Gaudenz Von Matsch

 Well its been a while since I updated my blog, so I thought I would start with the first figure of my latest project.
Here is Gaudenz Von Matsch, Landeshauptmanner of the Tyrol, the last representative of his powerful noble family. He was close counsel to the Arch duke Sigismund of Austria and the Tyrol and most importantly to me leader of the Imperial army at the beginning of the War of Roverto in 1487.

I have been researching this war on and off for the last couple of years, sadly there is not a lot of information in English, but i feel I have enough on the main players to start putting my plans to the the paint brush.

 

The war against the Venetian city Rovereto in the valley of the river Adige in the Trentino region of Italy, started with the imprisonment of Venetian merchants and their goods in Bozen, Tyrol in April 1487. The Austrian military commander was Gaudenz von Matsch, who at that time was in high favour with Sigismund of Tyrol. The Imperial army consisted of lots of soldiers of fortune of all classes, nobles and freemen mainly from Swabia and also some Swiss infantry. Only a few infantry were from the Tyrol, like those from Landeck. After a long bombardment by artillery the city fell on the 30th May 1487. It was the sack of this city that alarmed the Venetians and they send their best commander Roberto di San Severino (you'll here more about him later) to deal with the situation. 

This is what his coat should look like, a little tricky to paint on a 28mm figure especially when you have the flu.

 

 

Gauntlets and Sallet created by the armourer Kaspar Riederer (active 1455-1499)  in Austria (Innsbruck), around 1480-90

The helmet comes from the armoury of Churburg Castle in the South Tirol and was presumably made for the lord of the castle, Gaudenz von Matsch (1440-1504), count of Kirchberg.  The original lining of padded fabric is preserved." 

Sadly Gaudenz Von Matsch was not present for the main battle of the war, as he was identified in August 1487 as one of the “evil councilors”  who were plotting to pledge land and castles to the dukes of Bavaria. He left the army with his personal troops to secure his own lands. From what i can gather he failed and his lands and properties were confiscated and given to the Von Trapp family.

The figure itself is from perry miniatures war of the roses range, with a head from gripping beast plastic dark age warriors box set. As you can see i've tried to find a suitable figure to match ny research and its great to see some of his armour still survives in the Metropolitan Museum of Art 

WW2 pics

paras move in to the town

Germans take position

the enemies close

looking for targets

flame on

  

Pats paras prepare to rush the defences

whats left of Pats paras......

sniper team in action

A few more pics of the Rules of engagement game from Daves a few weeks back. The higlight for me had to be Pats paras, after getting the worse of the firefight decide a headlong rush across the street is the answer. trouble is it in front of dug in Gemrans with MG42s.
As you can tell in the second from last picture, it ended in tears....

Fallschirmjager platoon

Here are a few shots of my Fallschirmjager platoon I recently finished. I am intending to use these with the rules of engagement rules by great escape games.

Once I finished taking these shots I realised I had my camera on the wrong setting so the close ups arnt very sharp. I have a dozen more troops to paint up to give me more options, when these are finished I will take better shots and if I have time maybe write a tutorial on the colours I have used for the camo.