Hastings 1066- The Norman army in 20mm for Impetus rules

 

This Norman army was an old wish of mine since Revell released its box in 1989. While the figures looked great there was the obvious problem of only two horsemen per box and only with rearing horses. Also a number of other armies from the early Middle Ages could be modelled, like Portuguese and Castillan for the Reconquista or Crusaders for the first few rounds of invasion of the Holy land, but the horsemen problem continued and the project kept on being delayed. 

This is how the Norman army would have looked like at Hastings. The centre would be occupied by the Normans themselves with Roger of Montgomery´s French and Flemish on the right and Alan of Brittany´s Bretons on the left. The first line would have been made of archers; the second, of heavy infantry and the third, of heavy or medium cavalry. A total of 15 Impetus stands were made, a match for the Saxon army. They are ready to climb Senlac hill or Caldbec hill if you prefer. 

Now for the Norman host proper, the most numerous of the three groups with maybe around 5000 men. All figures are Revell (with the exception of Bishop Odo of Bayeux with a club, an Italeri figure, leading the army next to William). 

This is the trick I used to produce some 20+ cavalry figures. I used some of the poses of the foot Revell Normans with swords, carved a bit of plastic from the middle of the legs (ouch...) and sat them with the help of an hot glue gun in Airfix or Italeri Medieval horses from several boxes. Also a few of the rearing Revell horses got some heat for them to bend to some more common poses. The Pope's flag was placed in the front rank of this stand. 

The infantry was less problematic as Revell gives a nice assortment of poses. The only  aspect worth mentioning was the usage of glued photocopies of 25mm Norman shields from the web, scaled down and retouched as the brands place those lines to avoid, well, exactly what I did... In fact all Normans and French have this trick both in cavalry and infantry. 

The archers are the same for the three hosts. In the end I regretted not placing the mailed archers only in the Norman stands but frankly I don´t know if this was the case. 

 

Now for the Bretons which may have been some 2000+ at Hastings. Their main visual difference to the Normans characteristic was the lack of mailed armor or maybe its use under the clothes both in cavalry and infantry. 

 

For the Breton (and French/mercenary) cavalry I did not use Normans. Instead I looked in the several sets of early Medieval cavalry from Italeri (Russian, Teutonic and Crusaders) and used the ones with conical helmets or Kettle hats. Their cavalry was mostly discarded as they have the Caparison cover and were replaced by StreletsR horses. These two stands have one less figure than the Norman stands so they can be used as CM or CP as the difference between 7 or 8 horsemen is barely noticeable. 

The shields were enlarged with the glued photocopies. This time, just to make them different from the French, I painted the shield in one color only a practice I saw in a number of Bretons from different sources. 

As you can see here the smaller original shields were dwarfed by the paper ones. In the end if you place a good layer of PVA at the joint between the plastic and the paper shields you will barely see the difference and they become very tough. 

The Italeri figures, used for Breton infantry, had even smaller shields which were enlarged with the same trick. 

The full stand of Breton Infantry made of Italeri figures mostly with kite shields. When the kite shields were small they became bigger with the photocopies trick. 

Lastly, the French and other european mercenaries, maybe some 1500 or 2000 men. 

The cavalry was made pretty much like the Bretons, only with printed and retouched colorful shields. 

The French Infantry was made like the Bretons as I couldn´t find any relevant differences. Eventually they also used plenty of mailed armor like the Normans. The main source for this period, the obvious Bayeux tapestry, was made years after the battle and many details and differences between the fighters are not clear. 

One more stand of French archers, mixing mailed and non-mailed figures. I thought about placing some crossbows but there are already two in the Breton infantry stand so this one became archers-only. 

Odo of Bayeux and William still need the company of the Breton and French leaders which will join the ranks when I find a bit more of information on Alan and Roger. 

Next: a video on Hastings or on the Iraqis of 1991.