Italeri 100 Years War French Knights and Foot Soldiers

(Scanned @ aprox. 200%)

These are lovely figures. Very nice detail. [Young] Stan Walker even suggested that at least two of these figures are actual identifiable people!

	You get 8 Mounted (3 different poses for the horses - nice horse armour on their necks and faces too) and 20 Foot figures per box...
	1 Joan of Arc 1 Mounted Bishop (?) 1 Mounted Standard Bearer 5 Mounted Men at Arms 14 Dismounted Men At Arms (including 2 flag bearers) 6 Cross Bow Men

Note the Crossbow Men. Like the Zvezda Livonians, these come in two parts so that they can be more 3D, but these guys are a step up again. Quite outstanding!

So how do they stack against the DBA 100 Years War French Army Lists?

IV/64. Medieval French. 1330AD-1445AD.
	Ref: AMA1. (a) 1330-1345AD: 1x3Kn (Gen), 5x3Kn, 3x3Bw or 4Cb, 2x3Sp, 1x3Sp or 7Hd. (b) 1346-1418AD: 1x3Kn//4Bd (Gen), 5x1x3Kn//4Bd, 1x4Bd or 4Cb, 1x3Cv or 4Cb, 2x4Cb, 2x3Sp or 3Bw or 7Hd. (c) 1419-1445AD: 1x3Kn//4Bd (Gen), 4x3Kn//4Bd, 1x4Bd, (4x4Pk Scots - not if ally) or (2x3SP + 2x4Cb), 1x4Cb, 1x3Sp or 7Hd or Art.

Whichever sub list you use, I would suggest that you would need 3 boxes for all of the knights - giving your 24 horses. Since you only need 18 mounts for the knights, you can use all 15 of the caparisoned ones to seat your Frenchies (they liked to look their best after all!) and use 3 extras left over from the Italeri English box (you'll need at least 3 boxes of these guys to have enough English long bow men to make the coresponding 100 Years War English DBA list, so there'll be plenty of the English knights left over).

Then you've got 9 generic [non-caparisoned] medieval horses (plus the 6 from the English boxes) for all the other medieval armies that had blokes who couldn't afford to dress their rides! Using 3 boxes also means that you wouldn't have to use 3 Joan of Arcs!

But equally importantly, 3 boxes will also give you enough cross bow figures for the max 4 Crossbow elements worth possible in the above lists (cool!).

As for the 3Sp, well...since I don't know a whole lot about these armies, I asked David Wallace for his opinion...

They are the sorry sods with chamber pots on their heads with the long spears and no shields in all of those pictures of the period.

I'm using the chamber potted [Accurate/Revell's 100 Years War] English bill men as the clothes are perfect. I will have to change the bill to a spear (just a little bit of shaving of the sharp bits off the bill should do it).

They are a perhaps a little bit over armoured (esp. knees), but will work for the later sub lists or could shave them off as well.

Dave Wallace

As Dave has kindly pointed out, you could use Accurate/Revell's 100 Years War British foot soldiers. You can use the left over long bow men for a seventh Bw element and yet more spear figures (perhaps converting some of the Billmen to the role) to fill out your 100 Years War English.

And for the Horde element[s], well, you'd be after some smelly medieval peasant types, so HaT/Airfix's Robin Hood figures could well fit the bill there.

So 3 boxes of these Italeri French, one box of the Accurate/Revell English and some Airfix/Hat Robin Hood figures will provide you with a Medieval French DBA army. Cool.

You will of course end up with twice as many of the corresponding dismounted Men At Arms (Bd's) than you need. But if you're into Double DBA, you could have one half of your knights dismounted, with the other half starting mounted and still retaining the option to dismount!

Hmmm...now there's a thought...lets see...working off the second sub list ((b) 1346-1418AD: 1x3Kn//4Bd (Gen), 5x1x3Kn//4Bd, 1x4Bd or 4Cb, 1x3Cv or 4Cb, 2x4Cb, 2x3Sp or 3Bw or 7Hd.)...3 boxes of these Italeri French, one of Accurate's/Revell's 100 Year War English Foot and some Airfix/HaT Robin Hood figures will get you...

So for the same number of boxes that you need to pull together one army, you can make up two. Alrighty!

But I digress...

These Italeri 100 Years War French make a very nice box of figures indeed. What, with Italeri's Mongols and Teutonic knights and Zvezda's Livonians, even I am getting tempted to get into the later medieval period...!

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