Crossbowmen and handgunners

First of all, thank you for everyone who has expressed an interest in this blog and subscribed! Now on to some more units which were painted a while back.

Here's a small unit of skirmishers, both crossbowmen and handgunners together. I plan to have more little ten-strong units like this - I actually have loads of old skirmishers based differently, some of which I plan to salvage and rebase in this style, mixed with some more recently painted ones, but they are not a priority right now.

These are designed to be mainly used as German mercenaries, but could also see service as Swiss, Flemish, Brabantine, Liègois, etc. as neeed. As Germans, there should really be more handguns in proportion to crossbows, which I'll rectify with future units. In 1477 various towns on the Franco-Burgundian borders hired Germans to reinforce their garrisons, and apparently these troops were mostly handgunners. They weren't particularly reliable, being keen to go on raids against the French and invariably getting themselves killed. Some of them also ended up switching sides and fighting for the French themselves. To read more about them, check out this French article (Google will do a very readable translation).

They are mostly metal Perry miniatures - originally Italians, but with appropriate headswaps to make them more Germanic in appearance. Two of them however are from Crusader Miniatures, again with headswaps - the original poses were a bit stiff, but I found an ever-so-subtle repositioning of the head brought more life into them.