Landsknecht Pike

Well, it's been a while hasn't it !

Life has been rather busy and unpredictable for a while and unfortunately in my case the hobby is often the first casualty though equally when I return to it it's a comforting sign of things getting back to normal.

All is well and i'm very happy to be presenting another unit.

What better unit to reinvigorate the collection than some colourful Landsknechts !

I like to return to Landsknechts from time to time and especially so if I feel my painting style has improved or changed somewhat so I've quietly had this little unit very slowly being worked upon over the last year or so - yes i did say very slowly.

This unit with pike at the 45 will complement my existing pike though equally can be used as a unit in its own right as in fact I have done only yesterday in a game.

The unit consists of 36 figures with a mix of figures from Steelfist miniatures, Wargames Foundry and Warlord. With the exception of a couple of head swaps all were painted straight out of the packs and assembled with 100mm pikes available from Steelfist Miniatures.

Here they are prior to basing;

All were painted using Wargames Foundry Paints and thinned Citadel Colour contrast paints mixed with Foundry paints as washes which achieved some really vibrant results that I was very pleased with. 

Each figure is based upon a contemporary source, most notably borrowing from the magnificent coloured drawings in The First Book of Fashion from the collection of  Matthaus Schwarz.

Based up and ready for action, the bases are 60x40mm available from Warbases

I will at some point add some command to go with them.

Here you can see how they fit in with my existing collection of Imperial pike, I've wanted this missing link from pikes upright to pikes levelled for quite a while and seeing them together was a great moment.

The whole block of Pike, 120 figures in all, the oldest figure in the unit was painted in 2001 

Arquebusiers in support 

Looking at the whole unit together some of the older bases need cleaning up a bit and I may (gasp) re-base some of the standing figures to pull the command out on separate bases that way I can field a large Landsknecht or Swiss block with their commands.

If I awake with this madness still in my mind i'll no doubt do a few more standing figures just to marry all of my styles together, and possibly add some newer flags too. We shall see.

Bye For Now :)

Stuart