The year of our Lord 1139.
The Empress Matilda, claimant to the throne of England as trueborn daughter of the deceased King Henry- God rest his soul- has invaded lands of her rival claimant, Stephen of Blois, the King's nephew.
With neither side wishing to risk the carnage of an open battle, a period of attrition ensues; raiding parties and sieges become the norm in this bloody civil war.
Here, knights and footmen loyal to Maud spring a trap, ambushing a waggon of supplies destined for Stephen's army. By cutting off their supply lines, Maud's forces hope to leave Stephen's soldiers stranded afield, and thus more vulnerable to further attack.
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First off, apologies for the atrocious photography. I built this over the last week or so of winter break, starting with the cart, and finishing at 4 or 5 AM the night before (morning of...) the day I moved back in. I took the photos literally minutes before getting in the car.
Anyway, I've been getting more and more into the actual history and research of the middle ages for a while now, and ended up delving into the 12th century for this, especially the period called the Anarchy- a civil war between cousins vying for the English throne. Warfare of the time tended to be attritional, with less focus on running at each other in a field and dying, and more hitting targets like castles and supply trains and local villages.
I thought a raid on a supply wagon would make a pretty cool MOC, but I wanted to do it properly, so I ended up researching not only the warfare and soldiers' garb of the time, but also carts (although, lacking sources, I had to resort to 13th century designs from the Maciejowski Bible with a 12th century horse team; it's a pretty simple design though so I doubt that much changed) and even native flora (spot the gooseberries and name those trees)!
I also wanted to do something different as a MOC, so I used a lot of sand green, nougat, and dark tan. Thank god for parts drafts. I still ran out of sand green and nougat.
Anyway, this is probably the only thing I'll build until the summer, so I hope you enjoy it.
tl;dr I built a research paper.
Much appreciated.
