In the summer 1471, due to sluggish peace talks, the long and bloody war between Brandenburg and Pomerania was still not over. But Heske was in love for the first time in her life and it was the only thing that mattered.

(the mini was hand-sculpted from scratch -- the background is historical, particular character stories are fiction)

More crossbowmen

We have some knowledge of uniform liveries worn by soldiers in the 15th century (white and red for Lubeck town levies, for example), but we also often get depictions of soldiers wearing mismatched colours - like the mercenaries in the painting depicting the siege of Malbork.

Gerolt of Riga

 

On a somewhat less historically accurate note, behold Gerolt of Riga, a Latvian mercenary with high professional ethics. 

Soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHqSw44eDU0

Pavisers

 

We have hardly any sources for 15th century Pomeranian coats of arms, but we do have municipal seals on which coats of arms are often based. Kolberg (modern Kołobrzeg), a bishop's see, featured crossed croziers, a mitre, and waves in its seal from the late 15th century.

 

For Stargard, its highly stylised Mill Gate featured on several seals. The gatehouse building was the meeting place of the Sailors' Guild, the most prominent guild in town. 

(sources: Czerner 1989, "Herby miast województwa koszalińskiego", Gut 1995, "Rozwój herbu Stargardu Szczecińskiego...")

Handgunner

 

In 1470s, the crossbow was the prevalent Polish mercenary infantry weapon, with barely any firearms on record. Only 20 years later, most marksmen carried handguns instead. They took forever to load, but were slightly cheaper than crossbows, and bullets delivered several times more energy than bolts.

This guy here carries a matchlock arquebus used from around 1475 on in Burgundy, and in Poland presumably quite later. Since I aim at Pomerania in 1471, maybe he got an early overseas shipment? (sources: Grabarczyk "Piechota zaciężna" 2000, Williams "The Knight and the Black Furnace" 2003)

Pomeranian crossbowmen (2)

 

According to a decree from Polish Sejm of 1477, during a war, towns were to supply foot soldiers armed with crossbows, shields, helmets, gauntlets and breastplates. Mercenaries from the period listed in the rosters of Poland and Germany, however, had way less robust gear.

A Polish mercenary crossbowman carried a crossbow (duh), a sidearm (usually a sword, a sabre or a falchion), rarely a helmet and/or a shield – and nothing else. For Germans, pavise shields were common. And my Pomeranians? Maybe something similar to Poland or Germany. It's guesswork.

 

This fellow in yellow is probably quite well off, with his nice kettlehat helmet. 

Sources: Grabarczyk 2000, "Piechota zaciężna Królestwa Polskiego w XV wieku"; Kutrzeba 1937, "Polskie ustawy i artykuły wojskowe: od XV do XVIII wieku", Kurfürstlich Sächsische Kriegsknechte 1475.

Pomeranian crossbowman, 1471

 

Crossbowmen formed the core of late 15th century mercenary infantry for both Poland and Holy Roman Empire. With few sources available for town militias of the Duchy of Pomernia, building crossbowmen has felt like a safe bet for me.

Sources: Grabarczyk 2000, "Piechota zaciężna Królestwa Polskiego w XV wieku"; Kurfürstlich Sächsische Kriegsknechte 1475 reconstruction group. The lovely terrain in the background was made by my friend.

Pomerania 1471

 

In 1471, eleven towns of the Duchy of Pomerania renewed their alliance, pledging to send soldiers to each other in need.

There were wars in Pomerania in the coming years, but we don't know if the soldiers of the promised alliance ever took arms.

Turm 2024: Grateful Dead

 

Last summer I joined the second Turm event held in Zagreb at UMS "Agram" by Ana Polanšćak of Gardens of Hecate fame. We were playing Forbidden Psalm, and my warband was the pious knight Sievert and the Grateful Dead.

The idea for my miniatures came to me when I was looking for references for 15th century Duchy of Pomerania at a local library and I found a history article about this painting from Kołobrzeg cathedral:

 (source: Wikipedia)

The painting, which is an epitaph of one Siewert Granzin from 1492, shows a knight praying for the dead, and the dead raising from their graves to defend him from his pursuers. It has become an instant favourite of mine -- the dead look so happy! And the Noble Necromancer was an idea I've really liked at least since I read the Lord of the Rings chapter with Aragorn leading the army of the dead.

Forbidden Psalm is based on the Mork Börg roleplaying game, and the RPG book uses a lot of moody old Public Domain art. So I thought using a painting reference for my warband would be a good match.

So here they are, the pious knight Sievert (name changed for the ease of pronunciation) and his dead retinue, wandering around the accursed graveyard-city of Graven-Tosk (or maybe the accursed Kołobrzeg):

The dead were hand-sculpted from scratch. I made three torsos and four heads, then cast them using Oyumaru and Milliput + Green Stuff mix. Hands and weapons were sculpted individually. The knight was a mixture of Perry Foot Knights and Perry Mercenaries parts, with a scratch-built bevor and sword sheath.

The banner was made following an old Massive Voodoo tutorial by David (here), butchered with a few shortcuts to save time. It was cut from graph paper, and when you look at it against a strong source of light, you see graph paper lines underneath the painting. I regret nothing.

Since I had several skulls to spare -- that's a very nice bonus you get for casting your own minis -- I made a few handy skull tokens to represent treasure, spell effects, objectives, and the like.

 

The minis were painted over a few days before the event in Zagreb, using borrowed Scale 75 paints (which take a while to get used to, but make for a lovely matt finish) and a Mig Ammo silver metallic, which turned out to be surprisingly great.

And here's a picture from the event. Terrain and photography by Ana Polanšćak:

 

 

the girl and the pilgrim (sculpts)

 

 

Yesterday I finished my most involved sculpting project yet.

Woods

Late last year, I followed Ana Polanšćak's TUTORIAL on making trees and made a small forest.

 

 

The base is MDF with cork board and hot glue here and there on the top, with the bottom painted, PVA-covered and stretched to fix the warping. Grass is mostly MIG. Trees (real branches glued together, with sculpted fungi here and there; somewhat fragile) were basecoated with sprays, then painted using a primary school-grade brush with Renesans Flow art acrylics with a wonderful matt finish, plus some other paints I had around, with a photo reference of real tree trunks.

The varnish is a matt spray from the Action store, which hopefully preserved the paintjob while making the finish somehow less matt. That's exactly what a Citadel varnish would do, but five times cheaper.

 

 

I learned to sculpt faces today

 

(Coming back from hiatus? I'm on social media now. www.instagram.com/bwdeathworld, bwdeathworld.bsky.social. Facebook too.)