College of Kings

Changing 28mm Pike block flags

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 new Venetian flags ready to take their place

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.

Berestechko 1651 – After action report.

The battle of Berestechko 1651

The game was based on the first two days of the Battle of Berestechko 1651. This was the period before the Tatars left the field of battle. After the Tatars left, the Poles essentially surrounded the cossack tabor and the battle was almost siege warfare. Before the Tatars left, the battle was a huge cavalry engagement. I wanted to recreate a large cavalry battle typical of the period.

We had four players for the Polish side, two for the Tatars and two for the Cossacks. The starting positions for Berestechko 1651 were shown in the last blog post.

The Polish Cossacks and Nobel Levy ride out to engage the Tatars.

Opening moves

The first decisive move was that the entire Polish right flank, consisting of the Polish Cossacks and Nobel Levy rode out towards the mass of Tatars. The Tatars, rather than stand back and engage at long distance with their bows, decided to charge out to meet the Poles in the center of the battlefield.

Tim and Bob riding their Tatar horde out to meet the Polish Cavalry commanded by Lou and John.

The cavalry battle was a tussle for many turns, with units from each side taking casualties, being pushed back and regrouping, only to re-engage. One rule change that I made to Pike and Shotte to represent the open cavalry battles of Eastern Europe was to have an “Open Order” formation. This formation is like the skirmish formation, but unlike the skirmish formation, it allows units to charge. Also when a unit has to retire it can pass through other Open Order formations to the rear. I felt like this rule change allowed the looser cavalry battles and formations to be represented. All of the cavalry, with the exception of the Pancerni and Winged Hussars were in Open Order. This rule change worked very well and really captured the feel that I was looking for.

Strategic move of the Winged Hussars and Pancerni

The Pancerni and Hussars start their move in the background of this photo.

The Polish Pancerni and Winged Hussars on their left flank decided that supporting the infantry against the cossack foot troops and tabor was not their best course of action. They started a strategic move to deploy against the now engaged Tatars on the other flank. This was a risky move because it moved them across the front of the cossack artillery, even though it was at long range.

The Tatars and Polish cavalry continue their battle.

The photo above shows the back and forth nature of the Polish cavalry fight with the Tatars. Both sides suffered continuous casualties and many units became shaken. The Tatars, with superior numbers, managed flank the Nobel Levy in the center and wear them down.

One additional rule change that I adopted was to the broken battalia rule. This rules says that: When more than half the units in a battalia are lost or shaken, then the battalia becomes broken. For this battle, we did not count shaken units towards the total. I found that this slight rule change worked well for this period with large cavalry battles. If I had not changed it, the battle would have been over in a few turns. Instead we had about 6 or 7 turns of to and fro cavalry engagement.

Cossacks and Peasants on the move

With the Pancerni and Winged Hussars moving over to the other flank, the cossack infantry felt emboldened. They decided to come out from behind their Tabor and defenses. Some of the dismounted cossack horse decided to mount up so that they could move quickly to engage the Polish infantry.

The Winged Hussars and Pancerni arrive.

The Polish Heavy cavalry charge towards contact.

The Polish Heavy Cavalry arrived on the Tatar right flank at the center of the table. They had taken a few casualties from the cossack artillery en-route. They immediately decided to charge the Tatars. The Tatars then successfully used “Fire and Evade” to avoid what would have been a devastating charge. In the process they inflicted a few more casualties on the Poles.

Register cossacks attacking the reiters and German mercenary infantry.

Even though the Tatars had been rolling well with their Fire and Evades, the cossack infantry could not repeat their success. They had about ten fire dice on the Reiters and missed with everything, despite re-rolls due to their sharp-shooter skills.

Polish Hussars and Pancerni finish off the Tatars.

Despite the initial success of the Tatar, they were always going to be in trouble against the Pancerni and Hussars. The Winged Hussars charged again and smashed some Tatar units. The Pancerni rode into the flank of other Tater units and repeated the results. Only this decisive move prevented the Polish Nobel Levy being completely wiped out. Most of the Tatar units left the table, even though the had acquitted themselves well and destroyed a large percentage of the Polish cavalry.

The Cossack artillery take a long ranged shot at the Winged Hussars.

A lucky artillery shot

With the Polish infantry and peasants now in full advance against the Polish infantry, things were looking bad on the Polish left. The only hope for salvation was that the victorious Pancerni and Winged Hussars would ride back and reinforce the infantry after having routed the Tatars. However, the Hussars and Pancerni had taken a slow trickle of casualties all day long, first from the cossack artillery, then from the Tatar fire and evade and finally from the close combat with the Tatars.

Before the Polish Heavy Cavalry could regroup, the cossack artillery (shown in the photo above) decided to try a long range shot at the Winged Hussars. The result was a lucky direct hit. The already shaken Hussars took an excess casualty. The resulting morale test caused the Hussars to rout off the table. The Hussars had done some devastating damage to the Tatars, but when they routed off the table, the morale of the Polish players took a hit.

With the loss of the Winged Hussars, the possibility of the Polish infantry getting cavalry support from the center disappeared, as the rest of the units were shaken or disordered. This meant that the cossacks could continue their advance on the Polish tabor.

With no hope of victory the Polish decided to withdraw. The Battle of Berestechko 1651 had been a close run affair with many sweeping cavalry advances. I think that the the rules, with a few minor changes, had really captured the feel of the period. As the Polish Levy commander Lou always says, a rule set should have the 3 Fs – Fast, Fun and a Flavor of the Period. I think that this game passed that test.

In the next few weeks I plan to have a debrief with a few of the players to see if we should make any changes for the next time we play the Battle of Berestechko 1651 – which I plan to do at Historicon later this year – for those who are interested.

Battle of Berestechko 1651

This weekend was the first opportunity that I had to put my 1651 Cossack Uprising project on the table. The project was started in April 2020 and finished in April 2021. The first battle that we tried was the 1651 Battle of Berestechko. We played the first two days of the battle before the Tatars left.

We had four players per side and used the Pike and Shotte Rules. There were a total of 600 figures in 28mm. The video below shows the initial set up.

The orders of Battle were:

Polish army for the Battle of Berestechko

Heavy cavalry Battalia:

3 Units of Pancerni each of 8 figures
1 Unit of Winged Hussars of 8 figures
1 Unit of Reiters of 8 figures

Winged Hussars in the foreground with Pancerni and Reiters behind

Infantry Battlalia

1 Unit of German Style Pike of 12 figures
2 Units of German Style Shot each of 12 figures
1 Unit of German Mercenary Pike of 12 figures
2 Units of German Mercenary Shot each of 12 figures
3 Units of Medium Artillery
4 Tabor Wagons

Polish infantry and artillery in the Tabor

Noble Levy Battalia

5 Units of Noble Levy cavalry each of 8 figures

Polish Cossack Battalia

4 Units of Polish Cossack cavalry each of 8 figures

Polish cossacks in the foreground (4 units) with Polish Noble Levy in the background (5 units)

Tatar army

Cavalry Battalia

4 Units of Tatar cavalry each of 8 figures

Cavalry Battalia

4 Units of Tatar cavalry each of 8 figures

Cavalry Battalia

4 Units of Tatar cavalry each of 8 figures

The mass of Tatar cavalry (over 100 figures)

Cossack army

Cossack mounted Battalia

4 Units of Mounted cossacks each of 8 figures
(Horse holders and dismounted figures for the above units)
8 Chevaux de Frise field defenses
4 Gulay Gorad mobile defenses

Cossack Infantry Battalia

2 Units of Cossack Peasants each of 30 figures
2 Units of Medium Artillery
4 Units of Register Cossacks each of 12 figures
4 Units of Cossacks each of 12 figures
10 Cossack war wagons each with light artillery piece

The main cossack army in their Tabor with the two war drums commanding the situation.

Over 90% of the figures in the project are from the Assault Group. The Tatars do have Aventine miniature riders on Assault Group horses. Wagons and defenses are from various manufacturers and the larger artillery pieces are from Steel Fist.

Over the next week or two I hope to do an after action report of the Battle of Berestechko and post some more photos showing how the battle developed.

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.