Foundry Miniatures, Afghan Pathans (Formerly from Shooting Leave Blog)

I'm quite proud of these, though they are gracing someone else's tabletop now.

They managed to get to the Finals Table at Salute 2011.

Studio Miniatures, Sikh Wars British (Formerly from Shooting Leave Blog)

Studio Miniatures, Sikh Wars British

Gewalthaufen (Late Medieval/Early Renaissance Blog) Now Deleted!

As the title implies my Gewalthaufen Blog has now been deleted. I have imported the posts that I wanted to keep into this blog where they shall remain.

I was running four different blogs which was way too unwieldy so I have decided to import the best posts from them all into Just Add Water where things will be much more manageable.

Nest up are the highlights of Shooting Leave, which was mainly concerned with colonial gaming.

The Great Italian Wars 1: The Expedition of Charles VIII into Italy and the Battle of Fornovo (Formerly from Gewalthaufen Blog)

A couple of months ago I was sent a proof copy of The Great Italian Wars 1: The Expedition of Charles VIII into Italy and the Battle of Fornovo which is due to be published soon by Helion and Company in a rather exciting series of books called From Retinue to Regiment which already include, Richard III and the Battle of Bosworth and Tanaka 1587. Japan's Greatest Unknown Samurai Battle and will soon include volumes examining The Army of the Swabian League. I'm sure there will be more to come in this series!

I'm going to review the book, I'm not sure when as I only have a proof copy but I'm about to contact the editor and see if he thinks it's OK to go ahead now or to wait.

I'll leave you with a picture featuring the front cover teaser which illustrates the quality of the plates within the book.

The vignette will of course be very useful when it comes to painting up my smaller 28mm Venetian forces at Fornovo, although it does model some of the forces of Venice to some 12 years later.

Pier del Monte di Santa Maria at the Battle of Agnadello, 1509 by Francesco  Sbarile 

(My thanks to Ratmaul for pointing me in the direction of the modeller of the above vignette)

Fornovo 1495 Essential Reading Part One More (Formerly from Gewalthaufen Blog)

More from my Gewalthaufen Blog as it nears its end!

So, with my enthusiasm rekindled I reached for a few, now rather dusty books from my bookshelf, not only to strengthen my feel for the battle via a vis the demo game but for building up a solid background to The Great Italian Wars in general. After all, it is a truism that wars cannot be understood in isolation. This is particularly pertinent regarding what we artificially call The Late Medieval/Early Renaissance period of history. It is simply not the case that one 'period' (man, I hate that term though I do seem to use it a lot!) ended suddenly and another altogether different segment of technological and military strategy began. As wargamers it is one of the ironies of our hobby that we are instinctively aware of this fluidity but at the same time we drive history into convenient brackets in order to make sense of it all. Not only that but we are very particular about doing the exact same thing in terms of  what we like to call "Troop types" etc. That being said, this is not a history lesson but rather an expression of my interest in this fascinating span of history.

Regarding the literature; I would be very interested in hearing about anything that I might have missed out so please feel free contact me if you think their is anything. glaring or otherwise, missing from the short list of books below.

So, without further ado, the books in no particular order:

The Artillery of the Dukes of Burgundy 1363-1477

(Robert Douglas Smith, Kelly DeVries)

I've just ordered this from Amazon. Although the scope of the book falls short of the sum of the actual date of the battle it is interesting in that both the French Kings Charles VI and Charles VII of France realising the importance of artillery in relinquishing the Plantagenet dynasty of their rich lands in France had started to gather together a substantial artillery train. Thus so the Dukes of Burgundy. This was a continual process and for my purposes the book should be very informative in what these military captains were trying to achieve with their firepower, that apart from the obvious advantage that may be gained. I'm hoping for a more nuanced study. The book seems like a good starting place for getting to grips with the types of artillery used at Fornovo and their actual battlefield use.

Fornovo 1495, Osprey Books

(David Nicolle)

With a view to putting on a demo game of Fornovo, it probably goes without saying that I have read this book and view it as essential reading, at least from the meagre offerings in English! For those that have not read the volume then it's fair to say that it follows the standard formula traditional for Osprey. It is a decent outline of the events leading to the battle and the battle itself.

The Italian Wars Volume 1: The Expedition of Charles VIII into Italy and the Battle of Fornovo (Retinue to Regiment), Helion Books
(Predonzani Massimo, Vincenzo Alberici, Irene Maccoloni)

A Full Review of this Book will Follow

Another book on order from the Retinue and Regiment Series. I cannot comment on how useful this may be for obvious reasons. It is Volume I in the series covering The Italian Wars and I'm hoping that Helion follow through and manage to study the other major conflicts of the time, especially the ones that appeal to me; Ravenna, Cerignola, Garigliano and Ravenna.

That's it for now due to time constraints but I'll be back tomorrow with more literature pertinent to the battle.

Kind Regards

Foundry/Artizan Landsknecht Conversions and Head Swaps (Formerly from Gewalthaufen Blog)

More from my Gewalthaufen Blog as it nears its end!

Recently I took delivery a modest ;>) order from Wargames Foundry for all the Landsknecht models that I would need for Jacob Empser's troops at Ravenna. This actually comes to 9 bases each that will have at least 8 Landsknechts to make up the numbers of the pikes. I want them based closer together as I was in a good position at Partizan to compare some Late Medieval Swiss based up in a looser formation and also based up in a tighter formation. Although both methods looked spectacular (amazing would be closer to the mark) I was of the opinion that to get the feel of the press in a pike block it would be necessary to base the mini's in a very tight formation. Thus I made a second order to Foundry which arrived very quickly.

I set out the bases on a flat surface, got out the Blue Tac and popped more than a few onto their respective bases to see what it would look like. It looked the part so I am now satisfied that the pike block will have the visual appeal that I was after.

In between bouts of painting for the Battle of Hastings Demo that I have planned for Salute I have been painting up a small retinue for Lion Rampant as part of our club's Haggis Rampant Campaign I have been playing around with some of the Dopplensoldners as there are only two official versions and I wanted to create a few more. In the end I opted for some simple head swaps and conversions, which proved to be a little more complicated than i had anticipated due to the variation in collars on the models. You can see the results below. I was also lucky enough for Foundry to pop in a few of their superb unreleased models one of which was a swordsman (again, pics below). The other is being saved for a Gaston de Foix vignette with Gaston being in overall command at Ravenna.

I'd certainly be interested in hearing about what you guys think about the head swaps and conversion work. Does it look convincing?

Here are the results:

Artizan Designs Body and Foundry Head Swap:

Splendid Looking Unreleased Foundry Dopplensoldner:

Foundry Head Swap (right), (I've attached his Feathered Cap to his back and a strap holding it in place) as seen below:

Now all I have to do is muster the strength to not paint them up and concentrate on the Hastings Demo as far as brushwork goes! 

I will continue to do conversions and more putty work for an hour or two a day to keep my eye in and (hopefully) get better at pushing the ProCreate.

Bye for now.

The Bodkins First Outing at The Other Partizan: Berne, Baby Berne! (Formerly from Gewalthaufen Blog)

Disclaimer: I didn't paint up any of the miniatures for the Berne, Baby Berne! game but was a member of the then Bodkins whose aim it was to put on as many high quality Late Medieval games as was possible.

I was about five or ten minutes late and had to rush through to the front of the queue past many cross looking wargamers to get into the hall on time for the start of the game. What a sight there was to behold! I knew that a Swiss Burgundian affair with it's massed Swiss pikes and supporting troops scraping with the exquisitely decked out Burgundian army of Charles the Bold was going to be a great beautiful looking game but nothing could have prepared me for the sight that was to greet me as I walked up to the game!

For once I don't really feel like I have to say very much at all, the images will do all the talking for me. I would like to heartily thank Dave Andrews, David Imrie and Simon Chick for painting up such beautiful looking armies! To say they were beautifully painted is in fact to do them an injustice and no images of the mini's will ever capture the magic of actually seeing them in the flesh! I'd also ;like to thank Jack Glanville who kept us straight on the rules- we would have been somewhat lost without him as David and I seem to have collectively forgotten how to play a rule set that we played quite a lot of when I was at the Edinburgh club a few years ago.

This was The Bodkins first outing and the Berne, Baby Berne did not disappoint! The next game we will be showcasing will not be revealed until very near the time but it is scheduled for Partizan in it's new premises next year.

Now then, onto the lusciousness that was the game:

I think that's enough eye candy to be going on with for now! Tomorrow there will be more from Partizan.

Bye for now.