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!

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.

Mercenary mounted crossbowmen

My band of Papal Condottieri now has a ranged attack, in the shape of six mounted crossbowmen, again from Perry plastic 28mm 1450-1500 Light Cavalry box.

Note that I have again used the red/white motif for the majority of these figures, although one of them is a nonconformist, in dress if not religion, seeing as there were no Protestants at the end of the 15th century. I have also given one rider a trumpet, but he does have a crossbow too. It is slung on the other side of his saddle. These will join the coustiliers as members of a lance, but will end up being fielded as a separate unit for Lion Rampant.

To break things up a bit, and to give me a break from painting horses, I am going to take a small diversion away from Renaissance Italy and work on some Peninsular War British line infantry next, but I am also making up a lot of Renaissance foot troops, which I will undercoat this weekend. There will be pikemen, crossbowmen, a few characters and some handgunners. All of these will be in some form of Papal red and white. After that, I intend to add some halberdiers and more crossbows, and possibly some more pikemen.  I am thinking that at least some of these will be wearing a different livery, to indicate that they represent troops hired by the Condottiero as additional muscle, but not as full-time members of the band. I am thinking that these will probably hail from Switzerland, and I am thinking about a black/yellow/red colour palette for these. I may yet change my mind, though.

Condottieri gendarmes on unarmoured horses

Following on from the heaviest gendarmes  riding armoured horses, here are six more Perry Plastic gendarmes mounted on unarmoured horses.

Although you always see a lot of gendarmes with armoured horses, I suspect that, in reality horse armour was kept to a minimum when actually engaged in combat, with the full horse barding probably seeing more service in parades than on battlefields.

The flag with these guys looks like it is plain red from the angle it is in the photo, but it is actually a white cross on a red ground, keeping the red/white theme of the overall band.

Anyway, I now have a couple of powerful cavalry units ready for Lion Rampant, and my next part of the project revolves around the Perry Plastic 1450-1500 Light Cavalry box. It is my plan to make up six of these as mounted crossbowmen and the other six as light lancers, mounted sergeants in Lion Rampant parlance.

Once those are done, it will be over to the foot soldiers.

More Condottieri

After my first efforts on the project; I started work on the Perry plastic Mounted Men-at-Arms, because every self-respecting Condottieri band needs some armoured men mounted on big horses. There are 12 figures in the Perry box, and I've made them all up; six on unarmoured horses, and the remainder on barded ones. So far, I have completed the latter group, but the rest will be finished soon.

These heavily armoured riders were given a range of names across Renaissance Europe; Elmeti, Gens d'Armes, Gendarmes and so on. Their role was a continuation of that of the mediaeval mounted knight, forming the armoured fist that could decide a battle at the charge. Until the rise of gunpowder weapons and pike-armed infantry, the gendarme was the most powerful tool available to generals across western Europe. The concept of the gendarmes d'ordonnance company originated in France, but throughout the 15th century became commonly used throughout Europe. The companies were made up of lances, i.e. a group of mounted troops and retainers, led by a noble (the actual gendarme) and supported by lighter-equipped troops, a second, slightly lighter lancer, one or two mounted missile troops (equipped with crossbows or bows), a page and one or two servants, usually totalling six or seven men in total.

Over time, the lance concept changed as warfare changed, until the plate-armoured lancer began to be replaced during the 16th century by mounted troops in lighter armour, more reliant on firearms, but the heavy lancer lasted almost until the start of the Thirty Years' War in western Europe, and even longer in the East, where the Polish Winged Hussar continued to serve right until the end of the 17th century.

Anyway, my six gendarmes have been painted with red and white as the common theme, and the banner being carried is a common device in Renaissance Italy. In this case I see it as the banner of Bologna, the idea being that these mercenary gendarmes were recruited in the city. The red and white also ties into the Papal theme of the overall band.