Great Italian wars 36 To the strongest AAR

Nephew no2 came over last night for a game.
I dug out my Italian wars figures,a French force and a Papal/ Spanish force, marked the board up with 150mm/6" squares and read To the strongest rules again.
 As it was some time ago that
I had played it and it was against nephew no1 we only used eight units a side.
A senior general,an attached general and an unattached general and then for the French: two units of gendarmes (later knights) two blocks of Swiss pike, two cannons,a unit of crossbow men and a unit of mounted crossbow men.

For the Spanish/Papal side: one unit of later knights,one unit of jinnetts, two cannons, a unit of Romagla pike,a Spanish colonelia,a unit of landsknecht pike and a unit of shot. I tried to keep it simple this time,so no bridge, really just some decorative trees and a hill.
 Nephew no 2 went for the Spanish/Papal force,we set up a camp for either side and deployed our troops and went to it.
I advanced my gendarmes,we tried largely ineffectively to fire our cannons the jinnetts charged the crossbow men, failed and got eliminated, one unit of gendarmes took out a cannon and was then charged by the papal knights, another unit of gendarmes hit the Papal knights in the flank a(having just  eliminated the unit of shot)that tussle went on for a long time until just one unit of gendarmes were left.
The  Romagla pike and landsknechts advanced with the colonelia a little way behind, one Swiss unit advanced against the colonelia and the other attacked the landsknecht pike block, crossbow fire ,cannon Swiss pike and a light cavalry flank attack eventually saw off the landsknechts but not before they had damaged the Swiss. Artillery and the Spanish saw off the first pike block ( although they took damage doing it)  The Romagla pike saw off the crossbow men and cannon and was in turn defeated  by the Swiss and light cavalry, the colonelia took out the Swiss and the gendarmes and light cavalry eventually ground down the Spanish to win the game. It was a great see saw game that could have gone either way and I am sure we will be playing it again. The colonelia seems like a really strong unit, I don't know if it is too strong? I'm sure we got things wrong so I will have to revisit and see.

The final photo is of the last stand of the Spanish, I need to make up some ammunition chits and disorder markers,I used my mini dice and pennys but it would be better with something more appropriate. I don't mind the cards on the table as they get cleared away at the end of each go ( we were also especially slovenly I think as it was getting rather late!) A great fun game.

All the best Iain

Terrain 8 metal corrosion in model trees,if you go down to the woods today!

My original model trees were made of pipe cleaners. I painted them with masonry paint and mounted them individually and then after a while added some slate and mounted them on some hardboard,all good. When I moved to my current house they were stored together with all my hobby stuff and tools in the basement,which being England flooded during the summer while I was working away. All my hobby stuff was in plastic crates(as opposed to my tools,I guess that shows where my priorities lie!) But clearly not airtight in the case of my terrain.

Obviously I have continued to use them and my nephew very kindly pointed out that they look more like Mirkwood than any terrain he's seen, however we're not doing Lord of the Rings so something had to be done.

 
These are plastic trees(Jarvis I think? They've been out of their bags a long time!) They're either based singly on some warbase circular bases or two to a base on redundant CDs (as suggested by Stew on his blog: A terrible loss of lead and wealth) then based as normal,I stuffed some foamboard under a few of the shorter trees, that seems to have worked out. Rather rapidly painted in the end as it had all taken so long!
Next, more trees, winter ones this time! Churches,I'm working on cypress trees that aren't made of pipe cleaners! Oh and maybe some figures?

All the best Iain

Terrain 7 a handful of hills

Here we have three hills, two new builds and one a rebuild, they're all expanded polystyrene based on cork and then coated with tile adhesive ( as I have a dirty great drum of it and it sets hard) Then PVA and sharp sand,a coat of emulsion,a wash of ink and then some more PVA and flock/a little cat litter, there's a bit of  a rock finish on two of them made of thick cork that was on one of the bedroom walls in the house when I moved in ( big in the seventies!) Obviously I retained some for just this kind of thing!

Next up,more terrain first probably, not terribly exciting but useful!

All the best Iain

Great Italian wars 35 dogs dinner stradiots!

Here we go Stew, another dog's dinner of a unit! It's a rather varied bunch of theiving, Balkan retrobates made up of two old glory figures, three Redoubt figures (I think!) Two warlord plastic ECW types with heads I took off old glory landsknechts because I didn't think they were appropriate but thought they'd come in useful and they have!
 The final unknown eBay purchased figure also got an old glory head swap, the horses are equally mixed. The flag is from a Perry plastic set,overpainted a bit.
 I quite like them as it goes,they really don't look the least bit uniform, which is all to the good!

There is another unit of mounted crossbow men in the que, together with another pike block, I'll probably finish some terrain before them though.

All the best Iain

Great Italian wars 34 More mounted crossbow men

Another unit of mounted crossbow men, once again mostly hinchcliffe with added Perry plastic heads with a few unknown ebay late mediaeval types to make up the numbers, gone for a more red and green type livery this time which I'm pretty happy with. The French flag is from the Perry plastic light cavalry set.

Next up another unit of stradiots in Venetian service and then probably more terrain, which I'm spending a fair bit of time on , the next pike block is probably a while off.
All the best Iain

Great Italian wars 33 stradiots

Final light cavalry unit,another old glory unit, you have to stick the hands on before you drill them out! Still nice figures in the end and fun to paint.

So that's the end eight stradiots in the service of Florence,I've failed to complete Florence in 1500 but its a work in progress! Thanks a lot to Curt and to my fellow minions,it's been great fun! Oh and points 8x10 + flag 1 total 81.
All the best Iain