wargaming in 28 mm and sometimes smaller

My Army Painter Method

2012-01-30T14:14:00.003-05:00

I have finished my main unit (I have painted an extra unit in secret that will be revealed at the same time) for the Les pinceaux de la guerre contest at La Bricole and I thought I would put all the photos in one post for ease of review. The unit is the 6th Neumark Dragoons and the figures are from Calpe.

White undercoat, this is really an excellent airbrush primer

Base coat for litewkas

Dry brush for same

Trousers

Flesh

Shako covers and boots

Trouser cuffs/inseams and facings

Metal parts, belts and hair

Finished, but boring

Initial slosh of AP

Taken off with brush within 2-3 minutes

Same

Next day, it contracts overnight

The horses primed whited, then re-primed with a touch of dark grey in primer

Saddlecloth, watercan, piping, and bags

Finishing the horseleather, piping, and hoofs. This was the most time consuming detail

Finished figure, not competition winning, but I believe a very good war games standard

(54356)

Prussian Command Stands

2012-01-23T13:24:00.000-05:00

Blücher

No, I do not have a Blucher yet, but I have recently painted up some command stands for my Prussians. I used a couple of the Calpe command sets and then added corp commanding two officers from their latest set PC9. These are absolutely lovely sets, all tell a story and are very nice to paint. They are sold as brigade command sets. I always find this a little confusing until I remember that a Prussian brigade is essentially similar in size to a French or British division.

This made me rethink how I have set up my command bases. It is obvious to me now that I will never paint up the complete Prussian army at Waterloo or the French army at Vitoria. So I started to think about it more from a war gaming perspective. Most battles I am going to recreate are actually going to be sub-actions from larger battles, so divisional and brigade stands are really more important. At the most I will be able to field is 2-3 divisions aside, so I thought why not make big division stands. I still can throw in the occasional army commander stand at the army or corps level but really I am only going ever to need one of these for each country (this of course does not preclude me from having personality stands with Napoleon, Wellington, or Blucher). These stands will be obvious though with recognizable historical figures, so I really do not feel that they need to have different numbers of figures to represent different levels of command. I also decided to stick with 50x50mm stands for brigade stands (all but Prussian that is) with a single mounted figure. For regimental and battalion commanders, I will continue with 25x40 mm stands.

These stands are 80x120mm, oval stands would maybe nicer but this is what I had around and I think they look quite good. First up we have the Calpe PC2 command set. You can go to the Calpe site to read the little vignette about each set. But essentially we a brigade commander standing with his telescope with his ADC holding their horses while his staff officer receives a dispatch from a mounted feldjager. I added a mounted Corp commander (but who would know with the Prussian uniform) from the PC9 command set. This one I believe represents Yorke, but it could be whomever you like.

To paint the figures, I used the guidelines on the Calpe site, they are really quite excellent.

The feldjager was a great figure to paint. I will use this stand as a divisional command stand (brigade in Prussian speak)

The second stand is Calpe PC8, which has a chief of staff to the left. This stand is actually designed to be a corps command set and I have added the Bulow figure from the PC9 set (he is the chap with his arm up in the air). The ADC is speaking to a staff officer while the other staff officer is looking at Bulow.

The chief of staff is quite an imposing figure.

I painted 3 of these figures some time ago, and at the time I was less careful with accuracy, so some of the horse leather is brown, which I actually quite like, but is quite inaccurate for Prussians.

A mounted feldjager is missing from the set, but I may add one at a later date. I had other uses for him.

Quite nice I think.

(53896)

A Retrospective

2012-01-18T11:33:00.001-05:00

About a month ago, Curt at Analogue Hobbies made a comment to me something along the lines that it would be impressive to see our assembled Napoleonic armies. This made me think: I have never placed all my figures on the table, and I was not even sure how many figures I had painted. I was not even sure when I started.

I had look through Quicken, and found that I started to buy the occasional figure around 2003. I initially bought some 1/72 plastics from Michigan Toy Company; I suppose that is what I knew as I still had six boxes of Airfix Napoleonics from 1974, my second year in university. I then heard from somewhere that there were metal figures out there (internet wargaming at the time was in it's infancy), so I thought a good match would be some Minifigs, they were not! I did go ahead and paint several battalions in a very rudimentary fashion. I was still unsatisfied, however, as at the same time my son was painting up some GW Lord of the Rings figures and they were light years ahead of the Minifigs. I then heard of Foundry and ordered a few figures from them and also from Front Rank. Initially I thought I could fit them in with my Minifigs, well it was clear that was not going to happen. So on January 15, 2007 a review of my financial records show that I made my first major purchase from both Foundry and Front Rank of French and British Napoleonics. Somewhere in between I sold all the Minifigs and the 1/72 plastics, I had assembled. So just five years ago, I got stuck in with the 28 mm Napoleonics.

So in between all the contests, I thought I would lay out what I had done and try to do up a tally. You can have a look at the roll call to the left and see what I have done. I found it really quite difficult to get good photos of all but what follows is an attempt. In the five years, I also have built a 12'x5' foot terrain table, constructed multiple terrain tiles and painted several buildings and other terrain pieces. All is laid out below except for my 15mm Hovels Hougoumont complex that can be seen elsewhere.

An overview

The French in the foreground

A French column of march

Regimental squares of légere

A French Attack Column

French Artillery

French Cavalry

A British Division

A second British Division with Nosey in the foreground

Rockets!

The thin red line.........well with some green out front

Definitely need some more British Cavlary

Some Allied reinforcements, my next focus once I get the Prussians done.

The Nassau

The Prussians are coming

New style for army and divisional command stands

Some of my favourites

Let's not forget the Portuguese. The guerillas are from Redoubt, some of the worse figures I have bought, but they do have some charm, they were painted about 5 years ago.

Cacadores

Some Austrians, I am not yet sure where they fit in as I am focused on the Peninsula and les cent jours periods. They were very nice to paint though, I believe I will paint up a full brigade eventually. Have two more infantry battalions, some Landwehr, one more cavalry unit and one more gun to paint up.

Front Rank do beautiful Austrians, these are the first figures on which I had applied Army Painter dip. Changed the technique and the pigment, but great stuff

This unit was probably painted 5 years ago. Pretty rough!

This unit was finished within the last week, one can learn!

Anyway it was nice to look back, lots still to do but I have learned a few things:

Although a highly personal choice, a white basecoat works well for me
I do like Army Painter dip......non dipped that is!
I am stuck with 6 infantry figures on a 40mm square base, I should have gone with 45x40 bases, the Perry's know best
Never buy firing figures for battalions, although they are great for skirmishing bases
Design your basing so you can increase the figure ratio as need be in the future, most of us become quickly enamoured of the BIG battalions
Foundry cavalry are limiting, the horses are much smaller then other 28 mm makers
Manufacturer is a personal choice, I like Calpe, Perry and Front Rank in that order
Early Victrix plastics are tricky to assemble and are a little flimsy, I do like the Old Guard though and will probably buy more
Different maker's figures usually can be used in same brigade but not in the same battalion
Aside from Architects of War, it is cheaper to buy British made figures direct from the UK then from the American distributers, especially if in bulk
I have used 4 flag manufacturers, Flagdude are by far the best. GMB flags are very nice flags, but I really have had problems with fading which has been disappointing
Ignore rulesets that have strict basing criteria
TMP is a great resource, but it is very difficult to get unbiased information on rulesets; my advice is to buy every Napoleonic ruleset as they come out!!

Well I have to say that I really enjoy this hobby, and I want to thank all who have a look at my blog.

(53133)

Death's Head Hussars

2012-01-13T17:23:00.001-05:00

Prussian Hussars

I have had these figures for a while and I was unsure whether I was going to paint them or not, as they are not in the Prussian OB for the Waterloo campaign. I then found out that 2-3 squadrons of the Prussian 1st Lieb Hussars were actually seconded to the I Corps. That was enough, I had also told myself that I have to push on with the Calpe figures I have on hand so here we are.

I liked painting these figures, as I like painting lace, but I do dislike painting black leather, it was easy enough on the figures, but I had a tough time getting it right on the saddle rolls behind the rider. I actually started with a white primer and then use GW Baobab Black Wash on the coats, it worked well with a dry brush of the GW Foundation Granite.

The flag is for the SYW and is the standard of the 1st Hussars, it is from Flagdude. I converted one of the troopers.

After a lot of thought I have decided to paint squadrons of cavalry rather then regiments. It just seemed that cavalry regiments varied greatly in size and that squadrons would be a more accurate way to reflect historical OB's. It also generally fit with my 1:25-30 figure to man ratio I have been using with my infantry battalions. So this unit represents 2 squadrons of Prussian Hussars.

(52763)

Prussian Artillery

2012-01-04T08:55:00.001-05:00

Richard Knotel

Slowly but surely whittling down the Calpe Prussian metal pile. Next up we have two artillery batteries from the IV Corps at Waterloo. I am getting completely confused now by all the rulesets I have been using, but I think I will probably add a cannon to each battery in the future. I have been primarily playing Black Powder and the one peculiarity about the ruleset is that it requires only one stand to make a battery, which I quite dislike. ( does anyone play Black Powder with 4 stand artillery, does it change the game?) Lasalle and most rule sets, I believe, have one stand representing two guns. I like this so for most nations this is 4 stands to an unit aside from Britain and it some it's allies where there would be 3. I do not have nor plan to have Russians, but I believe they would be an exception. Generally most nations had a fixed ratio of howitzers to cannon, I usually like to put one howitzer to each battery. I also plan to have a caisson or limber for each battery. It would be way to expensive to have one for each gun, and one will suffice to represent a limbered battery.

3rd Silesian Heavy Foot Artillery

Here we have two 12 pound cannon and a 10 pound howitzer.

I had some problems with blistering on the cannon tubes. I use a brown ink directly on the unprimed tubes. May have to rethink this as the AP or the dullcote appears to react with it.

11th Silesian Horse Artillery

Two 6 pound cannon and a 7 pound howitzer. I use GW Fenris Grey for the wood on Prussian Artillery pieces.

One cannon was done some time ago as well as the limbers and caissons in the background.

Artillery Commander

Has distinctive red piped black velvet collar.

The saddle cloth pattern is also distinctive to the Prussian Artillery.

I plan to add a medium Foot Battery as well as a Horse Artillery limber to my Prussian Army and I believe that will be it.

(52065)

IR21/4th Pomeranian Regiment

2012-01-01T11:19:00.001-05:00

Next off the table is IR21. Again, I have used the Mont St Jean site as the guide and some nice Calpe figures. I included IR21 in my Prussian Army as they still wore their British supplied uniform at Waterloo. The unit was brigaded in the II Corps.

I had bought half the figures a couple of years ago when I was still doing 12 figure units, so I had to add 12 more to bring it up to 24 (I am still considering whether to bring the Prussian musketeer units up to 36, but I have to learn to control myself). Details are everything and without realising it ordered the type b uniform this time when the figures I had were the type a uniform. I decided to paint them accurately so this unit is half 1/IR21 and half 2/IR21. The first battalion has no lace, but has shoulder tufts and is faced green. The second battalion has lace and is faced red.

Very attractive units I believe, and I am happy with the paint job. The photos are not great, I thing they look better on direct inspection, but so it goes. I am still struggling with the blue, I was not really satisfied with my first lot of Prussians, their uniforms are just too blue and I feel they should be more grey. In this unit I highlighted with GW shadow grey, a little better, but not there yet. I still have 6-8 infantry battalions to go though so I am sure it will improve. I am tempted to paint 3/IR21 as well as they wore British rifle uniforms. It would be a very nice looking regiment.

A couple of variations from the official uniform. I decided to go with white knapsack straps rather then black to make them pop! I also have left off the white piping from the 2/IR21 shoulder straps as I get conflicting information on whether they existed or not. May add them when I paint the next 12 figures.

I decided to paint the jaegers with white facings in order to help identify the unit's Pomeranian origin in the Prussian order of battle.

The flag is of course is from Flagdude and I believe is for the 2/1st Pomeranian.

I used 2 colours on the facings. GW Red Gore highlighted with Blood Red and GW Knarloc Green highlighted with Goblin Green.

I like how the drummer came out.

(51885)

"Les pinceaux de la guerre"

2011-12-31T11:22:00.002-05:00

The La Bricole is holding a painting competition. This is a small but growing forum of devotees of the Les Guerres Napoléoniennes. The rules are here and all are invited to compete, the deadline for entry is the 25th January and the final submission has to be in March 31.

I am entering a unit of Calpe Prussians. I am also entered in the Analogue Hobbies 2nd Annual Painting Challenge, so I am up to my neck in paint.

For the La Bricole Competition I am painting a 12 figure unit of the 6th Neumark Dragoons. Here they are in their unpainted glory all set to be sprayed with a glorious white undercoat. They have a light blue uniform with pink facings. Sounds like fun.

Anyway, I have several units of Prussians to paint, so stay tuned.

Happy New Year.

(51818)

Some Prussians

2011-12-15T18:00:00.003-05:00

Adolf Northen

Finally got around to painting some troops, getting them photographed and uploaded them to the blog. The last Napoleonics I painted were some French Carabiniers back in March. Now back though and have painted several battalions over the last couple of months. I am planning to do the Warhammer twelve scenario Waterloo campaign over the next two and half years, hoping to finish by June 2015. Not sure about the ruleset yet, but I liked what I have seen so far with the Warhammer Waterloo rules.

It was nice to get back to the colourful uniforms. It is was really great to do some Calpe figures which I suspect will make up the bulk of my Prussian army with some Perrys thrown in. Most of the units are from the II and IV Corps, my criteria for choice was not to build brigades but more to paint a variety facings and shoulder straps colours!

I have mostly used the Cent Jours Waterloo website as a reference for the OB and the uniforms, despite having all the Summerfield and Osprey books, it really is an great reference.

1/IR15, the 4th Regiment of Silesia formerly RIR3

First up is some Perrys, these are from the plastic box set, quite nice, but really not as much fun as the Calpe. Nice yellow facings with some jagers out front. Nice light blue shoulder straps. Unfortunately there are no flags for the former reserve regiments I believe that this flag is for the 1st Regiment of Silesia and is from Flagdude. There is no way that I could do without a flag.

1/IR25, the 3rd Regiment of the Rhine formerly Lutzow's Freikorps

I had 12 figures painted previously and had to add 12 more of these great Calpes. I have kept them in their black Litewka. There was no way my Prussians were going to be all blue. This is a GMB flag, one of the few I have that has not faded.

1/IR18, the 1st Regiment of Westphalia formerly RIR6

Some more Perrys, this time with pink facings and white shoulder straps. The colour of the shoulder straps denote the position of the regiment in the province. Decided to go with an 1813 Westphalian standard for this unit.

6th Uhlans, formerly Lutzows Hussars

Another resurrected unit painted a couple of years ago. I have rebased them and added a couple of lances, I am not much into modifying figures, but these look OK from a distance. Still waiting for the pennons.

3/IR2, 1st Regiment of Pomerania

Fantastic Calpe fusilier figures, I threw in a few figures with caps to break things up. I did find it a challenge to paint the white circles on the shako covers, a distinguishing mark of a fusilier battalion. Of course, fusilier battalions did not carry flags, but mine do!

1/5th Landwehr Regiment of Westphalia

This was my favourite unit to paint, love the Calpe Landwehr, the bareheaded figures were especially fun. Green facings, a lot of debate about what colour the shoulder straps would be so I painted them green as well. I used one of the numerous Landwehr flags from the FlagDude.

1/IR23, 2nd Regiment of the Rhine formerly RIR11

Painted a while ago, still in their original reserve uniform at Waterloo. Another FlagDude Landwehr flag.

Well lots more Prussians to come, as the 2nd Annual Winter Painting Challenge is about to start in 5 days, I am going to Montreal to rest up this weekend, so I should be already to paint when I get back.

(50836)

Bone idle you say...Not true

2011-12-08T12:07:00.001-05:00

My friend Curt at Analogue Hobbies up there in Saskatchewan, has announced the 2nd Annual Winter Painting Challenge and I suspect it will be quite an event. Last year's contest was well attended but this year promises to be something different. Contestants are flocking from all over the world including Canada, here in New England, the British Isles, the EC and I hear even the Antipodes. Rules can be found on Curt's blog and all painters of honour are invited.

For me it is going to be a Calpe event, I will build my Prussian army! First up will be the IR21(RIR9) in their famous British supplied uniforms. as you can see they are all primed and ready. In the background are 12 Landwehr which I am working on now, I suspect they will be done by the 20th of December the challenge start date.

I have been promising Prussians for quite some while, and to show that I have been working diligently this somewhat murky photo shows some Prussians that I have completed in the last 6 weeks. Two units of Perry Musketeers, a unit of Calpe Fusiliers as well as half units of Landwehr and the famous Lutzow's Freikorps, IR25 at Waterloo (had to add 12 figures to what was previously done). All that is left is some terraining of the bases.

Also keep yours eye open for the first La Bricole--- Les Pinceaux de la guerre, which is about to be announced.

Lots of painting to do!

(50433)

The Blue Puttees-Armistice Day 2011

2011-11-11T08:35:00.001-05:00

I try to avoid non wargaming posts, but today is a day that I was taught to commemorate from a very young age. Being a Newfoundlander, my father instilled in me the importance of this date and July 1 (Memorial Day in Newfoundland) to remember and honour the 10% of the Newfoundland population who were killed during the First World War.

The Newfoundland Regiment, initially raised in 1795, had been disbanded by the onset of the first World War. Notwithstanding this, the Dominion of Newfoundland was able to raise a full battalion of one thousand volunteers to fight for king and country from a population of 240,000 by the time they were deployed to Gallipoli in 1915. The battalion was then redeployed to the western front in March of 1916.

At 8:45am on July 1, 1916 during the Battle of the Somme the Newfoundland battalion was sent over the top with the 1st Battalion of the Essex Regiment at Beaumont Hamel. Within 20 minutes the battalion was destroyed. Of the 801 men sent into the mud that day only 68 reported for roll call the next day, representing greater then a 90% casualty rate.

Despite this, my country Newfoundland, was able to send further volunteers to again build up the battalion to full strength within a couple of months. In April of 1917, the battalion lost a further 485 men at Monchy-le-Preux during the Battle of Arras.

For the battalion's valour and sacrifice for the Empire, the Newfoundland Regiment was renamed by George V as the Royal Newfoundland Regiment in 1917. This honour was the only such one bestowed during WWI. It should be also noted that a Newfoundlander Thomas Ricketts was the youngest soldier to be awarded the Victoria Cross in WWI.

Much can be said about this and the sacrifices that the Dominion of Newfoundland made for the British Empire, but I will leave that aside from saying that almost a full generation of Newfoundland men of military age were lost during this terrible war. What follows is a brief video documenting the origins of the "Blue Puttees" and their sacrifice during the Great War

.......God guard thee, Newfoundland.......

Warhammer Waterloo Playtest-The Basics

2011-10-27T21:50:00.003-04:00

I decided to have a little go at these new Napoleonic rules. I have tried most of the new sets and these certainly look interesting. I am a new gamer with very little experience, so I am not a good judge of the accuracy of the simulation of real combat as provided by a ruleset. I do however feel comfortable assessing the clarity of the rules and the ease of applying the mechanic.

It seems to me now after a couple of years of looking at different rulebooks that three basic attributes are important in a ruleset: The clarity of the description of the mechanism and the ease in applying it, the depth of the rules and finally the accuracy of the simulation of real warfare as provided the rules. I believe for me that the level of importance of each of these factors favours the order in which I have laid them out. One would think that it is probably pretty difficult to simulate warfare with little metal men on a table. I do agree though that one would hope to get what is called a historical result from a set of rules.

I went with a very basic set up using the generic scenario 1 as laid out in the rulebook. Above is the basic game set up, the British all start in line, while the French are in Attack Column. All guns are unlimbered. There are minimal terrain factors on this 6x4' terrain. It is purely a direct clash between 2 equal forces. Although I have no interest in points-based armies, I did use points to derive the OB in this case.

Turn 1

D6 is thrown, and the British get the initiative. There are 4 phases in a turn, I liked how the first phase was the artillery bombardment, sort of felt real to me, especially on this small terrain. Each phase will be "blown out" once in the following turns in italics.

The Royal Horse Artillery open up and fire at the 13e legére. Three causalities already. One TAC used, 1 left in reserve in case a move is required in the next phase.

L'artillerie a pied is a 3 stand unit, as we can see from above, it as an Attack Rating of 1 for each gun. There are 2 medium cannon and howitzer. I use 1 TAC pt. I guess 26" to the target (KGL), as you can see it falls a little short. I then throw an artillery dice-AD (well I do not have one, but a D6 with the first 5 digits doubled and the 6 as a misfire will suffice) for each of the guns. Cannon #1 D6=6.....a misfire, throw a D6=5 a miss, no effect from the shot (page 61). Cannon #2 fires and gets a 3 on the AD, cannonball falls 6 inches ahead of the guess and a direct hit is scored on the KGL, each cannon has 3 attacks so 3xD6 with a hit scoring on 2+ (This is an error, there is one shot for each cannon). Three hits.....but one removed as the KGL are in line. Two casualties! The effect of the cannonball's bounce is now calculated. Throw the AD and the ball bounces 4 inches right into the South Essex. Throw 3xD6 (1xD6 as above) this time on a 4+, 3 hits again but again 1 removed for the South Essex being in line. Two casualties on the South Essex. Now time to fire the Howitzer.......

........... I throw both a Scatter Dice-SD (again a D6 with 1-4 being the cardinal compass points and 5,6 being direct hits) and an AD, a direct hit is scored on the SD, so the results of the AD are disregarded. For illustration though, I place the small blast template. 3xD6 (1xD6 as above) are thrown with hits on 4+, 2 more hits but again one removed as the infantry are in line. So the KGL suffer 2 casualties and the South Essex 3. I use green small die to keep track of the casualties. That was a lot of fun and I have to say quite easy, I hope I got it right.

Next phase is movement. British maintain the initiative. The KGL and the South Essex both advance 12" using up 3 TAC pts (this is actually wrong, as only 1 TAC can be used on movement per turn). The Guards wheel to the right and advance to assist in the advance towards the French infantry and to over them in case the cuirassiers decide to attack (bad idea!). Col Macdonald moves up to stay within command distance (12") of all his forces. The French then move and advance their infantry in Attack Column. The 13e légere use both TAC pts (see above) and advance 8", while the 54e ligne decide to be a little more cautious and advance 4" reserving 1 of their TAC's. They do not want to block the French artillery. L'artillerie a pied cleverly also advance on their remaining TAC pt 4" by manhandling their guns (another error, unlimbered artillery can not move when in line, they would have to change formation to column and then move). The 10e cuirassiers expend all 3 TAC's and advance 18". Seemed straight forward enough. I use the yellow small die to keep track of each TAC pt expended. No Shooting or Melee phases in this turn.

This is how it looks at the end of turn 1, quite quick and already lots of action and some blood. So far so good.

Turn 2
The die is thrown and this time the French get the initiative. Wow, I must be used to IGO/UGO. If you look at the above photo you can see that I really left those British Guards (to the left) in jeopardy and now they are almost certainly under a charge threat from the cuirassiers. And they are in line, worse than Silly Billy!

Well the French open up with their artillery. This time they are less luck with their die and only 1 more casualty is taken on the KGL. The South Essex remains intact. The British guns are quite a bit more successful with the 13e taking a total of 5 hits, those Attack Columns do not do well under cannon fire.

The French movement phase follows, with the 13e légere and the 54e ligne advancing to engage the KGL. The French artillery advance (need to be in column, as above) to almost canister range, they just can not wait to open up. And of course the 10e cuirassiers charge the Coldstream Guards when they are in line. The Guards of course stand and fire, but those cuirasses make the heavy cavalry almost invincible, and with it being a difficult shot (only hit on 6+) they of course miss and the cuirassiers advance and engage the Guards, while they are in line!

Well the British then advance the KGL with the South Essex slow to follow, Simmerson must of really got his knickers in a twist about those bouncing cannon balls. Or maybe he has learned! The horse artillery are manhandled 4" forward (error in respect to movement, see above) and for some reason, which escapes me, the Dragoon Guards advance to engage the 13e légere leaving the Coldstreamers to face the wrath of les cuirassiers.

Well time for some musketry, on to the Shooting phase. Again the French maintain the initiative. Now I know what buckets of dice mean! Well the 13e blew all their TAC's, so they can not shoot, but the 54e can and do. They are in Attack Column, so they only get to fire with their two leading companies. They throw a D6 for each company, they get a 2+5+1 for the opening volley, so throw 8xD6 with hit on 5+ (within 9", so not difficult shots). They throw 5 hits, so the KGL(already 2 hits in place) lost a company and a stand was removed. They did not become disordered as they did not loose the company in a single turn. In return the KGL fire back, and despite losing a stand they get to throw 14xD6, and get 6 hits! The 54e remove a company and become disordered. They have to take a command check-CC. Colonel Gougeon is within 12" so we add his Command rating of 6 to 2xD6 with this score they easily pass the test by getting 17 (10 to pass). Well again that was pretty easy, and was fun.

Now back to the unfortunate Coldstream Guards. They have been caught in line by the 10e cuirassiers. Time to start the Melee phase. Cavalry always go first. Since the Guards have been caught in line they have to take a CC. They lose -1 CV for being in line, but Col Macdonald is in command range so adds his 4CV, they throw 2xD6=10, so they pass the CC with a 13. The 10e have 6 attacks/base, so they start with 18xD6+6(for charging)+1(for officer)+3(supporting units)=28xD6 on wounding on 4+, they get 15 hits. Two bases are removed. The Guards attack back with their bayonets (3xD6+1flank support+1officer)=5xD6 on wounding on 5+......no hits. Result Cuirassiers 15vs0 for the Guards, they lose and since they were in line they rout.

They about face and throw 10 on 2xD6 and retreat 10" with a rout marker. The 10e attempt to pursue but throw a 5 on 2xD6 and pull up short.

I suppose I have made all kinds of errors, but I found these rules very easy to apply. All though the writing in the rulebook is quite clear and the content well organised, the rulebook could benefit from a detailed sample scenario. I recently played the Rapid Fire WWII rules, and this rulebook should be used as a template for all rulesets, it is absolutely superb.

Notwithstanding the above, I quite enjoyed this ruleset and the basic mechanics of movement, shooting and melee were the easiest I have seen. I really do not have the knowledge base to say anything about their historical accuracy, but I am sure someone else will.

I will play out the scenario, it is 10 turns, I hope to report back on the officer's special abilities and their use STG pts.

(48325)

Warhammer Waterloo

2011-10-22T13:09:00.001-04:00

I got the Warhammer Waterloo book yesterday. It has been recently half price and all I can really say is wow...........and buy it! The book is beautiful, production values are first class and tons of information. There are 288 pages of full colour beauty. The actual rules take up less then a 60 pages, depending on what you consider as rules. The rules themselves are very well laid out and illustrated with multiple diagrammes (as good as Lasalle). Organization is quite clear.

The basic infantry unit is the company with the tactical unit being the battalion/brigade. I have not gone deep into the rules yet, but basing is pretty generic with a stand being a company (number of figures less important), with 2-8 companies making up a battalion. Each company holds a number of attributes that determine their fighting ability and resilience. Additionally they have an intrinsic Command (is flexible in the sense that an officer [has his own command value] attached can modify it's morale) rating and a Tactical ability (number of actions it can carry out). I have made this sound pretty confused but it is quite simple and what I can say is the advantage is that it allows one to play the game with a variable number of companies. An example is that you have to have a minimum of 3 companies (stands) to field a British battalion but can add up to 5 extra companies (stands) for the British. For the French, one can field anywhere from 2 to 6 companies in each battalion. A range is provided for base size and 6 infantry figures are recommended for a stand, but the game will work with 4, I believe. What I like about this as a painter who likes to build up armies , is that I can play the games with as little as 2-3 stands in some battalions and up to 6-8 stands in others. The process in the rulebook is points driven, but the ruleset does allow historical OB's, so one can field either a points or a historically derived force. Cavalry and Artillery units follow similar logic.

The mechanisms for movement, shooting, fighting etc are all quite simple and well illustrated. I am no expert here and I have not really explored this aspect of the book but I suspect the learning curve is not steep.

Forces covered with army lists etc include both the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns (sorry Iannick, but I am sure the European theatre will be covered knowing the reach of Games Workshop). The nationalities covered though for these campaigns are quite exhaustive though, and includes rarities like Italians, Neapolitans, Nassau, Berg, Westphalians, Swiss, Prussians, Vistula Legion, Mamluks for the French and Spanish Guerillas, Tiradores de Doyle, Don Sanchez's Cavalry, Hanoverians and all the other German states both line and landwehr for the Allies. Uniform guides for basic British, French and Prussians infantry are all provided. It is all there!

Additional Rules cover sieges (that is something I have not seen before in mainstream rulesets), one can engage in escalade as well as breeching walls before sending in the Forlorn Hope.

A short 12 page history section is also included.

There is a nice section on Napoleonic Wargaming in general with guides to collecting and preparing figures. A nice quick painting guide to British redcoats and rifles, as well as French in campaign and dress is also provided.

There are multiple points driven scenarios provided as well as a 12 battle historical campaign scenario covering the Waterloo period. This includes OB's for each battle as well as recommended terrain and scenario set up with victory conditions. A recommendation for alternative points based forces are also provided if one does not have the necessary historical forces. One can see that an enormous amount of work has gone into this. Campaign affects are outlined for success or lack there of for each battle. For someone like myself who has had a vague notion of playing out the Waterloo Campaign over the next 4 years leading up to the bicentenial June 2015, this looks like enormous fun.

Throughout the book are beautiful photos of terrain and figures as well as many paintings depicting battle scenes.

So to recap, this is a beautiful book and at half price is a steal. I can recommend buying it without reservation. I am sure some of you will find some problems with the rules (a very personal matter), but the book itself is a valuable resource which is quite exhaustive on all aspects of Waterloo. This is the first product I have seen from Games Workshop, aside from their paints and my son's old and abandoned collection of Lord of the Rings figures, and I am really quite impressed. I have Black Powder, Lasalle, Republic to Empire and Rank and File in my collection and really this book really stands out from what I believe is a very good collection.

I am puzzled by one thing though, many of the photos in the book clearly are of the Perry Brothers games, and aside from the Prussians almost all of the figures are from their line. A lot of the art is from the covers of their boxed plastic figures. They also clearly had much to do with the Black Powder ruleset. What gives?

(47775)

Off on a Tangent......Yet Again

2011-10-07T14:00:00.000-04:00

I believe, I can blame it on painting the WWII figures. They were all just shades of brown and although I used multiple interesting named colours, really when you got down to it they were brown.....yellow brown, red brown, green brown, black brown, etc. I think you get the point!

I was sitting down at the table looking forward to getting back into painting Napoleonics, I have more than a dozen battalions of Prussians to paint. I had a look... pink facings good, but I now realised it was going to be all blue and grey, should I use Prussian Blue or Prussian Dark Blue! What about the purple, red and yellow pots of paint that are sitting on the shelf drying out.

For some time I have been interested in trying to work on some multiple figure stands and improve my terraining. The Impetus ruleset uses this type of basing, with each base representing one unit. A somewhat attractive idea for someone coming from gaming and painting Napoleonics at the battalion level.

I have been long interested in both the Crusader and the Sengoku periods as possible new areas to explore. I already know quite a bit about the history of the crusades, but nothing about the Warring States in Japan. I watched Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha to get a sense of the period and was left with the sense that painting Samurai would be pretty cool. So there we have it. My research into the period was absolutely fascinating and I was completely captivated.

Looking at Basic Impetus it appeared that all that was needed was 7-10 bases per side to field a force in order to play a game, so I got stuck in. The Warring States period was characterised by different Samurai clans fighting with each other in constantly shifting alliances, as well as Ikko-Ikki (Buddhist monks in rebellion against the Samurai), and finally an invasion of Korea (against the Choson Koreans and the Ming Chinese). Certainly lots of options for multiple different forces and painting opportunities.

I decided to base my Samurai forces around the period of the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, when the rival clans split into two factions. I decided to base my first force around the clans of Eastern Japan under Tokugawa Ieyasu. One of the most interesting things I found about the Samurai was their heraldry, so I decided that each unit in my initial force would represent a different clan. Here we have my first three units.

I decided to start with some mounted Samurai of course. Here we have the Katagiri clan with their Daimyo Katagiri Katsumoto. I wanted a fairly simple but colourful sashimono.

Katsumato is wearing the somewhat unusual helmet and is attended by 3 of his Samurai as well as a couple of bannermen.

Impetus cavalry bases are 12x8cm and can contain as many as figures as deemed appropriate (usually 4 horsemen), this is also a command base as a Daimyo is contained within.

Represented here is the clan Kato, with an unit of Nagae-yari Ashigaru. The nobori is a slight variation on what is historically accurate. It took some cunning to get it done, but it does look cool.

I should immediately also admit that most of these ashigaru were not painted by me, I bought them some years ago on ebay. It has taken me a long time to decide on what to do with them. I painted the casualty figure as well all the sashimonos and the norbori. The helmets were also repainted. Lord Ashram of the House of War is the responsible painter and quite nice they are indeed.

I will have another unit from clan Kato, with Kato Kiyomasa himself with his gigantic helmet planned as the centrepiece among several foot Samurai.

We will finish off today with clan Torri. Torri Mototada was a loyal retainer of Ieyasu, whose defense of Fushimi Castle resulted in Ieyasu being able to unify Japan and to end the Warring Period. His act of seppuku is the most celebrated in Japanese history

These Yari-Ashigaru were also partially painted by Lord Ashram, I painted the bannerman, the casualty figure, as well as doing the sashimonos and the nobori.

Decals were used here for the Mons, it was quite a challenge but I did learn a lot about photoshop, printing on decal paper and applying the decals. Infantry stands in Impetus are 12x6cm in size, again the number of figures is not important, but 8 are recommended.

The obligatory close up, still a lot to learn about Samurai armour!

Well anyway, I am really painting some Prussians and promise my next entry will be Napoleonic.

(46988)

A Long Pause......

2011-09-27T11:47:00.001-04:00

I believe this might of been the longest period I have gone without posting to my blog. My last post was in late August, just before I left to go to Montreal to bring my son Simon to University. I was there for 9 days and actually tripled my experience of gaming with an opponent who was not myself. It was a great visit, but alas my abilities as a General still appear to be lacking. It has been flat out since I got back to Massachusetts, and this has been the first I really have had a chance to sit down, upload some photos and write a post.

Simon has settled nicely in Montreal, and tells me he is living the dream. Well how hard can it be in Montreal! I am hoping he is doing some work, although the attractions of Rue Sainte Denis are apparently quite compelling, from what I understand. Here he is (to your left in the black sweater) with his friends in his dorm, they are all doing something or another with their fingers.

Well anyway, back to gaming. Iannick (the infamous Archiduc Charles of Clash of Empires) and myself played 3 games. Iannick hosted 2 games; both Napoleonic and I hosted 1 game at my hotel, our first WWII effort. We had a great time and both Napleonic games were played using Black Powder. Although a great set of rules, we really made quite a few errors in both games, this did not however diminish the fun. Iannick has posted the first game on his blog, a refight of La Haie Sainte using my figures and terrain pieces on his beautiful new terrain table. A closely fought game, but victory to Iannick, I had the Germans and they did lose historically......... We also played a beautiful looking game with a scenario taken from the BP rulebook (Iannick somehow or another ended up having some Austrians). I truly got trounced in this game. The figures and terrain were Iannick's, and I blame my loss on this. I suspect some photos will soon appear on his blog.

Our middle game was the WWII game. We used the Rapid Fire rules and for a first go, we actually did pretty well with them. The book is really the best rulebook (ever better then Lasalle) I have read. Really quite clear rules and beautifully laid out. We did make a couple of errors in respect to morale and some of the cover bonuses, but for our first go at an era and a ruleset, it did go quite well.

Here is the scenario:

and the all important Vehicle/Gun chart for the game (double click and they get readable).

We use blinds to set up the game with only the LRDG on the table. One third of the blinds were dummies to add a little suspense. Certainly more important for the DAK (Iannick). It was a bit of a challenge to set a game up in an hotel room, but it did look pretty good. Here is Iannick very carefully laying his trap.

The game started in the early morning, here we can see the sun rise from the DAK position.

The LRDG rapidly advanced in order to spot the DAK positions. The 8th Army led with their tanks and AFV's with their infantry in close support.

The DAK were well protected by barbed wire and a hidden minefield.

Here we can see the the dug in PaK 38's, causing much damage to the advancing 8th Army armour. The British infantry decided that to send their infantry over the hills, in order to flank the DAK position. The Cheval Blanc appears to be shedding some light.

The DAK reserves, a panzer light tank company advance to hold off the British.

The Punjabis (I always wanted some Punjabis) advance to the barbwire and the allied AFV's breach the DAK lines. These last two photos are unfortunately a little blurred.

Turn 12 and game over, the DAK have not routed but they have very few resources left.

Well it was not at all a bad game and Iannick graciously gave me a marginal victory. I really should have defined the victory conditions a bit more clearly, I also believe that if we would have applied the morale rules a little more accurately, he would have got his reserves on the table a little earlier. I quite enjoyed the WWII gaming, but I do miss the colour!

Well I have been doing some painting, and should have a few Prussians battalions to show soon, but more about that in my next post.

(46466)

Four Months of Work!

2011-08-24T14:20:00.001-04:00

I thought I would reflect back on the last 4 months. I decided sometime in May to start a new era, I also was curious about trying to paint a smaller size figure. As you know, I decided to go with WWII in 15 mm. My goal was to be able to host a WWII game at the end of the summer. I had settled on the North African theatre; so I had to do some rudimentary research, come up with an OB and a scenario as well as doing up a terrain and paint the figures and vehicles on both sides. I started painting around mid May.

The WWII OB to the left of my blog has just been updated and I believe I got quite a bit done. There were a few mis-steps; a few inappropriate vehicles/AFV's were purchased and painted, but generally the endeavor has been successful. I have used both Battlefront and Forged in Battle figures and vehicles, as well as a few Command Decision trucks. I definitely prefer the Forged in Battle vehicles and figures. They are just better detailed, the British late infantry figures are quite impressive for 15 mm, and I am sure a good painter could do them real justice. They are just better quality then the Battlefront. The vehicles/AFV's from Battlefront are quite good, but again the Forged in Battle just edge them out. Of course the Forged in Battle range is limited, so most of the figures are from Battlefront. Some of Bedford trucks are from Command Decision, they are a little rough, but charming in their own way.

Here is an overview of around 4 months of work. I spent too much time on the terrain.

British 8th Army forces.

DAK forces.

My personal favourites, a couple of Diana's from Battlefront. A little tricky for North Africa, but I understand 6 made it there.

I really like these Matilda I's from Battlefront, but unfortunately they were not used in North Africa and certainly forgot about by 1943. A little error in my research. As was the Sherman Firefly behind them.

Great looking Forged in Battle British infantry heavy weapons figures with a Battlefront 15 cwt truck.

Some nice artillery pieces from Battlefront, I found the figures that came with guns were generally nicer than their infantry figures.

Some cool motorcycles from Battlefront.

Well I have a big week of gaming coming up next week in Montreal, with my first WWII game and two Napoleonic games.

When I get back, I believe I will shift my attention to those pesky Prussians.

(45119)

Tunisian Terrain

2011-08-15T12:58:00.003-04:00

For my upcoming WWII game, I had to build some terrain that would simulate the Tunisian landscape. The terrain had to be portable, I am driving to Montreal and we are planning to play the game in a hotel room. I quickly got fixated on something in the mountains in the south western part of the country. I wanted a fairly simple but varied terrain that would not stress our first go at the Rapid Fire rules. I suspect that the North African dessert is pretty featureless and there would not be too many places to hide. The whole process was also a discovery for me in how to model a dessert terrain with some hills. I usually model hills into the terrain tiles, but this was not really going to be an option as the pieces had to be portable.

I started with some 2" styrofoam which I glued to 1/4" MDF board. I then used a hot wire to cut some gashes into the foam. This is what I got.

A propane torch was used to smooth off the edges, but also to give some texture.

The base coat was raw umber. The paint used was from the Sargent Art line.

The hills were then heavily dry brushed with a Sable Brown from the Americana line of acrylic paints.

I then drybrushed some areas with Sargent Art Yellow Oxide (to the right) followed by some Titan Buff from Golden (to your left).

I had a old mixed green terrain mat from the Terrain Mat guys, I applied some Woodland Scenics Yellow Grass and Earth Blend Fine Turf (to the right) followed by a dry brush of the Sable Brown followed by the Titan Buff (left).

Finally patches of Light Brown Sand was applied in patches as well as some clumps of Woodland Scenics Earth Coarse Turf. Multiple sprays of watered down white glue were applied at each stage of the process in order to seal the mat.

Here is the final terrain layout. The terrain is about 4x6' in size. As you can see the attacking British forces (foreground) have to either enter into the valley or go into the hills by the access points. The large patches of sand are possible areas where vehicles can become bogged down. The DAK are defending the oasis in the farground and have available to them: barbed wire, entrenchments and a minefield. I think the hills are a little too rounded, but I suppose they will do.

The oasis comes from Architects of War and although it is for 28mm gaming, I think it will be fine for this 15 mm game. Still deciding on whether to put a little water in or not. It really is a very nice piece.

(44783)

Evolving WWII Tunisian Scenario

2011-08-05T14:12:00.002-04:00

I have been industriously painting and terraining for my upcoming Rapid Fire WWII game in Montreal at the end of the month. Only 10 little figures left to paint, and the terrain is pretty well done. The scenario itself has evolved, so I thought I would update you on my progress.

I will try again on the WWII sites to get some advice on the balance of the OB, before the information was somewhat conflicting. I got the general sense that the British might be a little weak so I beefed them up with some more tanks. I have also decided to have a conditional DAK reserve, depending on how the game is going. So if the DAK are getting destroyed early in the game I will have a trigger (yet to be invented) to add a small but powerful reserve force. I have some Panzers (several in fact) as well as 2 Diana SP AT 7.67 cm guns painted. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Here is the terrain, small amount of drybrushing and other minor touch up needed, but all in all completed. When I am finished I will put up a post to chronicle my progress. The discs on the terrain are the blinds, only some forces will be originally on the table. I still have some other playing aids to do as well. I used an old 6x4' terrain cloth as the base and constructed the hills. All very mobile, you see for the car trip to Montreal. You can see some of the dug in DAK forces to the left. Dry brushing and sanding not yet done to the foreground. Still deciding on whether to add a little water to the oasis.

Here is the latest OB and scenario, pretty well locked up now, but like I said any suggestions for the conditional reserve and the trigger would be welcomed.

44453

Long Range Dessert Group

2011-07-30T10:48:00.003-04:00

It has been quite some time since I have posted. Was on vacation (hooked my first salmon!) and have been working everyday (the American people's appetite for medical care knows no bounds). At the same time, I have been working diligently on my upcoming WWII game in Montreal. Pretty well have the terrain and most of the figures done. Still playing around with the OB for the scenario, but more on that later. I have got quite a bit of British and Commonwealth painted and hope to update my OB to the left soon, but I thought I should make one more post before the end of the month.

One of the units in my Allied North African forces will be the LRDG. I am not 100% on which Commonwealth country this unit will represent, still doing the historical research. Interesting enough an Indian Army Long Range Squadron was seconded to the LRDG, maybe they will enter the scenario as some Punjabi's. This little group will be on night reconnaissance in my planned scenario in the Tunisian hills, when they happen upon on some well entrenched elements of the 15.Panzer Division.

These are all Battlefront figures, the infantry are actually the SAS pack, but I can't tell the difference! They were the first WWII unit I painted, and essentially they were painted by hand, I am not sure of the uniform colour I used, and then AP was applied by brush. I was relatively happy how they came out and I could see that the AP method was going to work on these 15mm figures. I am planning to change the base colour but more on that later.

I could not resist the 30 cwt Chevrolets so I bought a couple of them to go with the men. These are also from Battlefront and were relatively easy to assemble and had lots of guns.

The basic colour was Vallejo Dark Sand and this was applied using an airbrush. The camouflage is GW Space Wolves Grey and all though it looks a little dull in the photo, it looks quite nice in reality. This was also applied with an airbrush. I have been really thinning the AP darktone, I find it works better, thinned it does not even shine as there has been no matt applied here. The men's uniforms are Vallejo Iraqi Sand. The gun to the right is a Lewis LMG gun and on the left is a Browning Mk II MMG. There is also another LMG mounted on the dash. I suppose we will see what all this means when we play our game. I have placed the driver on the left, I have seen photos with both left hand and right hand drive configurations.

(44222)

Somewhere in les Monts des Ksours (Tunisia Early 1943)

2011-07-06T22:59:00.002-04:00

This will be my initial stab at a North African scenario, which involves advance elements of the 8th Army and the LRDG searching for an oasis just south of Matmâta Hills. This is a small fictional action that takes place within the larger action of the Allied attempts to flank the Mareth Line.

The game will be played using the Rapid Fire rules on a 4x6' terrain. I have tried to keep the scenario simple and will not use any artillery observers (medium mortars do not require any) or heavy artillery in this scenario. I will probably use some of the advanced rules (already have night rules in the scenario). Aside from the Indian battalion and some of the British vehicles, I am all done, so I should have lots of time to focus on the terrain and learning the rules. The basic scenario and OB follow (double click and it will be readable and a right click will download it).

I would appreciate any help from any of you WWII gamers with the scenario or the OB. This stuff is completely new to me and there is a lot to learn.

(43295)

Some Necessary Corrections

2011-07-03T09:05:00.004-04:00

After the Panzerschreck debacle, I thought I would show that I can learn so I am posting some photos of the "schreck" posed correctly as a stereoscopic range finder with the FlaK 36 crew.

I also disassembled the captured French Unic P107, and reassembled it. I am hoping that it is now correct.

(43172)

A Nice Gift

2011-07-02T10:33:00.004-04:00

Imagine my surprise when I got up this morning and found a nicely wrapped box on my painting table. What was inside was also very nice.

It is my 55th birthday this coming week and my son Simon and daughter Jane Cordelia have given me this lovely gift. Tons of stuff in the box which is all going to be very useful in my upcoming game in late August. A bit of drybrushing and before you know it these great terrain pieces will blend into the North African landscape.

What a great gift and what great kids!

A couple of night photos by my son:

(43085)

DAK: Elements of the 15. Panzerdivision

2011-06-29T22:28:00.006-04:00

Finally I have had a chance to take some photographs to show what I have been working on over the last 6 weeks. I have been using Battlefront and Forged in Battle miniatures and vehicles. Generally both are quite acceptable, but Battlefront (FoW) certainly has some minor problems with quality control.

I bought an airbrush, so I have been using a basecoat of white (what a treat not to use aerosol cans anymore) and then spraying both the vehicles and the miniatures with their primary colour. I used FoW info as a colour guide using both Vallejo and GW paints. I then block in the equipment, flesh, and wheels and tracks etc. I then use a sparing coat of the black pigment AP followed by some AP matt spray (this I find, is a better quality product than Dullcote). I occasionally dry brush after the matt varnish, but it really does not make a whole lot of difference.

I am generally basing the figures to FoW standards, which seems to be OK for all the rulesets I have looked at, including IABSM and Rapid Fire. The bases are from FoW and once the figures are affixed, a coarse Golden gel is applied. I am using a yellow ochre for the base colour, dry brushed with buff. I still have not decided what sort of flock or foliage to use. Need to work on terrain before I make that decision.

Most of the miniatures are correct for the North African theatre, but there are a few errors, which I will try to point out as I go along. Still have a long way to go to build the 15. Panzerdivision, but I am close to what I need for a starter scenario. I have about half as many 8th Army figures and vehicles done, so a bit more work to be done there. I am spending about 5-10 minutes on each figure and vehicle, so you can get a lot done in a short time.

Engineers from Pionier Battaillon 33. This is the Battle Front platoon pack with their Goliath. I can figure out the mines and flamethrowers, but the rest of the stuff puzzles me.

Heavy weapons, with Mauser MG34 HMG to the front and some GrW 34 80 mm medium mortars in the back row. If these are heavy mortars, I would like someone to point this out. These are all Forged in Battle figures.

A "Panzerschreck"antitank gun from Battlefront. Did not come into use until 1943, so probably rarely seen in North Africa.(now I have been corrected that this is a stereoscopic rangefinder turned sideways.......Oh my, who knew that such a device existed!)

Battlefront 8.8 cm FlaK 36 guns used as antitank weaponry. A Kfz 15 field car can be seen to the right.

Battlefront 10.5 cm leFH18 Light Howitzers from Artillerie Regiment 33.

Sd.Kdf 7 Tractors from Battlefront.

Forged in Battle Panzergrenadiers from Schützen-Regiment 105.

Side view of the pioniers. The kübelwagons are from Forged in Battle.

Panzer III J's from Forged in Battle.

A Battlefront Sd.Kfz 231 from Aufklaerungs Battaillon 33.

StuG III G self propelled infantry guns from Battlefront. Also probably rarely seen in North Africa as introduced in mid 1943

A captured French Unic P107 leichter Schuetzenpanzerwagen U304 with a 20mm FlaK gun from Panzerjaeger Battaillon 33. Not used it North Africa.

BattleFront PaK 38 5cm Anti-tank guns also attached to Panzerjaeger Battaillon 33.

Sd.Kfz 222 gun from Battlefront, armed with 2 cm KwK 30 L/55 autocannon and a 7.92 mm MG34. Attached to Aufklaerungs Battaillon 33.

Opel 3 ton trucks from Forged in Battle. They will be used to transport the pioneers.

I have decals for the vehicles, but am still deciding about camouflage.

I have a few vehicles left to paint for the DAK forces for my starter scenario, including a Panzer II and IV as well as a few more stands of Panzergrenadiers. Then on to the 8th Army!

(42887)

WWII: Further thoughts on a ruleset

2011-06-21T12:06:00.002-04:00

This is a thinking out loud post. I have now received 2 other rulesets and have had a chance to look through them. I have some pressure to go with a set in the short term as myself and Iannick at Clash of Empires are planning to have our first WWII game at the end of August. WWII gaming is completely unknown to both of us and I have tasked myself with the scenario, rules and figures.

There are 2 major pressures: Getting the figures done and picking the ruleset. I have pretty well completed the DAK forces for a starter scenario, and am well on the way to completing the Allied force. I do not see that as a problem. I also have a basic scenario with an OB already in the works. So a ruleset.......the great unknown!

In the short term, 2 things seem to be standing out as important factors. Number of figures and vehicles (I can not paint up hundreds of figures and vehicles in the next 2 months) and the simplicity of the rules. In respect to number of figures, I find that I can easily put together a starter OB for IABSM and Rapid Fire. Just can not get interested in FoW, too many supernumerary figures.

I downloaded I Ain't Been Shot, Mom (IABSM) a couple of days ago, I have always been intrigued by card driven sets and blinds, great stuff. Liked both Field of Battle and Le Feu Sacre, but FoB missed some detail for me and I found LFS a little complicated and did not like the basing. IABSM looks like a real cool set and the support group is enormously helpful. It need few figures as it is at the company level. I keep on hearing though that for beginner, it may be a little tough as a lot of the rules are up for interpretation, which is cool with me, but I have no experience and and maybe we should start with something a little more rigid.

I received the Rapid Fire set in the mail yesterday, and I was absolutely blown away by the format and the production quality. One could say that this is Lasalle on steroids; the rules are laid out beautifully, all mechanisms are explained simply and the production quality is quite impressive. Look at this.:

It is nice. The ruleset is at the battalion level, but uses very few figures, a company is generally 8 figures, including heavy weapons. Additionally, there are 2 starter scenarios of with basic rules and one with advanced rules. Both scenarios are run through for a complete game in great detail, this is really how rule books should be done. I wish some of the new Napoleonic sets would have done this. The book has multiple organisation charts which are much more elegantly laid out than even FoW. I also purchased their North Africa support book.

This is wow! Plenty of scenarios and amazing organisational charts for several nations and units. Great stuff.

So what to do, what to do? Well I think I will construct a starter OB and scenario that is doable for both rules (it is actually pretty simple) and have a little go with each set before the end of August when I head to Montreal. Any thoughts?

I will try to get some photos of my new units up soon.

(42479)

100,000 pageviews and a new blog title!

2011-06-18T10:13:00.000-04:00

AFRIKA

2011-06-14T14:19:00.002-04:00

Well the poll has been completed, and although my personal preference is to have 2 blogs (like Robert at Serrez les Rangs!, I was quite excited about the actual design), I can see how this could be quite confusing, so I will go with one. Many thanks to the 42 people who voted, and I really appreciate all personal comments and encouragements. I have decided to set up my WWII links and information to the left and the Napoleonic information to the right of my blog. Nice and orderly!

I am looking at 3 sets of rules, 2 at the battalion level (where each stand represents a platoon) and 1 at the company level (where each stand represents a section). This was all originally very confusing as the terms section and platoon were unknown to me from Napoleonic wargaming. Have it sorted now, I think. I especially would like to thank Curt at Analogue Hobbies for all his advice, he is a font of all things wargaming.

The two battalion levels sets are Spearhead and Blitzkrieg Commander, while the company level level set is Flames of War.

I know very little about each set, but suspect that the I will be less interested in the FoW rules as I am not that really interested in skirmish level actions, but more in recreating historical scenarios at the division level. But who knows what direction I will go. The neat thing about these 3 rulesets is that the basing in essentially uniform and will work for all three rulesets. I am using the Flames of War basing conventions as found in the 1st edition Afrika source book.

I am also looking at the Rapid Fire ruleset, which uses a different basing convention, but I have not had a chance for a good study yet as the rulebook, although ordered at least 1 month ago, still appears to be in transit from the UK. They do come well recommended, and from what I understand I can play the rules using FoW basing.

I am using the Spearhead Tables of Organization and Equipment to build the actual units. This is really quite an excellent resource, and the actual units and equipment for the 15th Panzer Division OB to the left will be based on the 1941-42 TOE from this book. I also got the Spearhead scenario book for North Africa, this is an absolutely exciting find as it contains 21 scenarios based on historical actions from 1941 to 1943, but more important is the terrain design for each scenario. All 21 scenarios are based on 12x30" geomorphic terrain tiles. Each scenario is based on 4 or 6 of these tiles, and this really works well for me as my table is 12x5', so it will easily accommodate a 5 x 5' or 5 x 7.5' actions. I am especially excited about doing these tiles, but all in good time.

As you can see from the left OB, I have decided to start building units for 15 Panzer Division for my DAK force. I am still up in the air about what 8th Army force to do, I was thinking about doing the Desert Rats (7th Armoured Brigade), but I am tempted by some of the Commonwealth units as well. Unfortunately no Canadian units served in North Africa, but the 166th Newfoundland Field Regiment of the Royal Artillery served in Tunisia. My uncle, Pat Michael, was in this regiment and I remember his many stories about his time in Tunisia and Italy. I am sure the 166th will find somewhere in my OB for the allied forces.

Another bit of exciting news is that Iannick at Clash of Empires, my occasional gaming partner in Montreal, by some strange coincidence has also decided to take on WWII 15mm gaming! This will work out well, as my son Simon is starting at Concordia University in Montreal this fall, and I plan to spend quite a bit of time there (my long term plan is to move to Montreal, I just have to convince the one who wears orange trousers).

I do have a quite a few figures and vehicles already painted, so stay tuned for some photos.

And finally, I need a new name for my blog, it has to incorporate the words "Wargaming in 28mm", I was thinking of "wargaming in 28mm and sometimes smaller", but I will take any suggestions. Maybe I can start another poll.

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A New Direction

2011-05-29T12:52:00.004-04:00

I have decided that maybe I should take a little break from 28 mm Napoleonics. I have play tested 4 different rulesets over the last couple of years and have painted up multiple units. My next planned major project will be Plancenoit and I will need to paint up 4-5 regiments of French Cavalry as well as some Horse artillery. The big job though will be the IV Prussian Korps which requires 18 infantry battalions, 12 cavalry regiments and 9 artillery batteries, it is enough to take my breath away, as I have really have none of this done. I also need to see how the plastic figure availability evolves, as this is a lot of figures.

Time to take a little breather......need to do something different. I also want to learn how to use an airbrush. I thought seriously about doing Romans, Crusaders or the Japanese Waring States, all very tempting. Lots of great figures out there and some new nice rulesets.

But I said to myself is that really different, and I said no it is not! I also wanted to try to paint some smaller figures and maybe something a little less complex. The thought of tanks excited me!

WWII seemed to fit the bill, I did quite a lot of research and have settled on 15 mm figures and the North African theatre, I always liked those 50's films about Rommel and the Desert Rats. In the last month, I have painted a few vehicles and some little men (I was shocked at how small 15 mm figures are), all of which I will chronicle in a new series of posts.

So that brings me to a question, should I start a different blog which is devoted to my WWII adventures or should I blend the WWII posts into my Wargaming in 28mm blog. I have noticed some of you have used the Poll widget, so I said why not ask the readers. Very simple question, should I run one or two blogs, I would really appreciate your advice. Please see the Poll to the upper right. Many thanks for your responses.

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La Haie Sainte: A Black Powder AAR

2011-05-16T14:11:00.005-04:00

For the OB and derivation of the scenario, please see this earlier post.

Final thoughts

As you can probably tell, I believe the Black Powder rules worked superbly for this scenario, with the only adjustment being some minimal changes to the BUA rules in respect to firing and hand to hand combat as discussed in the playtest post. The rules themselves are just as easy to pick up as Lasalle, but are quite a bit more flexible in respect to dealing with different unit sizes and attributes. I really liked the ability to give certain units scenario specific attributes, the Marauder ability given to elements of Baring's command was very useful in allowing the 95th, 1/KGL and the rockets the ability to operate independently of command distance. Characterising the 2/KGL as Valiant gave Major Baring that one extra chance to hold out at La Haie Sainte until quite late in the Battle of Waterloo, thus recreating history. I hope the series of dispatches is not too confusing, it was a lot of extra work, but I wanted to do something different.

Anyway, time to move on to something completely different........

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A Reluctant Participant

2011-05-04T15:28:00.010-04:00

Oscar Wilde said "there is only on thing in life worse than being talked about and that is not being talked about".

I have tried to avoid this chain blogpost, but I suppose I will have to participate after being nominated by 4 other blogists. I certainly appreciate the honour.

Many thanks to:

Curt at Analogue Hobbies

Miles at Lair of the Ubergeek

Rosbif at Monsieur le Rosbif & Johnny Frog

Rafa at Project Leipzig (1813)

Well, I believe, I am supposed to tell 7 things about myself, so here we go:

1. I am from Newfoundland, born and bred, and we ARE the chosen!

2. I am employed as an Emergency Physician and yes I am told it is just like "ER"

3. I am married with 2 children, who have turned my hair grey, they claim it to be the job!

4. My wife is wonderful, and asks me each day what the soldiermen (you all) are up to.

5. My wife is a psychiatric NP, so I am monitored closely for any signs of instability!

6. I have two cats, both black, called Bull and Young Tiff (I live in Salem by the way)

7. My other activities are fly fishing, road cycling and le menu dégustation, somewhat mutually exclusive pursuits, but I have been able to engage in all three in a 24 hour period.

Who do I nominate? Well I suppose I will break the chain as all chains should be broken! If I was indeed to nominate someone it would certainly include all those fantastic blogists listed to your right. You are all first class, and I look forward to your updates on a daily basis.

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1/1er Régiment de Grenadiers à Pied de la Garde

2011-05-01T10:47:00.002-04:00

Many times, I have heard reference to the fact that gamers tend to paint the elite units of armies first and only paint the rank and file later. I have tried to control myself because I wanted to paint the Old Guard for sometime. Well after painting 19 battalions of French infantry, I did not feel it unreasonable to reward myself. I have had these Victrix figures sitting around since well before Christmas. They were assembled for me by kind gamer in London, Martin Aaron. I believe I had 5 or 6 boxes to assemble and I just was not keen to do it myself. Way too fiddlely for me to do, so Martin stepped in and did them for me. It was very appreciated and he did a great job.

This 24 figure unit represents the first battalion of the 1er regiment. Martin did a nice job of converting one of the figures to a casualty unit. The Maréchal de camp Baron Petit is a Perry figure, and is an absolutely wonderful cast. The figure is actually their Géneral de division Michel figure, but it was the only one with an overcoat so I used that one from the set. Ignore the extra gold! The Victrix plastics are nice, and I believe their Old Guard set is one of their best, certainly the one with the most marching figures. They are not a match for the Perry plastics though, the detail on the back and sides of figure is just less and the plastic is more fragile. I believe I may have broken off one plastic bayonet with the Perrys, and I broke off 5 alone in these 24 figures, some I was able to repair, some I was not. The flag is also from Victrix, very nice.

The figures were primed white and then I used a new ink I had just acquired for the overcoat. Liquitex has come out with a line of acrylic inks and they are beautiful to use. Their flow characteristics are great, they have a very even spread over white and are relatively inexpensive. I used the Prussian blue, there is a slight sheen that you see with inks, especially if they pool, but my technique easily gets rid of it the the next step. I did dry brush to successive lighter blues on the overcoat (GW Ultramarines Blue and Vallejo Sky Blue). The trousers were done with a wash of GW Enchanted Blue. The black pigmented AP gloss was used. I did not do any drybrush after the AP dip, as I liked the way they came out.

Maréchal de camp Baron Petit

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La Haie Sainte: A Black Powder Playtest

2011-04-15T12:48:00.019-04:00

Another update to this post. For those who have already have had a look scroll down to the black print for the play test update.

I have been thinking about this scenario for a while now, and although I enjoy painting and adding to my armies, every now and then I need a game. I have also been quite busy changing the terrain surface on my terrain boards, but that is pretty well done now (a separate post documenting my experience will come), so it is time to move on.

I have had a look at several sources for an OB and the timing of the battle as it unfolded and have come up with the following. I used mostly Adkin's book, but also got some ideas from a monograph on the battle put out by the Napoleonic Archive. Nice little book and even has a set of rules.

I have substituted some units; all the cavalry units have been substituted to allow for my collection. I have no KGL lights, so some 95th (1st KGL light) and 5/60th Rifles (2nd KGL light) have been substituted. This will also be the first time my 6pd Rocket troops will see action! I have to paint a figure to represent Col Ompteda and a couple of extra stands of the 95th, but I am pretty ready to go.

The timing is pretty accurate. I have been working on the rating of all the units, clearly some of the Allied units will have higher ratings then the French generally, but at the same time it would be difficult to underrate the French heavy cavalry and the 13e légere. The British do have cannon and some terrain advantages, but essentially they have half the troops as the French and really most of them do not arrive until quite late in the scenario.

Here are the French troops, I am still playing with the initial dispositions, they will move first.

The defenders at La Haie Sainte, the Hanoverians do exist, I did not realize that they were not on the table when I took the photo.

Here we have the allied troops, interesting that they are all German aside from the 95th and the artillery. I may combine the Nassau with the 5th KGL line into a large unit, I am still thinking about this.

A little better view of the allies, Lt Gen Alten is next to Wellington's elm. The tree line at the reverse slope, the hedge line that the 95th and Lt Dansey with his rockets used for cover as well as the famous sandpit have all been modeled in the terrain set up.

The 1st KGL lights face a daunting challenge!

Now for the most important part: The rules. The sharp eyed among you will note that a copy of Black Powder (BP) is lying on top of Lasalle. I have yet to use these rules but am considering them. One difficulty I have had with Lasalle in my Hougomont scenario was irregular troops, there is really not a lot of flexibility in the rules for them as skirmishing as been factored into unit characteristics. This is no problem for fixed battles, but La Haie Sainte requires the ability to add small groups of men gradually as battle progresses. I am a very inexperienced gamer, and when I am adjusting a set of rules I always feel uncomfortable. I suspect that the Republic to Empire (RtE) rules would be perfect here, but I find them a little inaccessible. I suspect if I got a chance to play with someone who knew them well, I might pick them up quickly, but I find the book as presently written a little unclear. I had a look through the BP when they first came out and they seem quite straight forward, but I stayed away from them as they were not specific to the Napoleonic wars.

I follow all the Napoleonic blogs closely and everyone seems to enjoy the BP rules, so I had a look through this morning and they do allow for small units in irregular formation. They also seem to be quite flexible, so I plan to have a closer look.

(38053)

Well, I have taken that closer look, and I believe it will be quite doable with BP. Here are my initial thoughts on the OB and ratings, I am still working on the initial dispositions. I am running some play tests now, to try to figure out how the rules work (thank you Curt of Analogue Hobbies) and if I will require any modifications. At the moment all I have done is decrease the movement ratio to 2/3 in order to slow the play so I can get a better sense of how the rules playout. I am also making some slight adjustments to the terrain. I am thinking that each move is equivalent to 30 minutes and thus planning on a 10 turn game. The actual battle took place between around 1400h and 1800h with the French capturing La Haie Sainte, I have added in an extra hour to give the 1700h reinforcements (Gougeon and Ompteda's brigades) some play time. The victor will be who is in procession of La Haie Sainte at 1900h! Have a close look at the rooster sheets, I have added a lot of the special rules especially to the Allies to make it more equal and to control for the small independent units. I would appreciate your opinion on the ratings.

(38348)

Play test

What follows is my first playtest of the BP rules, I was primarily focused on command, movement, shooting and combat and what follows is a dialogue between myself and Curt at Analogue hobbies, who clearly has a very good grasp of the rules. I find documenting these rule mechanisms invaluable. I have supplemented the questions by a couple of photos:

John: This may seem obvious but I had one question about command throws. Maj Baring wants to give separate orders to all the units under his command. Does he give all the orders and then throw 2D6 and the result affects the whole brigade or does he throw 2xD6 sequentially for each unit after giving orders to each unit?

Curt: Unless you are giving a 'Brigade Order' (i.e. units have to start and end within 6" of one another) Baring will have to give orders for (and roll 2D6) for each specific unit. Remember, that if he fails in any of these rolls he forfeits the rest of the Command Phase. For example, if Barring has 3 units that he wishes to give different orders to he will need to decide which one he wants to start with. He declares what the orders are (try to stay away from conditional orders such as "The 2nd will advance, unless..."), determines his modifiers (command distance, etc.) and rolls 2D6. If he fails in his command roll he is done. He cannot roll for any other units in his command. So you will always want to determine where your priorities are as the odds catching up with you increase on each roll.

John: Missed some of this thanks, it now really makes sense

Above we can see that that the 1/2 bats 55e ligne have attacked the 2/KGL light at LHS on the southern perimeter. (I looked at the RtE rulebook and LHS is graded as a size 2 building so it can contain 1 battalion and have no more then 3 battalions attacking......maybe I should of allowed only 1 battalion to attack each side at one time.....any thoughts)

Try the 3 battalion limit and see how it works. We allowed the three battalions to charge one face of the village as long as they could fit. As a result they formed into attack columns and went in. Either way you will find that the French are going to have a challenging time no matter what as the defending battalion will 'save' any hits on a 2+ and have a +1, +2 or +3 combat result bonus (depending on the size of the 2/KGL).

Sounds reasonable, but I will have another look at the RtE rules again about number of attackers per face

The question then came up when 2 units are attacking 1 unit, do I combine the 2 attackers die? Anyway that is how I did it. There was no closing fire as units in BUA can not perform closing fire. I also here made a couple of command decisions about the rules (it did not take long), the 2/KGL are skirmishers, but I decided not to apply the skirmish penalty for combat as they were in a BUA (maybe I should not have made them skirmishers). I also decided to let the KGL have 4 die rather then 2 as is usual for units fighting in a BUA, as 2 units were attacking(this follows the above questions about the number of units allowed to attack 1 side).

Yes, they are considered to be part of the same 'engagement'.

We allow garrison units to give 'closing fire' as they are in a prepared position whereas the rules assume that infantry forming squares (to what the rules often compare fighting in BUA) are too busy trying to get in proper formation to receive cavalry. Picture that these guys are established at loopholed walls and blocked alleyways.

Yes, you basically ignore the skirmishing classification. In reality all units in a BUA are in effect in open order or skirmish formation (spread throughout the buildings, alleys, etc.).

The 2/KGL should have 2 dice if they are charged on one face. It creates situation where the attacker will want to focus his efforts in one point of attack. We have played a house rule where the defender can call upon more of his h2h factors in subsequent turns to simulate the effect of officers ordering men to shift to defend a at-risk section.

I like your house rule here, it just seems right, I will do it your way

Anyway on to the combat:

KGL throw 4 die, hitting on 4+, they have 3 hits, the 55e save on 2=1 casualty assigned to 1/55e.

1/255e throw 12xD6, hitting on 3+ (first charge bonus), they have 5 hits, but the KGL save 4=1 casualty to the KGL

For my clarification, what are the KGL and 55e saving at? By my understanding the 55e should be saving on a 3+ (base of 4 but with a +1 bonus for being in Attack Column) and the KGL should be saving on a 2+ (base of 4 plus a +2 bonus for defending in a BUA).

Thats how I did it

1 casualty each, so then I look at the modifiers, +3 for KGL (in BUA) and +2 (2 rear supports) for 55e......the KGL win the combat.

Correct!

something right anyway!

As we can see above, the 1/55 passes it break test, but the 2/55e get a 5 on a 2xD6 roll and is forced to retire 2 move segments and become disordered (it has a little pennant next to hit. The 1/54 who were in support pass their break test and this phase come to an end with no further movement. I hope I have it right!!

Good, except that the 1/54 would not need to test as the 2/55e did not break (only breaking units require supporting units to check p.71 ).

Hmm, so break means lost to action, I was interpreting it as retreating backward.

Now if I can check the shooting, the Allies do some movement, Maj Baring actually throws a double6 when activating the 1/KGL and they blunder forward (thus my question about the multiple throws for each separate unit.......also I understand it is only the General who is prevented doing anything after a blunder and that a commander can still carry on).

Not exactly, if a subordinate commander blunders it ends his command phase immediately. You can still move on to another commander (or the General) but for the commander that blundered he finished for the turn. A General who blunders forfeits the Command Phase for his entire army.

From my first question, so now I understand it, and now I understand why the most important orders should go first!

Any on to the firing, as you can see from above it appears that 1 side of the 2/KGL can fire at the 1/55e and another can fire at the carabiniere. The Hanoverians in square can also fire at the Carabiniers. And Lt Dansey with his rockets is within 40" (I used 2/3 distance here as well but maybe the distance of a 6pd rocket is less then a 24pd rocket, I will have to do some research) of disordered 2/55e and decided to fire a couple of rockets (cocky I would say as they could easily land on the 2/KGL in LHS).

I would say that the 2/KGL facing the Carabiniers could shoot but the other face is still in close combat with the 1/55e (p.40 'When to Shoot'). (Technically a unit still in close combat cannot shoot at all but I would reason that in a BUA the separate faces could deliver fire out of their sectors.)

I like your interpretation for in BUA's for when to shoot

BTW the rocketeers firing on everything in range seems very much in the spirit!

Anyway I will do each sequentially:

2/KGL on the carabiniers, they get 2xD6 as from BUA, but this is doubled as the carabiniere are enfiladed, and they score on a 3+ because <4" range= 2 hits (no 6's), 1 save so 1 casualty.

Yep, good!

2/KGL on the 1/55e, 2xD6 as from BUA, but score on 3+ because <4" range=1 hit, no saves so 1 casualty (again no 6's).........the 1/55e now has 2 casualties.

Again, this should not occur as the 1/55e has not retired from the combat.

Yes mistake here, should have been obvious as well!

Hanoverians 1xD6 as from square, hit on 3+, 1 hit but saved

Yes.

The Rockets!! fire 2xD6, get a 5 and a 1, throw 2xD6=7, so 7" miss, throw D8 (8 cardinal positions on compass) get a 1, so the hit is 7" west of the aiming point, no damage (as marked above)

Yes, I quite enjoy rocket fire as its quite crazy.

Yes really liked how rockets worked, just have to think about the ranges.

(38562)

1er Régiment de Carabiniers

2011-03-31T11:52:00.002-04:00

For my La Haie Sainte project, I needed 2 regiments of Cuirassiers and I do have plans to do a second. But as an aside, I said to myself let's paint just one figure as those red-plumed fellows. Well I could not stop and here we are. I believe I enjoyed painting this cavalry unit more than any previous, I may even expand it to 12, but we will have to see. I have 8 more figures left from my second Perry box of heavy cavalry and they are slated to become the 1er Régiment de Cuirassiers. I have said it before, but I will say it again, these are first rate figures and I endorse them without reservation.

I believe I got most of the uniform and the horses right, although I do note that the plume on the helmet of the trumpeter in the above sketch is white, might change it after more research.

I used alcohol based metallics on the helmets and the cuirasses. Vallejo puts out a line called Oro Liquido, and they are just fantastic. On the officer's cuirass, I used red gold and on the troopers, I used plain gold. It is a little tricky to use, you put on a couple of brush strokes and then you have to re-stopper the bottle and give it a good shake to carry on. The paint just falls off the brush and has an almost perfect viscosity with an excellent spread and coverage pattern, remember I am painting over white and this is a single coat. It dries almost immediately. Highly recommended!

The flag came out of the Perry box and with a touch up, it looks quite nice.

Hopefully, you can see the difference between the two gold colours. I really like that red gold.

And finally, before Old Anonymous puts his 2 cents in, I do know that this is not the 1815 Carabinier uniform, but I found the white and sky blue just irresistible.

Well, I am going to take a little break from painting and start to work on my La Haie Sainte scenario. I have just finished re-surfacing my terrain boards (I will put up a post soon) and it is time to do something different. Let's hope that I have enough KGL Light/95th figures for the scenario. More to come!

(37454)

British Foot Artillery

2011-03-29T10:08:00.002-04:00

I recently finished 3 stands of artillery to make up 2 batteries of British artillery. One stand is Front Rank and the other two are Perry. I must say I like the Perry figures more and more and they really lend themselves to my painting technique. I use GW Fenris Grey for the cannon carriages, maybe if I had my time back I would have gone with a more grey colour rather than blue, but these are fifth and sixth battery of British or allied artillery I have painted and I am not going to start again. The Perry figures are actually marketed as Hanoverian artillery (BH 12), but I do not believe there is any difference.

Hanoverian unit to the right and British to the left.

I actually plan to buy 2 Perry Howitzers (BH47) and make a second unit of Hanoverians, this time with a howitzer and 2 cannons each.

I believe I will add one further battery of RHA and try to stop there. My artillery for the my Anglo-Portuguese army will then include 1 battery of Portuguese FA (Redoubt), 2 batteries of RHA (1 Redoubt and 1 Perry), 3 batteries of British/Hanoverian (1 Front Rank and 2 Perry) and a battery of RHA Rocket Corps with 4 stands. I have one limber done and another ready to go and I also plan to paint up those nice Perry (BH 49) mounted Artillery commanders.

If anyone has a link to a nice print of British artillery please sent it on as I like to post a print at the beginning of each blog entry and I could not find one.

(37302)

A Nice Gesture

2011-03-24T12:23:00.005-04:00

A couple of months ago on the Fighting Talk forum, I saw a post that offered some painted Dutch-Belgians for a minimal cost. Apparently a gamer had run out of room and wanted to get rid. I was quite interested as I am trying to build up my Waterloo armies, so I jumped. Unfortunately, I was late and someone else snapped them up.

The original poster, Dashing Blade, emailed me though and offered to give me a couple of battalions of French Infantry, of which he had no need! All he asked was that a make a donation to a military service fund. He then sent them at his own cost from the UK to the US. He was very guarded about who he was, although he admitted his name was Ian and I suspect he is from Lancashire.

I was able to get 3 French battalions from the lot with an addition of a few figures of my own. Dashing Blade had painted them in a campaign style, something that I never had attempted. Certainly his style was quite different than mine, but they are very nice indeed.

Well here they are re-based, I decided to flag them as battle weary 4e, 5e and 6e battalions. Here they are looking down the barrels of a battery of British artillery.

Enormous variability in the uniforms, truly ragged.

The chefs de batallion with the 4e and 5e were painted by me as well as six of the command and elite figures.

Look at those striped trousers!

Very generous and much appreciated, thank you Dashing Blade.

(36969)

Heavy Dragoons (The Heavies!)

2011-03-23T11:46:00.019-04:00

Been a bit slow to post recently, but I have been busy. For my La Haye Sainte scenario, I needed a large Lasalle unit of British Heavies. My favorite part of the film Waterloo is when Wellington tells Uxbridge "now is the time for the heavy cavalry".

Guard heavy dragoons in bicorn, pretty close I suspect

I thought a nice unit would be the Union brigade under the ill fated Ponsonby.

Lasalle requires 6 bases for a large cavalry unit, and I usually go with each base representing a squadron. The Union Brigade was made up of 9 squadrons or around 1000 troopers at Waterloo, so her are 2 of the 3 regiments, I need to order the Northern British (Scots Greys) figures. These represent the 1st (Royals) and the 6th (Inniskillings) regiments.

I used the midtown AP here, I thought it would be better on the red than the black pigment. The horses were done with various Inks and Washes from Vallejo and Games Workshop. I like how the horses came out.

Information on the uniforms of the British cavalry can be found here. I know of course that British Heavy Dragoons wore helmets at Waterloo, but I wanted bicorns.......

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2/IR48

2011-03-01T11:21:00.002-05:00

About 4 months ago, I bought 16 Hungarian infantry off ebay. I am not sure of the painter's name, but I had bought a French infantry unit from him a couple of years ago because I really liked his painting style. The method I use now (white prime, thinned paints with dark wash) is based on what I learned from studying these figures. I had a plan to paint an Austrian Avant Garde Lasalle division, and needed some extra Hungarians (only had 24 figure battalion pack), so this seemed like a good opportunity to cut some painting time and get the unit done.

The unit came with green facings and a low porte attack pose. I am not wedded to painting specific battalions for my Avant Garde division, so that was ok with me as I had already painted a blue faced and had started a red faced German battalion. Red, blue and green, what more could you want!

Green facings in a Hungarian infantry unit limited the choice to just 2 units, IR48 and IR62. Both had yellow buttons, I like yellow buttons. The specific facing colour is steel green. The Clash of Empires website has a colour guide to Austrian facing colours, I used GW Knarloc Green which I believe to be a little light, but so be it. IR48 was called Vukassovich up to 1809 and Simbschen after this.

In line, great GMB flag. I painted 20 of the 36 figures all the rear rank as well as the officers on the right and left flanks.

Square

I alway make the left most base in my infantry battalions using two 40x20mm bases rather than one 40x40mm base. The rear rank is glued to the thin square base, but the front rank base is magnetised so it can be removed to mark casualties. You can see that I did a pretty good job of matching the style.

The darkest Army Painter was used, a matt varnish was applied and the white areas were dry brushed to bring out the white again.

The great problem with pointy bits sticking out from the base is that it is difficult to have a tight column of march. If you are using the Republic to Empire rules though this is fine as it is recommended that you leave a base sized gap between each base when figures are in column of march.

Well that leaves just two more 36 figure infantry battalions, one 12 figure cavalry regiment and one horse cavalry gun to do and the Avant Garde division will be done.

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10ème Régiment de Cuirassiers (blue ones)

2011-02-18T13:44:00.001-05:00

I had not planned to paint any French Heavy Cavalry as none of these units served in peninsula, aside from the 13ème Régiment de Cuirassiers and than they served in no major actions. My new found interest in the Waterloo campaign has of course changed this. These are the first armoured cavalry I have painted. A brief run down on these units can be found here.

I decided to go with the Perry plastic heavy cavalry. These are nice figures, easy to assemble and paint and they look great. This is the second unit of Perry plastic cavalry I have painted, and I like these even more then the dragoons.

As readers of this blog will know, these figures started off as green. A quick application of Vallejo Prussian blue followed a light drybrush of sky blue sorted that. The horses were done with Citadel Brown Ink. I am still trying to find a good pink, this is a mixture of red and white. If anyone has a suggestion for a premixed light pink, I would appreciate it, I do not like mixing colours.

The unit is based as a large Lasalle unit with 6 bases, and I hope that they will see some action in my "La Haye Sainte" scenario. I have to say that I really enjoyed painting these figures.

The knowledgable among you will of course point out that the 1ème et 4ème Régiments de Cuirassiers are in the OB for this action, but I wanted pink so we have 10ème.

The sharp eyed will also note that the flag is wrong, as the 10ème have battle honours for many actions through central Europe. This is the flag for the 4ème,

I have one more box of heavy cavalry which I believe I will do up as 2 regular Lasalle units (4 base); the 1ème Cuirassiers and 1ème Carabiniers.

At least I did not have to repaint the trumpeter!

I quite like this unit.

34982

British Rocket Troops

2011-02-14T09:00:00.003-05:00

Well let us get on to something completely different. For my "La Haye Sainte" scenario, I needed a unit of rocket troops from Captain Whinyates' Rocket Battery of the RHA. This rocket battery was made up of 13 sections each of eight 6pd rockets as well as some cannon. I knew very little about rockets so decided to do some research. I knew that the rocketmen wore the uniform of the Royal Horse Artillery so that was pretty easy.

What was confusing though was the contents of the Old Glory British Rocket Troops package. There appeared to be 2 sizes of rockets and apparati. A search through google books revealed Congreave's original treatise and I found out that rockets came in all sizes!

After a good sort through the package, I decided to do 3 bases of the big rockets and 1 base of the small 6 pders, I needed for the La Haye Sainte scenario. I could find no reference on what colour to paint the launching apparatus, but decided to go with the British artillery blue-grey. I use GW Fenris Grey for this purpose. The white primed figures were painted using a Vallejo Prussian Blue and GW Fortress Grey. I have started to modify slightly my method of applying the Army Painter dip. I continue to paint it on generously after I have thinned it slightly and then within 1-2 minutes remove the excess with a dry brush to prevent any heavy build up or pooling. This is working out quite well and has lightened up the figures. After application of the matt varnish, I sometimes do some minimal drybrushing, here I only felt that I needed to touch up the white on the helmet plumes. Saxon Dog who is a far better painter then me, has a nice tutorial on his blog illustrating this method.

So here we have 3 bases of the 42pd rockets, they actually would fire them in 2's, so I should have 2 rockets on each apparatus, but I felt this was more illustrative. I have one extra large rocket that I will probably add in when I get a chance. This will represent a full section of rockets. I am sure they will see action in the future. One weakness of the Old Glory miniature rocket set is that these are clearly cannon men and not specialized rocket troops, I suppose I could have done some modifications, but I left them as is.

How would this be for some future figures. Maybe someone who knows the Perrys' could send this illustration on to them. These would be very cool miniature stands!

For the La Haye Sainte scenario, I decided to go with one stand with some 6 pders. Lt Dansey, RHA was sent forward with 2 guns and some rockets, he left the 2 guns behind and advanced by foot with his rockets to assist in the defense of La Haye Sainte.

Here we have Lt Dansey and his men with their rockets already to fire at the advancing 13e légere!

These bases were fun to assemble and although I favour other figures over Old Glory, I am quite happy with these 4 bases. I may even do up one of their rocket limbers in the future.

Time to get out the blue paint I suppose.

34691

A Cautionary Tale: The Green Cuirassiers!

2011-02-13T20:10:00.004-05:00

Formerly titled the 4ème Régiment de Cuirassiers

Well, I never thought I would make such an error! I have been rushing to finish up this unit of cuirassiers for some time. I had done 4 of the figures before Xmas. There is a painting contest over at Analogue Hobbies, and I was also keen to get my next scenario "La Haye Sainte" started and I needed a unit of cuirassiers.

I noticed after I had sent the photos to Curt at Analogue, that the 4th actually had orange facings and I had painted these pink; easy enough swop out the flag and repaint the numbers (shame really as I had done a nice job on the 4's) on the saddle cloth. I was trying to figure out why I had done what I did, so I was reviewing some sources and suddenly it dawned on me that I had made a much bigger error, by painting the coats and saddle clothes green. Merde!!! F..........!

I still have no idea what happened, but here they are "Les Cuirassiers Verts". Time to dig out some blue paint I suppose.

34632

I/RIR11 Prussian Reserve Infantry

2011-02-01T13:08:00.004-05:00

Here I hope is the start of my next army: The Prussians. I had dabbled with the Prussians a couple of years ago when painted up a few small (12 figure) units of Wallmoden's Korps. This was my first introduction to Calpe figures and I have been looking forward to getting back to them.

As readers of my blog will have noted, I have recently developed an interest in Les Cent Jours. I suppose when you have built a large British force, it is hard to abandon it. So with a good few French done, I felt Prussians would be a good idea. Lots of mini scenarios germinating in the old grey cells involving the Prussians at Placenoit, Wavre and Ligny. My recent success with the Lasalle rules in an asymmetric scenario have also encouraged me to press on.

I had a look through the Prussian forces in the Waterloo campaign and was fascinated to see that many of the units that were in Wallmoden's Korps had been folded into the 1815 Prussian OB. Even more cool was the fact that it seemed that most of these units were still uniformed as they were in 1813. I wanted to start with a Prussian brigade with 9-10 infantry battalions and some artillery and cavalry support. It felt it was a little boring to stick with the actual OB for a brigade, but rather to have any 3-4 units each from the original 1813 line infantry, reserve infantry and landwehr OB. I suspect, since I have some of the units partially painted for Walmoden's Korps , we will see IR25 (von Lutzow's Freikorps), IR30 (Russian German Legion) and III/IR27 (von Reiches) in my Prussian brigade. Might even try to jam in IR28 (Berg in French Uniform). Certainly Lutzow's Hussars will also appear as the 6th Prussian Uhlans. Steven Summerfield's books as well as Les Cent Jours website were quite invaluable in my research. As most of you know, I try to build my units around the Lasalle army lists, I will start with the core list and slowly add infantry and light cavalry abteilung organic brigades.

No Print of a Silesian Reserve unit available I am afraid

Well that is all very exciting and it is easy to get carried away. But back to the current post. Here we have I/RIR11 or I/IR23 in 1815. By 1815 this unit would have still had their grey reservist uniforms, aside from the officers. They should be in regulation shako, but I had these figures on hand with the peaked reservist cap, so they must of lost their shakos. The figures were primed white, followed by Citadel Fortress Grey for the uniform and Astronomican Grey (more blue tinge) for the overcoat rolled over the shoulder. Usual other colours, followed by AP Darktone (very thinned-thank you Roger), and a quick drybrush with the Fortress Grey. The yellow collars identify their Silesian origin. The flag is wrong (it is for a Landwehr unit), but it does look nice. I believe I may change over to Flag Dude, it is just so much easier to have the flag all set to go.

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