The Serene Republic

Venetian Cavalry

I have been experimenting with different styles of ready made flags for my collection and I thought I would show some shots of it being used to depict an early sixteenth century Venetian force. The flags are from Petes excellent cloth flag sheets: http://thegreatitalianwars.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/venetian-flags.html .
I have recently painted up a set of horsemen and infantry that I can swap the banners for. This has added a real flexibilty to the collection. By simply swapping the banners this army could be a Milanese or Florentine force. I have also downloaded some ready made flags and bought some Freezywater ones and I will show the results of these in future posts.
I am pleased with how these have turned out and will continue to paint up some more interchangeable standard bearers and flags. It no longer means that everytime I want to depict a certain standard or banner I have to paint a miniature specifically to carry it.

Venetian Elmeti

Venetian Elmeti

Venetian Elmeti

Venetian Gendarmes

Venetian Gendarmes

Venetian Militia

Venetian Militia

Venetian Militia Pike Block

Venetian Infantry Command

Stradiots in Venetian service

Light guns

The Venetian Army

Imperial Personalities

Maximillian I

Recently I received the latest batch of figures from Stephans excellent Pro Gloria miniatures, http://progloriaminiatures.blogspot.co.uk/. As I am still experimenting with the flags I recently purchased I thought it would be a good idea show the Characters from Pro Gloria with their respective banners behind them. First is the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximillian I with a Hapsburg banner behind him on the left and the Imperial Banner to the right. A great figure, I love the armour and the face, have a look at Durers portrait of him, I reckon its a pretty good likeness!

Maximillian I by Albrecht Durer

Secondly, below, is Georg Von Frunsberg, the famous Imperial Landsknecht Captain. Again the figure is a close likeness to a contemporary portrait. I can see him at the head of a pike block leading the charge!



Georg Von Frunsberg



Georg Von Frunsberg

Lastly we have Götz von Berlichingen another sometime Imperial Captain and sometime trouble maker and rebel leader. Famed for having a metal mechanical hand after he lost his right one, depicted on the miniature below. A while back I read "Renaissance Military Memoirs: War, History and Identity, 1450-1600" by Yuval Noah Harari and found it an excellent study into the beliefs of some of the Renaissance military characters who wrote memoirs. Initially I was sceptical about the book as the author goes into a lot of detail about he is going to compare WW2 and Vietnam War memoires with those from 1450 to 1600. An unsual approach but it comes up with some interesting conclusions. The reason I am mentioning this here is that the author looks at Götz von Berlichingen in some detail. Apparently throughout his whole memoires he barely mentions that he only has one hand! If anyone knows if and where his memoires are available in English translation I would love to read them, but I think they are only in German.

Götz von Berlichingen

Of course all 3 figures of these contemporaries could be used as generic Imperial Commanders, which is probably how I will use them, but its great to see some of the personalities from this period brought to life in miniature, and they go very well with Petes cloth flags.

Stradiots

Stradioti

Stradiots or Stradioti, I am not sure what the correct term is for these Balkan Light Cavalry. The figures are from the excellent Assault Group range with a few from Venexia. The Assault Group figures are superb and the details have come straight from contemporary illustrations. Have a look at the below pictures, the second is based on an image by Urs Graf, a mercenary soldier himself:



Stradiots






Stradioti



Stradiot by The Assault Group

The figures are spot on, even down to the coifs under the felt hats. The Venexia figures were more hard work as the torsos were separate from the legs and they needed to be drilled, pinned and glued together, which was not easy. I am pleased with the result though. The Stradioti were supposed to have carried weapons called Assagaye or Assegai, spears that carried points at both ends. The Venexia figures allowed me to show an example of this weapon. The Assagaye is converted from one of the plastic pikes in the Perry Mercenaries 1450-1500 plastic set:

Venexia Stradiot with an Assagaye



Venexia Stradiot with an Assagaye

 Another characteristic weapon of the Stradiot was the mace. I have added maces to a few of the figures and denoted the captain by showing him with a large mace. They also carried crossbows and I painted a couple up to add to the figures. In the end I couldn't add them to the horsemen in a way that looked natural and fitted the group so I left them out.

Stradiot Captain



Stradiot Captain

Venexia Stradiot with a mace added

Stradioti were ubiquitous by the end of the Italian Wars and appeared in armies for most sides. They even made it to Scotland during the Rough Wooing in the 1540s, fighting for the Tudors! I wanted this band to be usable for all sides. Initially my idea was to paint a Stradiot flag that would have been carried in any side but I couldn't find anything suitable so I decided to use James Roach's excellent tip on flags so I could change the alleigance of the unit depending on what flag they carried, http://olicanalad.blogspot.com/2010/07/top-tip-flags.html

Following on from this decision I have had my eye on these excellent cloth flags for a long time http://thegreatitalianwars.blogspot.com/2011/05/venetian-flags.html . This decision finally forced my hand into picking up these flag sheets on ebay, I am really impressed by the quality of these flags and I think they have a real renaissance feel to them. I like my hand painted flags but I cannot match anything close to the level of detail on these! With the simple changing of the flag the Stradiots can now fight for any side:

Stradioti in Imperial Service

Stradioti in Venetian Service

Stradioti in French Service

The interchangeable flags are a great idea. I have some figures from The Assault Group that I am going to paint up as standard bearers so I can add plenty more to the collection. I have already prepared some Venetian ones shown below with an old Foundry Conquistador. These kind of designs were always far to difficult for me to paint myself and I think these are superb. I particularly like the one bearing the image of the Virgin Mary and Child, a popular renaissance and medieval theme.

Venetian Standard Bearer



Venetian Standard Bearer with a Banner bearing an image of the Virgin Mary and Child



Venetian Standard Bearer

Landsknecht Crossbowmen

Landsknecht Crossbowmen

I have finished another group of 30 Old Glory Landsknechts, this time all armed with Crossbows. As always I like the wide variety of head gear, with the head variants not a single figure was the same out of 30 figures which is pretty good. There are a few odd things about the figures, for example the pose of the Landsknecht reloading his crossbow using a foot stirrup is the only one with a crossbow without a foot stirrup. There is also a figure wearing a chain shirt which is shown on the chest of the figure but over his back he wears a shirt. This seems impractical as the shirt needs to balance over the body or it will fall off. The figures also required a bit of preparation as the foot stirrups on all the crossbows were solid which did not look right. I drilled through all of them which was a fiddly task, only one went wrong and had to be removed which isn't too bad.

I have shown them here formed up in a block and also in skirmish formation. I am keen to add them to my other Landsknechts and get some photos. I think they will look better when shown with a few command figures and skirmishing amongst the corn fields.



Landsknecht Crossbowmen Skirmishing



Landsknecht Crossbowmen

Landsknecht Crossbowmen

The French Army



The French Army Arrayed

 Over Christmas I had the time to set my collection up to represent a French Force. Everything in the collection so far is on the table, save the Spanish Jinetes and Rodeleros. On the left are the French Gendarmerie, then a block of Reisläufer, the Italians, Gascon Crossbowmen and, on the right flank three large blocks of Landsknechts.

French Gendarmes

French Gendarmes

French Gendarmes

French Gendarmes

The above photos are of my Gendarmes and supporting lighter horse. There are four line of 18 figures each, The first line ride fully barded horses, apart from the trumpeter, and the ranks behind get progressively lighter in armour. The figures are Foundry, Eureka and The Assault Group.

Reisläufer

Reisläufer

Reisläufer

Next up are the Reisläufer, I was pleased with how they fit into the collection. The front two ranks are Foundry figures. I think they mix well with the Artizan Swiss. At some point I want to paint up some more Reisläufer standards so I can use my Landsknecht pike blocks as Swiss Blocks if needed.



The Italians in the centre

 In the centre are the Italians, represented mainly by Assault Group Spanish and Italian figures.



Gascon Crossbowmen



Gascon Crossbowmen

Next come the Gascons. Annoyingly a lot of my photos came out far too dark but I like the way these troops look slightly more medieval compared to some of the more fashion conscious troops in the force!

Landsknechts in French Service

Landsknechts in French Service

Landsknecht reinforcements

Landsknecht reinforcements

The right flank is held by 3 blocks of 64 Landsknechts each, with a further block marching in. Again some of these photos came out a bit dark.

Finally a couple more photos of the whole force set up, hopefully 2012 will some new regiments joining this lot, Landsknecht Crossbowmen and Stradiots are the next troops I will work on.

The French Force Arrayed

The French Force Arrayed