'Resistance' from GregB: The Maid of Orleans

 

The Maid of Orleans sets forth, ready to rid France of English invaders! 28mm metal figure from Perry Miniatures.

For my "Resistance" theme I thought I would return to my halting 28mm Hundred Years' War project, for that setting holds one of Christendom's most enduring symbols of "Resistance". Here was have Jean la Pucelle, a.k.a The Maid of Orleans, known most widely in our modern era as Joan of Arc. This is a 28mm figure from Perry Miniatures' "Agincourt to Orleans" range. 

Reverse view of the sculpt.

When considering wargaming projects, the Hundred Years War offers so many awesome factors. Castles? Check. Kings? Check. Knights? Check. France? Check. Lots of opportunities for skirmish-type games? Check. There is so much to delve into. But this sort of historical subject is also quite intimidating, in that I really don't understand much about medieval heraldry, and the more I try to research it, the more confused I get. It's one thing to paint fantasy stuff, where you can just make stuff up, but in the historical setting I at least want to sort of TRY to get things right...

So my progress on this project has been really, really slow. On the plus side, you don't need hundreds of figures for a skirmish game. I'm about half-way toward a decent French force for "Never Mind The Billhooks".

Great sculpt by the Perrys (of course). 

I mentioned that the Hundred Years War has just so much to take in, and the story of Joan of Arc is a big part of that. I'm sure it is well known to Challengers, but this young maid, born in or about 1412 in north-eastern France, felt called by God to seek out the Dauphin, to promise to lift the seige of Orleans and then see him crowned in Rheims...it all seems and sounds delusional. And yet...it all came true! Subsequently captured by the Burgundians, handed over to the British, put on trial and burned at the stake in 1431, "rehabilitated" in 1455 her incredible story has resonated through the ages. Even today she remains a potent political and cultural symbol and competing political movements still seek to claim this aura for themselves.

Answering the call of God...

This Perry Miniatures sculpt is lovely, and since there seemed to be so many conflicting accounts of what she actually looked like, I just sort of improvised. The white horse seemed to be the best for a figure such as her, and I imagined the Dauphin and his Armangac supporters kitting her out with pretty nice "white" armour and horse furniture which variants of the blue colour in the arms of the House of Valois.  This might be...totally wrong? Who knows? 

Points-wise, this is a single 28mm mounted figure, good for 10 points. The "theme" bonus tops things up nicely to 60 points, I think. 

Anyway, great to be back painting in the Hundred Years War. I hope you enjoy the figure! 

'Toy Story' from Iain W - 28mm Napoleonic French 2nd battalion Grenadiers a pied

For the Toy theme I have to go back to one of my earliest memories, I was about three years old and my mum was pulling my fingernails off one by one while telling me each time" this isn't going to hurt" followed by her yanking off each fingernail! This wasn't an example of sadism but a rather an aspect of a skin disease which meant if you stuck a plaster on my skin, when you took it off it ripped off a layer of skin, this resulted in me losing most of the skin off my hands and my nails catching on virtualy everthing , causing me pain as the nerves still worked! So it was for the best but I guess  I've probably got trust issues? What it did mean was I couldnt play with anything hard, like say Lego or blocks or the like, but I pinched a melamine covered board and on that I was able to make things out of plastecine, a modeling clay that I found quite soothing. I built volcanoes and black and white aliens , it was at this point I aquired a book that I realise now must have been my dads but from that day was mine and which I still have, a 1960s coffee table book on uniforms from the French revolution up until the start of WW1 in  mostly original prints. 

The book gave me a myriad of subjects to make , I copied uhlans, Sardinians and all sorts of weird and wonderful soldiers, it's the book that got me hooked on making soldiers from a very early age, before I could read I was trying to make a czapka! In addition to the original prints there were photos, all in colour , of French  soldiers of the first empire, which I found fascinating, I wanted to know who and what everyone in all the pictures were, I now do but it's taken a fair amount of time! The first page was a painting by baron Lejune, a Napoleonic French officer and painter , the painting of Borodino has a wealth of detail!

 There was one print that made a particular impact, a grumpy looking chap with a blue coat and fur hat, a grenadier of the Imperial Guard as I now know, so I present in 28mm the second battalion of the grenadiers of the Imperial Guard of the first empire of France.

Lovely Perry metal figures, this unit completes my Imperial Guard for now, all units in metal and in this one case full price as I'm such a cheapskate! Excellent flag by GMB.

24 x 5 is 120 plus 50 theme points make 170 

All the best 

Iain