Insert Knight Pun Here

Nearly there.  

My slowly growing Empire army is now on the cusp of having two units ready for action, the cannon from a while back and now a modest group of knights.  Both still require some final gluing and varnish, but all the painting is done.  The drive to look back at my work to find problems is irresistible, so it's no surprise that even as I was putting the finishing touches on I was regretting decisions I had made.  I tried to stick to the studio Reiksguard scheme, which meant red and/or white feathers.  I blocked these in with little forethought, and as things turned out every helm with a ribbon had a red feather on top of said ribbon, which meant those ribbons had to be white.  Since there's a ribbon on the banner pole, the banner had to be red.   In vacuum this wouldn't be a problem, but when the color of the lances (red) are factored in then you can see the issue.  A red banner precludes a red banner pole (it ended up black), which is a very small inconsistency that is unlikely to ever be noticed, but it'll rub a me for as long as I field the model.  There's also more red than white in the unit, but that will be addressed when the ranks swell.  Those small grumbles aside, I'm pleased with how the unit turned out.  Despite doing horse and rider armor in different ways, the results match up just fine.  I tried out using a wash to do some black lining between the helmet plumes with good results.  The champion's face came out particularly well, and the unit didn't spend an excessive amount of (work) time on the table despite being ~2.5 times larger than a standard halberdier.

Now I have a final hurdle to clear, and it's one I have no experience with.  The picture in this post makes the unit look basically finished, but it's still a collection of mounts, riders, and shields (where appropriate).  It's been so long since I've painted something before it was fully assembled that I might as well be doing it for the first time.  Ideally I'd like to put a coat of varnish on the riders and shields before assembling the whole model and applying the rest if the varnish.  I don't have a good idea for how to let the pieces dry without sticking it whatever they dry on and potentially leaving paint behind when I peel them off that surface.  I'll probably end up assembling the models before varnishing as it's the easiest way.  I'm also considering magnetizing horse and rider for potentially easier transport.  That may not be an issue though, and I'd very much like to have a unit well and truly finished.