Italian lance spezzate Great Italian Wars 53

 So not that long ago I hosted and played a couple of great Italian wars games, Fornova and Agnadello, I resolved that I needed more Italian pike and a unit is primed, some way down the painting queue and also some heavy cavalry that were more Italian and less gendarme like. Now, when I say recently, a quick look at the blog reveals it was April 2024, so not too bad, in the meantime I was gifted a pile of second hand assembled and black primed mounted plastic perry later knights by Des who realised that there weren't that many cavalry in the war of the roses, I gratefully accepted them! I had to add swords to them and swap a few heads but all good and mixed in was some metal Perry command, so with a little clean up , swords ,additional priming and with the addition of a few more riders I now had 32 mounted later knights, four units.

I have then  the first of my lance spezzate, profesional heavy cavalry employed by the Venetian state, mounted on 45mm x 60mm bases and as usual eight to a unit, I've gone for some in darker armour, which seems correct, judging by contempary art and helps to break up all that shiny steel colour, less elaborate than full on gendarmes but still later knight heavy cavalry, with flags from Petes flags, lovely things in their own right!

I picked up a couple of Helion books on the great Italian wars, their wargaming guide which was really rather good , nice to have Stuarts guide to painting landscknechts in print as well. The other book was the second in their great Italian wars, Agnadello etc both good and cheap on Amazon ( he admits,guiltily!) The chaps here were inspired ( loosely!) by the illustrations in that book.

 Three more of these units and a couple of archer cavalry (another kind of heavy cavalry) on the way in and around continuing Napoleonics and occasional dark age Late Roman types I guess?

All the best 

Iain