Grand Army of Altdof
Musings on colour schemes
Since I’m recovering from dental surgery at the moment, I’ve not been in the mood to do any actual painting. Only mental painting, which is nowhere near as fun. But it means I can do a lot of planning.
Now, since my Empire army is, if you can guess by the name, is based around the city-state of Altdorf, capital city of the state of Reikland and second richest city in the Empire after Marienburg, that means I do have a singular colour scheme to work with. BUT, while some might consider this a negative, for me, I consider this something of a positive.
Doing some planning in my head on my Altdorf Company of Honour, since the main regiment is halved red and blue with the alternate colour being repeated in the slashed part of the cloth (so red under blue and blue under red), I’ve thought on what to do with my detachment’s uniforms:
- Detachment 1, the crossbowmen, will have their uniform be blue with red in the slashes.
- Detachment 2, the swordsmen, will have their uniform be red with blue in the slashes.
The main unifying part will be the plumes in helmets and berets being yellow.
Speaking of the second detachment, the swordsmen, the change in timeline has forced me to rethink how to go about their shield designs.
So thinking on paint schemes for my Altdorf army, I know that I can’t use Karl Franz or any connected iconography to him because it’s the Time of Three Emperors, about 500 years before he was even born.
Now, since I’ve chosen Altdorf, that means my selected elector count will be Wilhelm III of Reikland.
Using the pictures below (taken from the Old World map as well as bits taken from the Uniforms and Heraldry of the Empire pdf segment on Altdorf), I’d come to a few conclusions on what I can and cannot do.
I’d say that I probably can’t get away with using the crown because that’s mainly for the time that Karl Franz was emperor, but the Reikland counts were disputing that they were the rightful Emperor’s during the Time of Three Emperors, so it would work. Hammers are fine too since Reikland is the spiritual home of the Cult of Sigmar and the home of Sigmar himself, and since the eagle of Myrmidia is the symbol of Reikland too, then eagle heads and eagles themselves would be fine.
So really, it would just be switching Karl Franz and any related initials to Wilhelm III, or W III or maybe W 3.
ETA: Did a double check. It’s Wilhelm I, not Wilhelm III.
Leave a Reply