The Battle of Agnadello 1509.

I thought I would give my French and Swiss a new opponent tomorrow, and have them face off against the Venetians at the Battle of Agnadello. Hopefully I will be able to give an account later this week.

A Start, on the Wars of Religion.

 Now that I am painting again after a break, [see my other blog re an explanation] I ave started painting some French Wars of Religion. This is the first completed arquebus unit, mainly from the Warlord range, plus some old Citidal figures thrown in for good measure. There are no standards yet, as I am hoping Pete, of Pete's Flags will come up trumps.

 The Warlord figures are a quite small and delicate, but to be honest I do like them. I should have some pike and reiters completed soon to show how things are progressing.

 I again received a couple of small parcels from that most excellent of wargamers, Jason Williams who gave me a couple of personalities originally used at the Wargames Holiday Centre.

 This chap makes a great commander for the Wars of Religion

  Jason sent me this Citidal herald, so I had to create a small command base to show him off. The herald is again from the Wargames Holiday Centre. The foot gendarme is a spare figure from one of my spare boxes.

Command figures.

 To get a feel for a period, I usually paint up a couple of command bases. This exercise tends to help me decide if I can carry on to paint up the respective armies. If I enjoyed painting up a couple of figures it usually means that I cn discipline myself to paint up various units.

 These two figures are from the old Citidal range now sold by Foundry, they are still good figures and were enjoyable to paint, so I will now begin hopefully in earnest to paint up some units.

 These chaps are figures I bought off Jim Sweeny and were originally in the collection of my long suffering wargames opponent John Reidy, 30 years plus and still lovely figures in my eyes.

A Source for the Wars of Religion.

 The French Wars of Religion are clearly not the most popular renaissance period for wargamers, but I have found a very good source of images for the period. Titled the Vinkhuijen Collection of Military Uniforms, the site contains a lot of what appear to be contemporary images from the period.

The Borgias, the BBC version.

This BBC series was the original reason that I collected a 28mm renaissance Borgia army way back in the 1980's. I remember the series as a lavish drama, with everything, sex, violence colour and history. It is now available again via Amazon, and having now watched the first disc, it is as good as I remember, clearly the BBC were prepared to spend some money on the costumes and scenery. Oliver Cotton looks like Cesare although I find him a tad too aggressive, and the Italian actor looks and acts like Pope Alexander. It was a great series in the 1980's and to be honest I think it is still a great series. Well worth a punt, honest.

A Thank You.

As I have begun to research the French Wars of Religion, it has become increasingly obvious that I am going to need a lot of cavalry, for both sides in the war. This of course means expense, and more expense, but this will probably be my last large project, then so be it.
 But I digress. Once again that most excellent of wargamers, Jason Williams has once again shown why this is a wonderful hobby, and sent me 12 Redoubt Reiters free gratis!
    I would again like to thank Jason for his wonderful kindness and generosity and hope I can reciprocate this gift in some way.

Salute 2016 and the return of the Black Bande.

Well Ive posted my 'bit' about Salute on my main blog, and I think I have said enough about the show, however I didnt record what I actually purchased at the show!
 I try not to record how much I have spent on my hobby, because, a] it scares the crap out of me and b] my wife would scare the crap out of me too.However I am pleased that I bought the following, and after a lot of pleading and badgering I managed to buy my long suffering wargames partner's French Black Bande.

 When John Reidy and I were wargaming in the 1980's we both had renaissance armies in 25/28mm. John who has always been a great painter decided to sell the whole collection about 1987 and move into 6mm. I followed a year later, before naturally returning to 28mm a few years ago.
 I always wanted to recover John's collection as it was so damned good, the majority was lost never to be recovered, but Jim Sweeney somehow managed to buy the French Black Bande from E Bay some years ago. Anyway Jim finally and very kindly agreed to sell the Bande to me at I finally got my hands on it at Salute. Jim also generously gave me the small number of mounted arquebusiers that John had also painted back then. Who says all Yorkshire men are mean eh. I have put the correct standards on the unit , so now the Black Bande is ready to face their Spanish enemies. It is a wonderful unit, and will have a small complement of mounted arquebusiers to go with it soon. I reckon the unit is about 30 plus years old, and I still enjoy looking at the great paint job that John did on the unit. Happy days.