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.