Wednesday 8 February 2017

From BillA - Teutonic Knights on Foot (75 points)

Work continues apace with my Warhammer Ancients Teutonic Knight army; with this unit, the infantry of Stage One is complete; I'll be picking up more infantry figures, spearmen and crossbowmen predominantly, in the not too distant future for Stage Two, but I expect this year's Challenge to be over by that time.  In the meantime, I have 32 cavalry figures to keep me busy for the next few weeks!

Let's take a look at these chaps then, shall we?

Fifteen knights on foot, seven of which are metal figures from Gripping Beast, the rest being from the Crusader Miniatures line, purchased through North Star.  I'd originally intended to buy only Crusader figures for this regiment, given their low price, but then I noticed that they didn't offer command packs of Teutonic foot knights - some googling brought me to Gripping Beast, whereby I filled out the rest of the regiment, including command.


These figures will probably end up pulling double-duty for Kings of War; I can throw another five figures
into the back rank there to make a "legal" KoW regiment.

Only one problem - the Gripping Beast figures are noticeably bigger and bulkier than the Crusader figures! Oh well, fill the front rank with Gripping Beast and use the Crusader figures for back rows and hopefully nobody will notice the difference on the table.

Bases are done in my (now usual) way; painted Folkart "Dark Chocolate," given a layer of brown basing grit, tufts glued down (this unit has "Winter Tufts" from Gamer's Grass, as I ran out of the winter tufts from Army Painter), varnished, Army Painter snow flock glued down, varnished again.

Here are a few more shots of the command group; I don't know if the red cloak on the standard bearer is authentic or not, but I loved the way the cloak wrapped around the sculpt of the figure, and wanted to make it stand out.  The standard is a 6cm spear and a spare banner piece from Fireforge.



between the helmet and the horn, it was hard getting the musician's face in the picture!
Finally, a shot with the command group removed, letting you see the smaller and less-intricate Crusader figures:


So that's fifteen 28mm figures, for a total of 75 points.

ByronM: Great looking start to an army Bill, shame about the different sizes of figures, but honestly you will notice it more than anyone else will, probably no one will notice in game unless you say something. 

While the bright red may not be authentic, it looks good and that is more important anyway.  Realistically most of the colours are not authentic anyway, as there is no way whites would have been that bright either, and nothing would have been that clean, so I would not worry about it, we all paint much brighter than realistic for that kind of time frame anyway.  I may dirty up the bottoms of the cloaks and robes on everyone though, just to give a bit of the feel or the age, but on white it could go overboard really easily, so its always a risk.

Great unit though, and can't wait to see the army completed (at least stage one).  Oh, and your a brave man dealing with 32 horses!  I dealt with 12 in a unit this year and that was more than enough for me.

17 comments:

  1. "Oh well, fill the front rank with Gripping Beast and use the Crusader figures for back rows and hopefully nobody will notice the difference on the table." That thinking is codified in lots of latter regulations so you are good. Good looking unit of troops.

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  2. Nice Teutonic knights Bill :)

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  3. Just curious as to how fireforge miniatures match up to those gripping beast and crusader figures size wise? Do they match up better with either one?

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    1. I'll take a photo when I get home from work, but off hand I think the Fireforge figures are somewhat in between, maybe slightly closer to the GB figures.

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  4. Well done Bill. Am contemplating some Gripping Beast vs. other sculpts myself, so interesting to hear about this. I agree with Byron, nobody is going to notice unless you say something...

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    1. My big struggle was that the GB figures have separate weapons that don't necessarily fit the open hands well or are unattractive - I have a pair of maxes that look unnaturally short and had to trim the pommel off a sword to make a figure hold it.

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  5. These look terrific, Bill. I'm very much liking how this project is coming along. Very stylized and evocative (those helmets are completely bonkers).

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  6. Very nice and they look particularly good ranked up like that. I agree, you cant hardly see any difference and on the table at 12"+ it will be indistinguishable.

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  7. Following these has been one of my highlights of the challenge. Can we have a finished group shot of the army when you have done

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    1. Thank you Martin, and absolutely! I'm hoping to have one unit, maybe two of cavalry for next week.

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  8. Great looking unit. Good stuff. cheers

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  9. I like this unit a lot Bill, well done. I had the exact opposite size problem with my El acid army, the Beastie boys figs were much slighter than the Crusader!

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    1. 'El acid army'? Where have you been hiding this interesting force Peter? Maybe they're all slagged out on the couch watching Dr Who re-runs and eating last week's pizza.

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  10. Guys with white capes and big crosses, what's not to like? A very intimidating unit!

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  11. Very nice work! Especially the basing is very effective.

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  12. Great looking teutons, no one will ever notice unless you tell them!
    Best Iain

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