From TamsinP: 15mm Swiss Pikemen (512 points)

Here is another Challenger presenting us with an amazing amount of work.

From Tamsin:

Is there any sight more certain to inspire terror in the hearts, minds and bladders of medieval Austrians, Burgundians, Italians, pretty much anybody in medieval Europe than a phalanx of Swiss halberdiers using both hands to wave their big choppers at you? What's that? Oh, yes, a phalanx of Swiss pikemen holding their huge poles with both hands and pointing them threateningly at you.

And here are 256 of those scary fellows!

These have taken me just under 3 weeks to prep, paint, base and photograph. I can vouch (well, my pin-cushioned hands can) that these boys and their pikes are vicious and bloodthirsty. 

They have all been painted in cantonal colours in as close an approximation to the contingent sizes for Morat as possible (whilst ensuring that each canton present got at least one figure). This was actually much easier to do than it was for the halberdiers and other troops as there were just so bleedin' many of them.

Figures are 15mm from Donnington Miniatures. I will be adding flags later - I need to get a new printer first as mine seems to have gone haywire. 

And a little something to finish off this post, Swiss Facts from Madaxeman Dot Com (also available as a T-shirt).

• We don't know if Swiss Pikemen enjoyed a good fight. No-one ever managed to give them one.
• An apple a day keeps the doctor away. A Swiss Pike block a day kills.
• A drilled Swiss Pike block turning 90 degrees will unscramble an egg.
• A Swiss Pike block built the Matterhorn with buckets and spades whilst digging a camp latrine.
• If you get charged by a Swiss Pike block in your dream, you die.
• A Swiss Pike Block can have their cake AND eat it too.
• Some people get lucky and kill two birds with one stone. A unit of Infants Perdu's once killed four birds with half a stone. What's that? You say there's no such thing as half a stone? The four dead birds didn't think so either.
• S is for Swiss Pike block, as is every other letter of the alphabet.
• Swiss Pikemen don't breathe, they hold air hostage.
• Swiss Scientist Einstein's original Theory of Relativity was; if a Swiss Pike Block hits you, your relatives will feel it.
• During the middle ages, The Swiss National Lottery numbers were not random. They were just the number of people Swiss Pikemen killed that given day.
• During the wars against Charles The Bold a Swiss Pike block came across a bear in a forest near Morgaten. It was so terrified that it fled North into the arctic. It was also so terrified that all of its decendents now have white hair.

I hope you like them. Now to crack on and paint something else - there are still a few days left for me to submit some more figures to try to grind Ray into the dust!

Holy Smokes (I thought an apt exclamation this week)! That is an amazing amount of work Tamsin. They look great individually but absolutely brilliant all ranked up - a veritable forest of pikes!  Very, very impressive.

This amazing phalanx of pikemen will give Tamsin a staggering 512 points! This gives her enough points to break through her second points target and place her in the top 4 in this points standings. Superb effort!