"16th C. Swiss Pike Keil - 15mm" Topic

I have finally finished a big (in FoG-R terms, 14 element) 16th Century Swiss Pike Keil. Figures are mostly Khurasan with a couple of packs of Minifigs mixed in for variety and economy.

I replaced all the pikes with brass wire – I can't bear spaghetti pikes! The banners were drawn in Microsoft Excel and printed off on an inkjet.

There are more pictures and an explanation on my blog. link

Very nice

Wow those are nice. That would be an amazing paint job on 28's, but that quality on 15's is inhumanly good.

Thanks for the Swiss Eye Candy.

Chris

Beautiful.

Very nice !

Phil

I have the Minifigs – purchased and painted many years ago. My keil includes the French and generic pikemen types as well for additional variety; they work fine as Swiss. The Minifigs appear to blend remarkably well with Khurasan.

Minifigs have come in for a lot of flak in recent years, but you can't fault their proportions; a more important consideration than detail at standard viewing distances, IMHO. The problems are the soft metal, which makes accurately proportioned ankles on bare-legged or hose-clad figures inherently weak, and the use of relatively thin cast-on pikes. I foolishly didn't replace mine with wire, so when using my Swiss and Spanish I'm constantly conscious of their fragility, and forever attending to inadvertent bends.

In spite of my protective measures, a couple of years ago at a game my opponent's cat decided to investigate the inside of the open troop carrier box and… :-o!

They look fantastic!

Lovely work there!!!

Thank you for the kind comments and encouragement.

To Henry Martini:

I think these Swiss are safe from my cat (who is a bit too fond of chewing paintbrushes). In their first outing last week, I forgot just how sharp their pikes were, stuck one in my thumb as I was getting them out of their box and drew blood. Sadly they seemed less keen on drawing Landsknecht blood: they lost four bases from 5 or 6 rounds of medium artillery fire, lost the impact and dropped.

The Khurusan figures have equally weak ankles, hence my pikes being epoxied to the ground – even for those figures who are very obviously advancing and carrying their pikes. It might be a good idea for me to paint a few spare heavy weapons to allow for cat-casualties.