Four units of Knightly Orders for my 15mm Warhammer Empire project

Well, two real ones and two inspired by the idea of knightly Orders First, two units of Reiksguard Knights;

 Obviously, they have to be given a white/red colour palette, so that is what I did. I don't really have anything to add to that. 

Next a single unit painted in a red and blue colour scheme, which I think ought to make them Altdorf Knights, but maybe not one of the "official" Orders but perhaps the guards of a powerful noble in Imperial service. Anyway, my army, my colour schemes.

Finally, a complete invention, mainly because I wanted something unique and I was playing around with washes and different metallic colours. I present to you The Knights of The Rose Cross;

These had copper horse barding with oiled steel highlights and white cloth under that and black surcoats on the knights, but I wasn't happy with how they looked, so I washed them in Winsor and Newton dark red drawing ink. Intitally, I wasn't sure, but the colour scheme grew on me. I added a pink standard from an 18th century Prussian cavalry unit,  reduced in size to fit.

I'm sure that some people will say "Yuck!" but they will certainly stand out on the tabletop.

Once again, these are all from Alternative Armies.

I've primed up some infantry now and also figures for two more command bases for Sword and Spear Fantasy, so more painting to get working on!

15mm Empire artillery

Artillery in Sword and Spear Fantasy can be pretty devastating, but it needs to be protected. So, for my Warhammer Empire army, I've put together two units of Imperial great cannon, and here they are;

Clearly, in reality, each base should really only have one cannon and maybe some gabions but artillery is quite an expensive option in S&SF and I rather like the look of a crowded base in 15mm. I think that they will look OK on the table.

Next, I'm going to be finishing off the rest of my mounted Knightly Orders (men-at-arms on barded horses) and after than, I'll begin work on the infantry.

Some characters and leaders for my 15mm Warhammer Empire project

All armies need leaders, and in fantasy armies they need heroes and wizards too. So, here are a few I've completed.

Above are two generals for my army, once again from Alternative Armies. The figure on the left could quite easily be the Emperor Karl Franz and the other just has to be an Elector Count. Both are accompanied by standard bearers

Next, some Imperial Battle Wizards;

The two on the left are mounted and dismounted versions of Leonardo Da Vinci and the right-hand pair are Niccolo Machiavelli, from the Alternative Armies renaissance collection but I think that these are great as wizards. In Sword and Spear Fantasy, wizards don't really dominate games, I find them most useful to either bolster units in combat or to try and remove hits on units at the end of game turns.

I've given the mounted Leonardo figure a barded horse, to mark him out as a wizard of great power and repute.

I like wizards in purple, it seems a good colour for the Hermetic Arts and the Occult.

Finally, what self-respecting Empire army would be without a Hero on a Gryphon? Well, certainly not mine.

One of the things I like about Alternative Armies' figure ranges is that you can bout mounted figures and mounts separately, as seen here. The Hero is a man-at-arms from the Renaissance range and the Gryphon is from their 15mm Fantasy range. I think he will look pretty impressive on the table.

 

A Warhammer Fantasy Empire-themed army in 15mm

A long time ago, I created a renaissance army for HoTT, which I based upon the Warhammer Fantsy Empire province of Averland. I still have it, but I rarely play HoTT nowadays. However, I am always thinking about renaissance wargaming and a year or so ago I bought a load of Alternative Armies figures in the form of two complete (French and Italian) Italian Wars armies plus some extra odds and ends. My plan was to create a Warhammer Fantasy Empire army that I could use for Sword and Spear and, especially Sword and Spear Fantasy.

Obviously the figures aren't an exact match and the Warhammer Empire didn't have any pike blocks, but I don't see that as being too important. It is the theme that counts.Anyway, I've now made a start and here are some of my first efforts.

The top picture shows two units of mounted men-at-arms who I have painted up to represent The Order of Knights Panther. I've stuck to a blue and yellow palette and also painted their helmet plumes in a desert yellow colour to give an impression of tan panther pelts.

The lower picture is of two army generals, using the mounted versions of Georg von Frundsberg (left) and Cesare Borgia (right) with standard bearers. The former does a reasonable impersonation of the Emperor Karl Franz of Warhammer fame.

Banners are a problem. There are plenty of images on the internet, but they are very large and generally only show one side of the flag. So, I've had to download large images, shrink them considerably (which loses all the detail), create a mirror image and then join the two halves together before printing them off. They aren't great, but they will have to do.

All my units will be on 8 cm wide bases, with any Heroes, Monsters and War Wagons on 4 cm bases and leaders and magicians on round bases. I will be able to reuse my Leonardo Da Vinci turtle tank as a WarWagon and maybe also some of the other HoTT bases as Heroes too.

Unlike real renaissance armies, my units will all be painted in uniform colour schemes, to create that Empire appearance, but I can still use them in historical games too.

I bought this at the beginning of 2022 .............

............... and now, more than 21 months later, I've actually painted it!

It is a PaK 40 7.5cm anti-tank gun with five crew and a junior leader. It will be a deadly addition to my collection of German support options for Chain of Command.

The gun and figures are from Peter Pig, as are all my WW2 German troops. I decided to put all the crew on a single base and use a small dice to record casualties. Because of the size of the gun, I had to base it on a 6cm MDF disc, so putting the crew on the same base made sense. It gives the whole thing a smaller footprint than having some of the crew on separate bases, which is easier for removing casualties.

So, now I have a big A/T gun for my Heer. Hopefully, I'll be able to get it on the table in the not too distant future.