| Manufacturer | Dark Dream Studio |
| Number of figures in the kit | 24 |
| of which: | |
| number of foot soldiers | 24 |
| number of poses | 8 |
We are going to look through the second kit from DDS on the Renaissance era warfare (the first one - "Landsknechts. XVI - XVII centuries" - I've already reviewed). I won't be dishonest telling that we all waited impatiently this kit. It wasn't only for landsknechts that we waited it, but also for pikemen. I said many times that pikemen are unfairly forgotten by manufactures of 1/72 scale miniatures. Unfairly because it were the pikemen that completely changed infantry tactics. The pike gave foot soldiers the ability to withstand charging cavalry. Even more, soldiers armed with the pike could advance in a close packed formation and easily crush enemy ranks. The most successful pikemen in Europe were those from Helvetic Confederation. The only force that could match them were other pikemen trained in the same way. And soon that force appeared. It were landsknechts that claimed for the title of the best infantry in Europe in the late 15-th century. At first the Swiss badly defeated them in the battles of Dornach (1499) and Novara (1513). But in the battle of Bicocca (1522) and especially in the battle of Pavia (1525) the landsknechts got their revenge. After those victories no person has doubts about who were the best soldiers in Europe in 16 c.
The pike was the main weapon of landsknechts. 300 men of 400 that made up a company ("fahnlein") were armed with pikes. Later when firearms' role grew this number began to lessen, and in the late 16 century only 200-220 men in a company were pikemen, while the percent of harquebusiers and musketeers was gradually growing [1, p.12].
Pikes from our kit are not historically accurate because they are TOO long. Just see, the length of a pike is 8,7 centimeters. That means a pike in a real scale is more than 6 meters long. But landsknechts' pikes were shorter than that. They had up to 5 and half meters in length [2, p.234-235]. It must be mentioned that many landsknechts had even shorter weapons - 4 meters in length. They held them not like Swiss at the middle of the haft but at the end of the haft so that they could reach their enemy first [1, p.10, 3, p.20]. By the way the figures depicted on the back side of the kit's box are holding their pikes near the haft's end. The secondary weapon of our pikemen is a typical landsknecht's short sword "katzbalger" which is done historically accurate.
Four figures of eight types represented in the kit have armour. Such well-protected soldiers fought in the first rank of a square formation and got the maximum damage when two packs of pikemen crushed into each other. Armour on our landsknechts is done quite accurate, but let us date these suits more precisely. Any armour suit consists of a burgonet helmet (the "sturmhaube" as it was called in German), a cuirass and tassets fixed to the cuirass itself. Soldiers equipped in the same manner can be seen on numerous miniatures depicting the battle of Pavia [4]. These miniatures appeared in the next 5-10 years after the battle, so we can date our figures at 1520-1530s.
The slashed dress, a typical landsknechts feature, is done historically accurate. All types of hose and doublets that are in the kit can be seen on various miniatures of 16 century. The lack of heavy baggy "pluderhose" allows us to date soldiers no later than 1550s.
And some words about landsknechts' poses should be said. Four of them represent attacking soldiers according to the left leg energetically advanced forward and the right arm put backside [see the miniature in 4, p.18] while other four are of soldiers that are going to face a cavalry charge because they lowed or are lowing their pikes [see the miniature in 5, p.63].
The kit's quality changed comparing with the previous one. Some flash is still here and it's true for a small ridge because of misaligning of the mould but plastic became harder and all these defects can be easily removed now. Hats can be fixed only on soldiers' heads so we have no need to put something in holes on figures' backs. Slashes are moulded even more meticulous and so are cuirasses with flutings and mail colliers.
Pikes are the most interesting part of the kit. Before opening the box I had some doubts about their quality because it isn't easy to mould a long and thin piece of plastic. But, fortunately, DDS has done the pikes well. They appeared to be straight, but they are flexible enough - a very useful quality especially when you have to put these pikes in their places.
And the task of providing soldiers with their primary weapons will be quite difficult. DDS decided to mould figures with separate hands (a very good idea, by the way) but this only raised extra problem. First of all, the hands cannot be fixed not to a single body without a gap between them. Sometimes this gap is about one millimeter in width. More than that, holes in hands that were designed for holding a pike cannot be put on one line and as a result a pike's haft tends to bend in every possible direction. There is an assembling guide on the back side of the box that shows how the pikes should be put in hands. But those pikes that according to the guide must be pointed slightly up, are going down and sideways thus making the whole pike formation look funny.
Also some small faults should be mentioned. Plastic has a "soapy" effect, which means you have to cover it with a surface primer before painting. Some pikes' point are moulded very thick, it seems someone put an apple or other fruit on them. The hats have pins for fixing them on soldiers' backs, but while figures in this kit have no holes in their backs, you should remove pins from all headgear.
The kit is packed in a standard box of DDS with the illustration on its front side. The illustration is quite good; you can use it as a painting guide, though the colours of landsknechts' dresses are rather dull - dim red and sand. The back side of the box has images of unpainted figures, so you can use it as an assembling guide.
The pose number can be rated high. We've got 8 poses to 24 figures, the same proportion (1 to 3) as in the previous kit. And like in the previous kit we can vary the soldiers' appearance with changeable hats.
The pose quality provides good impression. Looking on the figures we can guess whether they are attacking or vice versa. The best poses are of defending pikemen in armour - their intuitive movement backwards while facing charging cavalry can be distinctively seen.
Some sculpting faults also exist. The sitting landsknecht has a ridiculous pose. It seems he caught with his pike's point something very heavy and edible and now carrying this creature right in his mouth (it isn't that difficult to believe in this image knowing how landsknechts behaved on the march through enemy territory, e.g. the infamous sack of Rome in 1527). Several pikemen are looking at the side while their pikes are pointed forward.
Talking about how the kit is detailed we should mention the variety of doublets worn by soldiers without armour. By the way all slashed dresses are done more meticulous than in the previous kit. Also note two kinds of fluting on cuirasses and four types of tassets. Even mail colliers differ from each other.
Painting of this kit is going to be a hard work. First you must decide whether you paint figures with or without their hands. I advice you to fix with glue the right hand and after that start working with brush. The left hand can be fixed later so that it will be easier for you to push a pike through holes in both upper extremities. I've already talked about plastic's "soapy" effect, which means you should use surface primer.
The fact that the kit has pikemen suggests high wargaming suitability of it. With our kit we can reconstruct the landsknechts' infantry of 1520-1540s - the time when landsknechts were at the peak of their glory. You can also use armoured pikemen from this kit as soldiers of Helvetic Confederation if you replace "katzbalger" swords with their Swiss analogue.
The time for conclusion has come. This review is comparatively short because much of what can be said about this kit I've already wrote in the review of the previous one. But talking about this kit in particular we must say it happened to be quite good. Its strongest point is the untouched theme. The first kit of pikemen - this fact tells a lot. But to be the first means also responsibility. It's a pity DDS didn't resolve the task of fixing pikes to figures. All we have is to hope that in future releases this problem will be made up.
1. D.Miller, G.Embleton "The Landsknechts" 2. W.Boeheim "Handbuch der Waffenkunde" (Russian edition) 3. L.Funcken, F.Funcken "Arms & Uniforms: The Age of Chivalry. The Renaissance era." (Russian edition) 4. A.Konstam, G.Turner "Pavia 1525. The climax of the Italian wars" 5. J.Richards, G.Embleton "Landsknecht soldier, 1486-1560"
| Historical accuracy | 4,0 |
| Kit’s quality | 3,5 |
| Appearance | 4,0 |
| Wargaming | 5,0 |
| Overall rating: | 4,0 |