Foy’s road show

Unfortunately the battle of Raab has been delayed but as Tony and I were at a loose end on Saturday he kindly brought his battle-boards, terrain and some troops to my house for a fictional Peninsular war Commands & Colours game. Tony played a dashing marshal Marmont whilst I broke out my stiff upper lip to play the Duke of Wellington.

Tony allowed me to set up the terrain while he sorted out the troops. This was great as I’ve always wanted to play around with the magnificent terrain pieces that feature on his blog. As the British were slightly outnumbered I set up a defensive position for the Duke with a ridge (of course) and a river on one flank. In the centre of the table were two villages (East and West Suffolk – don’t ask) providing victory locations.

Initial set-up, French on the left and British on the right. The river is fordable (zoom in to take a good look).

The French right flank - I believe the cavalry in the foreground are Garrison, lovely slender little figures (the same cannot be said of me).

Wellington takes position under his tree. He remained with this artillery battery all day calmly chatting to his ADC and ignoring the enemy cannonballs bouncing around him.

Although supposedly on the defensive Wellington surprised Marmont by advancing and taking West Suffolk in the opening stages of the battle.

A view from the British left after the first few moves.

French Light infantry move up in preparation for an attack on the village. These are mostly Les Higgins figures.

The French take the village - there was a see-saw fight for the place that ran until the final turn of the game.

British heavy dragoons in reserve behind the ridge. These figures are beautifully painted but didn't get to take part in the action. Stapleton Cotton is out in front of them, one of Tony's Hinton Hunts.

To take the pressure off I ordered the KGL hussars to charge an enemy battery. To the amazement of both of us they succeeded in pushing the battery back and leaving it at reduced strength.

This is a wonderful Alberken rendering of general Picton. In this game Picton was shot at by the French no less than three times but he lived to tell the tale (at least until Waterloo that is).

The British have retaken West Suffolk but here come the French again.

More Les Higgins figures beating the pas-de-charge. This battalion was to eject the British for the final time and win the game.

The field at the end of play. There are very few French troops left in the centre but crucially those there are have taken the village victory location bringing Marmonts tally to 9 VP's - French victory.

The 79th Highlanders (Hinton Hunt) look on from the ridge while Wellington gives the order to retreat...

It was a thoroughly enjoyable game that saw me battling back from a poor start to bring us neck and neck until eventually Tony managed to rustle up a card that allowed his troops to punch through in the centre and win the day. There will be more rumblings at Horse Guards.

This was only my second stab at C&C and I have to say I really like the game system and speed of play. It is of course a board game but when used with miniatures you tend to forget this and it does have the advantage of having defined victory conditions. This isn’t to say that I will be abandoning Muskets & Marshals (perish the thought). M&M is a completely different type of game and will always be my Napoleonic rules of choice but C&C is now a firm second favourite.

Thanks to Tony for carefully transporting his road show over the bumps in the Forth Bridge to get here and for such a splendid afternoon’s gaming.

The men from Ucles

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to be able to take a trip to chateau Foy to take part in a refight of the battle of Ucles. I was on the Spanish side under the tutelage of the great man himself whilst the French were ably led by General Goya.

A general view of the table from behind the Spanish right flank.

The centre of the field - that's Ucles in the middle, an objective for the French but almost impossible to take due to sheer cliffs on most of the hex sides. Tony uses 15mm buildings with his 20mm troops and it works really well.

Now, call me old fashioned if you will, but I’ve never really liked the idea of hexes for miniatures games believing that the best place for them is board games, campaign maps and beehives. That said however, I’ve always admired the photos on Tony’s blog of his neat set up of miniatures and terrain for use with the Command & Colours rule set and it was great to be able to see all this for real.

The Spanish light cavalry shown here are all Hinton Hunt although Tony's armies have troops from just about every 20mm figure maker. Tony and I were eager to throw away our cavalry needlessly (we're both that sort of general) but we had to wait several turns before we could achieve this.

Spanish militia in the woods on the far right of our line. These militia boys put up a splendid fight, clearly Bruce Quarrie's rules were never translated into Spanish.

Those of you who follow Tony’s blog will know that he primarily wargames the Peninsular War and he has a truly stunning collection of 20mm figures for the period. It looked to me as if he has every single battalion of British, Portuguese, Spanish and French troops that ever took part but if not he can’t be far off that total.

The French cavalry were mostly comprised of Dragoons. I think these are Les Higgins (Tony, put me right).

The game started with a French assault on our outpost at Tribaldos. Our defending grenadiers made a great fight of it with an action that resembled La Haye Sainte or Hougoumont. Although the Spanish were eventually ejected we ground down the French so much that no further serious action occurred on this flank.

There can’t be many wargamers who have a Spanish Napoleonic army but Tony’s is well researched and spectacular to look at. My own prejudice against having one stems I think from Bruce Quarrie’s rules in the 70s which incorporated rather biased national characteristics that made a Spanish army pretty much unusable. Why waste time collecting one when you could have a division of British regulars instead?

A view of the Spanish left flank - the fighting around Tribaldos continues in the distance.

And here's a view of the right flank - French reinforcements are arriving on the far table edge.

As it turned out the game was highly enjoyable and provided a realistic ebb and flow that is hard to find with most conventional miniatures rules. Once you get away from worries about unit facings and formations (although there is a cunning rule for squares) and focus instead on the tricky command decisions you have to make C&C becomes a very gripping game.

Eventually the action on the right flank developed into a serious clash of arms. At the end of play each side had 7VP's which was a very good result for the Spanish. If we had played on my suspicion is that the French would have picked up the required 10VP's for a victory before we did.

I came away very impressed with both Tony’s fantastic figure collection and the C&C rules and am looking forward to another game at some point in the future. My thanks to Tony and Mrs Foy for their hospitality (we had lunch in the garden – in Scotland in April!) and to my travelling companion and opponent General Goya. A grand day out.

For a full battle report hop on over to Tony's blog here.

Guest Appearance #7

This is a close up shot of the command group from Roy’s 'Old Guard in bicornes' unit that I snapped during our last game.

More clever conversions from Roy - my favourite has to be that sapper but the marching officer converted to a standard bearer is also pretty darn good!

And here's another photo that Michael sent a few days ago this time of his unit of French ‘Sailors of the Guard’ - very smart.

I know they're Minifigs but they still look really good to me. I'm also liking that Hinchliffe Old Guard mounted officer lurking in the background.

Guest Appearance #6

Michael sent me these photos of some of his French and British Hinton Hunt forces. Click the images to zoom in for a good look.

Now this really is a big battalion - I think it's 48 figures - there are grenadiers and voltigeurs on the flanks.

Some seriously impressive buttons on the fusiliers and the flag is brilliant - I've painted a few of those and it's no easy task to pick out the lettering like that.

A wonderfully animated Ponsonby next to a one-piece British general.

One of my favourite figures - British dragoon at rest. This is a one piece casting and is very difficult to paint to the standard displayed here.

I think you’ll agree that’s some pretty stunning brush work there from Michael.

101 uses for a French Marin

So apparently my French marines are not marines at all but are sailors, thanks to Stuart A and Roy for pointing that out – if only I’d applied myself more during my CSE French lessons.

Steve noted the fact that Roy has a surplus of Sailors of the Guard and kindly sent these photos of a suitable paint job conversion - these are FN96 Marine (marching) converted to Young Guard Tirailleurs Grenadiers.

I’m pretty sure that I’d heard before that the Hinton Hunt French Marine figures were often given paint job conversions. Some of the figures that I have came originally from Don and look to have been painted as either Westphalians or Saxons.

Any other suggestions?

More from Roy on Vintage Waterloo

A couple of weekends ago Roy hosted two games of Vintage Waterloo at his house with various other wargamers, none of whom had played my rule-set before. Sadly I wasn’t able to attend myself but Roy now has so many figures painted and based for Muskets & Marshals that I doubt if he missed the presence of my own troops on the table.

The French flank - a view from just behind Plancenoit.

The French attack Hougoumont - apparently they found it impossible to dislodge the British foot guards within.

A cavalry clash at Plancenoit - I believe the Prussian lancers came off best in this encounter.

Picton's division on the ridge.

Action near La Haye Sainte - an advance by British cavalry seems to have rattled the French enough to order at least one battalion into square.

The French players look very focused!

It seems from Roy’s account that the rules were well received although the brutal nature of the firing and combat system apparently took some veterans by surprise. I was very pleased to hear that on both days they managed to play about 12 game turns with 2 – 3 players per side and Roy umpiring.

The British position behind La Haye Sainte - the terrain looks slightly shifted from the play-test game I had with Roy but at least the farm is on the correct side of the road!

The view from behind the british left - there seems to be a fair bit of action in the area of Plancenoit.

French attacking the ridge between La Haye Sainte and Hougoumont - the Duke is under pressure but still appears to have some reserves.

I’m heartened that the rules were so well received and it does seem that Roy and I have play-tested and revised them now to a point where they are giving exactly the sort of game we wanted all along. Roy and I are hoping to play our own game of Vintage Waterloo at the end of October and I am of course really looking forward to it.

All photos are by Matt B, for the latest version of my rules Muskets & Marshalls click here.

Mercenaries

Well, not really mercenaries as these tough looking chaps are only on loan having been sent to me this week by a kind blog follower to help bolster the British forces for Vintage Waterloo. As you can see they are mostly Hinton Hunt but there are a few Alberken and SHQ figures as well.

 With this many British riflemen on the table any mounted French officers had better keep a sharp lookout!

As there is a full unit of 24 figures I was thinking that maybe they could represent Major Baring’s KGL rifles at La Haye Sainte although Roy may already have this covered.

The oversized hand on this officer is a nice example of Hinton Hunt flash metal. The painting of the buttons and lace is exquisite (click image to zoom in).

Also arriving here this week have been the 30th Foot (painted by Lee) and a squadron of Prussian Landwehr cavalry (painted by Matt B) together with a mystery personality figure – more on these once I get them based up.

Roy and I are hoping to get together next Friday – I have no idea just how much stuff Roy has managed to assemble but I’m thinking it will be a lot!

More from Roy

Roy just sent me these pictures of his new French cavalry units based up and ready for Vintage Waterloo.

Excellent - loads of Curiassiers, just what we need but we may have a bit of a problem fielding two Napoleons!

Wonderful composite Guard Lancer unit - I'm assuming these are the two-piece figure (correct me if I'm wrong Roy).

Impressive stuff I’m sure you’ll agree – well done that man!

Guest Appearance #5

Steve sent me this picture of some French Der Kreigspieler infantry all in the same high porte position as the highlander figure featured a couple of posts back (click here). These are lovely figures and fit in perfectly with Hinton Hunt who never produced any figures in this pose.

It makes me wonder why DK borrowed so heavily from the work of Marcus Hinton when they were able to produce such nice original work.

Guest Appearance #4

Continuing with the Scottish theme Don sent me some photos of his superb Hinton Hunt highlanders this week. He says that these were all painted “long ago, back when I had more patience and sanity”. I think painting 3 kilted regiments would push the best of us over the edge but I love the effect Don has achieved here distinguishing the different tartans.

The 42nd Black Watch. The officer figure is BN30 - I have one of these, a lovely figure.

The 92nd Gordons comprised of BN33 Highland Private (charging).

The 79th Camerons (I think) - love the tartan on these lads!

The 71st Highland Light Infantry. Don has used British light infantry figures BN93, BN96, BN90 and the rifles bugler BN20 to represent this splendid unit.

The command stand features General Picton BN253, a Sergeant BN31 and a beautifully painted DK regimental flag!

Great stuff and a real encouragement to get me working on my own version of the 42nd.