Note the edited thread title. I decided I might as well keep all my state troop painting in one thread, since the painting style is largely the same. The converted spearman unit is still on the shelf in nothing but undercoat. Near-term gaming needs and the ability to play in tournaments gets priority. Thus, I've mainly painted handgunners recently. I'll soon have some ready units to show.
In other news, I recently traded a bunch with Zygmund, which changes my supply situation, particularly when it comes to 6e swordsman shields, which I want to use both for swordsmen and spearmen. Consequently, I've decided to rehabilitate an old 30 strong unit of 6e unipose spearmen, some of the first models I ever painted. Replace the round lion shields (which I don't like) with 6e swordsman shields. Replace some heads for variety. Improve the painting and harmonize it with the rest of my army. Most significantly, I'd try out something I've done on the handgunners: Stagger the ranks. On the handgunners, I glued each front rank guy towards the left edge of the base, and each second rank guy towards the right edge. Consequently, when I rank them up, the second rank guys stick out their guns and shoot between the front rank guys. I could do the same thing with the spearmen. That'd make them look like they mean business, like they're in actual combat formation trying to project a spearwall. A bit the same idea as with the other spearmen I recently converted and showed, only that the unipose nature of these models would make the formation look more regular and organized.