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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

Filling in the corners

I finally replenished my greenstuff stash with a trip to the Compleat Strategist in Manhattan (strange that it's more convenient for me to take the train to another state than to get to any of the closer hobby stores, but that's carless life for you). Given my idiosyncratic style, my hobby progress was pretty much paralyzed without it. Here are a motley bunch of rebels to get my units up to full strength with no overflow.

To start, some plain Cossack moloitsy. Two from Perry zouaves, one from Gripping Beast dark ages warriors. GB head on the left, other two have Fireforge Mongol heads, all with greenstuffed hat/hair.

Mostly GB Arab bodies with Zouave arms and heads. The tall one is Wargames Factory WSS with a Mongol head, and the officer has Wargames Factory WSS arms.

GB dark ages with a few GB Arab bits. And a short length of wire for the nailbat.

Ditto here.

Painted Cossacks

I painted the moloitsy from earlier. I'm really enjoying mashing all these kits together, I don't know how people can paint uniformed armies without going insane.

Hopefully I can rustle up some flagpoles and flags for these guys this week.

a whole mess o' moloitsy!

More kitbashing with the same sets as last time. These are all the guys I need to bring my moloitsy (non-registered Cossack infantry) up to six units. The first picture has musketeers and one spearman. The second is all the standard bearers I will be distributing among my regiments. Sorry it's so blurry, but you get the idea.

painted boss guys

Here they are, in ascending order of goodness. I am especially pleased with Wisniowecki and the reiter at the end.

Some Commandery Types

Figured I'd show off some works-in-progress. I've got some genuine Eastern Europe character types on their way from TAG, but my out-of-period Perry miniatures arrived earlier.

All of these started off as ACW generals (of the treasonous racist variety), but by tweaking the headgear and a few other details they can make passable Cossacks and Poles. The leftmost is going to be Filon Djalali, one of the Khmelnitsky's subordinates at Berestechko. But if he turns out well enough, I might swap his sword for a mace and have him replace my earlier Ivan Bohun. They have a similar sort of dashing heroic pose.

The dude on the right is supposed to represent Jeremi Wisniowecki. I love his cool, imperious pose, and I added longer hair and a bunch of fur lining to represent this portrait of the guy. Also a hat, even if the portrait doesn't have one, because headgear seems almost mandatory for the era.

The guy in the middle doesn't represent any particular historical guy. His gloves looked quite reiter-ish to me, so I gave him a floppy western hat and plume from the Warlord infantry box, and sculpted a quick lace collar. I might just have him be Wisniowecki's aide, they do look like they're conversing. Or of course he could be a Swede if I ever run my western-style guys as Swedish force.

Bohdan Khmelnytsky

Here is the supreme Cossack commander, the Hetman of the Zaporizhian Host, Bohdan Khmelnytsky himself. I loosely modeled this guy off of the Matejko painting, though I may go back and hit him with a final orange highlight. His left arm (but not the hand) and coat are GW, the right arm is WGF Persian, the bulawa is TAG, and everything else is Perry ACW and greenstuff.

Fun with 4ground

Just a quick shot of some wagons and my new battlefield surface.

It's an overhead shot, because I haven't yet rigged up a sky backdrop.

More from the 41st Millenium (sort of)

For reference, a few additional Imperial Guard historical mash-ups. On the left is a Warlord Games ECW firelock, in the middle is a Perry Zouave, and on the right is a Perry Medieval Mercenary. All guns and arms are Cadian.

And some orks, painting in progress. Yes, I will be drilling out the gun barrels before they're done.