Carnevale by TTcombat is a game of renaissance street fighting with magic and monsters. I had originally heard of this game years ago and organised a game to try it, which unfortunately had to be cancelled. So over the years it went back into obscurity until I went to Re-Play 2025 run by the Milton Hundred Wargames Club in Gillingham, England.
While I was there I came across the game again being sold by the North Kent Nomads Gaming Club. I had a look around what they had available, especially any thing for games I already play. However, I found that I kept returning to the Carnevale section trying to recall distant memories of when I researched the game in years past.
I’m not sure what it was that kept pulling me back compared to everything else they sold and what everyone else was selling. Maybe it was the design of the models or the fact its set in the uncommon time period that is the renaissance as well as being set in Venice.
I just found that design and gameplay (from what the seller told me) to be interesting and if I didn’t like the game itself, I could always use the models for something else. So, I picked up the Patrician starter set and the Venetian Navy box. Was this the best way to start? Probably not but I liked the look of them, and they had a small selection to begin with by the time I got there.
The next day I went about assembling them. When I bought them, I didn’t realise they are resin, but they are some of the best resin miniatures I have assembled (previous experience mainly being Forgeworld, finecast and Warcradle miniatures).
The miniatures themselves are of excellent quality and generally quite easy to assemble, of course a few gaps were present as with any resin miniature but not anything too serious.
I haven’t finished painting them yet, but I have had a few test games playing the two boxes against each other. Despite likely getting many of the rules wrong we both had fun in the few games we played. The main confusion we had was how damage is applied.
At first, we assumed protection was rolled then each ace stopped a hit including its full damage if more than one. On closer inspection it seemed to be that each ace on a protection roll stops one damage. So if a weapon does two damage and there’s one ace in a protection roll, one damage is still applied to the target. If we are still doing this wrong, please correct us.
Overall, from my limited experiences of Carnevale it is a fun and interesting game providing something that no skirmish game I have played does. It allows freedom of movement beyond anything else I have played or read about while also providing an interesting historical fantasy setting. I have also greatly enjoyed learning about Venetian history which is something I haven’t considered before.
This is my start into the world of Carnevale and this blog is a record of the journey. When I have some more experience with the game I would also like to have look at different units and factions to maybe provide a different view on how they work or how they could work. I will also be writing about other games that I play or maybe start in the future, currently that’s likely to be games such as Blood Red Skies and Dystopian wars.