A Borgia Mini-Plog! - (pg 3. Gendarmes Complete!)

[HappyChappy439]

Hi Everyone!

Normally the Italian Wars are a tiny bit futuristic for my usual late medieval focus, but lately, I've been won over by a lot of really impressive projects people have been doing, and the absolutely stellar sculpts Steel Fist miniatures do.

So partly as an excuse to get my greasy mitts on some of those Steel Fist minis, I figured, why not start a little project? before deciding on the army of Cesare Borgia (at various points), I figure his career as Duke of Romagna and Captain General of the Church, and later on his service in Navarra could give plenty of options to have a fairly diverse set of units on the field

So with that all said, here's my interpretation of Cesare Borgia, ol' Cheesy Ray himself! He's a slightly converted Steel Fist gendarme, and gotta say they're an absolute joy to paint!





Let me know how he's turned out! I hope to have some more updates soon!

[Ogrob]

Good job! Steel Fist make some lovely minis.

[Friends of General Haig]

That is a cracking looking paint job and a lovely figure. 

[painterman]

That’s a fabulous figure. Is the head a Perry metal with a beard added?
Looking forward to more!
Cheers
Simon

[HappyChappy439]

That’s a fabulous figure. Is the head a Perry metal with a beard added?
Looking forward to more!
Cheers
Simon

Thanks! Yup, it's one of the Perry early-Tudor heads with a beard sculpted on! In retrospect I probably should've made it pointier and more goatee-ish mind you!

[HappyChappy439]

Sorry for a second content post so soon but I hit a bit of a painting dilemma so thought I'd best ask for feedback before committing too far!

I've painted up a test miniature for one of the members of a block of Borgia halberdiers but I'm not 100% on the accuracy of the colour scheme:

(Edit: I seem to have made a mistake and gotten the red and yellow the wrong way round, whoops!)





I'm basing the idea off of the Papal Guard in The Mass at Bolsena, but with Borgia red/yellow livery, seeing as 1512 is *fairly* close to Cesare's time, but I've read elsewhere different sources that say that Cesare's halberdiers wore black velvet, and others that say his forces wore red/yellow (they do seem to agree that the word CESAR was embroidered on though, but I wasn't brave enough to attempt that on a test figure yet!).




Does anyone with more knowhow around the subject know what the most appropriate colour scheme would be? 

[Panaldi]

Very nice work on Cesare!

You could try finding the following article online:
Antonio Conti / Stemmi e divise di Cesare Borgia e Guidobaldo da Montefeltre

If memory serves, it should have a few helpful informations and illustrations (but article is in Italian...) Anyway, I'd say Your scheme used for the halberdier looks convincing.

[Atheling]

Is that a conversion? 

[HappyChappy439]

Is that a conversion? 

Yup, sorta! The Halberdier is a Steel Fist Tudor dolly, with Perry arms (with green-stuffed sleeves), and a perry early Tudor head.

Very nice work on Cesare!

You could try finding the following article online:
Antonio Conti / Stemmi e divise di Cesare Borgia e Guidobaldo da Montefeltre

If memory serves, it should have a few helpful informations and illustrations (but article is in Italian...) Anyway, I'd say Your scheme used for the halberdier looks convincing.

Thanks so much for the suggestion here! I've had a look through the article and it's extremely helpful (and very thorough too!)

I don't speak any Italian so I've been frantically Google translating my way through it, and it seems that the general idea is that Cesare's usual colours were Red/Yellow (or Crimson/Gold), inspired by Louis XII and his marriage into the house of Albret. Though it looks like he definitely went through a phase of black clothes in 1500 and 1503 specifically (with either silver or gold lettering embroidered on it).

Worst case scenario, in a pinch I can say the red/yellow halberdiers are French soldiers in service under Cesare!

And like you say there's a very helpful illustration of Louis XII (with an exceptionally triangular dog) on campaign. Which can be used to guess Cesare's own choice of Red/Yellow for his forces:
 


Thanks again! It's an interesting read!

(edit: I like that one guy in the block of pikemen/halberdiers who has his red/yellow the wrong way round and he's looking at the reader like he knows he got his outfit inside out)

[commissarmoody]

Wow, looks like your off to a great start. I really need to dig into the Italian wars some time. 

[HappyChappy439]

Hi again!

I've decided to expand a bit on ol' Cesare and give him a command base:









It's a little mix of manufacturers, Cesare himself is a Steel Fist Knight (with a Perry head), he's got a Perry priest to accompany him, and a TAG Papal Guard as a standard bearer!

Let me know how it's turned out!

[Friends of General Haig]

That is a fabulous looking command base.  Great idea to use the sabot basing for greater flexibility. 

[HappyChappy439]

That is a fabulous looking command base.  Great idea to use the sabot basing for greater flexibility.

Thanks! The sabot base is a bit improvised, Where I took a regular MDF base, and green stuff'd some 'slots' on it, glad it's turned out ok! I'll probably do something similar for other command/artillery bases in future

[HappyChappy439]

Hi again!

I've been working on my Borgias a bit more! I picked up some of the new Steel Fist late-medieval mounted knights, to use as some rear-rank men at arms to support Cesare's fancier, more modern gendarmes that I've got on the workbench. Plan is to use them to represent either some 'direct' Papal cavalry, or some on loan from Louis XII during Cesare's campaigns in Romagna. They're lovely sculpts (I highly recommend them at least!, and I figured the mix of Iberian and Italian style helmets would make for a nice reference to the Borgia's Iberian origins.





And here's some photos of the individual men-at-arms







Let me know how they've turned out!

[Charlie_]

Fantastic! These are the first examples of these new sculpts I've seen painted. They've turned out great! I'm looking forward to painting mine...