"Warmaster Empire as Historical " Topic

I am thinking about painting my Warmaster Empire forces, and am wondering about doing them as an historical force?

What would be an appropriate historical army to base them on? I am thinking something around the Renaissance.

The figures can be seen on GW's site link

I know some of the units won't work for historical, but I am after a style rather than an exact match.

The infantry is lightly to unarmoured, with slashed clothes and big hats. There are halbadiers, crossbows and handgunners.

There are heavily armoured cavalry with lances on barded horses, and lighter cavalry in some armour with heavy pistols.

The infantry are spot on for Landsknechts, while the Kinghts are probably in the right ballpark foe Gendarmes.

Dom.

'Scuse typos…. ;-)

I think Dom has it dead on. The Swiss and Germans would work well.

Erik

That was quick!

Any good links? You'll be quicker than me googling undoubtedly.

This is what I am working on stocking up on now, 10mm stuff to do the italian Wars.

Basicly, everything is well and good except that:

A) The Halbrediers should become Pikemen

I plan to snip off the halbred down to the hand, drill into its base and then send in some Piano wire. I am planning to wrap the wire in paper and then wash with school glue to make it thicker to match the base

B) The Gendarmes shouldn't have shields and for all the horses to have that gothic style creased barding is not correct and frankly a bit boring looking.

This is a problem with the arms; honestly, I'm planning to sculpt them with green stuff (I don't need TOOOO many, my second rank will be retainers). The Barding I am going to fill in most of the creases with green stuff, maybe put a fringe border at the base. This should be easy and it will allow for a more colorful figure with a rich tapestry pattern laid out on the barding (the metal on metal look of the knights is real dull IMO).

C) You will need a few extra troop types, particularly some kind of light horse.

I was considering Pendraken SYW cavalry (these look to be nicer horses) or maybe GFI ECW cavalry and swap the torsos with some Empire crossbowmen or handgunners. its important to realise that the Pendraken Cavalry is a bit underscale with the Infantry while the Warmaster guys are overscale with the Infantry. So they won't mix very well. The Stardiotti I have no idea about (I saw a pic of the Pendraken SYW Austrian Hussars that had appropriate heads, but it would be alot of work with green stuff.)

I have elaborate plans with this and am trading for some stuff with lentulus as we speak.

There is actualy an old Link on TMP about this with some shots too….

TMP link

TMP link

Suffice to say I have some enthusiasm for this project :^)

Good luck!

Oh, the pistoliers are more appropriate for the 1660's and beyond, but I was thinking about sneaking a few in as they are nice figures and who can resist some Reiters?

Alternatively, if the pistols were snipped and they were given some light lancers, they could work as 'Light Cavalry' (wich is realy 'Heavy Cavalry').

Heres a good link…..

myarmoury.com/features.html

Look at the bottom center of the articles section and it gives an overview of all the players.

"Oh, the pistoliers are more appropriate for the 1660's and beyond, but I was thinking about sneaking a few in as they are nice figures and who can resist some Reiters?"

Actually they would be closer to 1630s and earlier. Much of the heavier armour was abandoned by troops after the Swedish style of charging in was more widely adopted and carocalling became a thing of the past.

Barmy:

Take a look at the Pendraken, TYW "Trooper with Pistol, Back and Breast, Burgonet" It's a great looking figure and a bit more robust than the Pendraken ECW and misc. other cav. I have seen.

Dennis

Pikes would be rather important for a historical army of this period.

I think on the Yahoo Warmaster list there were some conversions, were the whole hand and halberd were removed and a wire pike put in place, with a new green stuff hand.

I would warn you though, that if you're hoping to get 'uniform ideas' that you can translate into a paint scheme that there was basically no such thing at the time. For the most part soldiers wore whatever they wanted/scrounged.

Rich

As to colours and paint scheme suggestions.

There seem to be lots of photos of brightly coloured minis, but the re-enector sites seem to go for more muted shades?

I was wondering about using a small range of colours for each unit -- but wonder if the army will end up looking random.

" colours and paint scheme "

For the landsknecht, go flashy or go home. I have not seen much muted on Landsknecht re-enactors. The osprey warrior on the landskecht is quite good. But NO uniforms. Get out all your brightest colours, and roll a dice or something.

Der, I meant 1560's, French War or Religion on the Reiters, not 1660's.

Thanks for the tip on the TYW figure Dennis, I'll look into those.

As said, landsknect costume should look like an explosion in a paint factory – lots of different bright colours, and there should be multiple colours used on most of the landsknechts, too. Not sure how easy it is to get the proper look in 10mm.

Griefbringer

What I like to do with my 15s is to put five or six on a paint stick, then paint them with the same three colors, but alternating between what parts received which colors. Then when I'm all done with the multitude, I simply randomly select figures to mix together. Otherwise, trying to paint each figure individually will drive one (me at least) bonkers.