Our pikeman is equipped in typical 1642 style, wearing an almost full set of foot armour; with a scarf around his neck instead of the extra protection of a gorget. Full armour was not always available and as the civil war went on it was becoming less popular. The ‘tassets’ (plates that protect the tops of the thighs) were the first part to be abandoned.
By the latter part of the civil war period the pikemen of the New Model Army wore no armour at all.
Soldiers didn’t wear armour off the battlefield, when marching the armour would be carried in waggons.
The pikeman is armed with a cheap and nasty sword and his pike. Generally pikes are thought to have been between 15 and 18 foot in length, with an average of 16ft. In practice soldiers tended to unofficially shorten them for easier use and as a source of firewood, so an average length of 14 foot was common.
