Solland Resurgent!

In a quiet moment today, with my son asleep and my wife on the telephone, I dug out my current Warhammer Fantasy Battle Empire army. The idea behind it, apart from the preponderance of Pike and Shot style tactics and units (three blocks of spear, two of pike, and a lot of musketeers), is that a minor lord in Wissenland - the southernmost province of the Empire - has discovered that he can legitimately trace himself back to the last Elector Count of Solland. Solland, for those who don't know, was originally the southernmost province of Wissenland, but it was destroyed by Orcs and its lands absorbed into Wissenland.

Anyway, this Lord has declared himself the Elector Count of Solland, and is busy trying to sieze back the old lands of Solland whilst the Emperor and the rest of the Empire is busy with the aftermath of the ill-fated Storm of Chaos invasion. He hopes to present Karl Franz, the Emperor, with a fait accompli and have Solland restored to, well, its old lands and ways.

So far I have the following:

The Count, on his charger,
His faithful second, with the Standard of Solland,
An Amethyst Wizard,
A Bright Wizard,
30 Musketeers (10 built, 20 on sprue);
60 Spearmen (23 built, 37 on sprue).

To finish it off, I need two blocks of 35 pike, another 30 musketeers, a unit of heavy cavalry, and a couple of cannon. I'm tempted to get some Dopplesoldner greatswords, but I'm not 100% certain. I think it might be worth getting some Pistoliers and things as well, just to really differentiate the army from a Renaissance European one.

Anyway - pictures of what I've done so far!


Overhead 3/4 view - Lord, Heroes, 10 musketeers and the 3rd Spear Regiment, plus the command group of the 1st Spear Regiment.


Front view of same.


Side 3/4 view of the wizards, Lord and Captain. The wizard on the right is from the Amythest College, and the wizard on the left is from the Bright College.


The command group of the 1st Spear. I will think of better names for these units soon!

Eventually there'll be 60 musketeers and 120 'pike', a ratio of 1:2 - similar to the late 16th Century armies, if I recall correctly. It's not until the English Civil War and Thirty Years War that you get ratios of 2:1 or more of Shot to Pike.

There's not much around that discusses Solland; what I'm concerned with mostly are the following: its colours were brown and yellow (urgh), and a sun motif was present on its standards. I have adapted this to grey and yellow, as the new Elector is emphasising that there is a link with Wissenland which he doesn't want to destroy, but he does wish to change; it's a nice piece of propaganda for the illiterate peasantry.

Anyway, that's enough from me. I built the command group of the 1st Spear today, by the way, which is I suppose the original point of this post!