WIP 15 mm crusaders

New wave of japanese figures pushed this project to the sidelines, but slowly my small crusader host has advanced.

Two conrois of cavalry. Hearthguard

Some detail is still missing. Shield decals are not 100% match so the edges of kiteshields will require some paint. Legio heroica crusader knights and arabized knights of the Holy Land.

Foot soldiers - warriors and levy.

Legio Heroica again. Still missing glaze, varnish and some details of the base. I very much liked to paint the peasant levy. Probably worthlesh trash on the battlefield, though.

Furthermore 8 mounted sergeants. (Armenian knights and sergeants) and some leaders are in various stages of painting. 12 spearmen, 12 pilgrims and a priest await priming.

WIP Ronin and sohei

Even though a group of sipahis and a host of saga crusaders is on the table I caved in and started on doing the japanese of previous post. Some wip pics.

Over my depth in freehand decorations of samurai attire, but counts as practise.

Vaikka pöydällä on turkkilaisia Tuleen ja Miekkaan ja ristiretkeläisiä Sagaan edellisen postauksen japanilaisia on tullut sudittua eteenpäin. Koristelut ei aina paranna tulosta, mutta menee harjoittelun  piikkiin.

Mixture of TAG and Perry sohei in different stages of preparation. Nasty bunch to engage and far too large for single Ronin buntai.

Oopsie daisy. Hupsista.

Son wanted to invest part of his allowance to some ninjas. I agreed to work as intermediary and to take care of the mail costs. The six Black hat ninjas are his. I may have gotten a bit excited at some point... Poika tahtoi investoida ninjoihin. Lupasin välittää ja hoitaa postikulut. Mopo lähti hiukan käsistä...

 Black Hat ninjas and unarmoured samurai, single figures by em4 miniatures and sohei by TAG.

Black hatin samuraita keihäiden, miekkojen ja pulisonkien kanssa. Black hatin ninjoja ja TAGin soturimunkkeja. Em4figuresilta ronin, samurai ja ninja.

Mounted sohei and samurai command by TAG. Early equipment, but looking forward to painting this lot.
Ratsastavia soturimukkeja ja TAGin julma komentoryhmä. Varusteet ehkä 1200-1300 lukua, eli aika varhaista. Mennee omassa pelipöydässä hyvin sekaisin, varsinkin kun Black hatin ronineiden varusteetkaan eivät ole 1600-lukuisia.

Addition 11.2.
And with their January sale Museum miniatures sold me some more unarmoured samurai and ashigaru together with a bunch of 15 mm stuff. Very nice castings on the samurai range requiring minimal cleanup.

Painted figures for some kind of size comparison. Clockwise from top fighting ashigaru; ashigaru carrying supplies; japanese women; 15 mm pilgrims, mainly museum miniatures, but with addition of a peasant and some legio heroica pilgrims; Museum miniatures medieval spearmen; general and guards, and mounted samurai with attendant. 

Foul bandits against the heroes of the Pure land. Ronin skirmish

On Sunday I played a 100 point game of Ronin with my son.

He chose a bandit troop, led by rank 3 leader, assisted by a hired ronin of same rank, and ruling over one rank 1 bandit and 5 rank 0 peasants.
I countered with league of Pure land composite force. Samurai of rank 3 had under him a montogashira of rank 2 and 3 monto, footsoldiers.

We played on compound area with two houses one force starting inside and me with the ikki charging in.

Fast and furious action with bandits overwhelmed by the agression of the believers. The bandit tactics of meatshield of peasants to harass my valuable troops failed since he was a bit late in bringing his rank 3 actual fighters to scrap. The bandit leader did get away though so this story is not over.

 Opening moves.

 End of round 2. 

Around round 4 or 5. Fast action and I believe fun was had by both. Reinforced lesson - armor good. Peasants need to work at least 2:1 to have a chance 3:1 starts to annoy even better troops.

Ronin matsi pojan kanssa. Likaiset ryövärit saivat köniinsä buddhalaisen liigan sekalaiselta, mutta fanaattiselta iskuryhmältä. Panssari, paikallinen ylivoima ja muutaman kriittisen kerran omaan suuntaani pyörineet nopat tekivät tästä ottelusta hyvin epätasaisen.

Battle inspired by Agnadello - Ranskalaiset venetsiaa kurmoottamassa

After a long break me and my gaming buddy returned to Pike and Shotte.
He wanted to give outing only to the Venetians he had painted fully, while I wanted to use everything I have on various stages of completion. (The Italian wars guys were producy of my first painting efforts, so they were now a bit painful to look at.)

Googling Aganadello I deviced a simplish scenario. Venetians deploy on the table - Frenchies - their opponents - come at them in three waves. First phase lasting to round 8 or until French advance force is broken. If Venetians can do that they get the first set. Second phase group almost equal toVenetians, with victory condition being if I can beat the Venetian center to submission. Third wave, superior to original Venetian group in numbers was to appear 8 rounds after the second - now Venetians either have to beat the Frenchies or evacuate their troops.

 Venetians have a battaglia of Stradioti with 4 units and a commander. Main force with four pike blocks, one block of halberds, two units of swordsmen, two light batteries of cannon and two units of arquebusiers with skirmish ability. Lastly the Venetian commander, drunk perhaps, begins the game with his heavy cavalry and mounted handgunners, two units of both and an inept cavalry commander.

Venetsialaisten pääjoukko keskellä, stradiotit kuvan oikeassa ylälaidassa

First to meet the Venetians is the reconnaisance group led by (anachronistic) Piero Medici who brings to field 4 units of stradioti, 3 with lances, a block of Italian mercenary pikes supported by line of arquebusiers and a line of swordsmen.

This battaglia was agreed to not count towards French army breaking  point, since it was meant to be sacrificial. Game started with French advance - fast one by stradioti - slower by infantry. Venetian commands started badly and his troops mainly waited passively for couple of first rounds. (With all random commanders I ended up with mediocre, but competent battagliacommanders, except last cavalry commander who was brilliant and  king Louis XII who was having a splendid day.) Stradioti of this group managed to destroy the Venetian cannons and in a mad dash seriously hurt another unit of swordsmen - shaking them. That was the extent of damage done by my avantgarde though. Surrounded by sweeping motion of the stradiots to their flank and threatened to their front by superior Venetian center the troops formed a hedgehog to protect them from the attack of the horsemen. This left them vulnerable to shooting and piecemeal they were shot to breaking point by round 6. Thus Venetians won first set.

French stradioti have destroyed the cannons, their colleagues plague the swordsmen.  Albanialainen ratsuväki on tuhonnut venetsialaisen tykit. Kollegansa kiusaavat venetsialaisen miekkamiehiä.

The stradioti who achieved stuff have been annihilated. Venetians advance in the center is hindered by the shaken mercenary swordsmen who are trying to flee. Tuhoia tehneet albaanit on lahdattu. Venetsian eteneistä haittaa palkkasoturimiekkamies yksikkö, joka rallyn epäonnistuttua haluaa lopettaa sotimisen.

After losing all the stradiots French avantgarde is broken. Hence arrive the Swiss and cavalry with Charles d Amboise, and - ahistorically I notice, the French general king Louis XII . Etujoukko on murtunut menetettyään kaikki kevyet ratsumiehet. Saapuu toinen aalto. Kolme blokkia sveitsiläisiä piikkejä, battaglian komentaja Charles d'Amboise - ja epäajanmukaisesti ranskalaisten kenraali, kuningas Louis XII

Enter my attack battaglia three blocks of Swiss - to give Venetians  a fighting chance. Two troops of mounted arquebusiers and a troop of Scottish mounted Archers ie. troops armored liked gendarmes but carrying crossbows in addition to lances. Quite a lot of hitting power, but still under strength in comparison to Venetians.

 

Hampered and harassed by shot and light cavalry 2 Swiss blocks managed slowly to get into charging position.

Bernese have charged, and lost the battle since they had no support. Karhulipun alla rynnäköineet berniläiset ovat vetäytyneet hävittyään tuetulle benetsialaispiikkineliölle. 

At round fourteen third wave arrived. The Swiss and Scots had failed to breach Venetian line- indeed
 they had suffered heavier losses than the Venetians. Second set to Venetians.

Third wave consisted of cavalry battaglia with excellent commander, two units of gendarmes and two units of mounted medium crossbowmen. Infantry battaglia had three native French pikeblocks, each with supporting crossbowmen or arquebusier unit, two blocks of landknecht pikes, with a unit of arquebusmen, a block of italian mercenary halberdiers with a line of crossbowmen.

At this point aim we agreed that Venetian aim of evacuation is fulfilled, if he can take majority of his pikeblocks and elmeti into safety.

Helas the shaken Bernese break and are destroyed, taking  with them unit of Scots that had run into support. Cavalry advances nicely into contact, but infantry is having hard time with bad command and the remains of Swiss blocks in front. On the other hand bad commands are making the Venetian retreat slow affair too.

 Footsloggers still tarrying. Gendarmes and Elmeti have had a slaughter of epic proportions leaving both shaken.

Venetians show battlelust and try to break the rapacious mountain invaders, but loose the push of the pike. And, if I remeber correctly, broke.

In the end Venetians retreat with parts of their cavalry but the shaken Elmeti get smashed and broken by the untouched gendarmes. Evacuation of centre gets speed, but is hit on the side by gendarmes, who annihilate one pike block and together with the advancing pikeblocks could smash two in the centre at the point game ended to time constraints. So majority of pikes cut off from retreat or lost and half of heavy cavalry broken my opponent conceded the last set to French. Match 2-1 to Venetians, who also inflicted huge losses on the French waves.

Overall the very loosely defined scenario worked decently. Were I to do it again I might define Venetian deployment as starting in march order - with troops either in columns or just deployed one after another facing their own table egde. Also the victory conditions might need to take into account the casualties.

Overall game ran smoothly. With over a year since last game of pike and shotte we were referring to rules constantly, but the game did not get bogged down by this. Some kinks need to be checked - like the use of proximity rule. And lots of complementary painting needs to be done. A nice beginning to gaming year and we managed to get one game in January.