Right, let's pick up where I left off last night, and we're into this issue's theme.
By the way, I still prefer the hard copy version and reading whole magazines on PDF gives me headaches. To each their own.
THE CONTRACT MEN: This article, by regular contributor Eoghan Kelly, basically gives you a run down of the Condottiere era: Who they were, why they existed, what they did, etc. Very informative and useful if you don't know a great deal about them. The set the scene articles basically give you the background in one blast so the idea is that follow up articles concentrate more on the gaming side and less historical exposition.
CRY CARNE! This really does follow on from the previous article. So you now know a little bit more about the Condottiere, how to you apply it to the tabletop? There's a few ideas here before a scenario for the Battle of Cascina. Considering that the bulk of the article is taken up with describing the military successes and reputation of John Hawkwood and the White Company, the battle chosen here is one of his rare failures.
LIFE AND DEATH OF AN ITALIAN CONDOTTIERE: The Battle of Calliano scenario involving the person referred to in the title, Roberto Sanseverino d'Aragona. Again, a successful leader of his era and his one notable failure. I see a pattern developing here. Maybe a future theme could be set around great generals losing battles? Anyway the rules suggested is a variant on Lion Rampant but it's also flexible enough to adapt for other rules. This is a battle where you can get to use Landsknechts as well.
AGAINST THE BARBARIANS: A scenario of The Battle of Fornovo, 1495, another of the major Condottiere fights. The opposition are in the form of the French and judging by the map supplied it looks like a big battle. There are no army lists supplied, but they're apparently so big they're downloadable from the WSS website. Lots of special rules to use for the Wargames Foundry bespoke Condottiere rules, "Dogs of War".
THE POPE GETS A BLOODY NOSE: Ravenna 1512, and another Pope gets into bother in the Italian wars. From a very defensible position behind first class fortifications and with their backs to a river, the Papal forces lost. The scenario isn't designed with any set of rules in mind, but the OOBs give you very specific sizes of units based on numbers of bases so you may have to tweak and adapt for your chosen set.
A FI
L OF FLORINS: A round up of what's available for the period, bearing in mind that using figures for the Wars of the Roses and Landsknechts are acceptable. Mostly 25/28mm, with three ranges of 15mm and the ever reliable Pendraken flying the flag for 10mm. Nothing in 6mm though.
THE BATTLE OF SAN ROMANO: First time contributor Sascha Herm shows how he made the front cover diorama. This is very detailed in terms of highlighting faces, painting shields and getting the horse colours right, but if I'm nitpicking I would have liked a bit more on the soldiers and what they're wearing.
TERRAIN FENG-SHUI: Self confessed "terrain dick" Eric Lauterbach extols the virtues of putting more effort into the terrain side of wargaming. His pet peeves are using unnatural green snooker table felt for grass (or even blue cloth for land battles), lack of roads and trees and bilious pea green blobs that are meant to be hills. He didn't mention masking tape being used for roads though….
THE DRAGON TANK: Scratchbuilding your own Dragon tank model from Dr No. Nicely done, not too difficult from the looks of it and a top tip product called "Makes Paint Stick", which I could do with for some upcoming projects.
THE GAUL OF IT: Tips for painting ancient Gauls in 15mm. If you like a lot more detail and wow factor to your 15mm figures, this is for you.
LET'S PLAY SOLDIERS OF GOD: As there's a scenario for this very game early on in the issue, it's worth taking a look in detail about how the game works. It's both IGOUGO and card driven with a pre-game select the battle plan phase and overall it gets a thumbs up, despite some production issues (grammatical errors, the cards contained in the rulebook and not available separately).
GAME REVIEWS: Liber Militum, Tercios Renaissance rules, the Feudal Japan set Daisho and an interesting campaign game called Legion of Honour which I could have done with more information about as it seems a hoot. Also the new Skirmish Sangin spin off, Maalintii Rangers and the first supplement for Frostgrave, Thaw of the Lich King. All get a thumbs up.
NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS: Richard Clarke explains why he's generally in favour of national characteristics in wargames. Sometimes derided for limiting players, they can (if used creatively and accurately enough) enhance a force. As an aside, he has a good metaphor for rediscovering an old set of rules.
BOOK REVIEWS: One of the two books on the ACW battle of Petersburg (the other gets a review in the recent Miniature Wargames), an Osprey on the Greco-Turkish war of the 1920s and a book on painting wargaming figures all feature.
PARTING SHOTS: Why you should undercoat MDF buildings, tips for making more realistic looking brick mortar and Dicing With Dai.
SUMMARY: An interesting read, as always, and great if you're into late Mediaeval/Renaissance wargaming. At the risk of sounding harsh, the featured scenarios all ended up feeling the same…given that the Condottiere have a reputation of all manoeuver and no fighting, perhaps a campaign game article might have been a useful addition? Still, you get a hefty total of 7 scenarios in this issue which should keep your clubs going for a few meetings. So great value for money in this one.
