I was sad to hear about the death of Ian Heath today. I can't claim to have ever met him , of even know what he looked like, but his WRG books were and still are absolutely seminal wargaming works. As a youth ( with spare time) I would spend hours poring over the illustrations and descriptions of armour and battles.
Landsknechts..... the idea of painting them has always filled me with dread, but I seem to be on a bit of a roll at the moment having found my mojo after months in the wilderness.
I've got a pike block of 54 to complete, along with 10 skirmishers, and I've decided to paint each figure pretty much individually...with non uniformed troops I find it quicker, and less confusing.
The figures are by The Assault Group and are early Landsknechts from the 1490s-early 1500s.
Here are the first 3 .
At the moment, I'm quite enjoying the challenge of getting one a day finished...we'll see how I feel after a few more.
One thing I'm finding is I can only paint for about an hour at a time now without getting a tummy ache, presumably due to my appalling posture when painting.
I managed to get a couple of hours this morning to carry on with these old Grenadier figures to use as Paduan defenders of the 1509 siege.Almost finished 4 guns and 8 crew.
I went to play a quick game with my regular opponent Speckled Jim last night, and he cracked open his 15mm collection for a colonial game using the Osprey rules.
I was playing the Beja or Hadenedowa, defending their village against an Anglo Egyptian force, and I didn't do terribly well, not actually getting anywhere near the enemy before being gunned down, so relatively historically accurate.
I learned a few lessons so if we play again I'll try and wait until I can charge him en masse so he can't concentrate his fire.
It was a fun game though.
One of George's schoolfriends has an Italian dad and they visit Italy several times a year. Last time they went I asked him to pick up these 2 books.
One on the battle of Anghiari by Massimo Predonzani who has written the recent Helion publications on the Italian Wars, and one about the Siege of Padua in 1509 called The Lion, the Eagle and the Cat (Venetian Lion, Imperial Eagle and the main defensive bastion of Padua was called The Bastion of the Cat).
Both in Italian which I can just about manage, using my O level Latin and Google translate. Full of fascinating details.
Yeah, real life completely manic at the moment, and I'm not posting everything I get finished, but here's a picture of some Stradiots for my retro Italian Wars project.... also usable with Oldhammer Tileans. Inspired by pictures in 1980s issues of Miniature Wargames.
I had an afternoon off on Tuesday and spent a jolly few hours at Oakbound Studios trying out some of the Mythic World moulds I bought from East Riding Miniatures last year. So far some very nice figures. I have put pictures on the Broadsword Miniatures page of this blog, but here are a few tasters.
