Autumn/Winter Projects 1- 16th Century Europe

I find I work better if I have a couple of projects on the go.  Of my 2021 projects The First-Anglo Sikh Wars is one I'm still very enthused with and I'll be adding units into 2022. The 28mm WW1 project has been on the backburner waiting for the Wargames Atlantic French set to be released.  Alas, I have lost interest in this and may even sell the Germans I've done.  I fear this will end up as another Bolt Action style game which is kind of pointless and goes against the ethos I'm trying to stick to (outlined here and here).  I'm thinking of doing a WW1 project in a smaller scale but with a bigger scope but that's for the future.  I've got some old stuff sorted this year and the lead hillock is still very small, so I've got capacity to start something new for Autumn and Winter.

I wrote at the half year point that I wanted to do a pre-gunpowder project.  I've been working through my book collection and trawling the Web and had a couple of ideas but nothing has really struck a chord.  However, going through my books has reignited my interest in Tudor warfare from the mid to late 16th Century. 

I've got a nice collection of 15mm Essex Miniatures for the Elizabethan period, many of which are suitable for earlier and also The Dutch Wars and The French Wars of Religion.  I've probably got around 150 figures  which is enough for a large skirmish or small battle.  My aim is to add more of these but also collect suitable figures for the 1540s and figures for the wars in Ireland.  I also need to sort out specific terrain as I don't have much at all. 

Essex Miniatures are reasonably local to me so I can pop to the showroom where all the figures are on display and choose exactly what I want.  The danger of this of course is I'll be distracted and end up buying something else entirely.

For rules I'll keep using Donnybrook as I did for this game.  I've also been looking at The Pikeman’s Lament.  I'd bought a PDF copy of Lion Rampant about 8 years ago that I'd completely forgotten about until I got an update email from Wargames Vault the other week!  I've scanned through and think they'll work well for solo games and as The Pikeman’s Lament is similar it should work.  Once I go past the skirmish stage I may well use Warhammer English Civil War although this will need modifying for solo play. 

On the subject of rules it's worth mentioning the one that started it all for me - George Gush's Wargames Rules for Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries (1420-1700).  I've had these since the early 80s and are the one rule set still in my collection from those early days (although there's a few I wish I hadn't parted with).  I still think these are an absolute classic and the accompanying army lists are still very useful. 

A classic rule set

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