Groundhog Day!

When I started this second blog, it was to record me building up my new army of Cesare Borgia, in 28mm.
 As stated it was to replace an army I sold back in the 1980's. At that time I also sold my Burgundian army and John sold his Italian Wars army. These were all in 25/28mm and the money was used for us to buy into the 6mm ranges which we did in a very big way. Things as usual came full circle for me and I re adopted the 25/28mm.
 At today's game at the Durham club, John and I came face to face with a lot of our original armies that we sold. I must admit I was expecting the figures in the main to have been painted okay, but that they would have been of that time.
 Well John and I got a pleasant surprise when we viewed each unit that we had created nearly 30 years ago. If only their owner Shaun Lowery would sell them back to me, but of course he wont.
Shaun's army was a lovely thing to behold, and it fought pretty well.
 I can only apologise for the quality of some of the photographs, for some reason the camera is not performing as it should.

This was one of my original gendarmes for Cesare's army, at that time John and I used oil paints for the horses.

 The swiss were a mish mash of Connoisseur figures with the odd Vulcan thrown in for effect. [ Not the ones with pointy ears.]

  I can actually remember painting this giant standard, which in reality would have been impossible to hold.

  This artillery piece was never released by Connisseur, and was cast by Peter Gilder as a one off, luckily Shaun didnt realise how badly I wanted to walk off with it.

  I didnt actually paint these wonderful french mounted archers, but they were so beautifully painted that again Shaun was lucky I didnt put them in my collection.

  A Swiss pike block from the front,including painted eyes!

 Connoisseur mounted arquebusiers, with a Borgia standard, based on a stemma design.

  These lovely figures came from the original Wargames Holiday Centre in Scarborough.

  I hadnt realised that Shaun had even bought my tents!.

  So after drooling over Shaun's figures, how did the game fare? Well Paul and I were fighting together against John and Shaun.  We took the Papal side, Shaun and John the French. Success was not on the side of God it is fair to say, between Paul being unable to throw decent command dice, and me managing to lose Cesare in a suicidal charge it was fair to say NOTHING went right for us. The beauty! [frustration] of Pike and Shotte is the fact that the wargamer cannot rely on anything, you have to carefully consider your tactics and plan for the worst. Needless to say I certainly didnt.
 The plan entailed my infantry holding up the advance of the French gendarmerie under the command of John, whilst Paul commanding our best troops rolled up Shaun's flank and centre.
 What actually happened was Paul couldnt get his infantry to move very much, although he managed to turn Shaun's flank we had expended so much effort that Paul's cavalry command was exhausted. Meanwhile on my wing, I had managed to lose all of my shot troops which caused my division to be classed as spent, whilst my gendarmes had been hemmed in by a combination of pikemen and halberdiers. So naturally when Cesare decided to charge to undying fame, he didnt and copped a pike up his j#####y. Such are the vagaries of Pike and Shotte. Was it enjoyable? Debatable, because nothing went to plan. Was it a good way to spend a Sunday? Definitely.
 Do I want my old armies back? What do you think.    

 Shaun showing off his wargames credentials by wearing a vintage top, John meanwhile thinking about giving my Italians a good kicking.

Meanwhile on the Papal side, Paul is looking for the rule that says the Pope's blessing allows a re roll on a failed command throw.

 
 These gendarmes, belonged to John over thirty years ago, and they still managed to beat up my newly painted replacements.

  I had to include the rear shot of my Romagnol pike block, during the battle they managed to advance only twice before retiring from battle following the rout of their arquebusiers and the collapse of the morale of their division.

  These mercenaries managed to pin my gendarmes, negating their effectiveness [ That means I ballsed it up]