The first twelve days...

One of my Christmas presents was Frank Chadwick's Condottiere rules. I like the book. It's based upon Charles Oman's version of the early Renaissance warfare. TMP roasts it for that and some typos. Yeah, I was disappointed there were typos; but, I think the book is good. It's a fun idea to be able to play a campaign in an evening with each of your friends painting his own Condottiere. A club could provide two generic citystate forces and thenIt's too bad about the errors; but... So here's a quick synopsis:

• It's 1:1 or so it says but looks like 1:5 or 1:10 based upon my thin understanding of Company sizes in that period.
• Groundscale looks to be about 1:10.
• Units are Companies. Each Company is 10 Cavalry; 16 infantry or two guns.
• Each army needs 1 Condottiere and 2 wagons or tents.
• Campaign starts with five companies. Each player chooses a nationality (Italian, German, Spanish, French or English) with requisite units.
• There are also Municipal Troops that are available for the Condotierre to command from the City State which hires him; 1 Company of each of the following:
• Italian Men At Arms
• Italian Crossbow
• Italian "Landsknechts"
• Italian Brigante
• Italian Pavissieri
• Artillery Battery

There seems to be an error with the artillery range. It has conflicts within the rules suggesting an organ gun should have a shorter range than a field piece (I agree) but it lists both ranges as 30" which is more than the longbow (24") and slightly less than the heavy crossbow (36"). This strikes me as a typo. Chainmail has the field gun shooting 50% further than the Arbalest. Have Pike Will Travel does not address artillery and ranges are based on chances to hit--"Go ahead take the shot. You can't hit me at that dist--" to misquote out of time. First Edition Warhammer has the Field gun fully shooting twice that of an Arbalest. I'm curious where some other rules see it like Warhammer Ancients, Hail Caeser, George Gush's Renaissance Rules, Armati, Tercio, etc. I would love feedback here as I can't seem to locate the box of books with the relevant rules. I do need to change it and would prefer to do it once.

In the world of Terrain, chek out this Spanish Town by Angel Barracks. I need to work this into my budget. Perhaps it will find a place on my Birthday list:

http://angelbarracks.co.uk/Scenery/6mm/Buildings/buildings.html

The Pod Casts:

The Gaming Gang is a good way to keep up with breaking news in the boardgames, miniatures and RPG world with their daily 10 minute news. They also have a weekly in-depth review of several games. Good stuff.

http://thegaminggang.com/tag/tgg-podcast/

Goals:

• Budget is on track but approaching the red line for the month.
• Miniature count is in 1:3 painted to unpainted. Stan Johansen helped me by painting 24 medieval peasants (http://stanjohansenminiatures.com/). The month could finish at 1:1 if I could only finish gluing the six vehicles (they are painted) and myriad of figures "almost done" on my table (most only need a bit of touch-up to be complete. My ratio got blown by some trades...
• Three boardgames played this year.
• Closed a trade on HeroQuest. I had to take Advanced HeroQuest in the lot as they were a pair. I think that's about the last of the old Games Workshop boardgames I enjoyed playing and wished I could have afforded in the Big '80's.

Projects

• Not much accomplished here.
• A little prep and finish work on some figures but no figures completed.
• I also have been trying to work some trades on my final stage of the Star Wars stuff; but confidence is low...I may have to buy the four figures I want to complete the collection. Luckily three are cheap, cheap, cheap but the fourth will be like Cad Bane (Games Workshop expensive).

Games Played to Date

Board; Card & RPG: Three

Survive, Escape from Atlantis (x2)

Tales of Arabian Nights

Miniatures: None