At long last here are the leader portrait images for Spanish Armies from the era of Ferdinand & Isabella right through to those of Philip III at the end of the first phase of the 80 Years War.

First off we have 47 Generic leader images  followed by 32 specific leaders. Part of the reason these have taken so long to complete was that it made sense to work on French & Dutch specific leader portraits at the same time so that  there are now more than 60 of these ready to go into the "leaders" file once the unit file for those armies has been done.

Its also become clear in the last view weeks that by the end of the year the HPS "The Renaissance" game on which my REN II mod is based will no longer be the only "game in town" for turn based early modern warfare with  Slitherine planning to bring out their "Pike & Shot" title. The initial game will cover the 30 Years War with expansion modules (apparently coming out at around the same time) covering the English Civil War & the Italian Wars.

While it won't be feasible to use the REN II graphics (or even a enlarged version) with the "Pike & Shot" game (its designer Richard Bodley Scott was kind enough to do some advance testing for me) I will be producing additional custom scenarios for "Pike & Shot" and making them available on this website. Its layout will change to reflect this as well.

Enjoy

Ian

Major additions to the "units" file this week with 87 Later Spanish (Charles V to Phillip III) unit portraits added to the file along with 10 Spanish camp follower and baggage portraits that the earlier (pre Charles V) Spanish can use as well. This finishes the Spanish section of the "units" file for now, although when I come to do Central & South American armies (Aztecs & Inca's etc.) I plan to add some native axillaries for Conquistador armies to use.  All 97 new images are shown below.

The next step will be to finish off the corresponding sets of leader images for both early and later Spanish Armies, (I have quite a lot of these already done as it made sense to make them up at the time I was working on Italian leaders last year) and add them to the "leaders" file. After that I will move on to working on Portuguese & French armies.

Enjoy

Ian

One final post this year to show the 47 "Early Spanish" unit images added to the REN II units file.  These can be used for the battles of the early Italian Wars (prior to the accession of Charles V and would also be suitable (with the addition of native Indian allies to be added later) for the conquest of the Aztec empire. Also included are 6 images for mercenary Spanish & Italian Infantry Arquebusiers, who served in many European armies of the first half of the 16th Century. With these additions the image count for the "units" file has now passed the 1000 mark. 

I also have most of the relevant leader tiles for this period already done including Hernán Cortés, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba ("El Gran Capitán") and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, 1st Count of Melito. I will add these to the "leaders" file at the same time as the Spanish leaders for the later period. This will happen after I finish the Spanish off with a set of unit portraits covering Spanish armies through from Charles V to the reign of Philip III and the start of the 12 years truce with the Dutch.

Happy new year

All the best

Ian

Apologies for the delay, but, here at long last are the leader portraits for English Scottish & Irish renaissance armies, to go with the unit portraits released back in August of this year.  The coverage here is quite extensive with 71 generic leader portraits (see below)

& 89 specific ones. (See below also) 

As promised last week here are the final 67 images for the armies of the British Isles. There are 7 Anglo Irish unit portraits, (the Borderer, Western European Rebel & Romanian Frank images already provided can be used interchangeably with these) 30 of "Traditional Irish Troops" and another 30 for the modernised Irish  armies fighting the 9 Years War in the 1590's and early 1600's. For the Spanish troops involved here see the "Later Spanish" to be added later and for Irish irregulars and allies fighting on both  use the "Traditional Irish Troops" described above) 

As the Irish units have pale green portrait backgrounds they can used the generic baggage and camp follower images already in the mod for the German Protestant Peasant revolt.

With the addition of the latest images the "Units" file now contains 960 unit portraits and is I guess now about 60% finished. I now need to bring the "Leaders" file up to the same level of coverage and in fact have some English leader portraits already done.

I am also going to expand the scope of the large MS Word table documents I have created to plot what is where in the mod's "Units" & "Leaders"  files to include scenario designers notes on which images can be used with which to best effect. I will post an example of what this will look like when I have got part way through working on both documents. Fully updated versions of both documents will be included in the next beta release of the mod.

Enjoy

Ian

To complement the English units added last week here are 5 independent borderer, 10 generic rebel, 48 Scots National and 15 Scots Highlander unit portraits. You will see that 13 of the "Scots National" units (the ones at the end) are actually Highlanders as well. The idea here is that the Highlander portraits with a Scots flag in the background will be used for highland units in Scots National armies at battles like Flodden & Pinkie while those without flags and with gray unit tiles can be used for highland rebellions and tribal conflicts and to represent "New Scots" mercenaries fighting in the Irish wars 

Next up Irish & Anglo Irish troops.

Enjoy

Ian

Here at long last are the first of the next batch of unit images for REN II while I have not blogged or posed updates for a while work has carried on however. Here are the first 75 of the next 210 unit portraits I now have ready. These cover armies of the English state from the coronation of Henry VIII through to the death of Elizabeth I. 

To follow are 15 border's and rebels (for use in Pilgrimage of Grace) and other Tudor rebellion battles and skirmishes, 48 portraits for Scots national armies and 15 for independent highlanders either in revolt against the Scottish Government or acting as mercenaries in Ireland. Also ready to go are 30 unit portraits for traditional Irish troops and another 30 for the more modernised Irish forces participating in the 9 Years War.

Part of the reason for my delay in posting is that I have also been working on 10 separate sets of 2D object files which will replace the 1 generic set that featured in the original REN II mod beta version. This will be made available with the next beta version of the mod and is also fully compatible with the stock scenarios in the original HPS REN game. 2D graphics support is currently provided for 90 plus armies/factions from the 14th to the end of the 16th century in Europe and through to the early 18th century for some far eastern armies.

Take care

Ian

At long last I have finished the specific leaders for my  late Medieval Balkan armies.  Part of the delay resulted from my needing to plough through John V A Fine's 622 page " The Late Medieval Balkans" in order to identify all the appropriate leaders & factions.

I think however it's been worth it as I now have a wide range of specific factions represented in the mod, including all ottoman rulers prior to 1453, and the necessary leaders and flags to do a 1389 battle of Kosovo scenario. While working on the specific leaders I also added new generic Bulgarian command units and added generic commanders for two of the larger Serbian sub national factions. All of the late medieval Balkan generic & specific leader portraits are shown below.

A lot to show and tell this week. First off 160 new unit, supply and  baggage portrates have been added to the mod. These complete the work on the “Units” file for the release of the second beta version of the mod later in the year. The unit portrait count is now up to 740 as opposed to the 110 the original game started with. Please see a screenshot of the  new images below.

Of these images 135 are of late Medieval Balkan troops, 12 are additional Ottoman Turks (bringing the total number of their unit portraits in the mod to 52 and the final 13 are generic supply and baggage units. A summery of the contents of the “Units file is given below.

 Images 000-016 = Mamluk units (17 portraits)
Images 017- 024 = Generic Turcoman units (8 portraits)
Images 025-039 = Generic Arab units (15 portraits)
Images 040-079 = Ottoman Turk units (40 portraits)
Images 080-094 = Crimean Tatar units (15 portraits)
Images 095-104 = Northern Yuan units (10 portraits)
Images 105-119 = Generic Tatar units (15 portraits)
Images 120-123 = Mamluk, Turcoman or Arab Camp Followers & Supplies (4 portraits)
Images 124-127 = Persian or Ottoman Camp Followers & Supplies (4 portraits)
Images 128-131 = Mongol, Tatar or Uzbek  Camp Followers & Supplies (4 portraits)
Images 132-134 = African States Camp Followers & Supplies (3 portraits)
Images 135-139 = Animal herds (5 portraits)
Images 140-141 = Georgians (2 portraits)
Images 142- 157 = Early Safavid Persian units (16 portraits)
Images 158-177 = Late Safavid Persians units (20 portraits)
Images 178-184 = Generic other Persians units (7 Portraits)
Images 185-199 = Songhai Empire units (15 portraits)
Images 200-202 = Generic African mercenaries (3 portraits)
Images 203-209 = Generic Later Arab units (7 portraits)
Images 210-229 = German / Western European Mercenary Cavalry (20 portraits)
Images 230-264 = “Landsknecht Style” Mercenary Infantry & Artillery (35 portraits)
Images 265-314 = Italian States Units (50 portraits)
Images 315-344 = Later 16th Centaury Western European Mercenary Infantry & Artillery (30 portraits)
Images 345-376 = Swiss units (32 portraits)
Images 377-409 = German Imperialist units (33 portraits)
Images 410-412 = Swabian League Light Cavalry (3 portraits)
Images 413-421 = Other Landsknecht Infantry (9 portraits)
Images 422-429 = Other Swiss Mercenaries (8 portraits no flags in background)
Images 430-449 = German Protestant Peasant Rebels 1525-1526 (20 portraits)
Images 450-483 = 16th Centaury Balkan mercenaries, vassals or allies (34 portraits)
Images 484-530 = 15th & 16th Centaury National & Feudal Hungarians (48 portraits)
Images 531-559 = Hungarian 15th Centaury Black Army Mercenaries (29 portraits)
Images 560-561 = Additional Islamic Camp Followers (4 portraits)
Images 562-569 = 16th Centaury Western European National Camp Followers & & Supplies (6 portraits)
Images 570-575 = 16th Centaury Western European Mercenary Camp Followers & & Supplies (6 portraits)
Images 576-579 = 16th Centaury German Protestant Peasant Camp Followers & & Supplies (4 portraits)
Images 580-603 = Late Medieval Balkan or Slav infantry & Comp Followers (24 portraits)
Images 604-623 = Late Medieval Bulgarian or Balkan units (20 portraits)
Images 624-648 = Late Byzantine or Balkan units (25 portraits)
Images 649-663 = Catalan Garand Company (15 portraits)
Images 664-679 = Romanian Frank units (16 portraits)
Images 680-689 = Additional Albanian Wallachian & Cuman Mercenary Cavalry (10 portraits)
Images 690-714 = Late Medieval Serbian or Balkan Units (25 portraits)
Images 715-726 = Additional Ottoman Turk units (12 portraits)
Images 727-739 = Additional Supply & Baggage Units (13 portraits)

Unit types in the mod

 As I am freezing the “Units” file for the moment until work starts on the next beta version it’s probably a good time to review what’s in it and look in a bit more depth at the new units types added to the game. All of the portraits in the REN II units file have a colour coded NATO style graphic in the top right hand corner so you can quickly identify their type.

Existing unit types

The basic HPS REN game ships with 5 basic unit types. The 3 most common are Infantry Cavalry and Artillery. Shown below is a sample portrait of each type. You will see that The NATO style type graphic is yellow for cavalry, green for infantry and red for artillery. These colours are mirrored in the 2D counter graphics in the mod although abandoned artillery units use pink rather than red for the centre of their icon.

The other 2 types of unit that come with the game are Supply Units (which can resupply ammunition to Infantry & Cavalry units) and Warships. (a sort of static artillery unit that sit off shore in deep water hexes and provide artillery support)

An example of each of these is shown here also. The supply units use a light brown NATO type logistics symbol while that on the warship portrait is a white anchor on a dark blue ground. Again these are mirrored in the 2D counter graphics although  in the  “2D zoom in” view  warships have a gold border to make them stand out and in the “2D zoom out” view (as in the original game) warships are represented by normal artillery counters.

In the original game supply units were covered by an all purpose wagon graphic. In my mod however I have both static (tented encampments) and mobile (various forms of transport supply units. Also while I don’t provide separate units for each nationality I have done a set for each of the unit portrait  backgrounds in the mod. Shown here is a mule train portrait for the pale yellow counter set. 

 For warships on the other hand I have even done a dedicated portrait for each nationality that could have navel fire support in some cases I have done this where the nationality’s unit portraits normally come from the gray (no background flags) counter set. Yu will therefore find dedicated Venetian and Genoese naval units although these nations armies use the “Italian Troops” generic counter set.

New Unit Types

Many of the original scenarios that shipped with the game included “camp follower” units. These are treated as very week infantry units often fixed in and around the area of an army’s encampment. To make it easier to identify such unit I have created a light brown “CF” graphic icon for their unit portraits instead of the standard infantry one.

Also included on the mod (but not the original game) are “fighting wagon” units. They will feature on the revised Ottoman / Mamluk scenario for the battle of Raydaniyah 1517 that will be coming out with the upcoming beta release of the mod. I will set these unit up as slow horse artillery units armed with small numbers of Organ Guns.

This should work well to represent the fact that such wagons tended to carry several heavy calibre small arms each, with in some cases these being breech loaders for which pre-prepared reload chambers were also available . To reflect the extra protection afforded by protected wagons I will increase there defensive (but not their offensive) melee strength. For these units I have used a variation of my artillery graphic icon with a white rather than a red ground.

Finally new to the mod’s second version will be none supply baggage units. As you can see below these use the same sort of graphic as supply units  although its gray rather than light brown. The idea here would be to class them as an entirely different nationality for the army that has them and set them up as very week poor morale cavalry units but with a high victory point cost. They would then effectively be used as mobile victory point locations for convoy escort and ambush type scenarios.  An example of each of these 3 types of new units is shown below.

Further unit plans

When sorting out my unit type graphics last year I also built in the possibility to add in elephants. My graphic icon here is a horizontally flipped cavalry one that has a white rather than a yellow ground. I think that if your going to use elephants in REN then they should always count as a separate nationality for the side that has them and quite possibly not have any nominal commander on the map. Some experimentation will be needed but poor morale heavy cavalry with enhanced melee strength should work quite well here. Just to wet your apatite here is a graphic for an elephant unit in the army of Tamerlane, who’s forces I plan to add to the mod at the part 3 stage.

For the moment however I need to concentrate on ploughing through John V A Fine Jr’s “The Late Medieval Balkans” so that I can identify all of the specific Balkan leaders I need to create to go with the large number of “unit” and “generic leader” images for the region/period I already have. Once these are done I will post them and then get down to some serious scenario design work for the upcoming beta release. On the technical side I am in the process of migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7 and while this might slow things down a bit to start with it will make it easier to produce more visually appealing PDF documentation for the mod.

Enjoy

Ian

As flagged up last time the scope of REN II has now been extended to cover the Ottoman conquest of the Late Medieval Balkans. The first stage of the graphics work for this has now been completed. Showcased this week are all 49 generic leader and flag portraits for the region.

 In addition to 4 different flavours of Byzantines and 2 Serbian dynasties leadership is included for the Bulgarian Empire, the Catalan Grand Company, and the states of Frankish Greece.

Quite a lot of unit and specific leader/flag images have also been completed and I would hope to show these next time I blog. Once this is done I plan to get down to some more scenarios. In addition to reworks of existing REN scenarios (to use my graphics) the next beta release of the mod will include some  new smallish semi historical scenarios to showcase the new armies and graphics that com with the mod.

 Enjoy

Ian