English Civil War Pikemen with open hands

[Raider4]

. . . onto a wine cork (£3 for about 30, here in the UK.)

I get one for a tenner or so, but it comes with a bottle and some liquid attached.

[Techno]

Yessssh....(Hic)

But you use thoshe onesh from a bottle.....Only one end ish of any ushe.

Cheers - Phil

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

And i thought that the Welsh were all of the "Thou Shalt NOT !!!) Methodist persuasion - no alcohol, no sex, no fun 

[Bunny]

I have just binned a load of beautifully cast, but very wobbly, loose 15mm pikes and replaced with steel ones. The figures were cast open-handed and then supplied with soft metal pikes - pointless exercise.

Welcome to the forum. wherever possible I prefer open handed figures, and, in the bigger scales, hands that can be drilled so that steel pikes don’t then fall off (Old Glory are good at that). Some companies do provide a choice and I for one don’t much care for bendy pikes on the table. Same goes for lances and spears.

Venaxia Italian Wars are great models  with open hands but their supplied pikes are cast in very soft metal....but they do have a nice variety of pike heads

[Leman]

Has this man ever been to Wales? Does he still think all the Dutch wear clogs, the only thing Germans eat is sausages, and Italians can only talk by shouting? A real Johnson ally one suspects. This does not refer to Venexia models. (while you were typing.........)

Try replacing them with Donnington lances which are more robust and sold in weapon packs. In fact Donnington have all sorts of useful separate weapons and accessories.

[Ben Waterhouse]

Welcome Arthur. 

there have been many threads about this and opinion seems evenly divided between those who want open handed pike men to allow pikes of a more realistic width, and those like myself who consider life too short to glue pikes onto 10mm figures.

I would never buy an army in 10mm (or 15mm for that matter)   that required pikes to be glues onto the figures

And visa versa I would never buy an army with attached bendy too short pikes...

[John Cook]

I am in the open hand/replacement pike camp.  I have no problem with pikemen supplied with pikes but I always remove the ridiculously over-scale 'telegraph poles' and replace them with .5mm brass wire, with the ends flattened.  They look much better, are more robust and do not suffer from 'noodling'.  It is hardly a challenge and done during cleaning and general preparation.