My latest big project - A Condottieri band in Papal service

I have long had a desire to do something with the lovely Perry plastic late mediaeval/renaissance box sets. I mentioned this at Christmas and now I have actually embarked upon the project.

My plan is to create a condottieri band which I can use for Lion Rampant games, but which can also be used for other sets of rules. I know that creating a force for the latter part of the 15th century stretches the Lion Rampant period right to the end of the 15th century and into the early part of the 16th, but I think that it will be fine. I've decided on a force in Papal service because that means that I can use a fairly unified colour scheme, predominantly red and white, but which will also allow me the flexibility to use other colours too. We should remember that there were no real uniforms in this period, certainly not among mercenaries, but that there were specific combinations of colours associated with retinues belonging to city states, powerful nobles and others.

I have plans for a number of troop types; pikemen, troops with polearms, crossbowmen, arquebusiers (which I will probably deploy as bidowers), armoured men-at-arms (both mounted and on foot), lighter cavalry, mounted crossbows etc. 

Looking at the number of sprues I have, I will admit that this looks like a pretty daunting task, but one has to make a start and here is where I am so far.

I like to start off with a leader or character, because that gives me a nice thing to do before I plunge into the rank and file. So, here is a commander on foot with his standard bearer, a herald (using the English king body and a head and trumpet from the Light Cavalry box and six heavily-armoured men-at arms on foot with polearms and a two-handed longsword. I know that Lion Rampant doesn't really need leaders looking like this, but I intend to ignore the standard bearer and treat the base as a single figure. The Herald was just a nice extra to paint up. I'm sure that he'll get used somewhere along the line.

I will paint more of these armoured foot later on, but I am currently working on some mounted troops, which should be finished by the end of the week.

Of course, these guys will also be ideal for Dragon Rampant too, and also probably Sword and Spear, so this is a win-win project. I am also thinking about how I might use Pikeman's Lament and Lion Rampant concepts together to take this force into the Italian Wars.