[Alfonso Asensio]

Dear All

I wonder if somebody else has come across these cover art for the Russian toy soldier company Miniart.

http://www.miniart-models.com/

If you go to the Historical miniatures section there are several images of XV century knights. I am referring to the cover art of the boxes (the actual plastic figures I haven't look in detail) For me this is particularly interesting because I have no trouble visualizing battle scenes from XI or XII centuries (perhaps because they are more often depicted in media) but for this XV century period I could not get a clear mental picture of how they would look like. Things like a pole arm being used as a knightly weapon or a line of Swiss infantry looks much clearer now for me. It is also interesting to see the various degrees of plate covering for the different soldiers.

Does anybody see any historical inaccuracy in these images?

[Mick Czerep]

Looks nice, with one little hiccup, though. Mr. Gerry Embleton might be slightly unhappy, as these look to be very strongly inspired by his work, as well as photographs included in his books.

[Brian St.Hilaire]

Nice illustrations. On the second painting, the figure on the left has pike guards on his shoulders and is wearing a barbute. I thought barbutes were out of fashion when pike guards were introduced?

[James Barker]

I would say on the first image that there are a few things that reenactors do that are not correct:

Too much stuff on the belt: you never see soldiers with a purse in period art they kept stuff on a wagon train,

Haversacks are only used by gunners in period art.

Also because many European groups do steel combat they all wear gauntlets; historically even many men at arms didn't wear them. You can see many period illustrations of men in full harness without a gauntlet on.


However the rest of the detail is good for Swiss soldiers in the 2nd-3rd quarter of the 15th c