Italian Wars French 5 – Reisläufers 5

After a long involuntary break, I'm finally back with some painted miniatures. During the later parts of January and for most of February, the family's been plagued with various colds, flus and other ailments leaving me precious little time for the hobby. What little time I could scrape together has been focused on painting rather than blogging. But now, spring most definitely is in the air here in Stockholm, and the dreaded "sick period" seems to be behind us, which hopefully means more time for both painting and blogging.

To kick things off, here are the last miniatures to be finished for my two Swiss mercenaries pike blocks to be used in my Italian Wars French army: fashionably late, it's the commanders.

The models are all from Foundry, lovely sculpts with lots of character.

With these miniatures I made the conscious effort to go for bolder "steps" and increase the contrasts on the highlights, as I have become increasingly frustrated with my painting style lately, feeling it doesn't "pop" enough on the gaming table. I'm very happy with how these efforts payed off, and this is a direction I will try to strive towards in the future.

The flags are painted by me and based on designs I found on the Internet, more specifically on the excellent blog Camisado. A highly recommended blog, especially if you're into the wars in Italy during the 16th century. The flags represent the cantons of Bern (the bear) and Uri (the bull) respectively.

The flags are removable, for easier storage and for when I want to swap them – in the event I'm fielding these as Landsknechts they obviously can't have Swiss flags!

Here are some pictures of the two complete pike blocks.

Of course I now want to add another 3 bases to each block, for a truly massive amount of pikes. But this will have to wait until I finish some gendarmes and artillery pieces.

Thank you very much for reading!

Italian Wars French 4 – Reisläufers 4

Sometime in late November (I think?) last year, I finished another two bases of mercenary pikemen for my Italian Wars project. Today, I finally took the time to photograph them.

Like the last two bases finished, these are in an attacking pose with leveled pikes – very unpractical for storing and playing but they certainly do look the part.

The miniatures are once again from Foundry's lovely Renaissance range, sculpted by Michael Perry way back.

Unfortunately the matt varnish seems to have killed some of the brightest highlights, making them look a bit flat. I have never had any problems with this varnish before (Windsor&Newton Galleria Matt Varnish), and I've been using it exclusively for the past three or four years. It seems I may have gotten a bad pot, and I've since bought a new one that seems to work as it should. When I get around to it, hopefully another coat (the third) will restore at least some of original highlights.

Finally, I couldn't resist taking a picture of an almost finished unit. Lots of pikes here!

I'm working on the command bases now, and then these two units will finally be finished. It's been a bit of a slog to be honest, but I think the result will be worth it.

As always, thanks for reading!

Italian Wars French 3 – Reisläufers 3

Hot on the heels of the last update, here are another two bases of mercenaries for my French army for the Italian Wars. As before, these represent either Landsknechts or Reisläufers (Swiss mercenaries).

The models are yet again from Foundry's classic renaissance line. Some lovely sculpts by Alan Perry that certainly have held up well over time.

These are in a more attacking pose, and will form the front line of the pike blocks. Originally I had planned to do the second line in standing poses, and the first line in advancing, but after reading about the very aggressive tactics of the Swiss mercenaries – they would often recklessly charge across the battlefield before smashing into the enemy – I decided to forgo all standing poses for a more dynamic look of the units.

Here is an almost finished unit, just the command stand left to do. There's really nothing quite like the sight of a pike block on the wargaming table!

After this it's another two attacking bases, and then two command stands and my pike blocks are finally finished. It's been a bit of a chore so far, but the end result will be well worth I think.

Thanks for reading – I hope you'll have a great week!

Italian Wars French 2 – Reisläufers 2

Here are the next two bases of pike armed mercenaries for my French army for the Italian Wars. They are either Landsknechts or their Swiss counterpart Reisläufers.

I actually finished these earlier in the summer, but I just now took the time to finally photograph them.

The miniatures are from Foundry, the classic sculpts by Alan Perry, and I have to say I like them a lot. The models looked a bit dodgy in the bare metal, so I wasn't too sure about them, but they painted up really, really nice. In my opinion they certainly hold up well against the much more recent Pro Gloria.

After posting up the first batch, I got some comments on the basing – more specifically some people thought they looked too regular and ranked up, and lacking that "push of pike" feeling. In hindsight, I do agree and for these new bases I tried to position them in a more irregular manner. I think they look much better for this.

As you may remember, I had some problems with the first bunch I painted using the straight Foundry triad system. For the new models I reverted back to my standard method, relying more on washes and sharper highlights. As a result, I'm much more happy with the look of these. The problem now is of course they have a slightly different look than the first bases – a bit darker or dirtier and with more contrasts between the layers. I haven't yet decided if the difference is too noticeable or if I can pass them off OK.

Here are some shots of the finished bases to date. You can clearly see the difference in painting styles.

Lots of pointy stuff.

I will not field the pike block like this, but nevertheless it's nice to get a feel for the finished unit.

As always, thanks for reading and I hope you'll have a great week!

Italian Wars French 1 – Reisläufers 1

Finally I have some new painted miniatures to show you. These are the first 4 bases of the first pike unit of Swiss mercenaries (Reisläufers) for my French army for the Great Italians Wars. To begin with, there will be two units of Swiss pikemen, each consisting of 6 bases – 3 standing and 3 advancing. The plan is to eventually bring them up to 9 bases each with an extra 3 bases of attacking pikemen in the front rows.

The miniatures are from Pro Gloria and very nice they are too. They required very little in the way of cleaning up, which is always a big plus in my book.

In a stroke of genius (ha!) I have decided to do the units as combined Reisläufer/Landsknechts units, which means they won't be 100% correct for either faction but I'd like to keep all my options open. In line with this, the flags, when I get to them, will be removable.

The Italian Wars project have changed a bit since I talked about it last time. Originally my plan was to make a couple of French units to fight against Dalauppror's splendid Imperial Landsknechts/German mercenaries. However, since our good friend Søren, of Black Powder Games, joined us as the Imperial player the plan changed – and the project grew. After some discussion we decided to move to a slightly later period instead of the early wars, as we were keen to paint up some lovely colourful landsknechts and gendarmes in full regalia. There's really nothing quite like the spectacle of two armies for the Italian Wars on the tabletop. So instead of Fornovo, our focus will now be on the period of the battle of Pavia, ie the 1520s.

This had the added bonus of us being able to use the army lists straight out of the Pike&Shotte rules, which would give us a rough guide to our forces – always a welcome thing when you start up a new period.

My plan is still to paint up a core starter-force to get some games going, and then add to it when I have the time and inspiration. By now, I probably hade enough miniatures in the lead mountain to at least double the number of units, but first things first. If it's one thing I have learned, it's that you should start small and then add to it, rather than try to paint too much from the start. I have the "boxes of shame" (ie half-finished projects) to prove it ...

The modest starter army will consist of:
2 units of Swiss pikemen, 6 bases each
2 units of gendarmes, 3 bases each
1 medium artillery, 1 base (I might do another base of artillery if I have the time)
2–3 command bases

As you can see there are a fair number of miniatures left to paint. It's always easier to get painting when you're working to a set deadline, so Sören and I have schedueled a first game in late August. Hopefully we'll both be ready by then!

Back to the Reisläufers then. These models actually proved a bit of a challenge to paint, for several reasons. The first was it always takes me a couple of miniatures in a new army and period to get a "feel" for them, add to this models from a new manufacturer that you also have to get a "feel" for, and it was a bit of trial and error before I got the colours and details right.

Second, I made the mistake of trying to paint too big a batch at the same time. I find 6–8 is about the sweet spot for me personally, but as I knew I had quite a few of these buggers to paint up I tried to push myself and do double this amount, This proved a bit too much, at least for the level of finish I went for here, and from now on I think 10–12 will be my absolute limit in terms of what I'm comfortable with (again depending on the level of finish) and I will do the rest of the pikemen in batches of 8 (or 2 bases).

Third, I was going for a very bright finish on these models, and therefore I wanted to avoid using my regular technique that's largely built on washes. In my experience, washes can dirty up the models and the end-result can feel a little grubby. This looks great on eg Dark Ages miniatures, but this time I wanted something different. Instead I tried the Foundry three-step method. Now, I'm normally using a lot of Foundry colours as I like the triad system although I don't use it as intended. Instead I add washes and mix the shades to get the results I'm after. This time I tried the system straight out of the bottle, so to speak, and wasn't very happy with the result. The main problem was a lack of contrast, especially in the darkest recesses. So I had to go back and add washes to get the contrast I wanted. I think the root of the problem might be that I'm using brown undercoat instead of black and this obviously makes it impossible to blackline the different areas and get a good definition. Well, whatever it was that caused the problem – no time saved was saved by using the three-step method so lesson learned.

Well, as I said, a bit of trial and error, and hopefully the rest of them will prove easier to finish.

Thanks for reading – have a great week everyone!

Landsknechts Casualty Markers

As some of you might have seen, the only thing I managed to finish during my involuntary absence was a Christmas gift for Dalauppror in the form of some casualty markers for his splendid German mercenaries. There were four miniatures in the pack and as I have ... let's say "future plans", I decided to paint the other two for myself.

The miniatures are from Artizan and the bases are from the clever folks at Warbases.

As I was in a bit of a hurry, I tried to cut some corners with the finishing of the basing. Unfortunately, I don't think it worked very well and I'm not entirely happy with how the bases turned out. Another lessoned learned!

This was my final regular update for 2013. Tomorrow I will post some thoughts of the year that has passed, and then in a couple of days my plans for 2014.

Until then!