Black Powder - test battle - Sept 14, 2019

In preparation to the next great battles my mates planned, Ezio and Luciano are working to recruit new club members can learn Black Powder 2.0 rules.

My friends are lucky because Filippo decided to join with them ... Filippo is not only a good player but also a great painter as his Prussian army can witness

The match organized by Ezio was a simple scenario in which a Peninsular English army (supported by some Portuguese regiments) had to give battle to a Prussian one

On the left flank the British regiments advance in a perfect line …

… while their allies move in columns of companies with skirmishers on the front

In the centre the Royal Highlanders's advance supported by the green jackets harassed by the Prussian Freikorps shots

The Portuguese units continued their progress with caçadores on the right but …

… the Prussian army is ready to welcome them

The English attack is strong and some Prussian battalion are force to repair into an old farm

The last part of the battle is a ferocious shooting without quarters

132nd Armoured Italian Division Ariete - Bolt Action/Rapid Fire -

In the last months I finally completed my Italian North African armoured division. One of the most famous Italian units ot that war theatre  was the 132nd Armoured Division Ariete.

From 1940 to 1942 It was involved in many important military operations  as: Operation Compass, Operation Crusader, the Siege of Tobruk, the Battle of Gazala and the battle of El Alamein.

During his service the division was equipped with different models of tanks … initially with CV35 ... below an imagine of a captured CV35 during the Greek campaign

The Tankette ... the nickname of the CV35s ... even if they were vulnerable also to "simple" British anti tank rifle, kept in service till 1940. I painted some of them with desertic camouflage because they are included into bolt action 1940-41 Italian Armoured reinforcement platoon ... below an exemplar in a attack against some 8th Army tanks

At the end of 1940 the division received some new M13 medium tanks to pass in the 1941 to new version of M14/41

Below a M14/41 (painted by Ivano) that is assaulting an English position

During the Battle of Gazala the Ariete received new replacement tanks ... the M40/75 semoventi assault guns ...the most successful action fought by Semovente 75/18 took place on 10 June 1942, south of Knightsbridge, during the Battle of Gazala. Thirty M3 Grant and ten M3 Stuart of 1st and 6th Royal Tank Regiment attacked a position held by the Ariete division but were repelled by Semovente da 75/18s as well as some M13/40s and gun trucks, losing three Grants and two Stuarts from 6th Royal Tank Regiment and twelve Grants and three Stuarts from 1st Royal Tank Regiment. The Italians lost two M13/40s.

Below three M40s in a typical cuneo formation against some English Mk IIIs ...

.... and against another 8th stronghold

During the Second Battle of El Alamein Rommel sacrificed the Ariete to cover the withdrawal of his army.  Rommel mourned the loss of the division, writing that its final action had been conducted with exemplary courage and that "in the Ariete we lost our oldest Italian comrades, from whom we had probably always demanded more than they, with their poor armament, had been capable of performing"

Ivano gave me the M14 and the AB41 so I started to paint other tanks to be able to create a Bolt Action Italian reinforcement platoon. This Saturday Ezio helped me with the scenario creating the effect of these photos

Battle of Gorodechno (1812) – August 31, 2019 Black Powder and other interesting things

My club mates continue with their Napoleonic battles. Last week they decided to play again the battle of Gorodechno (or Gorotescha) to give the possibility to all the interested club members to participate.

All miniatures are 15mm scale and are painted by my friends. The battle of Gorodechno was a battle between an army of French allies (in our game Austrians and Sassons) against Russian troops.

This time the Sasson-Austrian league wins as the real history.

But in my club other rule systems are played … one of many is SAGA … I have to admit that we have a certain quantity armies that can be used for this rulebook but my friends love the challenges and I think that in this moment SAGA Magic can be the right battle field. Well … I have to tell that I gave my word to my children to prepare a fantasy army but the preparation of the Italian army in 1/72, the American and British vehicles suitable to create two armoured divisions have occupied in these months a lot of my free time. But this another story in all cases my future fantasy armies will be more "conventional" than my friends ideas

Below some picts of Aurelian desert army that he painted for a French customer

And some preview of Maurizio’s fantasy army … I cannot imagine the effect of the Barbarian Kiss or of the Joker Ogre on the battlefield against a Crusader or Late Roman army 

 ...  only a word ... madness and genius at work