Finally completed a unit.

 So the last "unit" I did was back on the 12th of June, since then I've only done a few odd figures, brigadiers, and Vietnam stuff, not any proper units. 


I started this back in February 2020, when I did the men at arms part of the unit.


Since then I've very slowly added the archer and gendarme part of the Ordinance Lance. 


I was inspired by Stuart at https://stuartsworkbench.blogspot.com/, I feel he is THE guy when it comes to details on this period in miniature. 

But he is doing Smaller scale actions with the rules he uses, I can't go into as much details as I hope to do full-sized battles, So my Company of Lance is a bit more abstracted. I also decided to have my archers as light lancers and not actual archers, it might be a bit wrong for 1510 battles, but seems that sometime between 1510 and 1525 the archers had become lancers. So I went for that. 

This represents a company of Lances, so 100 actual gendarmes, but with the added men at arms and archers, somewhere between 300 and 400 actual combatants.

The Gendarmes are in the center, 4 of them.

Flanked by 4 Men at arms, One of them a standard-bearer, that I did quite a lot of greenstuff work on.

The men at arms are again flanked by the archers, one of which is carrying a standard.

I have 4 other men at arms ready, so I need 4 more archers and 4 more Gendarme to finish another company of lances.  I need like 100+ in the end, and at this rate, I'll be done sometime after the sun expands into a red giant. 

The Gendarmes are Steel fist and so are the archers, while the men at arms are perry plastics that I've Italian wared up.

Lances, Christmas and Puppies.

 Well lets do the Lances first, two diffrent types here.
Separated by some 200 years of history.

First up is first base of 5th Silisian Landweher cav. Beeing Prussians they are of course Calpe.
I orderd some prussian line infantry, and then these from his old store. I got the paypal request for the landwehr cav, But by then I had spent the money on dog food. I told him I'd get the money to him as soon as possible, but I did not know he had sent the cav with the line infantry, so now I have some figures I have not pay for yet. So feeling bad for that, espacaly now that it's christmas. I have to get the money to him as soon as possible, but no banking is happening untill the 29th,

 Anyway as allways his figures are fantastic. A true Joy to paint, been a long time since I've painted calpe but boy are they little pieces of art.

 Then we travle back to the past. Got my Foundry Gendarmes, Just enough for one unit.
This is the first base, first of 4.

I like these, tho, getting the bard looking good is hard, it apears you can paint the bard either as metal or as cloth(I assume cloth over metal) I do not have a gold color that actualy stands out, I have painted (some bad) paterns in gold on the plate for the horse, but it's bearly visible.

 I gave them each a theme, that is used for both horse and rider. One is purple and white, another is red and light blue.

I like these, I wish I could get the bard better.

Life stuff

So this was the first Christmas away from my parents, I went to spend Christmas with my fiance's family, I had a very good time, We were 7 with the little one(8 if we add the other little one still in my sister in laws stomach) 

We had a very nice 7kg turkey, most of which disapeard. Lots of nice presents and a jolly time. We brought our 7.5 month old puppies and their mother, And walked down along the river in Rjukan.

The major event of the evening was the little one, just a few months over 2 years now,  He got his first ski's  This was much color then any of the toys he got, so out in to the cold to test them, He got quite cross when he had to come in, He wanted to ski all night. 

We had to drive back home, and could not stay the night, But why?

Puppies!

We had been expecting Puppies for Christmas, Do date was 23rd, But after a very long night for my fiance, We had to go to the Vet for a Ceasaraen. A big girl puppie was stuck in the birthcanal, she did not make it. But 4 other big ones did. And are now probebly suckeling at their mothers teats downstears while I write this. They are big and healthy having gone up close to 200+ grams in 4 days. 

Mommy Denali, a very photogenic dog, does not take bad pictures 

 Red Boy, looks brown now, but I've been told he will be quite light red.

 Black boy, Smallest of the bunch, but taking on weigh at the same speed as his bigger sibling.

 Black Girl. We are lucky, the black ones got very diffrent markings, so easy to tell apart.

 Gray Girl, biggest one.

And my Girl, My just out of bed Fiance holding the gray girl. 

This will be Denalies last litter, her first one 3 years ago was hard, and now a Ceasarean.

We will keep one puppy for our own. And we have one of her daughters from her first litter. 

Landsknecht part 2.

 So I basicly finshed my landsknecht, I got 2 more from the order, might paint them up tomorrow or something. But I kinda hate having a half finished base, so might wait untill I order more.

So this is 18 landsknecht from artizan. When I get the money(not untill well after new year)  I'll order 6 packs of these and 1 of halbraders, For a total of 72 figures. I'll also order 2 units from TAG, one foot and one mounted arqebusers. And one unit of gendarmes.






So this is it so far. Hand painted(traced)  flag.
A 72 strong unit will be 4 bases wide and 3 deep.

I like them so far, But I think my next unit(that will be made with foundry) with be advancing.
I get marching instead of advancing, but just standing like this, From all the pictures of pike blocks they are always moving or advancing over the battlefield. By just standing there they loose that old feel.

First Landsknecht

 So Waited for theise for a very long time(well 22 days) This happend after I watched olicana's blog about the italian wars, the pure wargame porn. I needed to do that!

I orderd 20 landsknecht from artizan, And I'll order a big order from foundry that will give me some 120 landsknecht and 18 gendarmes.

I'll also add arebusers, mounted and foot, mounted and foot crossbowmen ect. Probebly from TAG.


I've tried a totaly new style of painting theise figurers, I could say a bleak  imitation of olicanas style. I only use 2 layers, with big contrasts, This is not a style I will use on any other project, this is italian war only style. They don't look half as good as olicanas but they look good.

 They are fun to paint, but takes a long time, even with just 2 layers vs 3-5. the complex "uniforms" means it takes a while.

 Besides imitating a italian war god, I like this style for 2 other reasons. 1 in a pike block of 60-120 figures, you need bright colors with big contrasts to be seen. 1 saves time, again a unit of 60 pluss figures.


My units are mostly brightly colord, greens, reds, blues, yellows.