A present from Osaka Castle

 While at a family wedding in Bolton recently, a grand nephew's, I saw my sister and brother in law freshly back from Japan tracking down where that branch of the family is from, that part of Yokahama was mostly destroyed in the earthquake in 1929 and anything left got flattened by US bombers in WW2 and although my great grandmother and the one remaining great aunt stayed their extended family moved to another treaty port, Nagasaki. My dad was in the invasion fleet in Sydney in 1945 and would have been in the first wave had we not dropped both bombs, so I feel a little ambiguous about the  bombing but that's not the point of this post!

 I got a present from Osaka Castle. 

My wife said at the  dining table in the hotel when I  got the book ( so I have witnesses)

 " why don't you paint a samurai army as it's part of your heritage " well with such an unusual intervention from my wife what can I do but acquiesce? It won't be immediate but I'm thinking of the battle of Sekigahara in 1600 between Tokugawa Ieyasu and Ishida Mitsunari so another pike and shot army or two, I've been put off Warlords plastic range by Ray's mate Steve who told me how hard he was finding it when I  saw him at Partizan!  So maybe it's going to be a metal Perry army? Obviously I'll have to do a bit more research but this will be a long term one, after Montrose's army and two hundred years war armies and my early Imperial Romans otherwise I'm pretty good with Napoleonics ( although I can't stop painting them?!) Great Italian wars are back on the agenda for some reinforcements and the  late Romans and dark ages are bumping along nicely so obviously all I bought at Partizan was WW2 Soviets! I also chatted to Andy from the friends of general Haig and they're really nice 1691 pike and shot battle, even if it wasn't in 28mm! 

KV1/2 warlord T34/76 Rubicon, tank crew and tank riders from bad Squiddo.  I'm currently up to my eyes in a flat refurbishment with an imminent deadline so I apologise if I'm not commenting on your blogs and probably won't be posting until next month, partizan was my only day off for the foreseeable future, added to 14 hour days doesn't leave a lot of time for a hobby!

All the best 

Iain 

A command stand and some bits and bobs! Great Italian wars 52

 This command stand was started during the Analogue Hobbies painting challenge but I've only just finished it . It depicts Caterina Sforza,  a member of the Sforza family who ruled Milan  born 1463 and died 1509. She was the ruler of Imola and Forli with her first husband  and after his death as regent for her son , not considered a role for a woman at the time, nevertheless she did so.She seized the castle saint Angelo in Rome whilst secen months pregnant during a papal election and  held the fortress of Ravaldino after the murder of her husband, where ,in response to threats against her children she is said to have raised her skirts and told her children's captors to go ahead and hang them, she had the means of making more! Not sure it's actually true as Machiavelli is the source and he'd also had a run in with her, capable of extreme brutality, hunting down both her lover's killer's and their pregnant wives , children and infants , extreme even by the standards of the day. She campaigned against the Venetians, gaining the nickname the Tiger of Forli and defended Ravaldino against the French army supporting Caesera Borgia who was carving out a kingdom in the Romagna, ultimately she had to surrender to the French , sword in hand and after a period imprisoned in Rome's Castle Saint Angelo she finished ip in Florence where her third husband (a Medici) had been from. The Caterina figure is from Bad Squiddo, the hair's a bit of a lump and I don't think the armour is elegant enough for a renaissance princess, it's more ammunition quality I feel? I've painted her in blue and white as I found some references for that. The banner bearer is a Perry plastic from the 15th century  mercenaries box and is about right for period, the landsknecht is somewhat anachronistic but I wanted someone who looked like a guard and he fitted the bill, he's also a lovely Foundry figure. The banner is Sforza Milan so also not entirely accurate but close enough I think! 

Hosted some bolt action games from the market garden supplement, a bit more gamey than Steve Js rather more realistic campaign on his http://wargameswithtoysoldier1685-1985.blogspot.com/ still entertaining, I  just supplied the terrain and following a leaf out of Norms book i used partially completed buildings! 

The scenario called for buildings along both sides of the road lengthways on a 6' x 4' board and while I could have used medieval and Italian wars buildings I thought it wouldn't look great and it didn't take long to knock up ten foamboard ruins on hardboard bases, they're loosely based on the mdf terrace/ row houses I inherited from Des which are elsewhere on the table, we did find with those that because they were so small they were difficult to access so I've gone for something more like a house and a half with a bit more space within the  ruin and I've planned them as pairs so that two would give you the equivalent of three buildings, although they work fine on their own. I don't think they look too bad in black, the plan is to gradually add sills, floorboards some brickwork, render, roof framing and tiles as the campaign goes on, they might be finished by the end but I rather doubt it. The other reason for these is my niece has expressed an interest in some sort of miniature game D&D was mentioned which I no longer have but I do have frostgrave and probably the figures to go with it and you need a lot of ruins for that game, also Mordheim is very popular at the club so I hope to get some use out of them, a couple of them together would probably be not far off what a built up area in 1813 should look like for Valour and Fortitude/Blackpowder if I wanted to be realistic? Food for thought anyway, lot's of other stuff nearing completion! Partizan  coming up next weekend and I'm aiming on going, hope to see some of you there?

All the best 

Iain 

 

A command stand and some odds and ends! War of three Kingdoms 29

 I started this chap for the Analogue Hobbies painting challenge for local history but didn't finish him in time, he was meant to be a New Model Army officer as where I  live in Hertford is where the New Model Army were bivouaced in 1647 and  a mutiny broke out  between Leveller inspired soldiers, who for some reason  objected to being demobilised  without back pay,and Fairfax and Cromwell who proceeded to put it down.  The officer has a personal sash rather than an army specific one and has the Leveller hat band, or might that just be a coincidence? A nice Foundry figure, I've painted this figure before and incorporated him into a cavalry unit and got him off Des as he doesn't like having duplicate figures, I'm less bothered! He'll do for any mid seventeenth century force I think?

This other infantry officer has been almost finished for an age so I thought I'd put him out of his misery as I was in a mid seventeenth century mood, he will be useful to replace another Warlord games figure, the ensign with the red regiment flag, as he's so English whereas with this chap , change the flags and the world, or at least Europe is our lobster!

J got asked to do a cake topper for my wife's niece's wedding, fun if slightly challenging on the sculpting front for me, the happy couple and their cat, I'd say their about 1/25 scale, tenous connection to the rest of this post is that the grooms parents live on the road believed to be the site of the mutiny !

All the best 

Iain 

A gift from Jonathan Freitag cavalry units late Romans 2

 In the distant past I won a competition on Jonathan Freitag's blog and he generously funded the purchase of the Newline late Roman cavalry in this post, who have been further reinforced by the spare Foundry cataphract figures to give me a command/ companion unit and a regular rider unit for my Dux Bellorum late Roman force. I do like the Newline figures, they don't look too impressive in bare metal but paint up very nicely.  The shield designs are variants I've seen online and elsewhere and were fun to do, I've deliberately gone slightly less uniform, I think it works for a period with rather stretched resources! The infantry following up on the paint table are a bit more uniform. 

So thank you very much Jonathan! 

All the best 

Iain 

Battle of Agnadello 1509 Pike and Shot AAR Great Italian wars 51

 I fancied a great Italian wars battle after starting an Italian wars Sforza command stand and reading Mr Freitags Fornova AARs so set up the battle of Agnadello 1509 between the French and Venetians, I used the Renaissance Battles 1494-1700 volume 1 by Peter Sides for this scenario, there's an A5 map and an order of battle and description of how it went. We set up as per the book although I missed out one of the Italian pike and crossbow blocks as I didn't have enough and didn't want to use landsknechts as that would be confusing and the Swiss infantry didn't get any light artillery. The Venetian force was mostly on a hill with the French opposite divided into two Swiss pike blocks on their left flank, two artillery pieces with a unit of Gascon crossbow behind and four units of elite Gendarmes on the right flank, opposite the Gendarmes were the Romagnal pike block, a unit of men at arms, two pieces of artillery and going up the hill a unit of militia pike and shot, two units of stradiots then two units of pike and crossbow and finally two units of men at arms on a 6' x 4' table.

There was a dry riverbed which counted as rough terrain in front of the Venetian guns.  We flipped a coin and so I became the Venetian commander and Des Louis XII . We used pike and shot with Valour and Fortitude sequence, so shooting first and if you shoot you can't move and Valour and Fortitudes rather more relaxed approach to movement rather than pike and shots more rigid version we rolled for command ratings which went well for me, less so for Des. He shot his artillery at mine to little effect and failed to move his Gendarmes or Swiss, I moved my stradiots and men at arms off the hill into the rough ground, Des managed to move a unit of Swiss and I was able to shoot at unit of gendarmes with my artillery and cause a casualty. 

The two units of stradiots threatened the artillery and Des was able to activate a unit of gendarmes to deal with that threat I charged his gendarmes with my two units of men at arms and found out the gulf in quality between the two! I  managed a draw and the first slightly bruised unit fell back behind  supporting unit, luckily in Des's next go he failed to activate , I was able to disorder the unit with shooting from crossbow men on the hill and with two men at arms units was just about able to destroy the isolated and crippled unit, meanwhile the first stradiot unit charged the first artillery piece in the flank and destroyed it. Des brought up his crossbow unit and shot at the second stradiot unit causing damage, they charged the crossbow men who somehow survived their break test. 

It would have been nice if it finished then, unfortunately for Venice it didn't!  Finally the Swiss pike block got into gear , charged up the hill, (we found out there were no benefits from defending a hill !) slammed into the unfortunate Italian pike block who did well against the elite Swiss in coming away with a draw, less good was failing their break test and evaporating!  Des's shaken crossbow men shot the stradiots who had defeated them in hand to hand combat, forced a break test , which they failed Des finally got two units of gendarmes to move forward and then charged my two units of men at arms and his remaining unit of gendarmes who had been peppered with artillery charged as far as the dried up river. My last remaining unit of stradiots charged the artillery in the flank, lost and failed a break test, the men at arms lost one unit against the gendarmes I shot the other gendarmes unit at point blank range, somehow it survived and my remaining men at arms unit failed to activate to attack it and  it was the end of the game! Enormous fun, great to get the figures back out on the table, the Swiss and French gendarmes are another class compared to the Italians, we got something like a historical result as well. I realise I need at least one more Italian/ French/ Scottish pike block, maybe another Romagnal pike block, in case I want to have Caesere Borgia versus Venice, so I've started on that and of course I still need a second unit of Jinets and some more mounted crossbow men....! Next up, Late Romans or Napoleonics or space marines or maybe that Italian wars command stand, not sure but lots of things are almost finished!

All the best 

Iain