"Medieval Scots for L'Art de la Guerre in 15mm" Topic

Medieval Scots is not a subtle army – lots of poor quality pikemen, but one had successfully caused me a lot of problems in The Worlds in Belgium in 2016 so I had then quite fancied creating one myself.

I had also rebased a lot of Museum Miniatures Medieval pikemen to FoGR basing (40x20mm) a year earlier, cramming more than the regulation number of figures on a base for a mass effect, and this had also inspired me to see what a whole army of them might look like.

So, with a rather interesting order last thing in the day up at Derby last year which surprised the chap at Museum no end, the army started to take shape… and here is the finished result up and posted on my website:

And, for those who don't like clicking, a few taster photos for you..

I like 'em a lot! The pikemen are very impressive based the way you did.

Very nice, though lots of good quality pikemen and a modest quantity of decent archers would make better historical sense. The 'horde' and he javelin chaps are a mystery though.

Nice!!

This touches on the interesting subject for figure designers and casters intending on producing a range of figures.

That is the number of poses or different variants needed to satisfy both the asthetics of a particular set of rules and the wargames purchaser.

A long time ago with single figure basing (you can see such figures in some back catalogues still) a single horsemen throwing a javelin or shooting a bow to his left did fine for forming Cantabrian circles.

Such figures look a bit silly on multiple bases and with double bases of ADLG and those of Impetus the problem is maximized.

Regulars are one thing but how many irregular pikemen variants would you be happy with knowing you were going to buy loads of them?

What are the minimums that wargamers think figure manufacturers should now aim for?

I think it really depends a lot on the pose. My first tranche of these guys had literally 2 poses across 96 figures and it looked OK.

They were densely packed, in a 'standing', static pose, worked even when posed/glued at slightly different angles on the base and you could justify painting them in varied uniforms too. Being pikemen they also focus the eye on the pikes, not the men.

It's the loose formation, "active" figures that get spread out that are the ones where you need a decent number of poses.

With Scottish pikemen similar poses so the pikes dont look like a wavering mess would be obvious but how about actual variations in armour,helm,other attire or heads (position and faces?

Would 8 variants for Gallic and Germanic warband infantry be optimal for ADLG?

When you get to warband types it's easier to mix manufacturers anyway – mine are a mix of Old Glory, Essex and Corvus Belli, all of whom are close enough in size and style to work on the same base.

Once you are working with 3 or more different manufacturers this issue sort of just goes away..

That's an accident of history. Someone starting a business today would want prospective customers to buy their figures in preference.

So with regards to ADLG requirements would 3 poses for each light infantry and light cavaly type be enough to satisfy those customers?

Personally, I'd reckon 3 poses for "regular" troops is the minimum standard it's reasonable to expect in today's market.

I'd expect more for barbarian warband types – the kmost recent one has been the War & Empire range, and they have large number of variations