War of three Kingdoms/ECW 11,painted reinforcements

 Years ago I was reading a post on the Fantorical blog, a fellow traveller in  the  Analogue Hobbies painting challenge some time ago and he mentioned star trek miniatures and I said I had some citadel 25mm figures from a film tie in from about 1980 in the loft and that he was welcome to them, eventually, some years later I retrieved them from the loft and proposed to send them to him and he had some 28mm painted figures for the ECW from a project that had fallen by the wayside if I wanted them , I  posted the star treck figures but Blax dropped the figures over as they were too heavy to post, I dug out some bloodbowl and other figures, he felt he had the better part of the deal,as did I,nice result!

So four troops of horse and with the addition of half a dozen spare Essex figures I can make up six more regiments of foot, two units of dragoons ( in addition to the two I'm working on at the moment?!) A whole load of command ( including a poodle)The only thing I'm not sure of is the Jacobite artillery from the 18th century ,artillery is the one area I'm already short of, so I'll have to sort this out for both armies I guess? I have a cunning plan that will give me siege weapons that can be used for the 17th century and also the 16th. A useful addition that almost doubles the size of my non Covenanter forces, the style is different and is actually quite detailed, I like it so I shan't be changing any of it but I do wonder who the manufacturer is? So at least wargaming figures ( even if I haven't painted any!) You'll see these chaps again once they've been cleaned( they're a bit dusty)and rebased with the handful of Essex figures painted, anybody need some painted 28mm Jacobite artillery? I promise I won't take three years to post them!

All the best 

Iain 

Suffolk medieval buildings

 I've recently been to Suffolk for a week and while there I visited Leiston Abbey, well the remains of it  anyway. It's a pretty impressive ruin and I would recommend it if you are in the area, plus it's free and there is a classical music centre for gifted youths that make it quite pleasant having a wander around!

It's a poor area for stone, so most of it is built of flint faced with stone and the stone and some columns of an earlier Abbey were reused.  I thought the black and white stone patterning was interesting and might be worth applying to a suitable church, I'm a bit dissatisfied with my large mdf church, it might get a makeover! I fancy doing some medieval ecclesiastical buildings so maybe I'll do that instead!

Also in Suffolk but much closer to Essex is Lavenham which in the 15th century was one of the wealthiest towns in England, by the 16th century the wool trade had been undermined by cheap foreign imports ,they got hit by the plague just as they were getting back on  their  feet and the town never really recovered ,sounds surprisingly current, or is that just me?! At least one benefit was that no-one could afford to update their housing which means there is a fantastic collection of medieval timber framed buildings and a nice 15th century church, there's more than 300 listed buildings in this small town and it's been used in films from Witchfinder General, Barry Lyndon to Harry Potter. 

The black and white look isn't really kosher,it's more of a Victorian affectation, the silver finish is  more correct and the panels weren't always white. 

So maybe I should make my church look more like this?! Next up? I've acquired a pile of painted 17th century figures, I might show those before I rebase them? No painting but plenty of prep and a bit of terrain work. 

All the best 

Iain 

Italian wars 49, Battle of Fornova,Pike and shot

 So we were meant to have one last battle of the season, before holidays and me starting a  new contract  means putting the boards back up on the ceiling, New Model Army versus newly based Covenanters, with all four of us available, then on the day, Des went down with covid,double jabbed so he's okay but flu like and not really able to come,without his New Model Army, I cast about for something to do and decided to use my Italian wars figures, so using Ospreys Fornova campaign book( with a helpful wargaming section) and Peter Sides Renaissance Battles volume 1 , I set up Fornova 1495

I set up the French under Charles VIII on one side of the river and the Italian league under Francesco Gonzaga IV,Duke of Mantua on the other, hoping with overwhelming cavalry numbers to overwhelm the French, merely having to cross the Taro to do so.

We used the convention from the Osprey book that the first unit at one of the three fords had to get a 5 or 6 or the ford was closed, after Ben failed with both his first two attempts, we said the third ford was open,otherwise there wasn't going to be much of a game! There were some Italian light cavalry on the French side of the river, a unit of mounted crossbow men and two units of stradiots,  there was a bit of toing and froing between them and a unit of gendarmes and some Swiss pike,we found out how good the Swiss were!

The French Gendarmes took a couple of hits from the mounted crossbow men and then eliminated them,the Italians used their artillery to good effect while the French endeavoured to move and unlimber their guns. The Swiss swung around to face the ford, leaving one unit to take care of the stradiots who had been stranded after failing their activation, they were unable to evade as this would have taken them off of the table and they would be lost,at least they inflicted some damage to the Swiss before they went!

Ben was having trouble moving his troops as we had rolled for command levels, most of his commanders were a 7 and his overall commander an 8, in contrast the French overall commander was a 9 and most of his commanders were an 8 which made life difficult for the Italians who were starting to take casualties from crossbows, by this time we had rolled for the scenario special rules and the rain had put an end to all gunpowdrr weapons. 

The Italians managed to get a unit of mounted crossbow men onto the ford but not across it. 

We called it now as clearly the French would get off the board .

We had a fun time, Dan took over the French after a short while and I umpired,even though we didn't get to much combat, it was nice to get the Italian wars figures out for a runabout, quite a few for their first time! I realise I could do with some more crossbow men, not need exactly more that they would be useful! I also had a look at another large Swiss  pike block I've been slowly working on since I finished the larst batch,I figure I could do with them if I want to do Maregano.

The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed a unit of landsknechts and some Papal gendarmes which I'm not convinced were there but they were in Sides order of battle so I figured I'd include them!

It was quite nice to pack away the Italian wars figures somewhere I could still see them!

Not sure what's up next,who knows, perhaps I'll paint some figures soon? Although really I should do something about my roads, they match my basing so well they're virtually invisible, hence the grey tarmac temporary road!

All the best Iain