Dogs of War - 15th Century Mercenaries - Flemish Pikemen

In order to add some foreign colour to his Wars of the Roses forces, a client asked me to do a largish (24 man) unit of mercenary pikemen.  I'd seen some good illustrations of similar mercenary troops in Osprey publications - including one of a Flemish soldier in a classy black and white colour scheme.  I decided to use this scheme, applied to Perry Miniatures 28mm plastic 'European Mercenaries';

I'd used a similar scheme before on a small unit of handgunners, and one of crossbowmen; but it saw its most extensive application on my Warhammer Fantasy Battle Empire troops.  Instead of painting these to match the livery and heraldry found in the Games Workshop books (excellent as they are), I had themed each unit around a different European football team.  In the case of my Empire handgunners and halberdiers, this was Juventus.

The trick with a simple scheme like black and white is to vary the way the colours are applied.  Looking at the front rank (above), and moving from left to right; chap #1 has his jacket open to reveal his metal breastplate, so painting his jacket black, and his hose white, gives him a top/bottom split between the two main livery colours; #2 has a lot of metal on him, and a black brigandine, so his small amount of white hose visible makes him mostly black; #3 is similar to #2, but massive puffed white sleeves and an exposed face make him seem much lighter; #4 is a simple top/bottom split, with his black jacket and white hose; in contrast, #5 has gone for mostly white, with just his upper left quarter (one half of his jacket) in black; #6 is actually very similar to #3, in terms of black / white split, but his greater expanse of exposed hose shifts the balance such that he appears mostly white.

You get the idea... so I won't go on.  Except to point out the chap second from right, who has eschewed the popular white hose, in favour of a black pair.  It's still a top / bottom split, but looks quite different .

Parti, or bi-coloured, hose gives the man at second from left a 'quartered' look; whereas the same treatment on the two rightmost miniatures doesn't.  Because the jackets are less visible (or not at all visible, as with the chap on the right), the quartered look is lost, and we get something else - mostly black, but with a distinctive 'leading leg' in white.

It's probably pretty obvious to most of you that you can go this way with only two colours, and still create variety, even if you do it subconsciously because it feels right and looks right.  What's missing (deliberately) from this scheme is a 'spot colour' to draw the eye.  On my Warhammer guys, this was red.  It turned up as cockades, hats, tying points, dagger sheaths etc..  I omitted it from this unit as I thought it might look a bit contrived.  I can definitely imagine 24 tough Belgians going into the drapers and ordering black and  white cloth so they can identify each other on the battlefield - but the idea that the same 24 bruisers would co-ordinate their accessories in the same shade of red was a bit too much...