Christmas BIG battle Venice vs HRE

[LouieN]

The banners and force are excellent.  Well done

[levied troop]

Fantastic looking army, quite inspirational

[Erik]

I've not caught this thread before, but I have to say your army is superb.
I see you commented on needing to make some Venetian  buildings. I'd like to see what you come up with, as that's a particular itch I'm starting to scratch for a project I'm working on.

First of all thank you for all the nice commends. Second, I am afraid I have not gotten around to making any buildings yet. We have been completely preoccupied with modern wargaming the last six month, making African building instead.
I will of course post on this thread when I get around to making them.

[Erik]

After having been distracted by other project I am finally back with my Venetians and renaissance in general. I have painted up some camp followers as many rule systems require the deployment of camps in one way or the other. I was tempted to mount them all on one base to make a diorama like camp, as the miniatures are all very characterful. In the end however I went for single based models as this gives me more freedom. The models are from a landsknecht Kickstarter from a few years back.

I have also finished a unit of landsknechts from Steelfist Miniatures. They make some beautiful models that were a joy to paint. Its always a bit tricky how you want to use the dobbeltsöldners but this time I included them in the pike block. It is my understanding that these guys charged out in front of the pike block and tried to breakup the enemy pikeblock. I think this gives a good impression with the dobbeltsöldners charging out under the pikes.


























Cheers

Erik

[commissarmoody]

Impressive looking pike block.

[Atheling]

Lovely stuff Erik 

Vignettes always bring the table to life 

[Dr. Zombie]

Great stuff. The dobbeltsöldners really look the part.

[bluewillow]

Fantastic keep up the great work, loving the hospital

Cheers
Matt

[Erik]

Back when the Perry Boys launched their WOTR plastic set I was super stocked and started painting minis without really having a plan. At some point, I realized that I was never going to paint up to full armies to game with but by that time I had already painted up well over a hundred WOTR miniatures. These bills and bows have never seen action as my attention turned to European conflicts of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance instead.

Reading about Italian armies of the Renaissance I notice that they deployed many militia units with crossbows, handguns, and polearms. Crossbows and handguns I have many, pikemen I have hundreds of but polearms I have none. That’s when I remembered my old WOTR miniatures and I decided to try and Italian-them-up to see if they could consider changing sides.

First up were brand new flags, from Pete’s Flags of course (never leave home without them). Second was some 3D printed shield that someone kindly lent me. After this rather simple makeover, the British boys were suddenly ready to take the field for Venice in a very convincing style. Actually, the flags alone did much of the work but the shields really nailed it in my opinion.

I have a BIG battle planned using all my late medieval and renaissance miniatures in one go and all these old WOTR billmen will take the field for the first time under the flags of Venice. It will be glorious!!










Cheers

Erik

[Erik]

Last night we played our annual Christmas wargame. This year’s game was set in Italy during the late 15th century. Over the years I have collected and painted many late medieval and early renaissance miniatures. With my Venetian army, my collections host over 1000 miniatures, mostly Italians and landsknechts. I thought it would be fun to get them all on the table for a big clash. We use Pike and shotte or Hail Caesar for games like this. The main objective was just to get as many miniatures on the table as possible and have fun, so we didn’t bother finding a suitable historic battle but instead decided that to rival Italian cities were battling for control over an important river and that they were backed respectably by Venice and the Holy Roman Empire.

The Venetians had around 700 miniatures and the Germans around 500. However the quality of the Venetian soldiers was substantially poorer than the Germans, with lower stats and special rules such as militia and brittle.

Some pictures before before the battle started





The battle opened in classic style with me ordering the elmeti cavalry forward, rolling low and catapulting them forward, ending the entire Italian cavalry, alone and right in front of the German army. Luckily some of the pike and militia soon reached them and the battle commenced on a broader front. Unfortunately this did not help the elmeti much and even though they outnumbered the German knight they could not break their lines. On the far right along the river Italian militia fared better against the German landsknechts and even though they lost many men they ended up breaking the landsknecht battalia. On the other side of the battlefield however the milita battalia refused to move and the Italian Romangol ended up fighting landsknechts and light cavalry alone. Even though they fought hard they could not hold out alone and were broken. When the elmeti battalia also broke the German knight were free to roll up the already battered militia battalia and this left only the reluctant militia battalia to try and save the day. At this point we decided to stop, as the time was late and the chances of Italian success seem very slim, even though the militia had finally moved forward to lend a hand with their crossbows.









Everyone agreed that it had been a great battle and even though the Italians lost only the German knights were fresh to continue fighting at this point.

[Freddy]

Wow, what a battle!

[skip]

wow, fantastic looking battle and miniatures

Brian

[blacksoilbill]

What a splendid looking battle!

[Basementboy]

Fantastic! Always awesome seeing a massed battle on tabletop.

[Dr. Zombie]

It was a great battle and a glorious victory to the noble forces of the Holy Roman Empire over the Italian rif raf.

It is always an impressive sight with so many miniatures on the table at once.