Here I Stand

 Here I Stand is a boardgame of Early Modern Europe, combining military, theological and diplomatic action into a very complex card-driven map-based game. My brother rounded us all up and learned the rules, and also put together themed music playlists and drink options. It was a blast.

 I decided to chip in by building miniatures to replace the standees that represent the military commanders on the board. I initially thought there was just one per faction, but there's more! I did have a couple preexisting minis that were relevant, but I had to do a lot of converting. It got a little rushed but overall they turned out quite well enough for the group.

 

The game standees have tiny portraits, so I explored Wikipedia and sometimes Google image search to get fuller pictures of the individuals in question. I did get a little creative to distinguish some of the plainer-dressed commanders.  Fun fact: Montmorency's tennis racket is not an anachronism (except maybe very specifically in the details of form, he was Francis' tennis buddy), but Dragut's telescope predates their actual invention by decades. 

 

 The game itself was a blast! We called it at the end of turn 5 or 6, since it was 2 in the morning, and my Ottomans had the most VPs (by one!) at that point, but I doubt I would have won if we played to a proper game end. 

I did feel bad about the Papacy not having any commanders to model, I had meant to bring some of the Catholic minis from my previous post so the Papal player wouldn't feel left out... but it turned out he had a better way to represent his faction: 

More for Primavera Occulta

 A slight break from the Novara project, in that neither Spanish swordsmen nor Italian bowmen fought in that specific battle, and whatever angels or demons may have participated presumably did so in disguise.

But anyway, I'm expanding my playtest rules to account for a larger variety of spirits and hirelings, which these will represent. The historical figures are TAG (one has a Warlord head), and the more fantastical ones are Reaper I think.

First gendarmes

 A bit of a learning curve here, especially as I'm mixing Perry plastics with Old Glory metals, which in retrospect was perhaps a poor decision. Nevertheless, I think I'm on a path to making it work. The flag is a painted-over Perry from the men-at-arms box insert; the Swiss side's cavalry at Novara were Milanese, so I gave them that flag even though these test models will probably not be the exact 8 minis I use for that unit in the battle.

Swiss Infantry for Novara

 Here are all the Swiss infantry I need for the battle of Novara. This is very nearly the entire Swiss/Milanese force; all it's missing are a unit of heavy cavalry and a small cannon + crew, and of course the flags and commanders.

Halberdiers for the Swiss

 Here's the unit of halberdiers I need for Novara. Many of these are Warlord/Perry plastic mashups like I've been posting for a while now, but there's also four Assault Group minis, one Old Glory figure, and even a Games Workshop head. Probably more heavily armored than they need to be, but I like the look.

Crowds of Crossbowmen

I've been able to get a decent amount of painting done over my holiday break, even if I haven't been particularly inspired to blog the past month or so. But here's a bunch of crossbowmen! They are a mix of Warlord and Perry plastics, and Old Glory metals. In Novara the crossbowmen were Gascons and Navarrese, but since they are on the same side as the Landsknechts I let some of them have poofy sleeves for variety. You can also see some of the terrain I've been building from Tabletop Scenics.

Objectives for Primavera Occulta

Here are some basic objectives for Primavera Occulta, the Renaissance skirmish game I've been posting about. I eventually plan to make some less generic ones, but these will do for early playtesting. The idea is that some objectives need to be claimed by a Mental test, others by a Physical test, and some can be claimed by either. So, if the objective is in a grave, it's purely a physical issue of digging it up to claim it. If it's a pile of treasure or an open chest, it's a mental test to sort through the trinkets and find the esoterically-valuable piece. If it's a closed chest, it's either a mental check to pick the lock or a physical one to bust it open. Not sure which of these the candelabra is, but I like how it looks.

These are all Reaper minis, except the gravestones which I believe are 4ground.

With an eye to playtesting, I've actually re-written the basic rules to use a standard 52-card deck. The extra complexity of the Tarot deck will be necessary for the campaign system and a more advanced magic system further down the line, but for playing through the basic mechanics there's no reason to restrict my potential playtester pool. And speaking of which, if you are interested in trying out these rules, let me know at thaddeus.urban[at]gmail.com and put "primavera occulta" in the subject line.

Renaissance Occultism Skirmish Ruleset Concept

 Years ago, I bought a tabletop RPG that uses Tarot cards as its primary resolution mechanic. This inspired me to buy a deck of them, and also to start reading about their history. I was delighted to learn that their documented origins (if not the cartomancy traditions that grew up around them) go back to the Italian Wars, a period that already interested me for other reasons.

One thing lead to another, and I started to brainstorm ideas for a Renaissance-era wargame that could incorporate some of the more esoteric aspects of the era's culture. I have now written enough rules for it that I've started to playtest, although it will be some time yet before it is worth sharing.

The current notion is that every warband has a core of four "initiates", inspired by the court cards of the Tarot, who practice, to varying degrees of success, some form of ritual magic. Each warband has a "King", representing a true renaissance man who is either the leader or the chief patron of the occult circle; a "Queen" of high intellectual or spiritual achievement; a "Knight" with fearsome physical prowess; and a "Page" that is a novice type character with room to improve. Reinforced by hirelings and the occasional summoned spirit, they battle other small groups of occultists over the wealth of esoteric texts, alchemical formulae, and ceremonial objects that have accumulated in and about the Italian Peninsula as a result of various historical currents of the final century of the medieval era.

Here are some examples of how I might represent these initiates with miniatures from my Italian Wars project (plus a few from other projects), from left to right in the order described above, followed by a spirit and a couple sample hirelings:

For my own solo playtesting convenience, they are roughly color-coded, but I probably wouldn't do that for the "real thing".

Generally speaking, D12s are used for "mundane" actions and Tarot cards for magical effects. I anticipate the games themselves being fairly quick (am playtesting on a 2ft by 2ft area), with much of the enjoyment coming from the campaign system (probably also Tarot-driven) that links them.

More Renaissance Characters

 Here's some more, these are all Assault Group (except the mace and mace hand are from Perry plastics).

Still messing around with rules stuff on a conceptual, pre-playtesting level, but I think I'm starting to close in on some gameable ideas...

A medley of Renaissance characters

 Been painting up a variety of figures for an Italian-Wars-adjacent mini-project. Spinning off of my Novara (1513) project, I've been toying with an idea for a small-scale skirmish game set in the same era. I don't want to share too much of my planning at this point, but I'm happy to post these miniatures by way of preview.

I've organized them by manufacturer, for no particular reason.

First up are two unconverted Old Glory Landsknechts from their artillery crew set.

Next are some Perry "European Armies" figures, I'm done some modest converting to bring some of them forward a decade or two, but as you've probably noticed by now my sense of period-specificity is impressionistic at best.

Last up for this post are some metals from Warlord Games' landsknecht collection. Lots of character in these. No conversions except for a beard on the herald/town-cryer type character.

Got some TAG minis on the way, then after that I might start talking a bit more about the specifics of the new project...

Mounted Crossbows for Italian Wars

Post-move pandemic hobbying continues! I built a batch of mounted crossbows, mostly from the Perry light cavalry box but with a handful of Warlord's landsknecht bits to bring them into the early years of the 16th century.

My ultimate goal, which I don't think I've actually mentioned on this blog yet, is to field both sides of the Battle of Novara (1513). I'm using Olicanalad's blog as a reference for force construction. It's not so much due to any particular interest in this exact battle, as it is a way to guide and constrain my general interest in Landsknecht, Swiss, and associated early-1500s troop types.

Don't worry, I intend to swing back around to 17th-c Eastern Europe soonish...

new Swiss, new apartment

Hey all, pandemic precautions have been less productive than would be expected, on account of moving to a whole new apartment. But I finally unpacked enough to resume hobby activities! Have some freshly-painted Swiss skirmishers:

As before, batchpainting for convenience. The final units will be more varied.

Swiss Pike Block

Finished a few batches of Swiss, a fairly haphazard mix of Perry Mercs and Warlord Landsknechts. Some combos turned out better than others, but overall I'm pretty happy with the approach.

Italian Wars officer types

I tried mashing together Landsknecht and Perry Mercenary bodies with ECW arms and bits, I think it works out pretty well even if the details are a bit off. Also trying out the camera on my new cell phone, not bad.

Landsknechts, now with arquebuses and doppelsoldners

Oh yeah, this project is coming together. This is basically 1/3rd of what I have in mind for the Landsknecht component of my Italian Wars collection. Overall, my plans are mostly modeled after Olicanalad's interpretation of the Battle of Novara.

Landsknecht Pike Block

Since I was pretty pleased with how the test Landsknechts went, I painted up a couple more batches. Mixing them all together works out quite well, I think! Such a colorful bunch.

No flags until the end of the whole project, sorry.

Italian Wars - infantry proofs-of-concept

So I painted up the landsknechts in the previous post, and a few more infantry as well. The Swiss are a mix of Warlord Landsknecht bits and Perry Mercenaries (including some separate metal heads the Perrys produce), with some greenstuffed codpieces to boot.

(Yeah, I know that neither side of the Italian Wars wore uniform colors, I'm just going to batchpaint different color combos out of laziness and then mix them up when they're all done.)

Italian Wars, because why not

Picked up a bunch of Warlord Games plastic Landsknechts a while back, just for funsies. A lot of them are being assembled as-is, but I can't help adding a little variety here and there. I took a pic of some typical examples.

Conversion details from left to right: Warlord Celt head; press-molded hat; greenstuff sleeves; greenstuff beard; head and body from ranged weapon kit; Warlord Celt head and Perry Mercenary arms.