More Foot Sergeants - 28mm FireForge

Seeing as I was down a few crossbowmen for my Renaissance Army I made up 24 FireForge Foot Sergeants as crossbowmen (see below):

The remaining 24 were a combination of Spear, Battle Axe, Sword and Mace. Excellent figures (see below, another gamer noted their potential usefulness for Frostgrave):

Need another box of these ;)

Foot Sergeants (FireForge) The first "few" of the "many" 28mm

The 'plastic mountain' is being attacked. The next box of 'sexy 28mm plastics" under scrutiny is the "foot" equivalent of the Mounted Sergeants, the humble "Foot Sergeant". As a complusary Impetus 'Crusader Army' maneouver element the "crossbows" are assembled first (see below):

I am planning to mount six to a base (2 x Trained Crossbow), needing two for the army minimum, leaving enough in the pack of forty four to assemble the four compusary (FP) Foot Sergeants, again mounting six to a base. As there are ten figures left over I could even up the figure count to eight a base if necessary wrt the Foot Sergeants, all depending on how the aethetics of the base looks!

Footnote: The more I look at my current FireForge boxes, rather than looking to the Holy Land the boxes point to a Teutonic interest. The "good" news theer is that their enemies (Mongols) come in "Plastic Box Sets"! Hmm, a cunning plan is forming in my tinty mind ;)

Missing "Back Four" Found - 28mm Mounted Sergeants (FireForge)

Handed back to me by my errant son, the four Sergeants-At-Arms were made, finally armed in the end with short spears (see below):

I had toyed briefly with the thought of geting four metal mounted handgunner figures from Redoubt Enterprises (and there is still the chance that I may) but looking at these I am hoping to fit them into a Renaissance army .. but looking at the army lists they seem more Crusades. Am I branching out (again) should realy just paint them first and then decide ;)

Mounted Sergeants-At-Arms (FireForge Games) aka Mounted Crossbowmen for my Impetus Renaissance Army.

After all this work on micro (1/3000) scale stuff I had the urge to put together some 28mm plastics (aka the "big stuff" that I can see better - 15mm scare me these days) together and chose the FireForge Games Sergeant-At-Arms (mounted) as it was on top of the "stack" (a "last-in" but "first-out" of data structure). Nice kit and I have been waiting to do these for some time. The box is a direct copy of the Mounted Sergeants but it has a 'sprue' of six crossbowmen which was the deal breaker as it will be ideal to give me an extra Impetus stand (or two, if I hide a sword armed chappie in the midst of the block of four and get eight from six .. a cunning plan) for my Maximilian 'Italian Wars' Renaissance Army (see below, notice how there are only two sprues of bodie parts to make up eight men, strange at first I thought I was going mad as I thought I had counted twelve, I then thought it must have been a packing error. I then found out I was the victim of a childish prank by my eldest for pulling him out of PS4-land making him see natural sunlight - silly as he obviously forgot his birthday is coming up soon .. looks like the Physics or French text book it is then! So all is well I have twelve to play with):

So the horses went together sweetly, very reminiscent (in a good way) of Games Workshop standard troop types that will lend themselves well to good brush stroke painting, The mounted crossbowmen were cool to put together although I cannot vouch for the poses I chose given the horses were all going at the gallop. The boys might in reality "fall off" in real life (see below, there are eight here but now that I have been reunited with the missing 'body sprue' I have another four axe, sword, spear and mace ones to make):

They are a good but and together with the Mounted Sergeants (FireForge Games .. still to assemble), the Men-At-Arms (Perry's Miniatures .. still to assemble) and the Teutonic Knights (FireForge Games .. assembled but still to paint) I have more horse than I can shake a stick at (or should that be 'pike at'). I do still have the mad urge to get the Perry, Light Renaissance Horse too, but that is because I am getting a little "28mm mad" seeing everything that comes as plastic in a box circa £20 as a bargain!

A Horse, a Horse a Kingdom (or Two) for a Teutonic Horse

A herd of unfettered Teutonic Horse (without Knights) go rampaging across the painting (or should I say assembly) table. My motto is "four legs not bad but usually give me more painting problems than two legs". It has to be said that for the Teutonic Knights it looks to be worth all that bother.

They came as a horse in four parts: a head, a left side, a right side and a tail(I think it was separate, if not so you can reduce the count to three). These are very nice multi-pose figures from FireForge Games. I have my wargaming eye on them to be used with my "Burgundian Knights" for archaic Renaissance "Heavy Metal" type Knights that also can springboard me backwards into an earlier period (12th to 14th Century). This would be a wargaming project in embryo so to speak to be initiated at some unspecified point in the future.

Anyone had one of them before?
;)

The Knights also came in as many parts and a few more too. So if you are shy of the 'liquid poly' these figures may not be for you, but it is so the modern trend. The Knights also have to be trialled on their horses to get a fit of sensible poses.

A small amount of plastic chipping of saddles was required to get a good sensible looking fit and posture. IMHO you have got to like the look of a nice long lanced Knight figure ;)

My first pass at the Knights "en mass" waiting to be suitably "mounted". I tried to tone down the "over the top" Gothic look and used as many standard helmets as I could (my preference only, this is not meant as any sort of a critique) in an attempt to fit in with my Renaissance armies more.

To me they have that:  "I will ride down anything in my path" feel or rather attitude to life (and death).

Which I guess is bad news for the hard of hearing on a battlefield: "Did you not hear me peasant, I said get out of the way" ....

Split into two sub-units of six Knights each (see below), one "highly Gothic" (see the right hand side) the other passable as more normal(?) Knights (well until I paint them in that startling Teutonic Gothic way of Black and White contrast .. methinks this is a classic case of "the figure range leading you into a period", rather than "trying trying to find a figure range that is nice enough for a period you really like". So I have happy days (evenings) of probably 'slow painting' ahead!

My peddlers box of assembled but as yet unpainted Renaissance(ish) figures is growing. Alongside the newly acquired Twelve Teutonic Knights (the same number coincidentally as the number as the of Apostles), there is the 'mounted' HRE Charles V himself, a few Landsknecht Pikemen wandering 'lost' from a pikeblock and some Games workshop Handgunners of the old school (before they went too Fantasy for Renaissance use).

This does mean my Renaissance plastic assembly line can see "light at the end of the tunnel", with 'only' a box of Perry's Mounted Men-At-Arms (very renaissance in-period) on the shelf left to construct. Leaving me with the "Renaissance Swiss Army Project" painting to contend with in 2013. The 28mm figures (particularly used with Impetus) seem to be crying out fro a "big battle"! However I am not so sure I can resist the other offerings from FireForge Games:

• Mounted Sergeants
• Foot Sergeants
• Templar Cavalry