Aut Cesar, Aut Nihil, Wargaming the Borgias.

Aut Cesar, Aut Nihil, Wargaming the Borgias.

Wednesday 17 September 2014

Some you win, some you totally bollocks up.

  I have found in my longtime experience in wargaming that sometimes nothing will go right. From the initial set up, to the dice throw which should be a given for success.
 Black Powder/ Pike and Shotte rules are very unforgiving and punish bad luck mercilessly.
 I set up this game to fight against John, using my Borgia army against a French army. From move one, things just didnt work. Throwing a 'Blunder' with my first throw, which saw two units of arquebusiers from the Black Bande leave the table for two moves set the precedent.
In move two I threw another blunder [ this means a double six by the way] which caused my light cavalry to ride away to obscurity.
 By move five I finally got my entire Gendarme command to move. In the meantime John was steam rolling towards my disorganised line which wasn't able to manouvre.
 By move Nine, Cesare Borgia was killed leading the Blacke Bande pike into inglorious rout,
 By move Eleven, my Italian army was streaming from the table, leaving the French to look on in disbelief.
 But was it a good game? Definitely yes. Sometimes being really bad somehow makes a game more pleasurable.Perhaps its the jinx of a newly painted unit?







Tuesday 16 September 2014

The Carroccio Guard.

I have completed my Carroccio Guard, which I must admit I am pleased with, if purely because it is one less unit to paint. The figures are Foundry obviously created by the Perry twins.
 This is still a very fine range of figures. I am hoping the photographs are better. After reading the article from Henry Hyde in Miniature Wargames, I treated myself to a couple of LED camera lights. Its only a small unit, but you wouldnt like a swipe of a halberd. Carroccio








Sunday 14 September 2014

Where are they now?

I am currently re reading my early Miniature Wargames,[ for the umpteenth time] and basically loving the early photographs and articles.
 In MW 2 there is one of my favourite photographs of some Gendarmes that I assume belonged to Peter Gilder. This unit was one of the units that inspired me to collect the armies of the Italian Wars.
 This got me thinking, [slowly] I know that two of Peter Gilders armies have been sold recently, his AWI collection and some of his ECW units. Well what happened to his Italian Wars army?
 Now this is the one I would really like to own, or just the unit from MW 2.
This is not the only army that I would love to know what happened to them. The wonderful Seven Years War armies painted by Phil Robinson are another set of units that I would love to trace.
 I have never seen these units on any game over the last thirty years.
Does someone just buy these up and then sit in a darkened room staring at the figures, slavering over their beauty?
 Wargames toys are really there to be played with, admired yes, but definitely played with.
 As I work through the early MW'S I know there are some wonderful photographs of the later Connoisseur range of gendarmes painted by Peter Gilder,again these were inspirational, where did they go?
Surely they weren't thrown away into a skip.
 I must admit this thought does keep me awake at night, what if there is a council dump somewhere that has piles of wonderfully painted Doug Mason figures buried under dirty nappies! Dumped there by the partner of a wargamer who always begrudged the time spent wargaming to the detriment of their relationship. Just a thought anyway....

Saturday 6 September 2014

+ Two on Morale.

In wargames rules from an earlier period, you were able in certain instances to gain extra morale bonuses for religious artifacts and certain leaders. Well modern times are slightly different but I had to have the Perry Carroccio and its crew. Its a tad early for the period of the Borgias, but it is such a lovely model that I wanted one, irrespective of history.
 I know there's a bit of a purple thing going on, but it seemed a colour that matched the period.I used a flag from Pete's Flags for the banner which had a suitable religious theme. So I hope to get a plus two for religious artifact when the army turns out. The only gripe is that the sides of the wagon are resin, so the spokes on the wheels are very delicate. I just need a suitable guard for the alter now.






Honour Guard of Cesare Borgia.

Honour Guard of Cesare Borgia.