From PeterD - 28mm Swiss Pikemen (85 points)

Hard on the heels of Curt's Gendarmes, I have a more much more modest post for our 'Renaissance Men' duel.  These are 16 Perry miniatures painted as Swiss Pikemen from the Zurich Canton.

These were a while in completion.  The first 8 were ready to go on the 12th but I decided to wait a week to get the whole unit a once, since the next 8 were in progress already. However primer failures and a stomach issue left me 98% ready with the unit last week end.  Given how I felt I waited another week to make sure I was happy with the results. And while not up to Curt's standard (Pah! -ed), I am quite happy with the results.

The mix of figures is 7 metal figures with pikes leveled and at 45 degree angles, 1 metal Swiss horn player bartered from Curt (thanks bud), 1 plastic command figure with standard from the Mercenaries boxed set, 1 plastic foot knight with pikemen's arms, and the rest European Mercenary plastics with pike and halberd arms (the latter from the bill and bow set).  The heads from a variety of plastic boxes plus some metal Swiss heads.  The metal pikemen come with pollards so the pikes are brass rod.  The flag is paper printed at home based on a Zurich flag from the Burgundian wars.

I am continuing to work on my basing.  Here again it is the Perry plastic bases topped with an acrylic gel/paint  mix and with ballast rocks and GW tufts.  Comments, feedback and suggestions for improvement are appreciated.

Well, I had a points lead for at least a few hours... :0P

These are great Pete! Pikemen are the meat and potatoes of the late medieval period, so it's wonderful to see more fine examples here. I like that you've done-up this unit with the front ranks charging their pikes, going in for the attack. I know they can be a bit fiddly to use on the tabletop, but the sense of movement they give just can't be beat.

I like where you're going with your new basework Peter. The texture gel and tufts look great. My only suggestion would be to mix in a few shades and lengths of tufts to provide more depth to the foliage/texture. Also, I recommend both painting and drybrushing the tallus. It will help integrate them with your existing basework colour scheme and the paint gives an added benefit of binding them to the base for longevity. 

I'm going to give a few more points for the brass rod pike swaps and the canton's brave banner. Now, I just need to convince you to add a couple more bases to beef them up to full meglomaniac level. ;)

I look forward to impaling my new gendarmes on these guys in an upcoming game! :)