General wargame blog
Finally some time to paint. This evening a little progress on the 10mm Pikemans Lament. 1 unit of shot has received all its basic colors. Only metals are missing, but these i will do for multiple units at once. After that a brown wash, some touch up and grassing on the base, will be all the steps in the proces. And repeating everything for all the other units. Maybe i can do 1 other unit color block this week.
The last blog is a couple of months back. A few months where a lot has happened. Some things sort of planned, some un-expected. A short summery: being fired, Covid-19 and becomming a father. Luckely the last one is very positive and enjoyable. It only reduces modelling and wargame time 😉
But in between all the events, I am still working on some small projects. But I didn’t have time to write some updates.
I have started to paint a bunch of the 1:600 tumbling dice planes. Starting with some of the USAF 32 TFS fighters stationed on Soesterberg, the Netherlands. I didn’t make any photo’s yet, so those have to wait.
Next to that I have started on basing the 10mm Irregular Pike and Shot units, and applied the first paint.
I hope to create an army for pikemans lament. I have decided to base them 3-2-1 on 20mm square bases.
But an army does need some terrain to fight. So have also started making some scratchbuild terrain pieces. Some houses, a castlehouse and some forest and ruins. The windmill and one of the houses had been started earlier. Now most things are primed and some have received a paint layer. Hopefully I can do some more next weekend.
So this was a small update on some work in progress. I have also worked on some scale models in between. Maybe I will post some pictures of those when I have finished them. I am still pressing on, on all different subject. (also reading some books) I hope to update a little more frequently, but expect not too much.
1629, During the siege of ‘s Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands, the Spanish and Imperial troops launched a diversion attack on the Veluwe area. This attack was performed to relief the threat of the Siege, and try to create panic under the civilization. It raised to several Siege to several cities, but also sacked a lot of smaller villages and dwellings.
The main forces were considered Spanish, but for a large part came from the Imperial armies. Around 18000-20000 men where gathered from the Imperial forces under command of Ernesto Montecuccoli. And a further 8000-9000 men came from the Spanish army under command of Hendrik van den Bergh.
Hendrik van den Bergh gathered the men on 17 July 1629 near Cuijk, and passed the Maas river with boat bridges on 21 July. It slowly progressed and created a bridgehead in wait or supplies. On 10 August Enesto Montcuccoli joined the forces and both headed land inwards. Their aim was to lay siege to a couple of cities, mainly smaller ones. They didn’t have siege equipment, so mostly relying on fear. During this few months a lot of smaller groups were pilaging the different villages and farms in between. Around the end of august they had conquered some cities, like Amersfoort. But it didn’t relieve the pressure of the Siege of ‘s Hertogenbosch, so the Spanish Imperial retreated.
I think this history will lend itself quite good for Pikmans Lament, to play out all the little skirmishes and pillaging missions. To start I want to create my first retinue, which are the defending troops against the invading Spanish/Imperial forces. Because my home town was also pillaged, and it did have a fortified home and landlord he will be the officer of my retinue. Although not all details will be completely historical.
The family Van Scherpenzeel has been the owners of the “Heerlijkheid” Scherpenzeel from around the 13th century as landlord. These landlords where knights in “kwartier” (quarter = district) Veluwe. I have found that is father Johan van Scherpenzeel participated in multiple knightly meetings of this district. Around 1590 Willem van Scherpenzeel was born, and he would take over ownership of the house Scherpenzeel in 1619 when his father died. I couldn’t find any other details at this moment, except that he didn’t have any children, and died in 1636 and left the house to his sister and her husband. Alida van Scherpenzeel and Hendrik van Westerholt. From that time on the house was not owned by the family “van Scherpenzeel” anymore.
Age: ~39
Rank: Ensign
Honour: 10
Basic trait: Ineffectual
His background I have described above. Because there is not a low known about him, didn’t have a wife and was not very precise in his administration, I have given him the trait of Ineffectual. This is a mostly negative trait, but hope it will play out without to much hassle.
You are only a officer when you have command over a unit. Because of Willem is part of the “kwartier” Veluwe, I will just call the company Veluwe. It is probably not an historical name. To allow multiple actions the company will have multiple different units, which might be used in different scenarios. Probably I will never table everything together. Also because I will use the Pikemans Lament rules want to be able to test the different units, I will have them all available. Historically it would probably only have some pike and shot as most of the army was used in the siege of ‘s Hertogenbosch. The company has the following available units:
