Baron's War - Northern Crusade fig comparison

[Maniac]

I backed the original Baron's War Kickstarter and was happy to do so.  The figs are really nice, and the kickstarter prices were reasonable for what you got (non mounted).  I've been painting a number of them up for the Northern Crusades, and thought I'd post a couple of comparison shots for folks who might not want to pay Footsore prices for all of their models (the foot knights are fantastic).

First up some mounted folks, left to right:  Gripping Beast, Footsore (Baron's War), Fireforge, Gripping Beast.



Gripping Beast is easily the weakest of the lot.  Their sculpts are much chunkier than the other two, and the casting is often mediocre.  The Fireforge are really nice though.  I'll have to add in a Conquest fig as well, as they are also decent.  The upshot also being that the two plastics are MUCH cheaper and more easily customized.

Livery for those that care:  Castle Donnington (UK), Bishop of Riga, Saxony, Crum (UK)

Next are the foot knights.  They are the best of the Footsore sculpts (imho), but with a little work you can make some equally lovely Crusader footknights and Fireforge is again nothing to sneeze at.  Left to right:  Footsore (BW), Crusader (modified), Footsore, Crusader w/Fireforge helmet, Footsore (also modified), Crusader, Fireforge, Footsore w/Crusader helmet (modified)



The livery, for those that care comes from the Zurich Wappenrolle and the Codex Manesse.  Left to Right:  Felss (Tyrol), Lichtenstein, Mallin (Mecklenburg), unknown (couldn't find the name in the Wappenrolle), von Hohenburg (Bavaria), von Dassel (Saxony), Saxony (can't find my notes), and Der Winsbeke

Not all active during the early Northern Crusades, but certainly families that overlapped it in places (not necessarily that they went, just time periods align with regions the German's pooled from).


Lastly some lowly foot.  The Footsore spear models are decent, but the bardiche/halberd/et al weapons are...not great.  The pewter is a little too thin over all and I'm already seeing likely break points forming without ever playing with the figs.  There is also a lot of clean-up/prep on the polearms.  They might have been better off casting the heads seperately and supplying brass wire for the shafts.  I may have to look at that for batch 2 and 3 of the footmen.

Left to Right:  Crusader, Footsore, Fireforge (Templar from a different army), Footsore



Overall the Footsore foot soldiers are slightly more realistically proportioned than Crusader, but mix in well.  The Fireforge Knights are the way to go if you want barded horses, and Conquest if you do not.

Most of my figs are German/Swiss, but I do have a unit of knights from the UK as the Northern Crusades were apparently semi popular for the English/Scottish, as it did not require the lengthy trip to Outremer.

[Malamute]

Nice work on those knights and I particularly like the conversions on the Crusader figures very much.

[Chico]

Thanks for this comparison, it's very helpful.

Bought and painted a load of the Baron Wars figs (http://oldhammeronabudget.blogspot.com/2020/05/footsore-miniatures-barons-war-lion.html) and just started the hunt for figures to go with them.

[bluewillow]

Nice thanks for the comparison.

Long before the Footsore release I built my second barons war from crusader, mirliton, Foundry and fireforge.

Very soo. I want to add to some more figures to the first barons war army I am planning, I want to pick up a few bits from Footsore but that, particularly foot.

Cheers
Matt

[Maniac]

One more showing:  Fireforge, Conquest, Conquest, Footsore (BW), Gripping Beast.



Left to right heraldry:  Saxony, Swiss Canton (Wappenrolle, unknown), Rosdorf (Gottlingen), Riga, Meyners/Menzies

The Conquest and Fireforge scale really well together.  You cannot swap riders very easily as the leg span is not the same.  However, the helmets and equipment transfer very easily.  There is cross pollination potential between their kits.