Category: Italian Wars

This post is an update on the field defenses for Bicocca that I have built for Historicon. Even though the defenses are now finished, I still have a lot of work to be ready for the convention. The main item that I need to finish is the Villa at Bicocca and the gardens for the villa. I will be working on these items next week.

This weekend our club will be play testing the Historicon Bicocca game. The play test is to see if the rules that I have to represent the defenses work as I intend. I don’t want the defenses to be totally impregnable, but they should offer stiff resistance to a concerted attack.

Defenses length.

The field defenses are 6 feet long. The reason for the length was explained in the last blog post. The defenses have positions for three cannons and six units of Spanish arquebusiers that will be manning the defenses. There is also room for some landsknecht shot units as well as room behind the defense for the large landsknecht pike blocks to come up in support. the two Landsknecht pike blocks will be 100 figures each, so they need some room to maneuver.

Gun tower construction.

The gun positions use the log defenses from Anyscale models at the top. However, I also needed to build some extra log barricade at the bottom as retaining walls. These were constructed by cutting down balsa rods.

Finishing the terrain.

As explained last time, the base was made from foam covered by Killing Fields mats. A mixture of brown paint, model railroad ballast and PVA glue was the applied to the rest of the model. This mixture provided a base covering. The wooden defenses were then added using caulk to fix them and fill gaps.

Some rocks were then cast in dental stone using woodland scenics rock molds. These rocks were then painted and stuck to the model using the paint/ballast/PVA mixture. Once the rocks were fixed and dry, various shades of flock were added. I then fixed grass tufts and bushes to finish the model off. I also dry brushed some of the dirt areas to give a little more depth to the model.

The defenses took a little longer to make than I had hoped. However, they do blend very well with the Killing Fields terrain mats that they will stand on. I will add a road on the terrain mats to represent the sunken road. This road will run in front of the defenses. On the other side of the road I will put foam under the terrain mats to provide the opposite slope.

Although the field defenses for Bicocca are not model railroad quality, they turned out well for portable wargaming terrain. I am hoping that all the terrain items for this game at Historicon will work well together. The game will be reasonably large with 1500 figures and space for ten players.

As I have mentioned in previous blog posts, I am planning on running the Battle of Bicocca at Historicon. One of the most important terrain features will be the defenses for the Battle of Bicocca.

Historical description of the defenses

From the book “History of the Art of War in the Sixteenth Century” by Sir Charles Oman: On page 179 the defense width is listed at no more than 600 yards. On page 178 the defenses are described as: “On the North front, where a sunken road leading to the manor-house ran along the front of the park enclosure, he had deepened the hollow, and made a rampart along it, with the cast-up earth, piled above the existing bank. In several places he had constructed high platforms in this rampart, and placed guns upon them, which would sweep not only the fields in front, but laterally the ditch immediately below.

On page 181 he discusses the earthworks height. “the obstruction was so deep and the rampart behind it so high, that the head of a pole could hardly be stretched from the bottom of the ditch to the top of the earthwork.

Design of the defenses

From the description, there are some important factors to consider when designing this terrain feature for the game. The first is the overall length, the defenses are not a small item. The second feature is the height and the third feature are the gun platforms.

Length

On the length of 600 yards, this is 21,600 inches. If we take a 28mm at 1:56, scaled down this would be 385 inches. However, we need to remember our figure scale. I am running the game at 1 figure is about 25 men. For the pike blocks one figure would be about 5 men deep by 5 men wide. Using this frontage, I calculate that the required defense length would be 385 / 5 or about 77 inches. For table appearance, I actually made the defenses a little short of 6 feet long (72 inches). This size looks and feels about right. The defenses for the Battle of Bicocca are a dominant feature on the battlefield terrain.

Height

On the height, a pike is up to 18′ long. Using our 1:56 scale this would have meant that the defenses would need to be about 3.8″ tall. The height of the defenses is where I decided to make an artistic compromise. I used some inch thickness foam and then mounted some log barricades from AnyScale models on top. The barricades cost 2 UK Pounds a piece, which seemed reasonable. These barricades are around 0.75 inches high so the overall height of the defenses is just less than 2″. These are a little low, but still look imposing on the table top. I could still add another layer or two of foam board under these defenses to increase the height.

Gun platforms

The next job was the gun platforms. It is important that they stick out so that the artillery can fire along the length of the sunken road. The image above shows the early stage of construction of these emplacements. I am going to add logs at the front and sides of the platforms to retain the earth. Also along the entire defenses I will add terrain and rock outcrops to give a better finished appearance.

Construction of the defenses

I used a hot wire cutting tool to cut the earthworks from a 1″ foam board. I then cut and laid some terrain mats from Killing fields terrain to give the bulk of the ground cover. This ground cover will allow the earthworks to blend with the rest of the terrain. I then shaved paths to the gun emplacements with hair trimmers. After I painted a mixture of paint, Elmers glue and rail road ballast over the paths and uncovered foam board. Finally I painted, weathered and glued down the log barricades.

I still have work to do to finish the defenses, but I feel that basic design and structure is complete. I hope to finish them in the next few weeks.

The defenses for the Battle of Bicocca will allow me to deploy 6 units of arquebusier and 3 artillery pieces. The Landsknechts can be easily moved up to the barricades due to the gentle slope at the back. Combined, there should be enough firepower to cause the advancing Swiss Pike some problems.

In this blog post I will look at how I converted pike block flags on three units. The units will be ready for a game at Historicon.

I am currently preparing all of my figures and terrain for the two games that I plan to put on. The first is the 1651 Battle of Berestechko that I play tested recently. I plan to run this game at 9am on the Thursday, right at the start of the convention. This game is essentially complete except for a couple of units of Polish Haiduks that I would like to paint.

My second game will be the 1522 Battle of Bicocca. I plan to run for ten players on the Friday morning. I still have a large amount of terrain and figures to complete, but I am on schedule. This game will be the larger of the two and will have about 1500 figures.

In going through the list of troops that I needed for Bicocca, I was short two Venetian pike blocks and one Landsknecht pike block in Imperial service.

However, I did have two Papal States pike blocks and a Landsknecht pike block in French service that were not needed for Bicocca and were available to be converted. With each figure on an individual 20mm x 20mm base, this conversion is as simple as painting new flag figures.

Converting Papal States to Venetian

This first picture shows my two 36 figure Papal States pike blocks with six flag figures between them.

The next picture shows the Papal States pike blocks with the Venetian flag figures that I will change out. The Flags were from Pete’s flags.

The final picture of the pike blocks shows the converted Venetian pike blocks ready for action at Bicocca. Individually basing figures allows me to change both flags and the size of the pike blocks. It is very flexible. However, you need to be more careful with the movement trays than if you glued multiple figures to the base.

Landsknechts from French to Imperial Service

The next job was to convert the 100 figure Landsknecht pike block from French to Imperial service. The first picture shows the pike block before conversion.

The next picture shows the new flag figures ready to go into the pike block. The flags used a mixture of flags from Pete’s flags and Battle Flags.

The final two images show the pike block flags in Imperial service. It is ready to fight back the Swiss coming up from the sunken road at Bicocca.

I am not sure how many people at Historicon would have noticed if I had left French flags on an Imperial pike block. Or even Papal flags on a Venetian pike block. However, I would have known and it would have made me uncomfortable during the game – maybe I am over concerned about it.

This month it has been back to painting for my Italian Wars project. I decided to make some progress on my Spanish forces before hopefully moving on to some Venetian Cavalry next month. The focus was on some Spanish Renaissance artillery.

I needed to increase the number of Spanish arquebusiers for a convention game of the Battle of Bicocca that I am planning, so I wanted to paint four units of 8 figures. I also had five Organ guns in my painting pile from Redoubt Enterprises that I wanted to paint. These guns have large spikes at the front and on the wheels, and they sound very like the Spanish war carts at the battle of Ravenna. I decided to equip man these guns with figures from the Assault Group.

The organ guns don’t really come with any instructions, so it took some playing around to see how they fitted together. I was even left with a couple of parts that didn’t look like they belonged. Overall they painted up reasonably well. At only five UK Pounds a piece they were not overly expensive either.

I used the small equipment from the Assault Group Spanish/Neapolitan artillery crew.

The color pallet of the Spanish troops is a little more on the dull side compared to some of the Spanish that I have painted before. I think that this choice has been influenced by some of the colors that I used for my recent cossack uprising project.

I have some Spanish pike and sword figures still to paint. These figures will be added to the arquebusiers to form two more colunellas. I am deciding whether or not to paint them before I move on to the Venetian Cavalry.

I was happy with how the Spanish Renaissance artillery turned out. They are certainly different from the rest of the artillery that I have in the collection. They will be great for representing the Spanish war carts when I eventually refight the Battle of Ravenna.

After spending the last nine months on my Cossack Uprising project, I am moving back to my ongoing Italian Wars project for a while. I did purchase a 28mm Ottoman Army over the Christmas period, but that will have to wait a few months.

The main emphasis of the next few months will be rounding out the forces of the Italian City States. I am hoping to increase my forces for a possible large scale outing in the fall at Historicon, if the world returns to normal by then.

For the mounted troops, this will involve Condottieri and their retinue, Lance Spezzate and Famiglia Ducale. In my next blog post I plan to go into the organization of the cavalry in some detail.

For the foot troops, I have started with some generic Italian crossbows and arquebusiers. In this batch there are 16 figures from the Assault Group. This will be mounted on two skirmish bases, each with eight figures. The ones shown here will probably end up in the service of Venice. I have another 32 similar figures on the paint bench.

The figures are relatively easy to paint. After my cossack uprising project, I have found myself using a more subdued color palette than I normally use for the Italian wars. However, I am happy how these figures have turned out. I don’t need these City State troops looking as bright and colorful as the Gendarmes, Knights and Landschnekts.

Most of the Italian foot troops will be lighter troops like these. I plan to do a longer post within a week, with some details on how I organize the cavalry. The post will have some pictures of some mounted Milanese shot figures that I also painted this week.

I have seen the question of can you ever have too many Landsknechts asked, but never the question can you ever have too many Swiss? Here is an update on my Swiss pike blocks.

I am currently painting figures for the battle of Bicocca that I hope to put on at Historicon 2020. One of the main elements of the battle were the two Swiss pike blocks, one from the Rural Cantons and one from the Urban Cantons. Each pike block was about 8,000 men which at a 50:1 figure ration is 160 figures. I have chosen to represent each block by a 12×12 block of 144 figures and 16 skirmishers with arquebus or crossbows. This comes out exactly to the 160 figures each.

Each of the Swiss pike blocks has about 15 flags each, which makes them look quite impressive on the table. I have placed Urban Canton flags on one pike block and Rural Canton flags on the other pike block; how to select flags for Swiss pike blocks was discussed in my recent blog post on Swiss Flags. As the Swiss at Bicocca were in French service I have also added about three flags with the French cross to each of the pike blocks.

Next on my painting list for Bicocca is some SteelFist Landsknecht flag bearers. I have two 10×10 (100 figure) Landsknecht pike blocks, one has flags for Imperial service and the other has flags for French Black Band service. I will be painting about six Imperial Flag carriers so that I can convert the Black Band pike block to Imperial Service. It should be fun having two large Imperial Landsknecht pike blocks go up against the massive Swiss Pike blocks when I finally get to play the Battle of Bicocca.

This post is a quick update on the Black Band of Giovanni de’ Medici that I am painting for the Battle of Bicocca game that I am planning to put on at Historicon 2020. The initial post in January gave some of my thoughts on the unit composition.

Unit composition

I had initially planned to have:

• 24 pike
• 32 arquebusiers
• 16 mounted shot
• 8 medium cavalry with lance and burgonet
• 1 command group of 2 mounted figures representing Giovanni

I have stuck reasonably well to this list, but I did paint 16 medium cavalry rather than the initial 8 that I had planned; this was mainly because I had them in my lead pile. Extra medium cavalry can always be used in a game and I can always repurpose them by using an alternative flag.

The command base still needs to be completed over the next few weeks; I plan to use two SteelFist Gendarmes and paint Giovanni in some black armor that I have seen in a portrait of him on Wikipedia. I might also add a few hunting dogs to the command base, again from SteelFist Miniatures. I also have ordered a few more Black Band of Giovanni flags from Pete’s Flags which I will add to the medium cavalry and the command base on the basis that you can never have too many flags.

Photos of the figures

Here are some photos of the Black Band:

Final thoughts on the Black Band of Giovanni

Overall this representation of the Black Band of Giovanni will give one player an interesting mix of units to command. They certainly don’t have the raw power to mix it up with large Swiss Pike Blocks or massed Gendarmes. However, they are more than capable of maneuvering and using their shot units to deal damage to the enemy while having the support of the pike block and medium cavalry if the enemy start to get too close.

This force is certainly not as colorful as some of the other units in my Italian Wars collection, but they do make a cohesive force. I quite like the way that the dark red and grey color scheme worked out.

Yesterday at our local club’s game day, I was able to get out my Italian Wars troops for a refight of the 1513 Battle of Novara (Ariotta). John and Lou took the Swiss troops while Pete and Dave took the French.

The initial set up was broadly in line with the recent blog post on the Battle of Ariotta. I did make a few changes:

• The Swiss Pike block C on their left flank I increased from 24 to 36 figures to give them a fighting chance.
• I added two “small” artillery pieces to the forces on the Swiss left flank. These turned out to be reasonably ineffectual, so did not make much difference to the game.
• The Swiss reserves were increased from one pike block of 36 figures to two pike blocks of 36 figures. These were never intended to be deployed as they arrived too late for the battle. However, the French player did not know this information, so it kept them honest as in the real battle there was always the threat that they could arrive.

Here are a few photos of the initial deployments:

The Swiss “Enfant Perdue” in skirmish order emerged from the woods near the village of Ariotta to start the game. Their job was charge at the French cannons to try and capture them. In the actual battle this attack failed, but in our game, due to some fantastic command rolling on the dice (snake eyes), Lou manage to assault the guns on the first turn. The guns were initially disordered due to the Swiss surprise attack so this reduced the effectiveness of the fire. The three French guns quickly fell to the Swiss, who then decided that they didn’t want to man the captured guns, but instead decided to assault the Landsknecht arquebusiers coming up in support.

The main French force was deployed the other side of the Marsh. This consisted on the French infantry and a mass of Gendarmes. They were facing Novara, expecting the Swiss attack to come from the front. The Swiss had other ideas.

Here is a view of the entire table of the Battle of Novara (Ariotta).

The Swiss on the left flank were off the table to start the game. The picture below shows the Swiss pike block C, the two small canons and the Milanese knights. Also shown are the two reserve Swiss pike blocks which never actually deployed on table.

After the initial success of the Enfant Perdue, the two main Swiss Pike blocks emerged from the woods, one to the front of the Landsknechts and one to their flank. The unit on the flank then immediately moved to engage, while the one to the front decided to move towards the French infantry (as actually happened at the real battle).

The French decided to completely ignore the plight of their German mercenaries and proceeded to send all of their cavalry and half of their infantry towards the Swiss left. The half of the French infantry that was meant to move towards the marsh and the Swiss right, failed several command rolls and refused to go the aid of the Germans.

Pete, who was commanding the Landsknechts was therefore left to fend for himself, which is exactly what occurred at the real battle. There was a bloody clash with the Swiss Pike block which had emerged on their flank. This clash went back and forward over about four or five turns with both sides suffering heavy casualties. Eventually the Landsknechts, with no support arriving were completely wiped out, again, as happened at the actual battle.

This defeat left the two massive Swiss pike blocks to march on the flank of the French main forces. Some great command rolling again by Lou enable them both to fly down the table.

The Swiss once they appeared on the French flank quickly routed the French infantry that was meant to go to the aid of the Germans, leaving them to march unopposed into the French camp.

On the French right the gendarmerie commanded by Dave had pinned down the small Swiss force and had quickly routed the Milanese knights and overrun the Swiss artillery. They then surrounded the lone Swiss pike block on that flank. John, who was commanding this small Swiss flank force was coming under great pressure.

The pike block quickly became surrounded by the Gendarmerie. but valiantly fought off several rounds of attack. A unit of Gendarmes and a unit of archers became shaken and retreated, it was 2 : 0 to the Swiss. A third wave of attacks came in with units attacking both the flank and the front. With all of the damaged that they had suffered, this was too much for the Swiss, who routed off the table.

But John and his small band of Swiss had done their job. They had drawn the attention of the entire French Gendarmerie away from the main Swiss assault on the other flank. This had enable the Swiss commanded by Lou to rout the Landsknechts and half of the French infantry and then march into the French camp.

As in the real Battle of Novara (Ariotta), the French cavalry then decided that enough was enough. With no desire to engage the two massive Swiss Pike blocks without infantry or artillery support, they decided to leave the table in good order in the direction of Milano, bragging about how they had routed a Swiss pike block.

Overall I was really pleased with how closely our game simulated the real Battle of Novara (Ariotta). This result was achieved without the players knowing much about the battle in advance of the game. There were a few minor differences:

• The enfant perdue managed to over run the French guns in our game due to some incredible die rolling.
• Robert III de la Marck, did not manage to take any gendarmes over to support the Landsknechts and rescue his son.
• The small Swiss force on their left flank saw far more action in our game than in the real battle and they were destroyed in our game.

It would be interesting to see how the Battle of Novara (Ariotta) would play out if the French commander chose to ignore the small Swiss force on their right and send the majority of their infantry and cavalry in support of the Landsknechts. If the cavalry could fix the Swiss pike, their artillery and crossbows could rain down fire into the immobile pike blocks. But that is a game for another day.