Curt's Great Italian Wars Project (Updated Feb 7/18: 'Renaissance Duet')

[Keith]

Absolutely brilliant Curt - inspirational no less.

[olicana]

Thanks very much for the kind words guys! I'm delighted you like them.

@olicana: Thanks for the great flag idea and for the interesting information on Landsknecht contracts. Nonetheless, one has to make use of all these lovely Landsknecht banners Pete is making! Perhaps I'll make my central banner bearer with a swapable flag for potential contract holders.

Indeed. In fact I'm about to use Pete's flags (I have always painted my own in the past for the Italian Wars) to speed up a rush addition to my collection for a big game I'm putting on for the League of Gentlemen Wargamers weekend in Scotland this November. It will be a dozen players fighting on an multi-table 'not to scale map' of Italy - a kind of Italian 'Kingmaker' board game made large. The table, if put together without gaps, will be about 18 feet wide at its widest (Milan - Venice) and about 30 feet long (Alps to Naples) - with one to three players taking the parts of the major combatant states (such as France, Spain, Papal State, Venice, Milan, Florence, etc.), each siding for France or Spain / Empire. With France and Spain off table and the other states able to switch sides no players should ever be 'out of the game'. Players will amass victory points (or lose them) over the two days of gaming: The one with most VP at the end, wins! I'm hoping to field 2000 - 2500 figures.

[Sparrow]

Utterly, utterly brilliant!!!!

[Curt]

Thanks very much chaps!

@ olicana: That game sounds absolutely brilliant. On a similar vein, I've been wanting to use Avalon Hill's 'Machiavelli' (Kingmaker for Italian Wars) for a campaign setting for our Italian Wars collections. Please post pics of your event after the dust settles. Also, what dates will that be? We'll be in the UK and Europe later this autumn as I want to take in Crisis in Antwerp.

[RichBliss]

Indeed. In fact I'm about to use Pete's flags (I have always painted my own in the past for the Italian Wars) to speed up a rush addition to my collection for a big game I'm putting on for the League of Gentlemen Wargamers weekend in Scotland this November. It will be a dozen players fighting on an multi-table 'not to scale map' of Italy - a kind of Italian 'Kingmaker' board game made large. The table, if put together without gaps, will be about 18 feet wide at its widest (Milan - Venice) and about 30 feet long (Alps to Naples) - with one to three players taking the parts of the major combatant states (such as France, Spain, Papal State, Venice, Milan, Florence, etc.), each siding for France or Spain / Empire. With France and Spain off table and the other states able to switch sides no players should ever be 'out of the game'. Players will amass victory points (or lose them) over the two days of gaming: The one with most VP at the end, wins! I'm hoping to field 2000 - 2500 figures.

That certainly sounds like a destination game.  I'd make a trip just to play in that.

[painterman]

Wonderful Curt - love the figures, love the painting, love the interchangeable flags and also love the basing!!!
Great inspiration.
Simon

[Curt]

Thank you very much Simon! That is very high praise coming from you. I'm honoured.

[Curt]

Here are some Swiss mercenary halberdiers from the canton of Bern, marching along with their commander and a somewhat peckish mascot.

First up is a command stand featuring a huge (no, really, I mean HUGE) brown bear. Bern has a bear as part of its heraldry, and in one of the period manuscripts there is one depicted in battle, mauling some poor French chap (giving the Perry twins the inspiration to do this model). So being that it is a big, ferocious, wild animal I thought I'd add a doughty halberdier to help keep the big fella moving in the right direction.

The canton's banner is from Pete's Flags. It's a beautiful piece of work, being printed on tight-weave fabric. I inadvertently rubbed away some of the inkjet transfer when I was working with it so I had to retouch a bit of it with brush and paint. No worries at all and I still quite like it and look forward to using more of his flags in the future.

Next up is a unit of Bernese halberdiers.

All of these figures are Perry metals from their rather vaguely titled 'European Armies' range. These are fantastic models with loads of animation and character.

Again, I decided to go with Berne for no other reason than I had this great pot of orangey-red paint I wanted to try out and I knew the colour featured prominently in that canton's banners. Yup, completely lame, I know.

For the unit's banner I scanned one provided in the Perry boxed set, printed it off on decent quality paper, molded it to shape using diluted white glue and then repainted it using the same tones I used for the figures.

Finally, here is a group shot of the halberdiers, my recent Bolognese crossbowmen and the 'Bear of Bern' command stand.

Thanks for dropping by folks and have a great week!

Curt

[ArisK]

The bear stand is brilliant!
And I really like your method of picking units to paint, after all this is a hobby where we express ourselves freely.
best regards
Aris K.

[Doudou]

 

[Dr. Zombie]

Outstanding units. And your basing really adds life to it all.

[olicana]

More wonderful stuff.

Good to get your PM the other day.

James

[mweaver]

Nice units, and I like the flags.  The bear stand is indeed outstanding.

-Michael

[Arthur]

Brilliant work indeed 

[Adam]

These are all absolutely beautiful - really inspiring stuff.

Out of interest, did you cut those bases yourself, or is someone selling pre-cut ones with the irregular edges? Saw some Napoleonics pop up on Facebook with similar basing, and I'm in a copy cat mood.

Edit: ignore me. Just re-read your first post