{"id":3794,"date":"2021-05-08T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-08T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brigademodels.co.uk\/mws\/blog\/?p=3794"},"modified":"2023-07-14T10:12:08","modified_gmt":"2023-07-14T09:12:08","slug":"da-vinci-condotta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brigademodels.co.uk\/mws\/blog\/2021\/05\/08\/da-vinci-condotta\/","title":{"rendered":"Da Vinci Condotta"},"content":{"rendered":"
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John La looks back at a Dragon Rampant Warband he built for a past club campaign…<\/em><\/p>\n

Some time ago Stephen hosted a Dragon Rampant Campaign<\/a> where my Da Vinci Condotta warband was narrowly beaten into second place by Tony G army. With some WIP Wednesday painting articles centred on this ruleset, I thought I\u2019d dust off the army and explain how I went about making it.<\/p>\n

Prior to the campaign, we\u2019d had a few trial games where my Dark Age force fared badly and I decided I\u2019d have to change if I was going to be competitive. I\u2019d never been a fantasy gamer so had no Orcs, Elves or Dwarves so decided to go with a human based theme at minimum cost.<\/p>\n

Research<\/span><\/p>\n

I came up with the idea of a warband which would include some of Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s war machines with some Italian Renaissance figures. Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan<\/a> sponsored Leonardo who created a number of sketches of war machines and a TV programme entitled \u2018Doing Da Vinci<\/a>\u2019 used these sketches to reproduce the machines. I thought with some plasticard to make the machines and a box of Perry Plastic Late Medieval Mercenaries and a box of Late Medieval Mounted Knights I could make a suitable warband.<\/p>\n

Humans<\/span><\/p>\n

The Leader had to be Ludovico Sforza himself leading a unit of knights.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Elite riders<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

These would be the shock melee unit, best used against damaged and disrupted units to deliver the \u2018Coup de Grace\u2019. I gave them an ability to prevent wild charges, they needed to be in control.<\/p>\n

Next up I needed the Bulwark of the Warband and chose to make these Milanese Militia pikemen, which I painted with combinations of white, red and green hose. I needed to add a magic element and picked up a Sorceress at Cavalier. I found that Caterina Sforza<\/a> (Ed: Ludovico’s illegitimate niece<\/em>). was a noted Alchemist so she would have the ability to confuse an opponent\u2019s unit, to heal a unit and to provide a long range powerbolt.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Heavy foot with Wizardling<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I needed more shooting potential and decided on a unit of scouts. For these I used Handgunners and gave them the invisible ability (due to gunsmoke). This meant they could only be targeted in melee or via magic. If I placed them in difficult ground they would be a handy irritant.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Scouts<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On to the machines.<\/span><\/p>\n

My first build over a weekend was the Armoured Car. I mocked up the conical design using paper templates, then drew them out onto 20 thou Plastikard and scribed on the planking. I painted the planks individually then washed with brown mixed with Flow Enhancer, producing a wood grain effect. The vehicle is fitted with a number of small calibre guns to provide all round fire, for which I used plastic tubing. In \u2018Doing Da Vinci\u2019, the vehicle produced from the plans could move but firing all guns simultaneously would result in deafness for the crew. I decided mine would be propelled by captured Turkish Galley slaves. I gave the crew a fearful ability as I reasoned that they would be as afraid as their opponent of this machine. I mounted the model on a landscaped foiled cake base. This would prove to be a good flank guard.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Heavy riders with missiles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The second build was an Airscrew. I wanted this to be like a Helicopter gunship, flying over a terrain item to deliver a lethal volley of crossbow bolts before retreating to safety. This proved to be a more difficult build as I had to get the sail pattern right. I found a \u2018how to\u2019 rubber band powered model video and plan on the internet and used this as a basis. The central spindle was plastic tube and the fighting platform was plasticard. The crew were modified Perry plastics. I gave them the fearful ability, who wouldn\u2019t be scared, and added a sharpshooter ability to provide a lethal hit. The Airscrew fits onto a bolt on a cake stand base.<\/p>\n

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Light Riders Flyers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So this was my starter warband and as the campaign progressed I was able to add additional units.<\/p>\n

Human Reinforcements<\/span><\/p>\n

I added a unit of Light infantry in which I mixed javelin armed troops with blade armed ones. I used Gripping Beast Dark age Infantry javelin figures cut off at the wrist and glued onto the arm of the Perry figures. I scratchbuilt the large oval shields from plastic card with a Milanese design and I repeated the white, red and green hose patterns I\u2019d used on the Militia Pike.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Light Foot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Next I needed some Mercenaries. There would also be English Bills and Bows – Dogs of War that had survived the Wars of the Roses.<\/p>\n

\"\"
English Bills<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
English Bows<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Finally, I added a unit of Elite Foot Knights, probably German Mercenaries.<\/p>\n

\"\"
German Knights<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More Machines<\/span><\/p>\n

The next machine I made was a 33 barrelled organ gun. On \u2018Doing Da Vinci\u2019 this machine really worked well with an 11 shot salvo firing shot the size of a tennis ball, with devastating effect.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Organ Gun<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I made the guns using plastic tubing. The design has a rotating centre section so that after firing, the barrels rotate for the next salvo. This was a complete plasticard scratch build and the crew come from Perry plastics, all mounted on a cd.<\/p>\n

Finally, I made a War Chariot. Here, a geared mechanism controls rotating blades like a food processor. In \u2018Doing Da Vinci\u2019 this was another lethal weapon.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Assault Chariot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This was another complete scratchbuild and I decided to paint the horses and horse armour in black again mounted on a cd.<\/p>\n

Well that\u2019s it, though I\u2019m still thinking of adding a unit of three Ornithopters as another scout unit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John La looks back at a Dragon Rampant Warband he built for a past club campaign… Some time ago Stephen hosted a Dragon Rampant Campaign where my Da Vinci Condotta warband was narrowly beaten into second place by Tony G army. With some WIP Wednesday painting articles centred on this ruleset, I thought I\u2019d dust … Continue reading “Da Vinci Condotta”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[69,23,11,16,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-28mm-wargaming","category-dragon-rampant","category-fantasy","category-modelling-and-painting-articles","category-renaissance"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/brigademodels.co.uk\/mws\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/JL-Condotta-Header.jpg?fit=1095%2C931&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9A5LG-Zc","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brigademodels.co.uk\/mws\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brigademodels.co.uk\/mws\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brigademodels.co.uk\/mws\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brigademodels.co.uk\/mws\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brigademodels.co.uk\/mws\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3794"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/brigademodels.co.uk\/mws\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7883,"href":"https:\/\/brigademodels.co.uk\/mws\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3794\/revisions\/7883"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brigademodels.co.uk\/mws\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brigademodels.co.uk\/mws\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brigademodels.co.uk\/mws\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brigademodels.co.uk\/mws\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}