Marignano (the first day) 1515 Scenario.

BRIEF BACKGROUND
Louis XII of France lost Milan after the Battle of Novara in the summer of 1513. Here, Maximilian Sforza, self styled Duke of Milan, and his army of mercenary Swiss gave the French a good licking by a surprise attack on the French camp. Almost at once Louis XII began plotting for its recapture. But, whatever his plans were, he did not to see them come to fruition - he died at the end of 1514.

Dynastic struggles being what they are, it was not long before the sword was taken up again by his successor, Francis I. In June 1515 Francis left Paris at the head of an army mustering 30,000 combatants. Crossing the Alps via the Col d'Argetier pass the French emerged into Italy outflanking the Swiss who had been sent to oppose him. The Swiss withdrew to Milan and the French followed up until they came to Marignano (10 miles from Milan), where they encamped, then entered into negotiations with the Swiss to sell Milan to Francis. Up to half of the Swiss took the money and departed back to their Cantons.

Francis was convinced that Milan would now fall, without resistance, for a little more time and money. So it would have done but for the extraordinary efforts of Cardinal Matthias Schinner. Engineering a skirmish with French pickets he manipulated the news, delivered a rousing speech from the steps of the cathedral in Milan, and convinced the Swiss who remained that, rather than negotiating, the French were attacking. Late in the afternoon, leading an army of 15,000 Swiss and a few hundred Milanese horse Schinner launched an attack on the French camp, arriving there sometime around 5pm.


TERRAIN
The ground around Marignano is undulating arable farmland cut up by drainage ditches and canals, and dotted with small villages. The French had chosen the site of their camp well; it was naturally fortified (see deployment map) behind and between some of the drainage ditches.

DEPLOYMENT MAP


THE FRENCH ARMY
Although the combined strengths of the army are known the exact breakdown and dispositions are a bit vague. These are my best guess numbers.

The Cavalry Screen: Commanded by Robert III, de la Marck, so called Floranges.
200 Gendarmes (omitted), 1,500 light cavalry, mainly composed of mounted crossbowmen with some Stradiots.

The Vanguard: Commanded by Charles de Montpensier Duke of Bourbon.
1000 Gendarmes, 3000 French crossbowmen, 4000 French pike, many heavy and light guns.

The Mainward: Commanded by Francis I King of France.
1000 Gendarmes, 6000 Landsknechts (Black Bands of Gueldres), some guns.

The Rearward: Commanded by Charles de Valois Duke of Alencon, called D'Alencon.
500 Gendarmes, 3000 Landsknechts, 3000 French crossbowmen.

THE ARMY OF MILAN

This army was predominantly composed of 15,000 or so Swiss. These seem to have formed up in their usual three wards deployed en echelon with an advance guard. They were accompanied by a few hundred Italian men-at-arms and some light guns. The latter both took position on the right.

SCENARIO NOTES

This battle is quite straightforward. I will not over complicate things with the special scenario rules I will use as you may not use the same rule set as me. There are a few things to note.

To win the Swiss must take and French camp and hold it until nightfall. As the battle started late in the day there should be a suitable turn limit put on the game.

The French Mainward should not come into battle too quickly. On the day it only arrived after the main body of the Swiss had reached and passed the ditch in front of the encampment; consequently it should not 'activate' until the Swiss reach the ditch - with a military possibility of 'what if' course.

The French Rearward should not enter the battle unless the camp is taken. In reality it did not engage at all.

The ditches should represent major obstacles that are passable with difficulty, but all other ground should be classed as open. The hill on which the village of Ziuido stands should represent a terrain advantage but not hamper movement.

SOURCES AND STUFF

I used C. Oman's The Art of War in the Sixteenth Century. Marignano 1515 by Moraitis, Pacou & Erskine (Lance and Longbow Soc.). Renaissance Battles 1494 - 1700 Vol.1 by Peter Sides.

Figures are by Old Glory, Foundry, Essex and Front Rank. All painted by myself.

Terrain. TSS terrain boards. Remaining applique terrain scratch built by me (mainly).

Lights, camera, action! Dan of WI pays a visit.

Wednesday was an interesting day for me. Dan (UK editor / photographer) of Wargames Illustrated came up from Nottingham to pay me a visit. It was not a social call, he had work to do for an article on 'The Battle of Dorylaeum' for the magazine's upcoming issue themed on the Crusades. Dan is definitely a perfectionist and his photography put my happy snapping to shame. The shoot took about five hours - from which he obtained over 100 shots. Here he is in action.

It was a pleasure, I was proud to help out, and I hope to see Dan again. I'm very much looking forward to seeing the results.

Some Crusader elephants with minor conversions

Some time ago I purchased four elephants by Crusader. Although they had a certain charm I was not over impressed by their tusks, tails and lack of tower padding. Consequently I played about with some Miliput, spare shields and tassels (the latter from Front Rank 'flag pole heads').
This was the result. BTW, the elephants have been bolted to the bases with small screws.

Painting with enamels

I paint almost exclusively in enamels - Humbrol. Enamels suit my style which, to be pretentious, I call 'deliberate caricature'. Deliberate, because I tend to apply paint where I wish it to stay. Caricature because I use paint to extenuate the sculpting of figures; so that the detail stands out from a good distance.

Although this post will not teach you how to paint figures (this only comes with considerable practise and experiment) it will show you how I go about painting a typical batch of figures - in this case 48 Roman velites to form four units of 12.

Having cleaned up the figures, attached shields and javelins, and stuck them to pieces of card (50mm x 20mm) I spray them black.

The back of shields are a pain if left until last so I paint these first. I paint them white then wash with brown acrylic ink. Once dry I painted the shield strap and around the arm, along with the sandals in dark brown.

It is a good thing to get any dry brushing out of the way early so next came the wolf skin. This was painted dark grey, dry brushed in two tones of light grey and then washed with diluted brown acrylic ink. Once done I picked out the eye sockets in dark grey, and the nose (along with the helmet underneath) in black. Then I dry brushed the helmets with bronze. I also dry brushed the sandals with a medium brown.

Next came the flesh tones. First all flesh areas were painted wine red. Next the flesh was over painted in a flesh tone mixed with wine red to bring out the muscles, bones, etc. Then, using neat flesh tone I did the final highlight.

I want my velites to wear a tunic of various 'random' colours - white, red, blue, yellow and green. Nothing I do is random, so I now sorted the figures into mini batches so that each upcoming unit would have a 'random mix' of colours by pose (note that all of the mini batches are divisible by 4 - the number of units).

I paint all cloth using the same technique. The shots above show my white. Starting with a dark tone (in this case a stone tone) followed by the first highlight (stone tone mixed with white) to pick out the major folds, then pure white to pick out the tops of the folds.

Next I painted the scabbard, belt, javelin around the hand and sword hilt dark brown. Whilst this was drying I dry brushed the bosses of the shields with aluminium.

Next came the leather and wood. Painted first with a deep tan, then light sand. You will have spotted the pattern by now. Everything is built up using three colours.

When I get the pure black out I know I'm near the end. I use this to go round where all metal touches something else or where there is a significant 'crease'.

Then I highlighted the bronze metal bits in neat gold.

Now came the shields in red and white (24 of each) - using three layers of paint.

Final touches. Some neat silver highlight on the white metal (javelin heads and shield bosses), and some light tan highlights around the eyes of the wolf skins.

There you have it. 48 velites in about 16 hours.

Hastati - the formation takes shape.

These 96 figures are all painted as Romans (black over red feathers) and form the Roman hastati of two legions. They are all Renegade figures. Although they should, in all likelihood, be equipped in a similar manner to Principes I have chosen to use figures with pectorals (chest plates) to distinguish the two troops types at a glance.

Putting the hastati and principes together in their manipular formation (the business end of a Roman army) gives me the first real impression of what this two legion consular army is going to look like (without the velites or triarii of course). Once flanked by a similar number of allies (with yellow and blue shields) I think it is going to look pretty good - in all, 576 infantry with a frontage of about 80 inches.

Onwards and upwards - it will be the 48 Roman velites next.

Ager Sanguinis is finished - Armies of Islam Lists are out now.

The 'Saracen' army lists for Ager Sanguinis are in the November 09 issue (#319) of Miniature Wargames. They include lists for the Seljuks of the northern areas (Rum, Mosul, etc.), the Seljuks of the south (Damascus, etc.) and the Fatimids.

Thus, the series of articles, all of which come full page and advertisement free is finished. The format allows for all 20 pages to be taken from the magazines to form an uninterrupted rule book with cover page.

To recap:

Ager Sanguinis Rules (MW issue 309, January 09) 12 pages.

Crusader army lists (MW issue 311, March 09) 4 pages.

Armies of Islam (MW issue 319, November 09) 4 pages.

I hope you have enjoyed the articles and playing the rules. If this was not your period of interest, I hope the Piquet style mechanisms gave food for thought.

A big thank you to all who corresponded with questions, ideas and encouragement!

James Roach - Olicanalad

Contemplating my naval.

Here are some shots of an ancient naval battle that Peter J. and I are currently waging - Rome Vs Successor State. The models are from my growing collection of 1:600 ships by Xyston. The rules have the working title Fleet of Battle and like Ager Sanguinis have their root in Piquet's Field of Battle by Brent Oman. The rules have been on and off the burner for a few years in various guises and have now reached the 'mechanics finished' stage of development and give a very good game. I am in the early discussion stages (I'm hopeful but no promises) of making them widely available in a complete form - I will keep you informed if anything comes of them.

The beads of various types display navy and squadron (black/red striped white, A, B, C, etc.), yellow spots are squadron flagships, green spots indicate that the vessel is mounting large catapults, red beads are hull damage, white beads indicate crew/morale loss and black beads indicate that the ship is holed, the sea coins show ships are locked together; this naval game does not require roster sheets of any kind - which is unusual for naval games - and allows everything to be determined at a glance, which speeds up play.

Peter and I are taking this game to Fiasco (Royal Armouries, Leeds, W. Yorks) on Sunday 1st November 09, so if you are passing say hi. If you want to give the rules a bash you are welcome to take control of a squadron for a turn or two.