Early Italian Wars: Refurbished Holy Roman Empire Army

After almost a year of working on Carthaginians, I felt it was time for a break.  However, it is still another refurbishment project. 

Around 20 years ago I built a Warhammer Ancients Battles (WAB) Holy Roman Empire army for the late medieval/early Italian Wars period.  Having briefly lived in northwestern Germany, I opted to base the units around cities I visited, with the Hanseatic League rising as an overarching theme.  Now that Hail Caesar has expanded into that era and I have a local opponent, I thought it was time to pull my figures out of storage and get them back on the table. 

When I first painted this army, the only paints I had access to were were Citadel, which had more vibrant colors appropriate for Fantasy and Sci Fi armies. I also made the artistic decision at the time to really have distinct color schemes for each unit's clothing based around the city flags. While I would do it differently today, I've opted not to repaint everything and instead just add some additional highlighting and washes as needed.  Instead the primary focus will be on upgrading the basing and completing they unfinished figures I've had squirreled away (painted to match the old style).

Back at the time, the only basing material I had access to was some Woodland Scenics flock and a bit of grass I could cut into tufts. While it looked fine in its day, it doesn't really pop on today's tables. 

For the refurbishment, I've scraped off the old flock, and added a layer of Vallejo Diorama FX brown earth with Woodland Scenics brown ballast and some grey rock.  This then received a sprinkling of Army Painter field grass and appropriate tufts from Army Painter and Gamers Grass.  As seen below, it really made a huge difference in appearances.

The army was originally built using Old Glory Italian Wars miniatures for the infantry. This is actually one of their better lines and while not quite up to today's standards, still look reasonably good on the table. These have since been supplemented with some Mirliton fantasy miniatures, and War of the Roses miniatures from Perry, Crusader, and Foundry.  

Spearmen/Billmen from Cloppenburg. Old Glory with two Mirliton fantasy heroes.

Halberdiers from Hanover. Old Glory with one Mirliton fantasy hero.

Arquebusiers with pavises from Osnabrück. Old Glory with one plastic Perry figure.

Crossbowmen with pavises from Oldenburg. This is a new unit made from Perry plastics, and figures from Crusader and Foundry.

I still have more units to either refurbish or start as new, but I'm happy with how things are progressing and am looking forward to getting this army back on the table after so long.

Punic Wars: Gallic and Italian Cavalry

 The refurbishment of my old Carthaginian army is starting to wind down, with just a few units remaining. I obtained some second hand cavalry years ago that has just been sitting in bags, and thought it was time to finally paint them up and get the on the table.

First up are some Gallic cavalry that look to be from Foundry. I didn't have shields for all the figures, so had to use some from the bits box.  They are really well sculpted and I think they'll look great on the table.

Next up are some Italian cavalry from Old Glory. These were mixed in with a lot of other figures, but I believe they are the Ligurian pack, with perhaps some hill tribe figures included as well (half the figures had sculpted saddle blankets while the other did not, so it makes me suspicious that they aren't a single pack).  The horses supplied also seemed to be a mix of sculpting styles, so I'm not sure they are all the correct ones for these riders. But I got these for free as part of another deal, so am not going to complain and I think the end result looks good enough.

At this stage, I've been working almost exclusively on Punic Wars for the last year (300+ figures either refurbished or newly painted) and am feeling a bit burnt out.  Since I now have more than enough done for a good size game of Hail Caesar, I've decide to pause work on this for a bit and focus on another army refurbishment project that I'll be starting this month.