In the same vein, anyone know any good suggestions for Free Company stand ins?
Two weapons is not an easy thing to find in historicals, outside samurai.
I was thinking maybe the new WotR mercenaries might be nice bodies and heads, but I'd probably have to use mordheim/freecompanies arms to get any left handed weapons; I reckon the gw plastic sprues are too big, but I just got the first Bills and Bows box, so maybe I should go open that up and check it out.
I've just re-read the rules (I only have 6th Ed Army book so far, dunno if it has since changed), and I think they could be fun. For somereason when it came out I got it in my head that they were even worse than our beloved 3-across-the-board empire state troop, but on second look I see that they have the same stat line, but just get 2 weapons. For a point less than average?! Helllloooo skaven clan rats! Anyway, they seem like they're worth having a unit of perhaps, or at least some detachments, but I've never really like the floppy hat / quasi pirate look of the free companies boxes.
So. . . . any suggestions??
My other though is that if I can't come up with a useable number of 2-weapon troops, maybe just go with the fluff - that they count as 2-weapons overall, but in reality they are all mixed. That would free me to use a lot of different grunt-level rennaissance or late medieval style troops. Some swords, some bucklers, some bills, some extra hand weapon. That sort of variety might be quite fun to model.
We shall see.