French Ordonnance
During the Italian wars, Swiss
mercenaries formed the bulk of the infantry for which two elements of Swiss supported
by Gascon skirmishers are present. In addition, French pikemen’ (7Hd) are listed representing the
‘old bands’, these were present at the Battle of
Ravenna (1512). Currently, horde are on 30mm deep bases, but as this did not
look right alongside the Swiss I increased their depth and added more pikemen.
Blue is the theme colour
for the French uniforms, a nice contrast to the red seen on many flags. The
Swiss are of Bern as can be seen with their banner and a second element carry the red/yellow of Bern with the cross of St. Denis to signify French employment. A red flag and white
cross in differing shapes and sizes can be seen in many period illustrations and here they are carried by the French pikemen of Picardy, the
mounted archers and an element of French knights. Anticipating the expansion of
the French Ordonnance, I have flags for the Swiss of Uri and the ‘old band’ of
Navarre done.
Italian Condotta
After 1405, the Republic
of Venice had increased its domain by annexing the cities of Vicenza, Belluno,
Feltre, Verona, Padua & Este to name a few. To bring more contrast to the
ranks, the infantry represent four; Venezia, Verona, Bologna and Brescia.
Spearmen and crossbow are separately based as my research found Florence as the sole candidate to field a double based unit of 8Cb at this time.
Flags were taken from the
city coat of arms and uniforms reflect a similar colour combination. Lacking
concrete information of the noble houses of Brescia and Verona the ‘elmetti’
carry flags of the same colour combination but in a different pattern. I did
not use the ‘Lion of St. Mark’ as the banner for the general, but an alternative
emblem, the cross. My plan is to expand the Condotta to 24 elements which would rectify this and include infantry from other cities.
Flags; Venezia (red
ground/white cross), Verona (blue ground/yellow cross), Bologna (white ground/
red cross) and Brescia (white/blue).
As a big fan of the Italian Wars, I love these collections. No being familiar with the rules set you use, I notice the Swiss don't really seem like pike formations although the French pike does. Do the rules handle Swiss differently from run of the mill pike?
ReplyDeleteJoseph,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the question.
DBA3, pike units in combat against infantry and supported by a second element increase its combat factor to 6 (basic 3 +3 for the supporting element). That is twice the factor for the French pikemen, however, they can take quite a bit of punishment.
Cheers,