Next weekend I will be hosting the Battle of Ariotta (1513) at our local club’s Game Day. I needed to sort out which figures I will be taking so I decided to lay everything out on the kitchen counter to make things easier. It has been a while since I have had all of the figures out, so it surprised me how much the collection of Italian Wars in 28mm has grown.
I have about 200 cavalry and 900 infantry figures painted at the moment. My first figures arrived from SteelFist in December 2017, so this quantity represents about two years of work.
I am aiming to finish my collection of Italian Wars in 28mm later this year and I am planning for a total of around 300 cavalry and 1,100 infantry. That should allow me to represent any of the battles in the Italian Wars. Most of these figures should be on display at Historicon in July 2020, where I am hoping to run the Battle of Bicocca as a participation game.
I plan to take a lot of photos next weekend during the Battle of Ariotta game, so look out for an After Action Report in the next few weeks.
Fabulous, I started a very similar project last year. I find this very inspiring
Thanks for the comment Chris. It is certainly a colourful period to game in. Good luck with your project.
I am deep into the final edit of the rules, they will be given out free to anybody who bought Days of Knights ($10US) on July 17th 2021. I just happened today to email Pete if he has any information of the Devils part. I am confused about the ratio of pike to arquebus you mentioned. Reading the description of Bicocca, the black bands were given the task of clearing out the skirmishers, and clearing the way for the main two Swiss columns, hardly a task for pike. As De ‘Medici rose in stature, I think he had other mercenary units under him, possibly pike. He also favored the Stratiote for cavalry. The role of cavalry was changing and Medium Cavalry was to rise to the top. The Italian Wars marked the end of the heavily armored Knight, Heavy Cavalry, and light Cavalry that (for the Europeans anyway) were not very good at all, and was mostly used for mounted archers. (reflected in Days of Knights). So we modeled Medium Cavalry as 1) for the Eastern cavalry during the holy land crusades as firing bows plus lances, 2) Italian Wars medium cavalry (mounted lancers and arquebuses) as working the same way as the Spanish Jinette javelins, causing a rally roll to the enemy they charge (or as dragoons), and 3) the Stratiote doubling the advantage of flank and rear attacks and added movement. All have the same stats besides that. I think I prefer to model the Devils as arquebus (as they were also extensively trained in melee, and were better than other missile units in melee, and could hold their own when fighting Men at Arms), with the Stratiote to cover flank attacks, and the mounted arquebus to act as dragoons for the missile troops or as lancers in a pinch.
the information about the ratio of pikes in the Black Band is from the book by Maurizio Arfaiolli. I am reasonably confident that the black band did have pikes, however, I am a little more skeptical that they operated in a large pike block. The cossacks around 1651 operated as a group of shot, but with some pike men interspersed for protection against cavalry. I suspect that the black band may have used a similar tactic.