To our visitors we present our next set, "Army of Joan of Arc". We are well aware that this theme is far from being new. Long before our set, Revell released two excellent sets, “English Foot Soldiers” and “French Knights”, and later Italeri also released two sets devoted to the Hundred Years War. While not competing with these leading modelling companies, we would just like to emphasise that our set is a natural addition and further development of this theme. Collectors and anyone else with even a slight knowledge of this conflict share a belief that the central and most colourful figure of this war is Joan of Arc. Despite this, she is missing from Revell's set, which cannot but disappoint a collector. Italeri have corrected this shortcoming by releasing an excellent figure of a girl warrior-leader. In addition, their set includes several technically unusual crossbowmen, which compensated for another shortcoming of the Revell set, namely the complete absence of mercenary infantry.
From these sets a collector may get the impression that the French army of that period consisted of nobility supported by a few crossbowmen, and that knights performed the infantry role as well. It is certainly a fact that dismounted French knights attacked the English army at the Battle of Poitiers (1356), but it was largely due to this that they were defeated and brought the kingdom to the brink of disaster. The heavily armoured Frenchmen awkwardly and slowly advanced under a shower of English arrows, and at the close of the battle they didn't even manage to retreat. Obviously having survived such a catastrophe, the French nobility tried by all means to avoid such improvisations in the future. Furthermore, full of feudal prejudice, knights despised footmen, dismounting only to take a challenge from a similar ranking foe. This could usually only take place during tournament, as in a chaotic battle a knight rarely had the opportunity to choose a 'suitable' opponent.
It’s worth mentioning that in all movies about Joan of Arc it is the infantry that play a key role. A distinctive feature of the campaigns of The Maid of Orleans was the sieges and assaults on fortresses – Tyrell, Augustan, Sent Lou and, finally, Paris itself, where cavalry played a very minor role. Also we shouldn’t forget that the XVth century was the age of mercenary armies, when a well-trained common man with a bow or halberd could expel a noble mounted warrior from the field of glory. So if in the early medieval period infantry was of little importance, the Hundred Years War was the period of its rehabilitation. Keeping this in mind, we’ve got to understand that the lesson of Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt, where free English peasant bowmen proved their superiority in battle over the armoured cavalry, caused the defeated to follow this example. That’s why, in the second half of the war, French kings put their trust in mercenaries, gradually but decisively putting ill-disciplined feudal troops in a secondary position.
So in our new set we are putting the emphasis on infantry of the common people - mercenaries. These troops had nothing in common with the peasant militia of the early Middle Ages, gathered by order of their barons and poorly armoured. On the contrary, these were highly professional warriors, often more professional than the knights themselves because, having no other means of living, they had to earn their living from war. Their weapons were also more appropriate for the professional soldier. The XVth century show the culmination of the development of edged weapons, both for attack and defence. Swords, armour and helmets that just three centuries previously had been almost inaccessible luxury items for most men became attainable necessities due to the development of metallurgy.
Weaponry had changed considerably by this period. A fearsome weapon, the famous double-handed sword that could slice through a knight's armour first made its appearance in the early XIVth Century, and remained popular for some time. Battle axes developed into halberds. New types of weapons such as battle flails, hammers and scythes also made their appearance, a legacy of peasant revolts. This was also the dawn of hand-held firearms, though these were not as fearsome or efficient as they were later to become. All this is accounted for in our set, which includes a soldier with a bombardella (or petrinalle) together with a soldier with halberd and war hammer.
Helmets evolved into too many diverse types to name them all. In our set we provide our figures with hat-like chapelles helmets together with barbutte helmets protecting three quarters of the face and sallets - freshly appeared in that period - curious shape helmets with a long nape protector.
Now we turn our attention to morale and the national composition of the mercenary armies. It goes without saying that this was a rabble from all over Europe, lacking the code of honour of noblemen, ready to spill their (or much more often other people’s) blood, that immediately became uncontrolled gangs of marauders once they didn’t receive their pay. French armagnaks and avanturiers, Italian condotieres; German landsknechts had for 200 years been the permanent nightmare of populations. So whatever authority their commander had was necessary to keep these ruffians at bay! It was this sort of born commander that a common peasant girl named Joan became. To stress the national diversity of the army of that period, we added into the set some figures wearing characteristic Italian helmets with ear protection.
We must also make mention of mounted bowmen. This type of cavalry first made its appearance in English armies, and quickly proved their abilities. The French followed suit later, creating groups of free archers – they were called free because they were exempt from tax by a decree of the king. Strictly speaking these free archers were not mercenaries, rather being the first attempt at a regular army (the predecessors of later dragoons). Mounted archers began appearing in the king’s army in Joan's time.
At present you can see not archers but crossbowmen on our site. This mould was later substituted by another one giving a better quality sprue. Originally we based our figure of Joan of Arc on the actress M.Jovovic – a tall lady. Later on we decided that a 17-year-old medieval girl should be noticeably shorter than the adult men surrounding her, and that was duly reflected in a new mould. We also amended some of the mounted figures. As far as the protective armour of Joan’s horse is concerned, we copied it from her mounted monument. The mounted knight that you will soon see on the site is not a king. This is Duke Alencon – one of the loyal adherents to Joan. The painted mounted knights that we will be putting on the site shortly were produced as a trial run only and in small numbers for demonstration purposes only. Some of the foot figures presented here are also a trial run from a mould that won’t go into production. They are also shown here for demonstration only. These moulds were replaced by better ones giving a better quality of sprue. The figures of footmen will stay basically the same, and you will see them soon both in shops and on our site. The whole set will contain four sprues of about thirty foot soldiers and six mounted figures plus horses. Initial run is about 6,000 sets made in bronze metallic.