Brigands, unreliable and quarrelsome chaps !

Brigands were irregular units - if one considered there were any regular units in this period - composed, as the name suggests, of pillagers and looters but also disinherited and/or opportunistic knights. During war time they were hired as mercenaries but in time of peace they would engage in criminal activities and bring trouble to the countryside. They were often employed by the English as "para-military" to lay waste to undefended and vulnerable part of the kingdom of France in the hope of weaking the economy. They were most unruly when unemployed and reduced to lootings and pillagins. They were also called "routiers" as a reference to the fact they would wander on the roads ("route" in French) to loot any vulnerable convoys and villages.

Brigands are interesting when it comes to miniature wargaming as they offer plenty of possibilities. Indeed, they can be equipped with many type of weapons and wear many different armors which they looted on the battlefield. On the opposite, knights tend to be uniformly well equipped and other feudal levy would only wear basic armors. 

I decided to use remaining bits and pieces to build two units of brigands. These are units of medium infantry so I based them eight per base. Many of them have spears, swords or equilavents and axes.  A unit also contains a mounted miniature. I like to think of him as a bandit knight of low moral value. Those men were most likely very common durign the incessant skirmishes of the periods. I also built two flails, an agricultural tools frequently used in war by rebelling peasants. The flails were simple to build : remove the tip of a spear and cut the shaft in two, glue the two piece to a chain and tadaaa !