Northern European Gatehouse

The 3D printing theme continues today with a great new addition to my northern European fortifications, a large fortified gatehouse. Just reading a few of the battle reports on this blog should indicate how regularly these walls and towers feature in my games. I am always keeping an eye out for new pieces to add to the collection and have the right feel for the period. I found the above gatehouse available as a 3D print on ebay and thought it looked so good I took a risk of ordering it without knowing if it would fit in well with my existing walls of towers. Luckily it fits perfectly as can be seen in the photos below.

The gatehouse reminds me of woodcuts of the early 16th century such as those in "Der Weisskunig" or Maximilian's Triumphal Arch. A couple of images from each are shown below to demonstrate this. I have no doubt that many of these are simply the artists impressions but they are close enough to this model to really help give the correct feel.

A woodcut image by Wolf Traut from Maximilian's Triumphal Arch, 1512-1515 depicting Maximilian's war in Flanders. Note the gatehouse in the top right. 

Another woodcut from the Triumphal Arch, this time by Hans Springinklee, depicting Maximilian quelling a rebellion in the Low Countries. A similar gatehouse can be seen at the top of the image. Also of interest is the clothing and armour of the Flemish rebels shown to the bottom right of the image.

A woodcut from "Der Weisskunig", 1514-1516, showing a similar style of gatehouse.

Another woodcut from "Der Weisskunig" showing an army entering a massive fortified gate.

Of course I couldn't simply paint up the 3D printed model without some changes. It needed to be able to fit in with my current set of northern European walls and so it has had a thin covering of filler to act as the plaster before being painted. The whole set was redone back in 2019: http://camisado1500s.blogspot.com/2019/09/repainted-fortifications-part-1.html and I still wonder whether I should've just left them all with a stone finish. I feel this is one of those projects where I will never be completely satisfied either way. Since repainting the walls and towers of this particular set they have been used in games to represent parts of Exeter, Edinburgh, Belgrade, Bray, Buda, Nuremburg, Neufchateau, Ferniehurst, Waterford, Wark, Montdidier, Carlow, Saint-Quentin, Sluys and Stuhlweißenburg as well as unnamed Irish and Scots tower houses so I guess flexibility is key!

The other change made to the original printed model was to add some extra windows from Firedragon Games: https://www.firedragongames.co.uk/materials/windows. I felt that to add to its defensive capabilities the gatehouse needed more windows from which the defenders could shoot and these have been added to the front and sides. The arrow slit windows at the front have had the bottom part of the window enlarged to turn it into a gun port for smaller calibre artillery. As the architecture of the gatehouse is distinctly late medieval I do wonder that it may have been the type of fortification that would have been built with more up to date gun ports. As always these things are a work in progress and I may modify the gatehouse in the future.

A force of landsknecht march out of the gatehouse.

A northern European gatehouse in the early 1500s.

A view of the gatehouse from the other side.

The town facing side of the gate.

Note the additional window added to the side of the gatehouse.

The gatehouse with a harbour beyond it.

Internal detail of the gatehouse looking up towards the first floor and second floors.

Internal detail of the gatehouse showing the gate with wooden platforms on either side which are reached from the walls.

Internal detail showing one of the doorways onto the walls with a staircase on the right leading to the second floor. The top of the gate can be seen on the left.

Another feature of the gatehouse is that it is fully detailed inside. The gate opens up into a hallway with wooden walkways on either side that lead to the walls. From these walkways there are steep wooden stairs that then lead up to a second floor. Hopefully the three photos above capture this.

As a final note any gatehouse needs guards and with this year's reenactment season nearly over I have included some pictures of myself as a potential member of the garrison! These pictures were taken at Bosworth last month after my friend Phil picked up a second hand 350lb crossbow. I couldn't resist borrowing it to pose as a late 15th or maybe very early 16th century crossbowman.

Maybe one of the town's garrison? A crossbowman.

A classic loading the crossbow pose! This is a 350 pound bow and not easy to load.

Balkan Cavalry

Today's post sees a first for the blog with a unit of 3D printed cavalry. The miniatures are from Wargames Atlantic's digital range and can be found here: https://wargamesatlantic.com/products/turkic-light-cavalry?srsltid=AfmBOop0DfBvUUgga1_vvtNiQDZbSAeZ0XB4aOtZxUTLqxRU-pTnNUt7.

They have also been converted, so the finished unit is not put together wholly from the 3D printed pieces.

The set is intended to represent Ottoman akinji, as described here previously: https://camisado1500s.blogspot.com/2020/01/ottoman-raiders-akinji-and-azabs.html, as well as other Eastern European irregular cavalry of the 15th to 17th centuries. I have chosen to use the fur cap heads provided by the set to create a unit that would be equally at home in an Ottoman or Hungarian army. The 1500s saw a whole host of different types of light cavalry clashing on the Ottoman Hungarian border with troops such as Delis, Tatars, Calarasi and Székelys being examples of these. These chaps represent a fairly generic unit of fur capped horsemen armed with spears, bows and shields.

Of course I have made a few tweaks to the figures. The shields that can be printed out from the set are very small and not particularly interesting so all of the shields have been added from other manufacturers. The 3D files do not include swords in scabbards so the figures sabres are falchions from the Perry Wars of the Roses plastic kits with the quillons trimmed down. Whilst the set does include empty bow cases for the figures that are holding their bows it does not include bow cases with the bows inside for those figures that are holding spears. To remedy this bow cases with the bows inside have been added from Essex Miniatures. Other additions you may notice are the plumes of feathers for some of the horsemen and the saddle drums for the Captain dressed in red. These small drums were a feature of light horsemen from Eastern Europe and were used to give commands on the battlefield. There are contemporary images of hussars and stradiots using them as shown in the pictures below.

Detail a 1506 print of the Battle of Fornovo, 1495, showing a stradiot with a saddle drum.

Detail from "The Battle of Orsha, 1514" c.1520-1534 showing a wealthy hussar captain with an ermine cloak and saddle signal drums.

The horses are not 3D prints but Wargames Atlantic's standard plastic horses: https://wargamesatlantic.com/products/horses?srsltid=AfmBOorDIh1SW54HLQvcOGehcPbPMuHctzE3SYRusi5_ep8LbiSyvkLp. I had intended to use more suitable metal Ottoman horses for this unit but wanted to wait and see the printed figures before buying the horses. This chose to be a wise move as the figures legs are very wide apart, to such an extent that the Wargames Atlantic horses seem to be the only ones that they will fit comfortably. This is a bit of pain as it means the figures won't mix in well with my other cavalry due to the size of the horses although they will fit in fine in units of their own, as demonstrated by the final two photos below. In height they are comparable to the Perry Miniature plastic horses but they are a little wider.

On my work bench at present is another unit of these, this time representing akinji with turbans. They are lovely figures but I still feel 3D printed miniatures are not quite ready to replace metal and plastic ones. As with the plastic armoured Ottomans, https://camisado1500s.blogspot.com/2024/05/dismounted-sipahis.html, despite them being multi part kits the builds that can be made from them are quite limited. Normally I would include a standard bearer in a unit of twelve cavalry but the nature of these kits makes it very difficult to have a figure carrying a standard. The figures were not cheap to have printed either, especially when the cost of the horses is factored in. Saying that I do have lots of spare heads and other parts left over which will come in useful for converting other figures later on. The figures are shown in the photos below with the final ones showing them mixed in with other Balkan troops from the collection.

A unit of Balkan Light Horsemen

28mm Balkan Cavalry. These horsemen could be used as Ottoman akinji or as light cavalry in Hungarian armies.

The horsemen are armed with bows and spears.

28mm Balkan light horse from Wargames Atlantic.

A view of the unit from behind.

This could either be a Wallachian force or a detachment of Ottoman Balkan auxiliaries.

28mm Balkan troops for the 1500s.