The Italian Wars

The Italian Wars, Pike & Shotte, 28mm Michael Schneider is our club’s true Renaissance man. Rather, he’s the one with most of the lead, and keep staging games. Donald has quite a few figures too, and recently I’ve got in on the act by starting a small Venetian army. Anyway, Michael organised this game, which

The Italian Wars, Pike & Shotte, 28mm These days, when we don’t know what else to play at the club, my German friend Michael Schneider suggests a Renaissance game. We’ve played a few of these now, and they always look good, despite Michael’s minimalist approach to scenery. He likes battlefields stripped of ancillary detail –

The Italian Wars, Pike & Shotte, 28mm We called this game Pavia because it was loosely based on the Battle of Pavia, but really it should be Pavia Light, as  only the general proportions of troops and dispositions were the same as in the real battle. This game had no walled city, no French siegeworks

The Italian Wars, Pike & Shotte,  28mm I’ve always been rather fond of the Italian Wars – in fact it was the subject of one of my earliest Osprey books – Pavia 1525, published way back in 1996. It’s still one of my favourite Ospreys, largely because it redefined what happened during the battle –

The Italian Wars, Pike & Shotte, 28mm Yes, I know this isn’t really an Italian Wars game as the battle was fought over the mountains in Southern Germany, but the time period is right, so it’s getting lumped in with the goings on in Italy. I can’t say I’d heard of the Battle of Soltau until