30 Years War - "Epic" Pike & Shotte from Warlord Games

Imperialist infantry for the 30 Years War - figures from Warlord Games' "Epic" range.

So, something a bit different to share here in this post. This is an Imperialist infantry unit - a block of pikemen and two "sleeves" of musketeers - from the 30 Years War. These are plastic figures from Warlord Games' "Epic" range, which clock in scale-wise at somewhere between 10-12mm and 15mm.

A "sleeve" of musketeers.

I have been curious about "Pike & Shotte" gaming for a long time. It is a periods/settings which has lurked in the back of my hobby mind ever since I watched the film "The Last Valley" (a viewing which was, in turn, inspired by an awesome foreign-language version of a poster for that film which held pride of place in his gaming room back on Fawcett Avenue in Winnipeg so many years ago...). 

Close-up of the other "sleeve".

Rear detail on the musketeers.

Of course, the hobby mind is warp-addled location of insane aetherial clutter! Even though my hobby desks are littered with new projects which escape from that dangerous world, the more terrifying fact is that the ratio of notions-to-actual-hobby-attempts is quite skewed, and the majority of my hobby notions never get started, owing to the conflicts of time/work/life and the desire to work on the (many) projects which have already started...the 30 Years War was thus an object of hobby interest, but never quite launched...so what changed?

Rear detail of the pikemen...some are wearing armour, others just cloth.

Well, Warlord Games' "Epic" range for this setting sort of took it to the next level. This seemed like an ideal size/scale for this setting, and I liked how the figures looked, bunched up in ranks. And so the 30 Years War idea wriggled a bit more free in my mind, entering the dangerous phase known as "the test figure/unit". I picked up one box of the infantry and one box of the cavalry, and decided the infantry would be the first thing to try - after all, if I can't get the pikes done, then I probably won't get much "Pike & Shotte" done, right? 

Basically a single frame of infantry gives you pretty much what you see here - two bases of pike-armed troops (including some lovely sculpts of figures with the pikes slightly lowered) to act as a central pike block and two bases of musketeers to serve as the "sleeves" for the block, thus creating the iconic gaming look I associate with the setting. 

39 pikemen...turns out I messed up on my basing, and I could not squeeze in the 10th guy in the front rank...oh well, a lesson for next time!

These were painted as a block of Imperialist infantry - or at least, they are supposed to be! While I have tried to "study up" on the hobby aspects of this setting, I still have much to learn, and I expect I likely either messed up or totally missed certain details. Peering closely at the box only takes one so far, especially as my eyes get older! But, in masse, I really like how this first experiment turned out. The level of detail on these plastic strips is actually pretty impressive, and I enjoyed working on them. Even if I made mistakes...well, something to work out for next time!

One other take-away from these exercise is that I really need to figure out/up my game when it comes to ground work...my usual system did not hold up well, and I hope to compensate with some grass tufts etc at a later point. 

This was a fun summer experiment. I hope to return to this in the fall...watch this space for more experiments with this new setting!