Volvera 2015 - Sept 26-27

In September my club was involved in “Volvera 2015 - Exhibition”. The event is annually linked to the Marsaglia battle reenact-  a battle fought in my region (Piedmont) at the end of  XVII century – but for 2015 edition the promoters asked us to present Waterloo battle.

Thanks to the preparation of Ezio (another club member) we recreate a part of the battle: D’Erlon’s attack.

The scenario is prepared for 28mm and requires around 500 miniatures.

During the real battle, D’Erlon’s attack was the French unlucky attempt to break Wellington lines repelled by English cavalry that arrived till French batteries.

We presented the scenario for two days and we played it twice with Black Powder rules.

Miniatures are all painted by me (French forces plus a couple of English battalions) and Alberto (all English cavalry, Dutch forces and the remaining English units).

In the first scenario we played, the French tried to create on the right the "grande batterie" to permit the break in the centre …

… unfortunately the French columns broke against Dutch units and English cavalry charged them ... French cuirassiers were too far.

In the second game, French artillery was deployed in the centre and the cuirassiers forced the Dutch to form squares …

… this time it is the English cavalry that arrived too late.

During the two days the weather was cloudy and the miniatures exhibition was in a building not in the centre of town so the numbers of visitors was limited. The event was the opportunity to play for a weekend and to see again some club members.

An now a couple of picts …

The Black Gordon waiting on the slope

Napoleon and part of his HQ

The KGL lines

French commanders

A special thanks to all La Piccola partecipants: Paolo M., Alberto M., Alberto F., Riccardo G.

Garibaldi all'attacco - Dadi & Piombo - Summer 2015

I've just received the latest copy of Dadi & Piombo. This magazine is one of the most important Italian wargame publication.  Generally I don't speak of publication in my blog but this time it is an exception because one of my friends (and member of La Piccola Armata) wrote an article about the Italian independence wars.

Copyright P. Montinaro - Dadi&Piombo

The article is obviously in Italian and it is not my purpose to perform a summary. I’m writing these words only to introduce "Garibaldi all'attacco!". A wargame rule system created by Paolo. M. (the author of the article) related to the Italian independence wars. 

The Italian Risorgimento is a very interesting period but it is not well known by the majority of gamers. Paolo has written a simple system rules that is lean and well designed in particular for multiplayer games.

Copyright P. Montinaro - Dadi&Piombo - Miniatures by Alberto M.

Paolo and his team are been working on those rules for years  and, probably, by the end of 2015, it will be printed.

Last year it was organized a tournament in my club using this system and all the people who played were enthusiastic of the game mechanisms. 

Copyright P. Montinaro - Dadi&Piombo - Miniatures by Franco B.

This summer I played some scenarios and the next blogs I'll try to prepare a brief battle report.

Confederate Troops Work In Progress

This is a particularly hard period for me so it is difficult to find time to paint miniatures. 

Furthermore our club is waiting for a new headquarter so to play it become harder than  in the past.

In the last month, thanks to the rooms kindly offered by one of our member (Franco), we played to an house-rules system. The rulebook (called “In Cacciatori”) is perfect to recreate Italian Independence wars … but this is another story and I’ll write (as soon as possible) some battle reports in further posts …

Considering that the game system works in a perfect way the authors decided to adapt it for American Civil War games.

So I started to paint a couple of miniatures for test.

It is a long term project ... also because I have to finish a Trajan army before ... but the idea is to create at least 6 confederates infantry battalions, 3 batteries and 2 mounted companies.

Actually I prepared two men of Hood brigades ... 1st and 5th Texas ...

... and a sharpshooter of 30th Virginia

Hospitaller knights

After the publication of the new Gripping Beast’s rulebook (SAGA - the Crescent & the Cross) I started to paint a group of Crusaders.

Considering that I was not the only person of my club interested to play with this new game system, I painted some 28mm Hospitaller Knights … The Templars were already chosen by Biagio and the Saracens by Flavio ... The idea in the club was do not play (and consequently do not paint)  the same army.

My goal was to create a small army that could be usable for both Saga and Lion Rampant.

Hospitallers (with the Templars) were one of the most important Catholic Military Orders of the Middle Ages. They started to operate in Palestine after the conquest of Jerusalem (around in 1099) even if they were created in the mid of 11^th Century. Probably the order was founded by a group of Italian merchants  but, till their birth, the order's purpose was to take care and defend the pilgrims.

Ranks within the Order reflected the status and the function in the middle age society. Generally they were divided between brother  knights and brother sergeants.

I painted three group of knights (1 mounted and 2 not mounted) as bodyguard ... 

and four group of sergeants (1 mounted, 2 not mounted and 1 crossbowman) as warriors.

Till 14° century the Hospitallers wore a black/grey or brown/grey tunic. Many brother knights wore iron helmet with a face-mask or mailed coif.

(Osprey Publishing Copyrights)

I painted some warriors of Jerusalem Kingdom too. Unfortunately I haven't performed adequately studies so tunic and shield colors are wrong. It is blue instead of white ... at least the banner is correct.

I prepared a group of Genoese crossbowmen ...

and finally some generic warriors 

For the four warriors in the last photo above I was inspired by Balian of Ibelin livery as well as in the movie "The Kingdom of Heaven"

(20th Century Fox Copyrights)

Game World Day 2015

Also this year, at the end of May, I partecipated to the Game World Day 2015. This year our tables were placed in Via Roma, one of the most important historical street of Turin. 

... In the photo below there is a partial view of Royal Palace in the landscape 

In this period the city is full of tourists for the Holy Shroud exhibit and our tables attract more people 

The main table was managed by Ezio with a demonstration of the Osprey’s Lion Rampart. 

There was also another table completely prepared (miniatures and table board) by another member of the club (Riccardo) 

I was placed in the third table. I couldn’t prepare a scenario and in this period I’m very busy so I decided to use my time to increase my miniatures production

Currently I’m working to complete a Trajan army and I started with some Late Imperial Roman in 28mm

For all the day the main table was used for Lion Rampart scenario. In the morning with renaissance miniatures painted by other two member of the club (Alberto and Biagio)

In the afternoon Papal units were replaced by the Mongols and the Byzantines painted by Riccardo

As in the past year the exhibition was a very nice experience thanks to the efforts of all the members of the club