Pages

Thursday 30 August 2012

Stock take: Old World Alliance

Good morning all and the stock take continues - this time its one of my newer collections, the Old World Alliance. Having had a blast assembling the Linden Way Militia for Orc's Drift and for a long time regarded these ranges with envious eyes, I finally succumbed and have amassed a small force of assorted Empire, Bretonnian and Tilean troops. I thought about including my Norse contingent here but figured they'd probably want a bit of the limelight to themselves.

Still got a long way to go with this army before I achieve this!




First off we have a unit of Chevaliers Rampants, including the army general. Not sure whether these chaps are citadel or not but I love 'em, even more so as they were a bit of an ebay bargain, coming in at about £1.30 a mini! The General type fellow with helm in hand has a passing resemblance to Dave Andrews' Grand Marshall, pictured above. Any ideas from you lot?


While we're on knights, here's some from the Empire this time. Not as much of a bargain as the Chevaliers Rampants, these are another bunch of minis I haven't yet identified. They have wolf pelt capes and look very similar in design to the Knights Panther coming up shortly. They were billed as being 80's citadel on ebay but I'm not sure - happy with them either way though. They'll be fielded as Hohensknechtes and I'll probably push the wolf theme by procuring a 90's White Wolf knight as their champion to round the unit out at 5 minis. I'll also be looking out for some of the 90's plastic barded warhorses for them. It was nice to get the old plastic horses with this lot and I know horses vary a lot in size in real life, but they do tower over the all metal Chevaliers Rampants. Strangely bucking the usual case of GW scale creep, the later barded warhorses are a much better match size-wise.


My thanks to Blue in VT for these Knights Panthers - I do have a soft spot for a lot of the 90's Empire stuff, even if it did beat the pants off my Orcs on a regular basis back in the day!



 This lot will also be needing barded warhorses and a leader - I would love to try and recreate the famous John Blanche painting for their champion.


Foot knights now - and I think I'll be fielding this lot as Hohensknechtes again, minus the horses of course. Reiksgard don't really seem to fit into the idea of a small, mixed and possibly Mercenary force. This unit is complete apart from a little conversion work to make a standard bearer.


Men at Arms next, and a 20 strong unit of mixed Helblitzen, Ribalds and Brigands. These will form the core of the professional soldiery for this force. Again just need to either find a standard bearer or convert one. I'd love a musician too but may have to look in the 90's Empire range as there seems to be a strange dearth of standard bearer and musicians sculpted for the Dogs of War/Fighters ranges.


A bit lower down the pecking order is the militia - bit of a way to go with these guys as I'd like a large unit of 30 and possibly a second unit as cannon fodder!


I am well provisioned with missile units with 15 Bretonnian Arblastier


11 Tilean Crossbowmen - would like to expand this unit a bit to possibly 20 of these all metal/single piece sculpts and get some pavises for them.


20 Forstjaeger (Forresters) formed up into a unit in the pic, and 10 Bergjaeger (Scouts) in skirmish formation in the foreground. Nice mix of old Citadel historicals/Foundry bowmen and later sculpts. Got quite a few of the Rangers and wouldn't mind a full set at some point...


And not forgetting L'ordonnance! One four man Bombard and an allied Dwarf Organ gun (until I get hold of a few more cannon!)


Best take along some wizards - Gandalf doing a little bit of moonlighting and a lovely old preslotta who will be a lower level adept, still learning the ropes by the look of his pose!


Finally one of my favourite features of 3rd ed, armies - the baggage train! I knew those wagons, pack mules and villagers from Orc's Drift would come in handy one day. I've also added in some bard types, old beggars, strumpets, drunkards and other sundry hangers-on with a mix of citadel and other manufacturers - again any ID's would be great on the non citadel stuff.


I'm itching to do something with this lot so I'll have to be quite disciplined if I'm going to get anywhere with my Lustrian project. Might give myself a little treat now and again though ;)

Next up - Wood Elves...

12 comments:

  1. Happy to confirm that your first batch of Knights Panther (on the unbarded warhorses) are early citadel. You could also get Chaos Warrior Riders (with very pointy boots! You may remember a tiger-stripe paint job of a horse in a WD-featured 'Eavy Metal?), and for 40k: a set of 1st Generation Imperial Guard troopers (and a cool commissar) which were described as "rough riders" (no mongolian look originally).

    ReplyDelete
  2. Brilliant, cheers, I recognised the horses but wasn't sure of the vintage for the knights. Are there any pics at Stuff of Legends as I've hunted round but no joy.

    I did have some of those Chaos riders before foolishly selling them off to fund other projects and my unit of rough riders stalled at one thanks to crazy ebay prices! Not sure I've seen the tiger striped horse - will have to look out for that.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I also had a quick check on SOL, but couldn't find any pictures. I'm pretty sure I have a WD back at home with illustrations. I'll have a hunt for it tonight and post you the WD number - it might also have that tiger-striped chaos horse as well...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Much obliged - would like to see the rest of the range!

    ReplyDelete
  5. The second lot of knights are knights of the white wolf, not uncommon. The knights panther are per 90's too and would have originally come with the same plastic horses as the white wolves. They do sit ok on the later barfed horses and look quite nice.

    I'm guessing the first knights are foundry.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Cheers Erny - so it was in the 90's they took up steroids and pannel beating with those big hammers then - before they were fairly regular knighty types!

    As for the first lot - those were the lines I was thinking along. Wondered perhaps if they might have been an old citadel line that got passed over to Foundry like a lot of the Men at Arms and suchlike?

    ReplyDelete
  7. I believe your first pic shows knights from front rank miniatures war of the roses range
    Great collection you have there sir!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Ah - thank you kindly! Looks like they have a nice range and are rather recently priced. Might have found an easy solution to my musician and standard bearer problem...

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hey there. White Dwarf 112, pages 31 and 77 for pictures those original Knights Panther (plus the tiger-striped chaos horse). Apologies for mis-reading the original post where you asked about what looks (indeed) to be knights of the white wolf...

    ReplyDelete
  10. Thanks for that - unfortunately I don't own that issue... yet.

    No worries, I think I must have misread yours and assumed you were talking about the knights of the White Wolf!

    ReplyDelete
  11. There's a free rapidshare link of WD 112 available here (have fun reading!): http://rapidlibrary.com/files/white-dwarf-112-pdf_25029852.html

    ReplyDelete
  12. Nice - a bit more inspired than my black with red manes effort back in the day...

    ReplyDelete