For today I thought I would make good of the title of my blog which puts the „painting“ in brackets and therefore go to the collecting-part.
As to what I chose it was quite obvious for me, because I’m an ample fan of Warhammer’s The Empire faction. It was indeed this faction, that led me to my newer obsession with Landsknechts – given the name to the blog. If you’re familiar with Warhammer Fantasy battles, you probably know that the Empire was around until the end of the End Times (kaboom) and continues its existence in a rather vegitative state as the Free peoples‘ army the Free Guild.
Before age of Sigmar the Empire-range’s history can be followed pretty much to the beginning of WhFb, back then they were still coupled with the Bretonnian range as more or less simply humans. Around fourth edition I think maybe even before Warhammer switched from being narratively driven to an actually wargaming system, roughly like we know it today. With this the sculpting process changed for easier placing withing bases, the so called Slotta-minis came into being. (Slotta were metal-supports below the feet of the miniatures to slot them into bases with an empty slot.)
Around fifth edition (don’t quote me on that I’m reaching here) there weren’t many plastic minis around apart from the monopose ones. In order to make up for that there were a lot of different casts of metal minis – something we’d dream in most modern day sets about. Interestingly GW has returned to monoposes, even though they are now made of plastic and almost have the details of their early metal counterparts.
As the Empire was one of the main factions around that time, they had quite a considerable number of casts for each of their troop choices. This was especially true for their infantry, which then consisted of Reiksguard (yes they were on Foot as well as how many of us know them on horseback), Flagellants, Bowmen/Huntsmen, Crossbowmen, Handgunners and of course the meelee-troops like Spearmen, Swordsmen and Halberdiers. Remembering Karl Fanz’s edict every army has to have a unit of Halberdiers I had to obey, and here I am, having a little collection of most of the sculpts of Halberdiers. While I don’t own even one Swordsmen, I have the modular „Ersatzsoldiers“ with Halberds and Crossbows though.
Here they are, including a command unit consisting of one of the musician sculpts (the other one has a bugle) and one of the bannermens as well as a hero of the empire with a halberd. To be honest, this „hero“ looks very much like a Reiksguard guy and I love him to bits (but I won’t turn him into them!). There was another Champion/hero who had a halberd and was bald with his armet/closed helmet under his arm and an eyepatch (a pretty colorful guy).
What brought this on today? Well I simply was lucky to get an additional 3 new sculpts in via an ebay sale. I haven’t painted any of the models myself and will probably strip all of them in order to do so. Looking at those sculpts with the knowledge I have today I must say I’m pretty impressed: Sculpting-wise they’re excellent to the point where you can paint them in rather realistic ways. Historically speaking they’re also quite good: All armorparts, the helmets, the clothing itself is something that existed during the early to late stages of the Landsknechts in Italy or in Germany. Even though you have to differentiate still: The guy in full armor who is basecoated in black wears a burgonet with visors, which probably wouldn’t have been worn by a helberdier in that way, without visor maybe. all the closed helmets actually would have been worn by knights/gendarmes rather and on horses. The tassets and everything below would also be rather something, that riders would wear than infantry. As for those, that aren’t wearing a helmet or any armor at all, they wouldn’t have existed in that 16th century period, as a helmet and a breastplate were mandatory. Though the italians would maybe go out without a breastplate and take a shield and a sword or spear from time to time, imitating the Greeks/Romans.
Tl,dr.: I love how they look and how historical concepts are interwoven into fantasy.
I’m going to add to this series from time to time now. Next one will probably be the huntsmen and the handgunners to be shown off.
Thank you
Anthony
On another note here is again a preview:
From the Lands and from the Landsknecht 