Landsknecht Pike

Presenting my latest distraction, a base of attacking Landsknecht pike.

Beautiful as they are, these were not really supposed to be created at this juncture but I got a bit carried away. The unit started life as 2 Pro Gloria figures which I used to add a walk-through painting guide over on my other blog.

I knew these fitted rather well with the existing Perry sculpted Wargames Foundry pike but to be absolutely sure I thought it worthwhile putting a base together so I've had a bit of a hiatus from the Tudors but an enjoyable one nonetheless.

My conclusion is that they work splendidly; The PG figures are sculpted with the hands at a higher angle than the equivalent WF figures which really adds to the movement you can achieve in the unit. I use the 45 degree pose as halberdiers so the PG figures represent those moving from the rear of the group with the WF figures working their way forward about to burst out of the unit so the overall effect is very complementary, hopefully these photographs help illustrate this.

This base also gave me the opportunity to experiment with my palette a little; I have muted quite a few of the colours to give a more lived in feel and also as a reflection of the natural dyes that were available. This was predominantly achieved by using the brown wash method and then only highlighting to the mid-tone of the WF 3 pot palette as the wash gives an extra shade (hope that makes sense).

As for the arrangement and basing, you can find a whole essay on my approach and thinking behind it all here.

Next up some Tudor longbo.......more Landsknechts! - I now have 3 bases of these attacking pike and well, 4 would be perfect and I've already started so I might as well keep going while I'm in a Landsknecht place.