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

[Dr Mathias]

Impressive! I love seeing mass groups of miniatures from this period.

[painterman]

Great looking Bernese!

[LCpl McDoom]

I hope these are useful to someone here, but I remembered I had a few maps saved - the original colour 'Machiavelli' map, then the parchment-colour map in a later (2nd?) edition of the same boardgame, and a history map scan I'd also found and saved.

I'm still loving the basing, and rolling that design style around in my head, contemplating 

[Curt]

Thanks for all the kind words folks, the encouragement is very much appreciated.

LCPl McDoom: Wonderful maps! Thanks for for posting those. I have the 2nd Ed of 'Machiavelli' and have been thinking of using it as a campaign setting for our Italian Wars collections.

[Curt]

Another Landsknecht unit for the Italian Wars roster. This time a it's a passel of handgunners.

I apologize for placing all the images at the bottom of the post, but Photobucket decided to become complete fascists with their image hosting service, so I had to upload these directly to the LAF.

The majority of these figures are from the venerable but excellent Wargames Foundy range, with the fellow laying down and feeling poorly sourced from Artizan Designs. A few slight mods here and there, but nothing too fancy. The banner is from Pete's Flags.

Like most of the units in my Italian Wars collection, I've done the groundwork in an autumnal theme (dunno why, I guess I just liked the punchy colours when I started). The whole group is mounted on a single irregular-edged base, made up for me by the good folks over at Warbases. It's approximately 180mm x 60mm. I often put in a large rock or stump at the rear of the base to give players something to grip on to when picking up the unit.

Thanks for dropping in, it's much appreciated. And to my fellow Canadians: Have a wonderful Canada (150) weekend!

[olicana]

Nice choice of colours, and not too many on each figure, which is good to see.

[Curt]

Nice choice of colours, and not too many on each figure, which is good to see.

Thanks James! As I'm sure you're aware with your impressive collection, it's easy to get carried away on these sartorial over-achievers. Great fun to paint though.

This reminds me, I have some figures to get to you... On that. 

[Curt]

A bit of an update on my project. Below is a unit of Spanish Rodeleros or Escudados.  Translated as 'shield bearers', or simply shield-and-buckler men, they were an interesting troop type which saw brief prominence during the late 15th and early 16th century.

Though they had a short time of glory in Italy, Cortes' campaigns in the New World was largely made possible by having a host of rodeleros at his back.

This unit is made up of an assortment of 28mm figures from The Assault Group (TAG), Foundry and Eureka Miniatures. I really like the Spanish/Portugues conquistadors from Eureka. They have a great sense of spirit and animation - the commander exhorting his men, seen below in the center, is from the Eureka range.

The TAG castings were somewhat smaller than the rest, so I made a small rise for them running along the center of the base to serve as a crest, to help mask their slight statures.

Historically, these bravos probably wouldn't be carrying their own banner, but I like my units to have flags, so they've been gifted one from Pete's Flags to hoist in the breeze.

There you go! Thanks for visiting folks, I hope you have a great week!

[Hu Rhu]

Love these.   

[fred]

Really like these, you have such good use of colour on the figures. And the large bases really set them off so well.

[Driscoles]

This thread is beautiful to watch and full of inspiring ideas.
Brilliant Curt !!

[Leman]

Incredible looking units.I shall be keeping a close eye on this thread.

[ArisK]

Wonderful miniatures!
The metal armour and shields are so well done, impressive.
A.

[Sparrow]

Love them and such an interesting basing method!

[DintheDin]

This assorted mix of poses gives them such a movement and life!
And above all, the big base allows you to put them in non-symmetrical distance between them, which enhances the reality!
For the paintjob of all your collection, any word loses its value