March Musings

 

I focused on house renovations recently, as well as a general re-organization of various rooms of the house. Due to wallpaper removal, plastering, floor work and also a lot of materials being stored in the garage I've had to move some things around.

Part of this has been the struggle with a teenager who wants to use the only desk we have all the time, so a new painting desk was purchased. 

I have picked up some armies from Warlords Epic range, and my first attempt below. Still learning photography and also editing so they may look a bit too highlighted. 

 

And also, to get me eye on again for my 28mm Spanish, I practiced on some old Airfix British.

The remaining Spanish are ready, so now winter is approaching I should find more time to paint.

Battle of Wavre Refight

 

Looking for a big game, we decided to re-fight Wavre in 28mmm, but with Grouchy starting earlier then expected. The game had around 80 Infantry units, 16 Cav and a 18 batteries, on a large table with 6 players. A fun affair, with the French pushing the Prussians as they did historically but not enough to take the position. 

I felt the French had just done enough, but not enough to stop the result up the road.

Luck and Kampfen prepare to defend Wavre Town

French assaults about to begin.

Gerard streams past Limale to assault Bierges from the west.

 

Testing Rules for refights

 

 I will be planning a variety of re-fights over the next year or so, with a target of a very large game. As such, the topic of rules always comes up, so my trusty companions and I will play test some rules over the next few months.

Today was Black Powder, a rule set I have used a few times before in a lot of periods. Some pics from the game below, French defending a crossroads from an Allied attack.

 

 

 

  

 

A French Victory as the Allies ran out of steam at a crucial time and with some excellent dice rolling.

Prussian Cavalry

I am being very productive, but taking photos is not high on the list at the moment so there is some delay on that front. The following figures are painted with basing just being finished, main flocking is down but just needs the final wave of bits and pieces to add on. 

The 2nd East Prussian Cuirrassiers, which are Hinchcliffe 25mm figures which I quite like. (Standard is yet to be added)

2nd Silesian Hussars, an old unit of Old Glory that recently were refurbished with some additional basing needed.

 

Currently, I have two other units to finish, both Old Glory Uhlans but the lovely wire lances I purchased something like "7 years ago" have gone walkabout. I suspect I might have to open every box I have to find them as they will be hiding somewhere obscure.

As I overfilled the PVA Palette, I also based some 15mm ACW figures I have for a "rainy day". I picked most of these up mainly for when I wanted to play-test Fire and Fury rules or other ACW rulesets, the confederates on the left are actually over 21 years old. They are TTG figures (or battleline in NZ).

Battle of Elchingen, 1805

Battle of Elchingen, 1805

Today, Mark hosted Ion and me to a refight of Elchingen, from the 1805 Campaign.

The figures are all Marks collection as he hosted it in his lounge on a somewhat average summers day.

I took on the role of General Riesch, commanding a mostly poor Austrian force defending a ridge-line between two villages. MY forces were all on the table as of the start of the game, whilst the advance French forces would be bolstered on turn 2 and turn 6. The Austrian forces had a single battery, a smattering of Grenadiers, Cavalry and raw troops, with these forces being deployed behind the hills, in the town and on the far left flank.

The orders from Mack, reminded me of a Tarot card reading. Something like, "oh, something might happen, maybe, yes, no, maybe so, mmm yes, you think about that". So, having commanded a Spanish Napoleonic army for 15 years, I decided to what I did best with raw troops, defend, reinforce key points with Veteran troops and hope for a dashing charge to sweep away the enemy at a crucial moment.

The initial Austrian deployments below.  All Austrian troops move forwards, supporting the villages and also making themselves visible on the ridge-line  hoping to draw French into the central position.

 

General Reisch, far far behind the front lines.

The French advance.

 

 The village resulted in a game long siege, the French assaulted time after time, slowly gaining a foothold but at great cost in lost units. At a key moment, with a whole Austrian brigade on death's door, I replaced them with Veteran troops who held half the town for the rest of the day.

Austrian reserves attempt to push the right flank

 Attempting to interrupt the French Assaults, Cuirassiers and Grenadiers swoop over the hill. The Cuirrasiers charged, breaking two units before them before retiring back to safety.

The far most Austrian forces seize the other village in the face of Cavalry

 

 The French reinforcements sweep across the ridge to face the serried ranks of Austrians conscripts.

 

French Chasseurs charge across the ridge line, but are seen off by Uhlans, saving that section of the line from certain defeat. 

 

The left flank then collapsed after a unit broke and took most of it's brigade away with them, a rule mechanic came into play here that I thought was tedious, in that when a unit breaks, those around it take a morale test. However, if a unit breaks as a result of that initial morale the rest of the force takes another morale check. So in a single turn, a veteran unit had to roll morale 3 times, as a unit then broke on the second round which I thought was over the top.Simply in terms of play-ability, I did not really think too much of it, as I have seen a similar problem in another rule-set (A unit of 95th Rifles  had to roll morale 6 times in a minute in a 15mm game). But hey, lots of rules of odd mechanics and I was handling a raw army.

 

The casualties, 12 Austrians Units broken during the game. At around the 3/4 mark, we had lost only 5, however the great rout of the left flank increased this by 7 in around a single turn.

  

All in all it was a great game, Ion thought the game was over half way through for his French, but to me, it was far from over. My raw troops did  well, but in the end simply could not hold on long enough. Thanks to Mark for hosting!

A visit to Hearn's Hobbies in Melbourne

I was recent;y in Melbourne and managed to visit Hearn's Hobbies whom I knew had a good supply of HAT figures. I managed to pick up 

• Galic Command
• SYW Prussian Infantry and Command
• Napoleonic Dutch and Belgian infantry
• German Tank Riders 
• Luckily I found Italeri Arab Warriors (x2) and British Sepoy Infantry.

 In the post I also received:

• The Men Who Would Be Kings
• The Pikeman's Laments
• Civil War Cardboard Figures

Now I just need time!

Painting Options

As I have recently returned to 1/72 scale for armies in a number of solo periods the issue of painting them has come up again. While I paint 15mm and 28mm in a certain why, the beauty and attraction of 1/72 is being able to create and paint largish armies quite simply and quickly.

While my Napoleonic figures can be painted to some degree of detail my WW2, ACW, Fantasy and other armies don't need as much so I am going to experiment on them by using Army painter Quickshade.It has mixed reviews but recently I have seen several posts regarding it and the results look quite good.

After reading a few posts on blogs and forums I followed the recommended technique and applied it using a brush, dried and followed with a Matt Varnish. I then wanted to see what they looked like to decide if I need to highlight any colours.

I was suprised how shiny the quicktone made the figure but with varnish (applied properly) they looked quite good. So I tried a number of different periods and figures to see Quickshade fared.

 1. Italeri CSA Infantry (Good result)

 2. Esci Union Infantry (50/50 Result - Something about them nags at me)

 3. Esci Soviet Infantry (Good result)

 4. HAT\Airfix Napoloenic (Good result though I may highlight lighter colours as I like bright figures)

 5. A Italeri CSA cavalryman. (Great result).

 6. An Italeri Prussian Infantryman (Good result for an awful figure).

 So, I am quite pleased with the process. I was able to paint the these figures very quickly whcih was great, quicktone dry (1 day) and varnish dry (1 day). I am pretty confident I can finish the rest of the Napoleonic and ACW armies very quickly.

Then I can get back into my 300 or so 28mm Prussians I need to start.

Italeri\Esci French Legere and Grenadiers.

So the project to rebuild the Army of Portugal continues !

Below are Esci French infantry painted as Legere (The bases need to be tidied as I have made a few mistakes as per usual).

These two stands are Brigade Solignac and Brigade Montmorand.

Esci Old Guard painted as the combined Grenadiers of Brigade Kellerman. I did these as I have 100 Old Guard Figures that I need to use up, so these will also be made into various Spanish\German units that I will need at some point.

Archduke and I also played an initial game of Operation Uranus , which he has posted about on his blog.

I was in Australia last week where it was hot, on return it was also hot in NZ so I have not painted anything. I find hot evenings not that enjoyable for painting so I tend to do basing and such as at least PVA glue dries very quickly. I shall post about my endeavors at a future time.......

General d' Armee playtest

Hi,

Chassuer was hosting Archduke Piccolo for a test game of the new ruleset and he invited me along. I arrived an hour or so into the game and then took command of the French. The wonderful collection and terrain are all Marks and they were a joy to play with.

Below are some sample pictures from the game:

 The Austrians surge forwards

 Upon the Guard Cavalry arriving on the field I then had my usual rush of blood to the head and sent the entire cavalry straight up the guts.

Commanding Cavalry is rather fun when you have lots of them !

The Austrian attack stalled several times but then surged forwards giving the Polish infantry a hiding. At this time the French suffered a daze and could not seem to do anything so I took the risk of investing my command dice 100% into the Cavalry to try to make a difference.

It was a good long game though I found it tiring (I only arrived back home at 1am from Australia that morning) but I felt it went well. The rules were easy to pick up and luckily lacked half the modifiers that the GdB ruleset had that caused me a nightmare at Waterloo.

Lindy Biege and small beginnings

So since my last epic adventure to Australia, I have been in Australia two more times in the last month or so. The novelty has worn off however my last trip was a holiday and this was very relaxing ,well deserved and I have returned motivated and keen to get myself back into it. I would be motivated to not work at all, sit in the sun and be a gentleman of leisure but somehow I believe my finances would disagree with me.

I started with organizing myself a little bit more and slowly getting some painting done, with  longer time being spent each week.At the moment I am now up to roughly three nights a week for about an hour which, compared to several years ago is not a lot I am finding it helping my productivity.

This all began since I have been watching a youtube channel of lindybeige.

A video entitled "Crap movie archery" (ha ha) was linked on the NZ wargamers forum and since then I have watched most of this person's channel and have found it thoroughly entertaining and knowledgeable. I know very little about ancient history, weapons and clothing so it has been very useful.  Of course I do not take every word he says as a definitive authority but it is quite evident "Lindy" is knowledgeable and humorous at the same time.

In a rare gaming event last night Mark and I managed to play a small Napoleonic game based around an 1809 French attack on some Austrians.I shall make another post on this game but needless to say French dash saved the day and left the Austrians gnashing their teeth on the way back to Vienna (Actually the Austrians stalled at crucial times while French infantry, that should have died several times over hung on for dear life !).

Below - Davout's Division surges into the French Centre, avoiding anything to do with large stone buildings.

For some reason, blogger won't let me post a hyperlink very well so Mark (Chasseur) blog is at http://chasseuracheval.blogspot.co.nz/.

Guard Carnage

Today saw my 15mm French take the field in 2 games which ( for me at least) were very enjoyable.

Alas after talking about how great my phone is for taking photos I then proceeded to take an absolute lot of shockers - out of focus, shaky and generally poor.  I'm very annoyed as today was an excellent day to play Napoleonic's.  So apologies as the pictures are very very poor but I need to post them !

 My plan was simple - Don't stop and attack with cold steel - No musketry just cold steel at a brisk pace moving as fast as possible. While the infantry advanced the ample French cavalry would sweep the flank.  What occurred next I will talk about for a long time !

On the left flank two brigades of cavalry advance with Horse Artillery support.

The Veteran Infantry surge past the village of Oblaix with the Guard Chasseurs and Horse Grenadiers in support. My mission was to hold the village - The Guard does not "hold"  !!!

 

The Horse Artillery deploy and empty some saddles of the British horse opposite, meanwhile the infantry surge across the small stream eager for action.

 

 Insert crap photo here ! To the left of these images are 2 Heavy British Brigades of Dragoons. I send in several light cavalry regiments to disrupt their line and make small successes here and there.

A breakthough ! My Dragoons lose a melee but the British Cavalry pursue only be to launched upon by Veteran Cuirrassiers. The British are routed leaving some tasty looking gaps and unprotected artillery.

 Sensing glory the Guard Cavalry trot out to the flank. French Cavalry superiority starts to impose itself - The French cavalry overrun several batteries and the British forces are soon in peril. Meanwhile in the center French columns sweep all before them.

Not pictured.  In an epic charge the Guard Cavalry ride over everyone in their path. Guns, Dragoons, Light Dragoons. In 2 combats rolls all dice were magical 6's destroying British units before them. As a French Hussar unit routed the Horse Grenadiers then rolled 2 x 6's for Morale to see if that effected them. On they surged!

With all the British Artillery and Cavalry destroyed and the French forces charging literately everywhere Ross conceded defeat. Not a single musket was fired on the French side but the French swept all before them at such a pace the game only lasted 2.5 hours when they usually go for about 7.

So after lunch we start another one. Geoff commands the French right while I take the  Guard Cavalry on another Glory hunt. The British storm up the left flank and Geoff prepares a hasty defense - Immediately I sense an opportunity and a plan is hatched - The British advance has no flank protection so we plan to pressure the flank as they are overextended. The French forces march forward with Drums beating and bugles blaring.

 The Guard sense glory awaits them..........will "lightening strike twice" ?

 The British left surges onwards while the raw Wurtenburgers get ready for a tough time.

Geoffs Veteran Cavalry see off the British Heavy cav and the line holds yet the British advance continues. Yet as they advance the serried ranks of French infantry move on their flank.

 On the left flank British squares form and cannon site themselves to reap carnage on any french that advance on the road between the woods. (Crap photo again)

What madmen would ride into such a killing field......who would do such a thing ?

The finest horsemen in Europe answer the call.

Sensing a decisive action the Guard Cavalry storm the gap. Taking grapeshot they overrun the guns and smash into the British Cavalry behind.

 Four sixes in 4 dice routs the British Cavalry and the Guard Chasseurs ride them down.

 The Horse Grenadiers destroy the rest of the British cavalry and surge into the British rear.

 The French infantry close their trap on the British left wing. Advancing into their flank while  Geoff's brave Germans repulse the redcoats with ease.

The Guard have punched through the British center and Cavalry reserves pour behind them. French infantry advance towards the remaining British as the falter and retreat. I left at this point while Geoff finished the last load of firing.

The Emperor expects nothing short of a famous victory!.