Progress, of a sort anyway...

I’ve turned from MDF construction for the moment and back to figure painting. I wanted to let myself down gently from the riot of colour in the Italian Wars project so I turned first to some Trent Miniatures Austrians I had in stock, left over from my earlier 28 figure units. In all I could muster only eight figures, so I decided to paint them as Grenze Regiment Number 4, putting two figures on a 40 x 40mm base and giving me four bases for a Small Unit in Black Powder terms. Now, I realised that the cuffs were the wrong cut, but I will accept that deficiency in my games as the overall look of the units will be fine on the table during games and that is after all the only point to painting anything! My friends, of course, will be too polite to notice or comment anyway.  So, no more waffle or wittering, my take on Grenzer Regiment No 4 ~

I’ve also completed a small mule and muleteer vignette for the FRW project, both pieces from Foundry. If you squint you’ll see it’s a Roman era mule, but then it will do for me. Both pieces in Ian’s gift package I mentioned earlier in the summer~

On the theme of useful bits, but this time in more than one setting, I’ve finally got around to painting my Warbases Hay Cart and Hay Load. ~

I was over in Swadlincote on Sunday last weekend, visiting long time friends Ian and Ann who we met pretty much 50 years ago to the day as it happens. Ian’s not a wargamer but does enjoy painting 28mm figures, vehicles and such and builds splendid dioramas, so I enjoyed seeing his excellent work and received an unexpected gift in the shape of some VBCW Footsore Gardeners! In addition, Ian has kindly offered to paint some Warlord BEF British Infantry for me over the winter! I thought you might like to see the Gardeners ~

After these I feel I can take on a larger unit in figure terms, so back to the AWI next, where the Lead Pimple contains significant numbers of new units by Foundry and Perry Miniatures. First up a further British Line infantry unit I think. More later in the month on these I hope.

The Second Battle of San Philippe

I modified the table layout slightly, mainly adding more elevation, and moved the walled farm further to the edge of the playing area. I thought I might try the same game with Warlord’s Pike & Shotte rules, to see what differences, if any, emerged to the game and whether of not our one base equals one unit approach would suit the rules. Of course the armies are slightly smaller, missing four bases a side, as Phil’s contingent was not present. Each army consisted of 15 units, including a Command Base to represent the army commander. I took one or two pictures to try and illustrate how the game developed using the rules ~

At the end of Turn 1 ~ the most obvious difference? Well, not every unit

moved due to failed Command Rolls! Jon's pike blocks the main victims.

Turn 2: One of my Gendarme units looses a combat to Mounted Crossbows!

One of Jon's Blunders to its right! Jon's Pike blocks still won't move!!

Turn 3: Most of my Gendarme units have lost and are Routed! Lots of

shooting going on to little effect, the Dice Gods were not happy!

Turn 4: I have too many Shaken units for my sole General to Rally but my

pike blocks may swing it my way, or not!

Turn 5: My Landsknechts fail their Morale Roll and, being Mercenaries, quit

the battle! I really should have paid them!

Turn 6: I hoped my Halberdiers might yet save me. No chance, even though

Shaken  and Disordered, Jon's Handgunners see them off!

At the end of Turn 7 its all up for the Borgias! My army is Broken and Jon

carries the field!

All in all we played seven turns in about an hour and three quarters, not bad given our vague grasp of the rules from one previous ECW game earlier in the year! Jon won in the end as over half my remaining units were Shaken and I quit the field. One memorable moment came when my Mercenary pike block failed a Morale Test while Shaken and went home! Obviously I forgot to pay them!!

As I enjoy Black Powder games I think I could warm to Pike & Shotte if I played the period more often. That seems unlikely though given my focus in the main on the period of the 1770’s through to 1914, so Phil and I will probably stick with our mash up of Neil Thomas plus mods rules, but no doubt Jon and I will revisit Pike & Shotte from time to time, though our next game will be a 1944 set Rapid Fire 2 game! Variety being the spice of a wargamer’s life here in GHQ at least!

The Palazzo is Plastered!

Progress on the Borgias’ Palazzo project has far exceeded my expectations to date, in that all the external walls have been plastered with filler. I used about half a tube of the extra fine quality filler, the sort all DIY outlets stock in their decorating products. It dries to the touch in about an hour and is hard in about half a day I’ve found.

Front face: Wabases Modular building with Supreme Littleness Designs

ornate window added; Warbases Roman Villa gateway; Warbases Large

Roman Tower with Sally Forth Italianate crenellations.

Left face: Warbases Modular two storey, High Walls pillars as Butresses,

Shed and single storey Modular Building, Roman Stone window surrounds.

Pantiles by Wills/Peco.

Rear face: Warbases Modular single storey buildings and Shed with Charlie

Foxtrot Tower, omitting middle section (Resin roof comes with the kit).

Sally Forth wooden staircase to tower first floor visible in courtyard.

Rear face (2): Warbases Roman stone window surrounds added to the long

single storey Modular Building.

Right face: Warbases General Purpose Gateway between Large Roman Tower

and Single Storey Modular Building. 3mm MDF  base custom cut by Martin

at Warbases.

The next task will be to plaster the internal faces of the crenellations atop the large tower and paint the inside walls of the tall tower as they are visible through the larger windows on each of the four faces. I might even add some frescos if I can download something suitable and scale it accurately, as I managed with my Roman villa.

In the meantime I’d like to get a few figures on the painting desk. I have a few Trent Miniatures Austrians I plan to render as Grenzer to give something a little different to that army. I also have some Perry Miniatures AWI units in the queue, both British and Continental infantry, and some British Light Dragoons. We will have to see what develops in the next few weeks.

The Battle of San Philippe

Well, as I mentioned in my last blog post, things on the family front thankfully have settled down enough to allow the resumption of some hobby activity. Phil and I managed to fit in our scheduled Monday game here in GHQ, a second battle for our Italian Wars armies, using our mash up rules again with some refinements added after the first encounter. An encounter battle between two fairly evenly matched forces with the prize being possession of the Great Ordinance lodged in the village of San Philippe. As ever, the pictures try to carry the sense of the action over the twelve turns we played in the course of less than three hours ~

The field of battle from the Florentine perspective, San Phlippe in the far

distance, a walled farm in the centre.

And again from the perspective of the Papal States' forces.

San Philippe is covered by a Pike block with handgunners in support and a

piece of light ordnance on the flanking low hill.

Supported by mercenary pikemen and Italian handgunners the heavily

armoured gendarmes move forward on the flank of the farm, hoping to turn

the Florentine left flank.

The Florentine centre advances steadily with handgunners and crossbowmen

covering the ponderous pike blocks.

Papal casualties start to mount as the handgunners come under fire from the

enemy ordnance. In the distance the Papal left wing emerges from the tree

line.

The desperate and bloody struggle between the Gendarmes of both armies

continued unresolved for several turns. Neither side seemed able to make a 

decisive breakthrough!

Ordnance from both sides damages their opponents' foot, but despite losses

each side presses on with their attack. The Papal army's left flank looks to

envelope the enemy's right.

On the Papal army's left flank the action is getting more intense as halberdiers

close with a mercenary pike block. Despite mounting losses the Papal centre

continues to press the attack.

On the opposite flank the gendarmes continue to struggle for the breakthrough

while reserves and supports await their opportunity.

Losses begin to mount for the mercenary pike block as the halberdiers cut and

slash their way through their ranks. Fire from hand guns and crossbows begins

to effect the Florentine centre.

A unit of Italian spearmen punch a hole in the Florentine right flank while the

mounted crossbowmen harass the halberdiers holding the right flank.

After an epic struggle the Florentine gendarmes at last defeat one of the

enemy gendarme units.

But gendarmes in Papal service break through the remaining weakened units

to engage the supporting elements.

Though weakened by several rounds of hand to hand combat, the leading

elements of the Papal gendarmes are cut down by the fresh enemy units.

While the struggle to break the Florentine left continues to occupy the

remaining gendarme units, away on the opposite flank the Halberdiers have

destroyed another Florentine unit while the Italian spearmen make short work

of a unit of Florentine halberds.

The Florentine right is almost destroyed, its beginning to look all up for

their attempt to win the great ordnance of San Philippe.

The Papal army presses hard on the Florentine centre, while on the right the

gendarmes have almost succeeded in driving through the Florentine flank.

The Florentine cause is lost! The great ordnance of San Philippe can be

carried off by the victorious Papal army!

All things considered, it was a grand tussle which might have gone either way at times during the battle. Phil has gone off now to rewrite some areas of our rules in the light of our post battle discussion over coffee and cake. We shall try to fit a further in through in next month. Finally, for those who, like me, knew little of the Italian Wars, I found this useful map and timeline on the net ~

The End of the Beginning...?

As readers will know for most of this year Phil and I have been plodding on in our own contexts with painting figures for our joint Italian Wars project. I have at last painted the last of my Landsknecht pike blocks, using the spare Warlord pikemen to fill out the Foundry/Early Citadel figures I picked up for a song at Barrage in early June. With these the figures I have are all finished and based! Of course, no Wargamer ever truly finishes a project, but for now no more figure purchases are planned!

I’ve also been managing a little texturing work on the Palazzo project. The keen eyed will notice that I’ve replaced the Sally Forth tower with the Warbases large Roman Tower, though I’ve retained the former’s Italianate crenellations, as I thought it fitted better with my vision of the finished piece. I made up the Sally Forth wooden stairs kit I’d bought at TOP and added a Warbases doorway to create the upper floor entrance. The extra Roman stone window surrounds Martin cut for me were added to the upper floor of the two blank tower wall faces, with two more between the buttresses on the side facing building ~

Not a lot to show for over a month’s hobby time, but then this has been a far from normal month for my family. Thankfully the worst seems to be over now and we can all move forward again with our lives, being thankful for all we still have and mindful of what we might have so easily lost.

A bit of a thumping, and no mistake...

At the last minute Jon had to cancel our last Wednesday evening game a couple of weeks ago now, a big disappointment for both of us. Rather than clear away the Wars of the French Revolution game I’d planned, using Black Powder as the rules and pitting early Revolutionary French against Austrians, Phil agreed we’d simply play it on our regular Monday slot. Now in its turn that was almost two weeks ago now! Some family trauma has delayed any hobby activity since, but now things are back on an even keel I have time to share some pictures of the game.
The game saw both sides battling for control of a strategic bridge crossing an otherwise unfordable river. Phil commanded the Austrians and I took the French for this game. As is usual a few photos to try and capture the flavour of the game as it ebbed and flowed over six turns ~

The opening move: French Infantry head en mass for the bridge while their

cavalry are hesitant. The Austrian cavalry moves slowly forward under fire

from the French Horse Artillery battery.

French Infantry drive off one Austrian infantry regiment and another attacks

the Grenadiers in the flank. How I lost that melee I will never know!

French Dragoons rout after charging a square and suffering heavily from

Closing and Passing Fire!

The French have been driven back across the bridge. Shaken and Disordered

they loose the Melee!

"FollowMe!"Austrian Cuirassiers charge the French Horse Artillery battery

and, of course, over run them and sabre the gunners!

Austrian Chasseurs charge the French Hussar brigade with the by now almost

inevitable outcome! 

Their Sweeping Advance carries them into the supporting regiment with a

sadly similar outcome!! On their flank the Cuirassiers charge into the French

Heavy Cavalry.

One rout becomes...

...two routs! The French left flank is turned and with Three Broken Brigades

the French Army cannot advance so victory is to the Austrians.

The victorious Austrian commander surveys the field of battle! The victory

was overwhelming in the end, the Austrians not even loosing one unit!

We hope we shall manage to fit in a game on Monday, but that is very much dependant on events beyond our immediate control. If we can we plan a second Italian Wars game to test out our mash up rules I've mentioned before. In the meantime, its back to Landsknecht pikemen whenever I get a free moment or two!

The beginnings of my Palazzo project

Now, please don’t any of my loyal readers get carried away and expect this to be completed next month, this is a long term effort in support of out Italian Wars project. I plan to build a centre piece for the games in the shape of a Palazzo typical of the period but suitable for the rigours of the wargames table . My days of scratch building, such as they were, are long gone so for this project I shall be using commercially available MDF kits from a number of manufacturers.
From my favourite supplier in the field, Warbases, I shall be using their Modular Buildings and Extras; from Charlie Foxtrot a Renaissance tower; from Sally Forth a basic Tower with Italianate crenellations; from Sarissa a plinth from the Gangs of Rome series; from Foundry the Roman figure to proxy a statue; from Wills the plastic sheets of pantiles; and finally, from Supreme Littleness Designs the ornate widow. In addition Martin at Warbases cut me the 3mm MDF base and supplied some Roman stone window surrounds not usually available separately. I’ve taken some pictures of the probable layout, including a plan view which I hope will give an idea of the final piece ~

The defensive tower and side gate

A view of the living accommodation 

A plan view