New and upcoming late medieval releases.....

Things have been a bit barren in the world of late medieval releases (specifically 1450-1500) for many years, but there are a few interesting things on the horizon!

Eureka Miniatures late medieval range

First off, an old range has been re-released. This small but quality collection of sculpts was apparently originally released as 'Empire Miniatures' in Australia, sculpted by Kelly Baigent. It has now been re-released by Eureka Miniatures, and fortunately for many of us Eureka UK now has them in stock too. I don't know much about the backstory - it is clearly a small and limited range, and you won't be building a whole army from it, but as some sculpts to mix into a larger Perry-based collection it looks very useful. Pictured here is everything available except a few cavalry figures, which I haven't yet seen pictures of. I bought the whole lot except the mysterious cavalry and the artillery with crew, though the gun itself looks VERY good, excellent detail, and I'll definitely be picking it up sometime in the future.

The highlight for me is definitely the billmen/pikemen. These are going to be just perfect to use as Germans/Swiss in the front ranks of my next pike unit! The polearms they come with also include a few nice designs of glaive, plus my batch included a winged spear which isn't photographed here.

I picked out the four very best of the batch - these four at least are absolutely flawless sculpts, really high quality castings too. Two of the others are based on one of these, with different heads, and also look like they'd take a plastic leg-swap really easily, to put them in different poses.... Many possibilities here!

The archers are also nice, in particular the ones in at-ease or loading poses - I'm thinking they'll be used for a third unit of French longbowmen sometime. They will suit well-equipped veteran ordonnance archers well, many of them even have fully armoured legs. The ones in firing poses are all variations of the same one sculpt, so perhaps aren't as useful.

The sculptor also shared a new green he's recently completed on facebook, so there might be a few more figures released for this range over time.

Steel Fist Miniatures new Swiss pikemen

Next up, very exciting news - Steel Fist Miniatures is going to be releasing some late medieval Swiss!  These are not by Steel Fist's founder Oliver, but are 3d sculpts from a very impressive sculptor who has been releasing his own amazing ranges lately. The few images that have been shared on facebook look outstanding. As I understand it this will be a small range for now, with just pikemen in advancing poses, but with separate heads. It looks like there will be some great new halberds to go with them too. But if they sell well, there could be more in the future! So we better all buy lots of them.

Upcoming Swiss kickstarter campaign

Funnily enough, there seems to be another Swiss range on the horizon, again 3D sculpts. I can't say much about it, but there will be a kickstarter campaign in the new year apparently to fund it. I understand these will only be offered as STL files, so perhaps is only of use for those adept at 3D printing, but there are lots of different bodies with 150 separate heads! Watch this space....

Late medieval bodies for use with Perry plastics

There is also another talented chap out there who has been sculpting a few bodies to be used with arms and heads from the Perry plastic kits. He says he plans to have them cast up and for sale, and suggests there might be a few full sculpts in the planning stage too..... So for now, let's just watch this space again....

Avanpost late medieval artillery

Finally, there are some wonderful new artillery pieces apparently coming from Avanpost Miniatures. I know nothing about this company, I believe they are in Russia, and I think they cast in resin. Now I don't need any more artillery, but if these four were to be available in the UK or Europe at any point, I will definitely be getting them. They look superb!