3319 - Dragon Knight Group

[Martin Milner]

I bought this set mainly to get another knight for my jousting tournament, but I really like it a lot in its own right.

A wandering knight with three retainers makes a nice balanced group; a crossbowman to hunt for game and as ranged attack, a young swordsman to act as groom, squire and ostler, and an older bearded retainer, who has to be the most heavily armed figure I've ever seen, with a large sword on his baldrick, 2-handed axe on his back, shield and halberd carried. The halberd is really a 2-handed weapon, but I like this guy's attitude, he's really covered his bases.

The whole group have beards or stubble, suggesting they're travelling a little rough - maybe they spend their summer months travelling from one tournament to the next, with just enough self-defence to discourage bandits on the road.

There's enough individuality to the figures with differing helmets, while still retaining the distinctive red trousers or jackets, to show they belong together. Unlike the Gold or Green dragon troops or the black lions, these guys are a motley crew. All the swords are different, all the shields are different; the knight is not wealthy enough to outfit his group uniformally.

If you're looking for a slightly shabby group of knights, the Red Dragon Knights are the ones for you.

[CountBogro]

It is a really great set. Like you set - there'all sorts of things in there and a huge amount of conversion options.
You forgot to mention a third great thing about the set: buy five or more of them and you have a nice little army with Cavalry, Archers and two "units" of infanrty!

Bogro

[playmofire]

Another nice review, Martin; thank you.

Technically, what we've got here is a lance, a knight with a small group of supporters.  When you read that a mediaeval army had, say, 1,000 lances, it didn't mean just a 1,000 knights on horseback armed with a lance (and, of course, other weapons such as a sword or a mace) but referred to 1,000 units each of one knight plus his immediate supporters.  Mediaeval armies were made up of collections of lances in this way under the feudal system.  Each great lord was required to provide the king with a given number of knights and men in time of emergency.  They, in turn, had lesser lords and tenants who were required to provide the great lord with a given number of men in time of emergency.  These lesser lords might have tenants who in turn....and so on.  So you ended up with a rather motley collection of an army - no standard uniform across the different lances and maybe not even within a lance, especially as you worked down the social scale.  By the time you got down to the poor country knights they would turm up themselves with their supporters dressed in whatever they'd got - armour of sorts for the knight (maybe a bit rusty and old) and for his retainers padded jackets or leather jerkins and caps with with maybe only a crudely sew-on patch to distinguidh who their lord was.

(Sorry, got carried away there... )