Doing an Empire/English Civil War Army -- Episode One

Posted by Ranillon on 1. August 2010 23:18

Been a horribly busy week at work so I haven't had much time for posts, but I wanted to get into why and how I can get away with doing a historical English Civil War army and at the same time a Warhammer Fantasy Empire force.  The first example are the uniforms.

As you may or may not know the uniforms of the Empire in Fantasy are based on the Holy Roman Empire (effectively German) armies of the 16th century, most notably during the Italian Wars.  Here is a contemporary drawing of a German Landsknecht soldier:

"So, where are the Orks to fight?"

To anyone who has played or played against the Empire in Warhammer this sort of figure should be quite familiar.  Military dress of course varied (and was seldom "uniform" in the modern sense of the word), but this sort of puffy coated pikeman or swordman was a staple of the time.

Now compare him to this drawing off a Warlord box of English Civil War infantry:

"Which end of this do I point at the enemy again?"

You can see some smiliarities, but also changes.  The first "uniform" was a good hundred years older than the second, but they are close enough not to look out of place with each other.  That is especially true when talking about the small scale of wargaming figures.  Now add in the fact that the weapons being used are almost exactly the same -- pikes, matchlocks, cavalry -- and one force could double for the other without much problem.

More to come...