French heavy infantry

I've finally finished the French infantry I've been working on for a while.

The original plan was to have two units of thirty. I ended up painting up enough models for one of thirty and one of twenty.... But I just couldn't find a way to group them together that was satisfactory. The first question was how would I mix the fully armoured and lightly armoured models - one unit of foot knight and one of lesser infantry, or both units a mix of the two? Or one slightly better armoured than the other?

The other problem was with figure poses - I wanted them to have a closely-packed look, with polearms lowered or at a 45 degree angle, like my existing pike and halberd units. Just using the Perry plastic sets as they are doesn't really achieve this. At the same time I wanted a lot of them to have livery jackets - I've shown some conversions I did in previous posts, which I'm very pleased with, but getting enough figures in the right poses with the right equipment for two units was proving tricky.

In the end I chose to scrap my plan for two units, at least for now. I chose thirty of my favourites to make one unit that fits my vision, where every figure has its place. That does mean there's lots I haven't used, but a lot of them will find a home somewhere else in the future. I also did use some with shouldered weapons, but the overall effect is still of advancing/attacking troops.

I won't list all the conversions here, but the most notable ones feature newly sculpted layers of clothing (padded jacks and livery jackets).

The finished mix of troops features both fully-armoured men-at-arms and lesser polearm troops both heavily and lightly armoured. This could represent some knights who have dismounted to lead the infantry in an attack.

The banner is swappable. In these first pictures it is the banner of Jean de Daillon, Lord of Lude. It can be exchanged for any other French commander I have made flags for. I've also got a generic French flag available to them.

The French are still severely outmatched against the Burgundians when it comes to heavy infantry - they have just one unit available to them in my collection, whereas their opponents have five, most of which are much bigger! They will at times have the opportunity of having the Swiss on their side though. The French do have the lead in heavy cavalry and archers.