College of Kings

Spanish Renaissance artillery and infantry

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.

A view along the line of the guns supported by the infantry.

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.

Looking down the gun line from the opposite direction.

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.

British Forward Operating Base.

I have been slowly working on a 28mm modern skirmish project using the Skirmish Sangin rules. As part of a scenario I am putting together I have been building a British Forward Operating Base for Helmland Province, Afghanistan.

I decided to only construct the front of the base as that is where all of the action will take place. I built a guard tower at each of the corners. The walls of the base were made from Hesco bags with razor wire on top and in front of them.

Overview of the base covering about 2′ by 6′

S&S Models made the Hesco walls. The image above shows two approaching British Foxhounds (still to paint). White Dragon Miniatures produced the two Foxhounds and these will support two larger Mastif MRAPS. I also have 4 quad bikes for SAS interdiction scenarios.

The entrance to the base guarded by British troops supported by the Afghan National Police.

The entrance to the base consists of a guard shack, New Jersey barriers and a barrier all made by Miniature Building Authority. I will also add a moving chain link fence at the back.

Along the road I have some billboards. One of the billboards was built from a model kit, the other two were scratch built. I will be installing some Afghan election posters on the billboards.

On top and in front of the walls is some razor wire made by Army Painter.

In the back-ground of the above photo is a command post and barracks. These are made from containers from the Miniature Building Authority with one of their satellite dishes on top.

British soldier from 3 Para watching the entrance from atop of the Hesco walls.

The Hesco walls at the front of the base have a lower level of Hesco bags behind allowing soldiers to patrol the wall. Many of these design choices were made after viewing photos of actual Forward Operating Bases in Afghanistan.

View of the rear of the walls and a guard tower.

The guard towers were made by using two containers as the base. A staircase and platform were then made from Plastruct girders and other items. A Hesco bunker from S&S models was then placed on top of some H beams. The roof of the bunker is removable to put figures inside.

I will be purchasing a better, larger desert terrain mat as well as adding more ground clutter to the base including pallets, oil drums, signs and a table tennis table.

I am also working on scenario to include the British Forward Operating Base. This will be a large scale Taliban assault on the base.

Back to the Italian Wars – crossbows and arquebusiers

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.

Front view of the arquebusiers and crossbow

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.

Rear view of the arquebusiers and crossbow.

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.

28mm Polish Infantry units

The final units for my Khmelnytsky Upring project were the 28mm Polish infantry units. The plan was to have a unit of Polish “German style infantry” and a unit of German mercenaries. Both of these units were to have two bases of 12 shot figures and one base of 12 pike figures. There is some question over whether the units in Polish service actually contained pike, as the large amount of Polish cavalry protected the infantry. However a 1577 print of the siege of Danzig persuaded me to include pike.

Fo the Polish unit, I tried to keep a more uniform color throughout, using a red base color for the troops.

For the German mercenaries I decided to give a more rag-tag appearance to the unit and had no common color. All of the figures are from The Assault Group and from their German Thirty Years War range. These figures are perfect for my 28mm Polish Infantry units and are from exactly the right time period.

I am currently awaiting a couple of flags from Battle Flags for these mercenaries. In the Osprey book Polish Armies 1569-1696 (2) there is a light blue and white flag with a jagged Red Cross on page 8. This flag is very similar to a Pappenheim flag from the Thirty Years War. So I have decided to make this unit a mercenary unit from the Pappenheim region.

These photos were the first ones taken in a Christmas present light box from The Flashery. The light box is great for hobby photos and I will hopefully get better at using it.

The khmelnytsky Cossack Uprising project is now nearing completion. All that I have left is an assortment of command bases. I should be able to complete these in the next few weeks. I will then be ready to put all of the Poles, Cossacks and Tatars on the table once life resumes after Covid. I started the project in April, so I am very happy to have completed it within nine months. The project is around 600 figures, with the vast majority being cavalry.

Polish Artillery and Tabor

The mantlets and gabions in front of the artillery.

This week I managed to finish the Polish Artillery and Tabor. The Artillery consists of three guns. The guns were from SteelFist. The Mantlets were from Old Glory. The crew and Gabions were from the Assault Group.

In addition to the artillery I completed four War Wagons for the Polish Tabor. The War Wagons are from 1st Corps. The idea and recommendations for the Manlets and War Wagons were from a blog I read by Camisado.

I want to get a worn paint look on the front of the mantlets and wagons. I did this by first painting a weathered wood look. I then varnished the pieces and let the varnish dry,

I then painted the parts with the red color that I was looking for with Vallejo acrylic paint and let the parts dry for about three minutes until they were just dry to the touch.

I then applied some scotch tape to the part and lightly pressed down on the part. I then quickly removed the tape to take off some of the red paint, leaving the wood color exposed. This process took some practice to make sure that I removed enough of the red paint without removing the wood color and primer. I reapplied the tape a couple times until I achieved the effect I was looking for.

The above picture shows the finished look. I then added some Polish cross decals and then scratch the decals to weather them.

To finish the mantlets I based them and then added some black powder to the top of the mantlets on the inside and outside to represent the gun smoke residue. I then used some model boat rigging rope to tie to the top of the mantlets. The other end was held by the Polish Wybraniecka (peasant laborer) figures from the Assault Group.

The peasant laborers opening and closing the mantlets.

I decided to have two mantlets closed and the third one open. The combination gives a more dynamic look to the group of artillery.

The cossack peasants assaulting the Polish tabor.

Polish Cavalry completed – 1651

This weekend I finally completed the Polish Cavalry for my 1651 Cossack uprising project. With the Cossacks and Tatars already complete, I just have the Polish infantry and artillery left, as well as some command bases. This process leaves me on schedule to finish the project by the end of the year.

Each unit is made up of eight figures and I have the following Polish cavalry units:

1 unit of Reiters
1 unit of Winged Hussars
3 units of Pancerni
4 units of Polish style cossacks
5 units of Noble Levy

Another view of the entire mounted Polish force.

I have tried to differentiate between the three main groups of Polish cavalry so they are easily recognizable on the table. The Pancerni/Winged Hussar group is very formal with a lot of pennants on the lances. The noble levy are well dressed with a lot of feathers. The cossack style cavalry are much more rough looking.

All of the figures are from the Assault Group except the Winged Hussars. I bought a set of Winged Hussars from Warlord Games that I wanted to use.

Overall I have about 115 Polish cavalry figures. Previously I completed 100 Tatar mounted figures and 50 Cossack mounted figures. So in total I will have about 270 mounted figures as part of this project. This amount is in addition to the Polish and Cossack infantry. Once the entire project is completed in December I should have enough troops for a nice sized game.

This week I am working on the Polish Artillery, defenses and Taber. I hope to have some images next weekend. The Polish artillery will consist of three guns with mantlets and gabions. I was also have four war wagons to form the Taber with the artillery.

Maps of Europe – 1550 and 1650

Two of my main projects are the Italian Wars in the early 16th Century and the Khmelnytsky Uprising in the mid 17th Century, both in 28mm. For my planned hobby room, I wanted to have some maps on the wall showing how Europe looked in these periods. Hence my search for maps of Europe – 1550 and 1650 that would look good on a wall.

I found an artist called Cyowari on a site called Redbubble. The subdued colors of the prints were just what I was looking for. I ordered the small size of 21.9″ wide by 16.4″ high for around $25 a print. Although this size is the smallest it is still quite a reasonable size to put on the wall, especially as I was looking for two complimentary maps. There are two larger sizes available with the largest being 44″ x 33″ for approximately $50 each. The larger sizes would have been too big for what I was looking for, but I am sure that they would look great in the right situation. Shipping was an additional $6.

I then went to Framesbymail to order the frames and matting. The frames were actually significantly more expensive than the maps themselves. There are certainly cheaper options for framing available, but I was looking for a quality product.

I am very happy with how the maps look. The two of them together show how Europe changed and was shaped during the 16th and 17th centuries. The maps allow me to see how some of the many conflicts of the period related to each other. They also will look great on the hobby room wall. I would recommend these Maps of Europe – 1550 and 1650, as well as other maps by the same artist.

Polish Cossacks of 1651

This week I completed my units of Polish Cossacks. There are four units each of 8 figures. Along with the three units of Polish Pancerni and five units of Pospolite Ruszenie, I now have the bulk of the Polish cavalry completed (about 100 figures). I just have one unit of Reiters and one unit of the famed Winged Hussars to complete.

For the Polish Cossacks I used figures from The Assault Group. About two thirds of the figures were from their Polish Cossack range. The remaining figures I took from their Polish Pancerni range. However, I did not want to use the horses that normally come with the Pancerni, which have a lot of decorative horse coverings. Instead I wanted to have them on the same horses as the rest of the Polish Cossacks. Pete at the Assault Group assured me that the Polish Pancerni figures would fit on the Polish Cossack horses and was able to swap out the horses when I ordered them.

For the Pancerni type figures I used the lance on some of them, on others I put the musket into their hands instead. Unlike the figures that I used in the Polish Pancerni units, I did not use lance pennants on these figures. I wanted these units to have a less formal appearance.

For the flags I used sheets from Battle Flags and Adrians Wall. One of these sheets had a green Polish Cossack flag. This flag is almost identical to that shown in the Osprey book on the Polish Armies. For the rest of the flags I used more general Polish flags.

I still need to put some grass tufts on the bases but otherwise they are complete.

I am looking forward to moving on to the Reiters and Winged Hussars to complete the Polish Cavalry. The Winged Hussars should be an especially fun unit to paint.

Pospolite Ruszenie – Polish noble levy

At the 1651 Battle of Berestechko there were around 40,000 Pospolite Ruszenie or Noble Levy. So they represent a sizable part of the Polish army and need to be represented in my army. When deciding on which figures to use it quickly became apparent that no manufacturer has these troops in their Polish range.

In the Osprey series Polish armies 1569-1696 (1) on Page 7 it discusses the dress of Polish Pospolite Ruszenie. It mentions how Hungarian dress was dominant, but how it was also influenced by Turkish and Persian fashion. In general noble dress was extremely expensive.

I therefore decided to use a mixture of figures from the Assault Group range. I used Hungarian Light Horse, Hungarian Hussars, Croats and even a few Ottoman Akinjis to fill out the ranks. I selected figures that looked noble, with an emphasis on those with feathers and ornate trim. The result is units of figures that look as if they fit in with the period but are different from the Polish cossacks and Polish Pancerni. I am very happy how the mixture of figures turned out, it gives a very distinctive force and contrasts well with other units.

I have painted 5 units of 8 figures each with two additional figures for a command group, giving a total of 42 figures. I hope to complete the movement trays for these figures later in the month.

The flags were a combination of a pack from Adrians Wall and a pack from Battle Flags. I selected general polish style flags (with the cross) for all except the one on the command figures, which almost exactly matches a noble levy flag in the Osprey book. The command flag can be seen at the front in the image below.

A few additional pictures of the Noble Levy are shown below. I have also recently painted 33 Polish cossacks and these are just waiting for the flags to be added in the next few days. Once the flags are complete, I will post some pictures of them.

Cossack Peasant horde

The Cossack Peasant horde was a common part of the the cossack army in the 1650 period. These troops were poorly trained and were generally not equipped with fire-arms. Instead they were equipped with swords and various farm implements.

For my army I have decided to have two cossack peasant hordes, each of about 28-30 figures on a 80mm x 200mm base. I feel that this number looks like a reasonable amount without going crazy. The total infantry for the army will be 96 regular cossacks, 48 mounted infantry and 56 cossack peasants. So roughly 25% of the army will be peasants.

This week I completed the first of the horde units. The figures are all from The Assault Group. I used a combination of their laborer figures and their half-pike figures, with a few figures from other packets. The main criteria for selection was that they did not have fire-arms.

For farm implements, I used a couple of the implements that came with the Assault Group figures, but mainly I used implements from Bicorne Miniatures. A photo of the implements is shown below and includes pitchforks, rakes, scythes, axes and hoes. They were very easy to attach to the TAG figures using a small drill and super glue.

Overall I was happy how the peasant horde turned out. It makes a good contrast with the rest of the fire-arm equipped cossacks. I tried to weather the farm implements by using rust powders on top of the natural steel paint. I am not sure how well this shows up in the photos.

I am also painting some Polish cavalry at the moment and they are getting very near completion. I have 40 Polish noble levy and 32 Polish cossacks on the paint bench. They should be finished within a week or two and I will post some photos when they are complete.