"Later Italian Wars figures " Topic

I have a French Italian wars army which I'm looking to exapnd, and thiking about getting a Spanish-Imperial force to face it. The figures I've got are Essex 15mm. What other ranges would be compatible with Essex? I'm not entirely taken with their Renaissance range, and I'm looking at the 1520 to 1540 perid, up to Ceresole. Would Old Glory or Black Hat miniatures fit in well?

The Black Hat (now sold by Fighting 15s under their old Gladiator brand) are rather large, so I don't think they would match well with Essex.
The Old Glory range is a bit more compatible but still larger than Essex. The style is pretty different too. They do provide figures for the later period though I think some are better than others.

Style and sizewise, QRF may well mix with Essex. Ignore the dates shown for the Tudor range!

There are the old school options of Minifigs and Mike Models (the Renaissance range was their best and still popular enough that Essex still sell it).

Mike Models might work.

The Minifigs troops may be too tall and thin, compared to the Essex ones, if their Ren, sculpts are anywhere near the same as the Minifigs Agincourt range troops.

Just prepped some Essex MER40 and 41s and some Minifig 22, 37, 38X, and 481X figures.

Those are armored and unarmored pike for the Essex and unarmored pike, unarmored Swiss pike, armored Swiss pike, and Low Country/Burgundian armored pike for the Minifigs.

The 22X are a bit smaller than rest of the Minifigs and the Essex.

To my eye, while the rest of the Minifig pike seem a bit 'bulkier' it is due to a more spread out stance than the Essex which are standing at rest.

Height is quite close.

My Mikes Landsknechts are a bit stockier and shorter than the later Essex codes.

Addendum – I also have some Asgard Burgundians from their Early 16th C line that seem to fit sizewise. The range is now carried by Viking Forge in the US and Alternative Armies in the UK.

link

One caveat on this is that I have seen a bit of size difference on some other codes (Sassanid half armored horses) that may be the result of the new producers having to had master from production figures.

I think you can mix quite a wide range of different manufacturer's figures in with Essex's Italian Wars figures, even within the same unit. My Italian Wars army is an eclectic mix of Minifigs, Asgard, Essex, Essex, Freikorp, Venexia, Kurasan, Black Hat, Naismith and Old Glory. I think the key factor is having the weapons look fairly uniform – people come in all shapes and sizes but a huge difference in style, length and heft of weapons looks odd. As long as you replace the pikes, lances and (maybe) crossbows you can get a convincing appearance.

The great advantage you have with mostly Essex is that they are the standard mid-sized 15s and everybody else is a bit bigger or a bit smaller so you can mix most of them in fairly freely. I would avoid Black Hat because they are so much more heavily built; Museum Miniatures – nice figures but much bigger and Mikes Models unless you want the appearance of an army of dwarves alongside the humans. The others I have used mix in quite well. Some of the Venexia figures (now from Lancashire Games) are very good and would work well but others haven't lasted and seem a bit distorted or poorly moulded.

This is shows gendarmes by Essex, Asgard and a variety of old and current Minifigs.

From left to right: Asgard, Gladiator, Naismith, Naismith, Essex, 4 from Old Glory, 2 from Venexia. Even with these wildly different figures, once they are painted and based and with the crossbows made more or less the same, I think they work quite well together.

The bigger problem, I think is finding suitable figures for the later Italian Wars. Most ranges finish at Pavia at the very latest – even for that, the only Swiss are those from Khurasan. There are some subtle changes in style and, along with the issue of good and bad figures from different manufacturers, you might have to take a figure by figure approach to find suitable ones.

If I was in your position I'd either compromise on the issue of size compatibility and look at the new range from Blue Moon for the Spanish or maybe hold on to see what Khurasan do as the greens on their facebook site look so good.

smallitalianwars.blogspot.com

Thanks for the information, gentlemen. And especially for the photo comparisons. They are very much appreciated.

The reason for my query is a work colleague. He's a fantasy gamer, and used an Empire army in Warhammer Fantasy battles. The Empire is loosely based on the Holy Roman empire of the early C16th with knights and mounted pistoleers. I showed him a clip from ‘Alatriste' of French cavalry attacking a tercio, and he was bowled over by it. Now that he's realised that most fantasy armies have some historical counterparts he's slowly getting into the historical side of gaming. As he's an Empire army fan, I dug out an old French Italian Wars army I did for DBR, but it's a Marignano period army. I want to update it, and build up a Spanish Imperial force to oppose it. His love of pistoleers means I'm looking at 1540s – Ceresole and the 1550s campaigns in Flanders, hence trying to source appropriate figures.