Clubbing It! The Italian Wars II

Once again, while we were setting out a snap shot of the game we have planned for The Other Partizan on October 13th of this year at Newark Showground I managed to find a few minutes of my time to pop next door and get some snaps of The Italian Wars games that have been going on. In some ways, I'm conflicted as we're having a great time playing WAB on your usual table (though we could try to play some of the newer rulesets!), my absolute favourite "period" for history, pageantry and miniature painting is of course The great Italian Wars. The game was put on by Jon Severs and looked every bit as good if not better than the last game. The rules were Pike and Shotte with a goodly dose of amendments. 

I hope to be able to plunge into one of these games at some point soon, and if you're reading this guys, yes, that is a none too subtle hint! :>)

Cheers, more next week I hope!

Clubbing It! The Italian Wars

Just a quickie as they say! (apologies!)

Whilst I was in the other room playing, you guessed it, Warhammer Ancient Battles (other Ancient rulesets are available!) in a last ditch attempt to get ready for the weekend, a WAB Punic Wars campaign (more to come on that later) I was very pleased to see a lovely collection of Italian Wars miniatures lining up in the main room ready for some rather serious pike and lance action. The Italian Wars are certainly one of my main passions when it comes to toy soldiers so I wasn't going to miss the opportunity to get in a few snaps. Plating were Conrad Cairns, Sean Raine and Jon Severs.

Spanish Arquebusiers Close Ups of Single Bases

Another post, something to keep me busy whilst I'm unable to wield a brush.

This time it is the turn of the army of Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordoba's Spanish Arquebusiers. This is the first such unit in the army. The Assault Group Spanish Trastamara range were a real pleasure to paint up The level of detail on all of the miniatures is both accurate and ample. Hopefully the high level of detail on the sculpts will show up well on the single bases below.

The images are all "clickable" for those of you who would prefer a closer up view.

Spanish Arquebusiers

The first unit of what will be the army of Gonzalo de Cordoba for my Italian Wars project. I aim to do both sides for the Battle of Cerignola 1503, in my opinion one of the most pivotal battles during the series of conflicts we call The Italian Wars. After his defeat at the hands of the French and Swiss at the Battle of Seminara 1503 Gonzalo put into place plans to employ his smaller force more efficiently in a defensive manner. He significantly lengthened the pike, equipped his men with more arquebus' and enlarged his artillery train and set his army firmly on the defensive. The addition of mercenary Landsknechts to further bolster his forces. It was in this way that Gonzalo was to send the forces of Louis de Armagnac, Duc de Nemour's overwhelming numbers of a mix of French and Swiss reeling and into eventual retreat. If not annihilation in the case of the Swiss.

The miniatures are based up for as many rules systems as I can possibly fit in as I am done with rebasing. I'm in my early 50's now and the days spent plying miniatures off one base, gluing, adding filler then sanding before re-pianting the bases (again!) are long over! 

As an aside, I have been watching on Twitter excitement tantalising glimpses of an Italian Wars playtest set of rules by the Too Fat Lardies. A medium sized game, along the lines of Infamy, Infamy! and Sharpe Practice. This will be a great set of rules to slowly bring together both sides for Cerignola without painting up thousands of miniatures and will allow me to actually get some games in! Assuming the Covid situation improves for me personally .Even if that is not the case re: Covid, I aim at doing some serious solo gaming in the future which will include AAR's etc. Obviously, the full "thousands of 'em" game for Cerignola will still be on the cards.

One last thing. There are some major and minor structural changes that need to be made to my property and given that I cannot be in the same indoor area as the workmen I am going to be taking an enforced break form painting for a while. I'm not sure when I will be back as it is not clear how long the work will take. Still, I have more then enough reading to catch up on! 

More pics of the single bases to follow.