Imperial Reinforcements


The nice part of having a game from time to time is the motivation it provides.  The debut outing of my Renaissance collection demonstrated an exceptional deficit in terms of Handgunners.  Each Square is supposed to have an element of Skirmishers plus a couple stands of "T" units for the army.  Most of my painted handgunners are old GW Empire figs on slotta bases, which didn't work so well in the game.

That said, I opted to upgrade with some Wargames Foundry Landsknecht Harquebusier.  I picked up enough to provide a skirmish stand for each square and a pair of Missile Stands.  The results look fairly good.

My "Middenheim" regiment.

and some skirmishers for the "Middenland" group as well.



The Swiss get their upgrade.

Finally I opted to come up with a semi-permanent solution for using my GW Handgunners


The results are passable for friendly games, and prevent the need for any more fancy base-work.

Comments

  1. Great paint job, beautiful details! Love the Middenland skirmishers...

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    1. Thanks. I really like the animated look on the these Foundry figures

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  2. Passable....?! They look great! Cheers! :D

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    1. Thanks, though the "Passable" comment references the way the slotta bases stick up from the group base.

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  3. Great looking handgunners. How do you choose a color scheme for this period? The yellow/blue combo is a good one. I am filled with indecision...

    We should plan another outing on the game table for these guys.

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    1. I wish I could say the Blue/yellow was historical, but it is actually based on my WHFB Middenland/Middenheim army from 20 years ago. The rest of my Landsnknecht are painted in a wide variety of colors. There was no real uniformity in appearance in this time period as the Landsknecht prided themsellves on their outlandish appearance. The closest thing I have found would be the "Black Band" that served for the French.

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    2. For ease of identification on the wargames table, I typically choose three colors for a unit - say Blue, Yellow and Black. I then use several shades of each (grey, if not 50 shades, for the black variants). With Landsknecht style dress, you can have the colors divided quarterly (2 variants), left/right (2 variants), upper lower (2 variants), or not at all ( 1 variant). With the various colors and slash options, no two figures need look the same. You can throw in small amounts of other colors without disrupting the "theme".

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    3. Swiss usually get "Cantonal Colors", Red/white. Red/Black, Blue/White, Black/White, Black/Yellow, and Green/White.

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    4. Thanks, totally go to use this....

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    5. Excellent advice, Peter! I may pursue this approach too.

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  4. Very nice handgunners - your work with GW figures are inspiring as I hope to someday do something historical with the Empire guys I have.

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    1. Thanks. My Empire army was always my favorite from my GW fan days, so I am really enjoying giving them a new lease on life.

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  5. Great and much needed additions; the Spanish and Italians in particular fielded large numbers of Arquebusiers, and the French always seemed to have a ton of (fairly ineffective) crossbowmen, too!

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