Picking a FoG:Ancients Army that could morph into FoG:R

[Saurocet]

I have several ancients armies, but most are from Rise and Rome, Immortal Fire, Empires of the Dragon. And I'm thinking about expanding into a new time period - one with knights. And Showtime's The Tudors has me all giddy about a 16th century army. I'm really looking forward to FoG:R and would like to start on an army now that I could play with the ancients rules, but with a few different figures could be an army used in the 1500s.

Since I'm not knowledgeable about warfare and pageantry during the Tudor period, could someone recommend a particular army from Storm of Arrows that could easily morph into an army for use with FoG:R? And, an equally important question, which figure manufacturer would you buy from?

Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated.

-Steve

[SirGarnet]

With a 1494 start date for FOGR, pretty much anything that goes through 1500 can put a foot in the early "Renaissance" with the same miniatures and maybe some swap-in troops.

War of the Roses English.
Anglo-Irish and Med Irish
Late Medievals - Scots, or Germans, or Danish, or Swedish
Ordonnance French
Low Countries
Swiss
Condotta Italian

(Changes in the Spanish army could require more swap-ins than you would like.)

There are also armies in EE and EOTD that come to mind.

This is a period well-served by miniatures, so unless you can be swayed in choice of army by particular lines, decide what you like in FOG and historically and go with that.

[rbodleyscott]

Ottomans have proved effective in FOGAM and FOGR and are very colourful - but perhaps you wanted something a bit more Western European, in which case English and Irish armies were the ones that changed least in troop-type during the 16th century. However, clothing did change, so late 15th century English figures would really only do for the very early years of the 16th century. It depends how picky you are, I guess.

If you want them to look "Tudor" they won't be quite right for the FOGAM period, but I doubt if this will bother your opponents much.

We cannot, however, vouch for the effectiveness of English 16th century armies under FOGR - they used an obsolete tactical system and were not very successful historically when they ventured on to the continent. (Apart from capturing Boulogne, whoop-de-do).

[Montesa]

Without the lists, for the moment the best thing that you could do is to wait to compare for the rules and the armies book, but I think that maybe the best army to swap would be the Swiss.
If you get Eternal Empire one of the best of all the armies of all the books would be the Later Ottoman.

MikeK. don´t forget the Burgundian Ordennance or Santa Hermandad de Castilla (the second could be use with some more miniatures: arquebusiers for the campaign in Italy of Gonzalo de Cordoba, El Gran Capitan)

[rbodleyscott]

MikeK. don´t forget the Burgundian Ordennance or Santa Hermandad de Castilla (the second could be use with some more miniatures: arquebusiers for the campaign in Italy of Gonzalo de Cordoba, El Gran Capitan)

Burgundian Ordonnance ends before the start of the FOGR period.

The Castilian army changed significantly following the ordinance of 1497. As Mike said, a lot of different figures would be required.

[timmy1]

Having used Swiss under the FoGR Beta I would say exercise care as they can be very one dimensional and narrow - that said they are fun to use and quite scary if they get into contact.

Scots army at Flodden (1513) probably will not look TOO different to the Late Medieval (Britain) list I suspect but may suffer the same way as the Swiss do.

Ordonnance French may be the most flexible in book. Later Low Countries should do for the Guelders Wars without much change and have enough knights to be interesting in FoG:AM. Later German, similar but with more knight options. Danes and Swedes are less interesting except the Dalarna HW and xBow in period might be interesting.

However to me Condotta looks to give the widest range of options in book - a real handful.

If you are willing to go out of book, Eternal Empire Ottomans may give the best bang for the buck.

In FoGR, Mike K and Richard usually get it spot on so are worth listening to.

[Saurocet]

Thanks for all the advice. I will definitely look at the Otttomans.
Choices...Choices...

[LambertSimnel]

MikeK. don´t forget the Burgundian Ordennance or Santa Hermandad de Castilla (the second could be use with some more miniatures: arquebusiers for the campaign in Italy of Gonzalo de Cordoba, El Gran Capitan)

Burgundian Ordonnance ends before the start of the FOGR period.

How much of a Burgundian Ordonnance army of 1476 could be reused for a Burgundian Habsburg army of thirty years later?

[rbodleyscott]

MikeK. don´t forget the Burgundian Ordennance or Santa Hermandad de Castilla (the second could be use with some more miniatures: arquebusiers for the campaign in Italy of Gonzalo de Cordoba, El Gran Capitan)

Burgundian Ordonnance ends before the start of the FOGR period.

How much of a Burgundian Ordonnance army of 1476 could be reused for a Burgundian Habsburg army of thirty years later?

Probably only the gendarmes, and even then armour styles should probably be different.

[irondog068]

I use both the Swiss and Ottomans in both books. Mind you both my Swiss and Turks are built for 1490+ Any late English/French Hundred years war army with a lot of "White" armor would also carry over. Plus Gedarmes in white armor look cool and are a breeze to paint. On that vein if you take your FOG Swiss and throw in a few units of Gerdarmes you can play a lot of great Italian wars

Dave

[nikgaukroger]

HYW would be very out of date for FoG:R armies really.

[irondog068]

Not a late hundred year war army. replacing a war of the roses army, really. I mean if the Perry's bill there plastics for war of the roses I will take there word for it, really.

[FOGwargames]

Later Hungarians can easily morph into the Renaissance