"15mm Alternative Armies, Medieval and Renaissance range" Topic

does anyone know how they compare size wise (height and heft) with Essex and Donnington Miniatures. They look nice on the website painted but I have a feeling that they are quite old figures and recently re-launched?
Any comments on the range gratefully received

I have some alternative armies Dark Ages and Muslim miniatures. In my view they are more roughly sculpted than Essex and Donnington but the infantry are of a similar height can be used in the same base if you paint them in the same style. Essex and Donnington minis are more polished. Alternative Armies sometimes look crude in bare metal but many show character when painted. Mounted troops, however, are a different story. Alternative Armies horses tend to be very small compared to Essex and riders and horses are cast as one piece. Maybe they could work in different stands. Hope this helps.

Most of the range is very old – originally Asgard from the early 1980s but there are some recent new additions to the range of Landsknects.

They mix very well with the slightly earlier Minifigs but are generally a bit more dynamically posed and sculpted with more relief. They mix well with at least some Essex infantry bit the Essex horses are much bigger. I've not made a direct comparison with Donington but I think they vary a lot anyway.

Generally I think you can mix infantry figures with different heights and builds as long as you replace the weapons so they match – that's the approach I've followed with my Italian Wars French and Late Romans, both using a mix of Alternative Armies, Minifgs and others. It is easy enough to do this with pikes and spears – a bit more time consuming with crossbows!

Here, for example, are a mix of crossbowmen:

TMP link

From left to right: Alternative Armies/Asgard, Gladiator, Naismith, Naismith, Essex, 4 from Old Glory, 2 from Venexia

Despite having used a lot of these figures and liking them, if I hadn't already had them in the lead pile (many dating back to the 80s!) but was buying new, I would have looked at more modern ranges with multiple poses for each type..

smallitalianwars.blogspot.com

Just to add to Legionarius' comments. Many (maybe all) of the Alternative Armies Medieval cavalry are cast as one piece but all of the 16th and 17th C and most of the ancients that I have seen have the horse and rider as separate castings. These then swap well with Minifigs.

I have a couple of the Hussite figures in front of me and they mix well in height with Essex, Minifigs, Donnington NE, Irregular and quite a few other ranges who have taken part in my Hussite muster.
Oddly, they _look_ smaller until actually placed next to others. Something to do with the proportions I suppose, which are exaggerated because these have quite big kettle hats.

The horses are indeed smaller.

I also have some figures from other parts of the medieval range such as the bidowers, and these are smaller. The ranges like the Late Romans (ex-TTG) are also small compared to most ranges – they would probably fit with the Peter Pig Ancients.

From Phil's FoG Blog

The Alternative Armies figure is captioned 15mm.co. Hope that helps.

Phil