Two years ago, I started working on a set of duck adventurers, which eventually turned into
these ducks. It was so much fun that I wanted to do more with the ducks, but something bigger. I wanted a lot of ducks. I wanted enough to field an army.
Now, sculpting an entire army on your spare time, especially with a small baby arriving, is tricky. But I
could do it in steps. So this is step one, where I set out to make the core infantry. With my local club looking at doing a mix of renaissance and fantasy renaissance style battles some day, a landsknecht style pikeduck core sounded like exactly what I wanted.
First out where the basic rank and file. I made these without weapons attached, so that they can easily carry spears, halberds or pikes. A lot of them could easily be given crossbows or arquebuses too if you don't sweat it about quivers and powder bags (or add those afterwards).
I quickly decided on making two versions of each group, one with breastplates and a higher ratio of helmets, and one lighter armoured with jackets.
First sets holding weapons straight up
Second sets holding weapons somewhat lowered
Third sets holding weapons straight forward
Examples with various weapons
The pike/spear ducks of course need support.
Two handed sword ducks
Arquebus ducks. I plan to expand the ranged part of the army later, but I just wanted enough done to at least form a minimum of shooting.
To do this I also made a small artillery crew. I plan to get to making actual cannon later, but I need to learn how to sculpt those first.
Now it's starting to look like an army. But I needed someone to lead them:
Three command groups with flag bearer, champion and musician.
A paymaster, it's bodyguard and trusted bagpipe player
A wealthy conduckttieri, ready to marshall the mercenaries
This nascent warhost has even started to attract all manners of ducks. In the baggage train you can find:
Civilians following along
Weird egg cultists?!
Upset wounded mercenaries
So, it's quite a gaggle of soldiers! Let's get a group shot:
Hopefully I will be able to get these done with my caster. I'm really looking forward to making a small army with them. I plan to add more "waves" to these as I go, as I definitely want to add some more varieties of infantry, but especially a small cavalry force (learning to sculpt horses is scary!) as well as more shooty ducks, including both small arms and cannon.
If you also like the ideas of a duck army, I'd love to hear if you have ideas for stuff that would belong in it.
Cheers!