I have been making some progress, though it was slow, and I was really struggling with how I wanted to portray the battle. I had a preliminary OOB set up based off the Osprey Campaign book for this battle, but, I was struggling with the map, and how best to set it up. I belong to a Facebook group on Wargaming th Italian Wars and a few weeks ago someone posted their scenario for Pavia. Now theirs was set up for the Old School Gush rules, and while I like that, they are not really suitable for a convention game, which is what I am doing. I did like the map set up and the fact the armies were completely deployed and ready for battle. That will be one feature I use in my game, though some forces will be behind others as they are still deploying. My OOB, based off the Osprey is as follows,
French
One pike block of swiss with one unit of supporting arquebusiers
One landsknecht pike block with one unit of supporting arquebusiers
One French pike block (smaller) and two units of arquebusier
Three units of Italian arquebusier
Four units of French and Italian Light Cavalry
Three units of Gendarmes
Artillery (as many or few needed for balance)
Baggage Camps ( there was the main camp and one by the Mirabello
Spanish/Imperialist
Four units of Italian arquebusiers
Two Spanish pike blocks
One Italian pike block
Two landsknecht pike blocks with one supporting unit of arquebus each
Two units of Spanish gendarmes
One unit of Jinetes
Three medium guns
I was pretty happy with this and I placed orders with various companies (Essex for Mikes Models, and Alternative Armies for the old TTG line, to match what I already have) to fill in the missing figures. If you remember, I am using Impetus for the rules, and the diorama style basing should look cool once it is all done. I have already rebased some of my existing minis, and I need to paint a few to flesh out all the units. I'll post those later this year as I get them complete.
In the last couple weeks I saw in the Facebook group, that there was to be an Italian Wars scenario book coming out, and it was available on Amazon in the US right away. Despite it being pricey ($40 usd) I nabbed it right off, based solely on the fact it had a Pavia scenario. More about that later. The scenario book comes with all the info you need to refight 20 Italian War era battles. from Seminara to Scanagallo a time span of almost 60 years. Here are shots of the covers.
The best part for me, was that all scenarios come with orders of battle set up for Furioso, Impetvs, and Pike and Shotte. As you can see from the front cover there was at least some collaboration of some sort with Warlord, Alternative Armies, and Dadi & Piombo, the publishers of the rules in question. I was happy to see the OOB for Pavia, and while it differs from mine a bit, I am looking forward to playing around with both OOBs to see what I want to do with it. I do plan on building all the units for both, so I will need to go back to the well to buy a few more figures, most notably another swiss pike block. Here is the OOB sample from the front of the book so you can see it laid out. In the book each scenario has a brief description of the battle, the OOB with mods for the three rules sets, two maps, one a gridded terrain map, the other a deployment map, and a few special rules regarding terrain.
I was also happy that the map and deployments were more or less what I was looking to do. If you are looking for a books with inspirational pictures etc, this is not it. However, it does fill a glaring need for scenarios in the Italian Wars. I may be a bit more forgiving than others but I am pleased with it despite the price point. Now I need to dig in and get those minis painted and then find a Mirabello, and some park wall, like 6 feet of it, in 15mm!
And yes, I have been painting, just not for the Italian Wars.
I have really been plowing through my Spanish Civil War project
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| Assaultos |
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| A Whole Lot of Republican Militia |
A few 20mm Japanese I picked up
These were all Sgt Major minis I picked up from eBay.
And then I finished a handful of Greeks for my SAGA Greek City States
The peltasts are Victrix with Little Big Men shields, and the cavalry are Warlord games.
That is all I have this time around. I hope you found it interesting.
Until next time! Happy Gaming.
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