The Italian Wars Project is Go

A couple of months ago, having decided to stay away from new periods for a while (stop laughing at the back), I announced being bullied into starting a new period, the Italian Wars.

When I first started gaming in the 80s the group I was part of had some big 15mm armies in the period, something I never joined in with, but my memories of gaming the Renaissance with those collections, are still fresh in memory. In fact the first display game I ever did was with those 15mm figures.

So starting this project has been a bit like coming home. Those early games were played with the old Gush rules which were the staple of the time, in fact without those and the Renaissance Armies book he did the period is likely to be a lot less popular than it is today.

My plan is to modernise those rules, rather than start anything fresh, to be fair having looked around for a rule set and nothing else has taken my fancy.

I have used the Perrys 28mm figures for the unit, a mixture of the European Mercenary plastic box set and the metal figures from the European Armies range. The plastic box gives you 18 pike and 4 Command and these make up the base of the block, forming the whole of the rear two bases.

Above are a front and rear view of the two rear bases of the block, base size is 60mm x 50mm. 60 is quite tight for 8 modern 28mm figures but to me it looks so much better for a close order pike unit than the more normal (these days) 20mm frontage per figure. I have also used some of the seperate Italian and Swiss metal heads to give some more variety in the pike block.

The middle bases of the 6 have the last two plastic pike and the four command figures from the Mercenary Box. The flags and general colour scheme are for the Swiss Canton of Lucerne. Flags are hand painted.

The remaining figures are from the metal range with angled pike and a halbadier guarding the flags.

The front bases are all metal figures, 2 angled pike in the centre and the remainder levelled pike. The figs are still on a 60mm frontage but I have extended the front of the base to protect the pike (and players fingers !) So the bases are 60 x 130.

And there we have the final unit, 48 figures strong and if I do say so myself, looking good. Next up will be a crossbow unit in the same basic colours before I move onto some Gendarme.

For those of you who prefer Moving Pictures (obscure 80s prog reference), here is my YouTube video of the unit. A bit wobbly in places but I am still experimenting with the medium. Please subscribe to the Yarkshire Gamer Channel on The You Tube for more Spielberg like content soon 😂