German Noble

This chap has been sitting on my desk since God knows when, which is a real shame as he is my favourite medieval figure of all time.
Not sure who he will be representing yet.

I'll take a better photo when i have some darker backing material. 

Gaudenz Von Matsch

 Well its been a while since I updated my blog, so I thought I would start with the first figure of my latest project.
Here is Gaudenz Von Matsch, Landeshauptmanner of the Tyrol, the last representative of his powerful noble family. He was close counsel to the Arch duke Sigismund of Austria and the Tyrol and most importantly to me leader of the Imperial army at the beginning of the War of Roverto in 1487.

I have been researching this war on and off for the last couple of years, sadly there is not a lot of information in English, but i feel I have enough on the main players to start putting my plans to the the paint brush.

 

The war against the Venetian city Rovereto in the valley of the river Adige in the Trentino region of Italy, started with the imprisonment of Venetian merchants and their goods in Bozen, Tyrol in April 1487. The Austrian military commander was Gaudenz von Matsch, who at that time was in high favour with Sigismund of Tyrol. The Imperial army consisted of lots of soldiers of fortune of all classes, nobles and freemen mainly from Swabia and also some Swiss infantry. Only a few infantry were from the Tyrol, like those from Landeck. After a long bombardment by artillery the city fell on the 30th May 1487. It was the sack of this city that alarmed the Venetians and they send their best commander Roberto di San Severino (you'll here more about him later) to deal with the situation. 

This is what his coat should look like, a little tricky to paint on a 28mm figure especially when you have the flu.

 

 

Gauntlets and Sallet created by the armourer Kaspar Riederer (active 1455-1499)  in Austria (Innsbruck), around 1480-90

The helmet comes from the armoury of Churburg Castle in the South Tirol and was presumably made for the lord of the castle, Gaudenz von Matsch (1440-1504), count of Kirchberg.  The original lining of padded fabric is preserved." 

Sadly Gaudenz Von Matsch was not present for the main battle of the war, as he was identified in August 1487 as one of the “evil councilors”  who were plotting to pledge land and castles to the dukes of Bavaria. He left the army with his personal troops to secure his own lands. From what i can gather he failed and his lands and properties were confiscated and given to the Von Trapp family.

The figure itself is from perry miniatures war of the roses range, with a head from gripping beast plastic dark age warriors box set. As you can see i've tried to find a suitable figure to match ny research and its great to see some of his armour still survives in the Metropolitan Museum of Art 

weekend at the Perrys

Well its taken me along time to get around to posting this and I feel I have finally recovered from the experience.  The other weekend I popped to Nottingham for a weekend with Perrys and friends.
   Lunch time Friday I met with the twins for a nice lunch in one of Englands oldest pubs dating back to 1189AD and set in to caves outside Nottingham castle. Later on we had some LAN gaming fun using Battlefield, with some 2 on 2 action. Followed by a few beers in the local.
  Saturday morning Stuart , Simon and I were treated to a sculpting master class by the masters themselves, Alan and Michael Perry!  In which we learned many little tricks to help us to convert miniatures and up our game (some pics of what I managed to do soon).
Then on Saturday afternoon we popped to Michaels wargames room and met up with Aly Morrison, Dave Andrews and rick Priestly for a game of Hail Caesar.

Dave Andrews preparing his troops

  

Burgundian deployment

The scenario was a fictitious battle where the Lancastrian English crossed the channel to teach the Burgundians a lesson for supporting the Yorkists.
The English troops were supplied by Michael Perry, the Burgundians by Simon Chick and Dave Andrews. My Italian force had been left behind in the boot of my car :( 

Burgundian right wing

the Burgundian left flank attempts to cut off the port

      

 

 

 

 

 

the high water mark of my attack!

 

 

 

English left flank commanded by Mr Priestly

The overall battle plan for the Burgundians was for the centre to hold whilst the two flanks with most of the heavy cavalry charged forward to push the English back to the port. I was playing the overall commander in the centre and after as few turns of patiently waiting for the flanks to engage (bad dice rolls were slowing down the advance) and now coming under a withering hail from the English longbowmen, I sounded the advance and charged forward with my infantry. This started off well routing 2 units of Michaels bill and bows. Sadly was the grind started i started to suffer to many casualties, this along with the losses due to the longbows as I advanced saw off my attack and the Burgundian centre began to collapse.

heavy horse clash!

Burgundian right flank finally surges forward

artillery take aim

Rick checks his rules

 At the same time the Burgundian heavy horse on the right flank charged up hill at the well deployed English. The English could not halt the charge and they began to fall back pursued by the victorious knights. the Burgundian infantry led by Stuart began to advance and after a protracted fight took the farm to start to press the English left.

cog waiting to ferry the English home

beautiful terrain and figures

Burgundian commander leading the centre forward

Aly Morrison contemplating his next move

On the Burgundian left flank a see saw battle ensued with both sides cavalry repeatedly charging but neither side getting the upper hand. 

English cavalry trying to find room to deploy

fluffed cavalry

Simons beautiful figures

So as the sun began to set it was decided to call it a draw. the Burgundian centre was broken but so was the English left wing, leaving the Burgundian right free to start to roll up the line. 

A fantastic days gaming with beautiful models on beautiful terrain with great gamers!
Followed rightly by a nice curry and a few beers!!

Sunday we got a sneak peek of something else quite amazing, photos to follow in a few months ;0)

28mm Italian Knights

 A few pics of the knights from the last post. 8 down another 40 to go!

28mm Venetian army

Here is a picture of the beginnings of my Venetian force, which is going to be this years project for my personal collection. All the figures above are from perry miniatures European armies range. A mix of plastic and metals miniatures, With the odd metal Italian head on a plastic body. I had great fun painting these and they make a refreshing change from all the black powder era goodness I have been painting lately. The flags are from Petes flags , are printed on cotton and I can highly recommend them. I have around 60 more troops all prepped up and waiting in the line. 

I'm also eagerly awaiting the release of the perry miniatures light cavalry box set, which i will definitely be picking up at Salute along with a few Stradiots.

picture taken from perry miniatures website

hopefuly my collection will resemble these fantastic pictures at some point.

 Great inspiration if you are into your medievals!

Perry Miniatures Foot Knights

I painted these up at the weekend. My first base for my late 15th century Venetian army.  

 All the figures are from the latest Perry miniatures plastic box set, with a couple of slight conversions and some extra bits taken out of the previous medieval boxes.

I have to say these were a real joy to paint and a welcome break from all the Napoleonic miniatures I have been painting lately. The men at arms go together real easy with lots of variety and options. One point I need to remember on the next batch, is to make sure I have cleaned up the mould lines properly. There are very few and the casting is excellent, but due to me being impatient and rushing I missed some obvious ones that didn't stand out until I had started the highlights on the armour.
 I have varied the metal quite a bit from dark unpolished to bright silver to add variety and show the more successful condottiero. Although i'm not sure you can tell in the photo.

 I have also tried to show a lot of movement on the base, something basing for Impetus allows you to do. The base is 120mm by 60mm. With the charge being lead by the chap without a helmet. Whilst the knight wearing the tall plumed helmet points out a worthy adversary in the enemy ranks and calls out a (somewhat muffled) challenge.

chap on the right has blued armour. 

 I have painted 14 altogether so far, as that was what I was planning would look right and give the base some weight. In the end I decided to stick with the 11 you can see in the photo, which means I now have 3 finished for the next base!

 But first I have hundreds of LotR dwarves to varnish and some GB Mongols to finish off.

I will post more on my thoughts of my new collection over the weekend. Just need to decide whether to do it in its own blog or keep altogether here...