Orctober challenge: painting a 1/72 Empire army in one month (almost)

Hi, dear fellow readers. 

Yesterday I was reading some posts at Benno's (I haven't been there much during the past few weeks) when some new topics by Wiking and Paul recalled me that it was already Orctober! Some well organized painters were displaying their new orc troops - a lot of mounted warriors this year. And I had nothing new to show, after a real effort last year, but I wanted to do something for this year's challenge, and I proposed to paint an army of opponents for the green horde.

So this year, I will try to paint an Empire army, in reference to the human Empire in the Old World of Warhammer.

Even if there are no manufacturers producing fantasy Empire figures, it is very easy to find relevant figures in the historical ranges, because the obvious inspiration for the Warhammer Empire is the 16th century central Europe. Two manufacturers have produced figures that perfectly represent Renaissance armies: Dark Dream Studio and Redbox. I will mainly use Landsknechts and Swiss soldiers to represent my army.

 

How many figures ? 

If you regularly visit these pages, you know that I am a painter of the slow sort, so painting an complete army in one month is a real challenge. That's why:

1. it won't be very large: a list according to the HOTT spirit (i.e. 12 elements) should we reachable

2. I will cheat, because, some of the figures needed are already painted

This is the army list I will try to complete:

Troop type	Number of elements	fig per element	Number of figures
General (Knight)	1	2	2
Wizard	1	1	1
Knights	2	3	6
Halberdiers	2	4	8
Longswords	2	4	8
Arquebusiers	2	4	8
Fanatics	1	4	4
Bombard	1	4	4
Total	12		41

Which color scheme ?

I chose to paint a Talabecland army, which means that I will use a Red / Yellow color scheme. I don't want my figs to be too uniformed, so there will be some differences between the units, and also between the soldiers of the same unit.

Some figures to display ?

Yes indeed, since I am cheating, some minis are already painted :) The first of them are the Longswords - most of them were painted in 2017. Let's have a look:

The figures above come from Redbox set #72057 Landsknechts (Sword/Arquebus). Only 3 poses fight with a longsword, but with variations in the paint and a hat from Dark Dream Studio, they are different enough.

The next figures come from Dark Dream Studio set #72002 Landsknechts. The poses are much more dynamic than the previous ones, and the details of the sculpting is excellent

When put together, the difference between the two manufacturers are not too important, and you get a colorful and varied unit.

I've painted nine longswords and I only needed eight => two elements completed.

The Halberdiers come next. The first element has been painted this month, so I came closer to speed painting in this case :)

They are a mix of Landsknechts (set #72059) and Swiss (set #72062) Halberdiers. Remember that I only want to represent a fantasy army! The next element is on the workbench, the first two men on the left should be ready tonight.

There is one more figure to show, an Arquebusier. I've painted only one so far as a test for the color scheme, as I use to proceed. He's a bit darker than the previous ones because of his black shirt and socks - he's prepared to get dirty because of the gunpowder.

So, I have 13 figures painted, out of 41, not too bad. But I have to paint horses, and a bombard, hum, I should not lose time.

Hope you like them, or maybe fear them if you are enthusiastic about Orcs :-D