Yes I eventually got enough energy to actually sit down and start working on the Florentine army.
I didn’t get them all done, just the Pikes and gun crews… Yes crews. I was convinced I only ordered one.
Well I checked. I actually ordered two, but got a whole gun crew instead of just the Gun captain.
So yey me! Do I make it into a three gun force….mmmmm interesting conundrum. They were super wealthy and do have a certain Leonardo Da Vinci in the box with them. I am sure he might have some cunning ideas.
So, because I am a twit, I have decided to once again expand the Great Italian Wars Forces. This time with the (kind of) new Florentine forces from the Altuos range.
Not really a super large force, but enough to have a small army. Don’t ask me about points, I haven’t got a clue and honestly I just got what would look good on the table.
Basically pikes, shot, swordsmen etc. oh and a medium artillery piece. Well Florence was rich.
Anyway I decided I needed more Flags. So off to the fabulous Pete’s Flags on eBay. I came across two sheets one a Florentine Mercenary set and the other from the Florentine League at the battle of Anghiari.
They Arrived today and I am very happy… I had a bit of a niggle at the back of my mind about the Florentine League at the battle of Anghiari… Well yeah of course I did. The battle took place in 1440. Giovanni of the Black Band was born nearly 60 years after the battle. So I will have two forces on the table that are basically 75 years apart.
So the options are:
Say sod it, a flag is a flag.
Put one set in a box and only use the standard mercenary flags.
I will let you have a guess which way I might go. Purists may want to look away now.
Well it sort of sounds a bit like an Italian town.
So I popped over to Mike’s today, took my toys to oggle at and discuss various rules sets.
As we had armies painted we decided to have a little try at a battle using Lion Rampant.
My chaps at the top, with his at the bottom. This wasn’t my initial setup. I had just shoved them on the table. My Condottiere were trying to escort the baggage train across the bridge but were stopped by some dastardly enemy.
My activation dice were, frankly crap! His heavy cavalry thundered across the field and through a lucky roll mine managed to counter charge. We hacked and slashed for a good while and then I luckily managed to shrug him off, he retired, battered. His light cavalry (in the background) sensing victory followed with a charge of their own. I once again managed a lucky countercharge and completely destroyed them, but lost half of my heavies over the two combats.
My skirmishers managed to make it into the woods and completely tied up the mounted crossbows. They however never fired once and eventually died to a man. My troops on the right of the cavalry managed to get into the woods to hold them up even more.
There was some further ArgyBargy on the right flank, with his pole arm wielding crazies charging first the stradiots, who took one look at them, chucked a pile of javelins into their faces and legged it. The pole armed chaps were in turn run down by my other heavy cavalry. In the end my horsemen became a bit of a spent round, but they had secured the flank.
My poor Stradiots got charged by a pike block and somehow won the combat and pushed the pike block back. My pike block was charged by the remains of his heavy cavalry and managed to lose. I charged into him and gave him a good kicking. His cavalry were basically broken, but kept hanging on there.
We had to end it there as I had to shoot off.
Lion Rampant seemed to work. When I got home I realised I had bought the second edition which has rules for piles and handguns in it.
Time for a bit of a read through the rules as they also have rules for holy men, banners etc. basically these give you a plus one to the units courage… Luckily my leader brought his religious entourage with him.
Well sort of… yes I have nearly finished my 6mm Italian Wars Imperial Army… by nearly finished I mean I have one base to paint… but here they are in their all painted glory…
You can see the one still to paint on the right of the photo above.
A bit of a closer shot or two
As you can see from the photo below…I actually had some spares…
This isn’t including the damaged ones from the shed.
I will get the army varnished sometime soon and then add some bushes to break up the green.
If you think about it, this is a 500 point army with half sized Pike blocks… to begin with I nearly went for 1000 points…. eeek! In reality this is only two Pike blocks. In the rules they come in 8, 12, or 16 bases, with a skirmish unit covering the front bases and a Doppelsoldner base attached too.
And finally, this happened when I put the sand over the top of the Speedpaint bases…
Well this was a very long time coming, but I think, and hope, that I have finished the 6mm Italian wars troops…
This is the final twelve bases worth painted and covered in sand. I have eighteen other ones in this state that will need the bases painting.
I reckon the empty filament spool landing on the pikes really put a dent in my enjoyment of the project. I checked back through my blog posts and began printing in July at the very least. In September I began painting after my Irregular Miniatures arrived, to be fair it hasn’t been a constant run of painting as I lost heart after the splat of doom occurred.
Anyway I will paint up the bases tomorrow and put everything out together to see what it looks like. In all honesty most of them have sat in a box since they were painted.
You may remember that I halved the number of pike bases jn a unit. I hope it is going to look okay in the final army. Only time will tell to be honest.
I nearly put the end is nigh as a title, but it sounded a bit ominous… anyway this evening I did some more work on the 6mm Italian wars arqubusiers for the Tercio. As expected the Speedpaints reactivated, but I just plowed ahead regardless.
This is all I have left to do …I think and hope! The ones on the left are finished, apart from potentially adding colour to the plumes.
The eight bases on the right need hats and flags doing. Then this lot and will need sand adding to the bases before joining eighteen more stands that need paint adding.
That will be my 500 point army finished. I really, really hope I don’t find anything lurking somewhere that I had forgotten. 🤞
Remember this lady with the 5 o clock shadow… well I went to repaint her tonight and actually the grey colour was indeed just that, a shadow. Either that or some wierd light reflection from her grey fur… either way, I don’t care as she will do as she is.
One of these days I am going to boot the printer up and do some more of the Rohirrim, but probably not for a while as I have so much to paint as it is.
I took a little bit of time this evening to get the bases covered in Geek Gaming Base ready stuff… and because I am a total pillock I forgot to get some brown paint onto the white tops. Needless to say, if any of the flock drops off then the white will stick out like a diamond in a sweeps ear hole.
But anyway here are the six of them… there are bits of white visible, but I will add a bit more flock or tufts over the top before I get them sealed down…
I also got something today that I had forgotten that I ordered…
Not the world’s best photo, but it was purchased to support Ukrainian charities. I love Jon’s artwork and was a bit chuffed to get a signed one, okay it is not an original piece of artwork, but I reckon the statement at the bottom pretty much sums up what is going onnjn Ukraine.
Oh and according to my wife and daughter I am being a bit of a fan girl about getting this 🤣.
Tonight I finished off the two units of skirmish shot…theystill need the bases painted but,I will do them all together when I get the rest of the units finished…
As I had the sand and basing glue out I went for the basecoated ones too…
I eventually bit the bullet and gotmyself some Army Painter Speedpaints on pre order… they are actually their way so whe they come I will let you know what I think.
Bogenwald 