I beg your pardon I never promised you a Grosser-Garten

I've had this idea in the back of my mind to try a small refight of the Battle of Dresden 1813. This has niggled away because of fond memories of a multi-player game I took part in back in the 90s, I think I played the French Marshal Saint-Cyr. I can't remember which side won but I was always impressed by the model of the Grosser-Garten that my friend M made for the game.

This is how it looks now but the palace is not the original structure of 1813 and at the time of the battle the place was surrounded by high walls.

So, with a fair bit of help from Goya (who made the palace building) I have knocked up this interpretation of the Garden suitable for play with Muskets & Marshals. Mrs S was less than impressed that I had missed off the fountains and lake but my modelling skills are not quite up to that and anyway, I needed to leave enough space to fit in some figures.

My version is built on an MDF base 18" x 9". The walls are foamboard covered with model railway brick paper. The palace is constructed in reinforced card from a cut-out book in Goya's possession. There's enough room to deploy at least 4 battalions for defence. 

The rather nice garden gate also came from Goya. In the actual battle all the entrances to the garden had been barricaded on Napoleon's orders.

The Austrians prepare to 'have a go'.

Emperor Francis and Archduke Charles consider the options for assault.

Meanwhile, the French make ready to repel them...

I'm pretty pleased with the result which should make a nice centre-piece for the game. Next I need to work on some Dresden type buildings.

Command post for the emperor

If Wellington has a tree, then in my opinion Napoleon deserves a windmill at least. So, I’ve knocked up this Dapol kit of a windmill (made from the moulds of the original Airfix one).

This model will feature in a game of Muskets & Marshals I hope to be hosting next month (although not as Napoleon's command post!).

SuperSlow Elizabethan Cottages

Some of you may remember that a few years back I attempted to make a SuperQuick church model (click here). The reason for this was that I had several of these cardboard models as a kid for use with my wargame armies and it seemed like a good idea to recreate one.

Having got over that attempt and prompted in part by this old photo (click here), I decided to have another go. This time I’ve gone for No 28 Elizabethan Cottages which was probably the first of the models I made as a young teenager. During this process I realised once again that at 12 years old I must have been a much better modeller than I thought because this was devilishly hard to put together and has taken me the best part of a week.

I’ve made quite a few mistakes and the resulting building is rather crooked (perfect for a crooked man, cat and mouse to reside in). I decided to leave off the chimney assembly because it looked rather tricky and anyway would undoubtedly come tumbling down the first time I reached across the table to move some troops.

I’m not planning on making another one for a while.

Village idiot

For some reason I couldn’t resist the urge to re-base the buildings in my village. This involved removing the models from their single A4 size base and putting them on individual bases which was in line with my original concept (click here). I must admit that this work was carried out without planning permission or any consultation with the residents.

The three buildings can still be arranged together as a single built-up-area, but it gives me the flexibility to use them individually as well.

Something else I couldn’t resist recently was splashing out and buying 96 French infantry from the 1807-12 range. This was a bit of a punt as I couldn’t be sure from the photos if they were vintage Hinton Hunt or not as the seller had miscaptioned them. For once I got lucky as all the figures turned out to be vintage castings in good condition except for a dozen or so broken bayonets.

The bulk of the figures are FN244 fusilier (charging) but there
are some others which I didn't already have in my collection
such as FN16 Voltigeur (marching) in greatcoat, although the
plumes have been cut down, and also marching/charging line
grenadiers.

At a stroke this gives me a full division (three units in my organisation) of French infantry but also undoes all my progress this year - figures painted vs figures acquired. However, vintage stuff doesn’t come along all that often and certainly not at a half decent price and these reinforcements do sort of fit into my long-term plan for this project.

Home renovations

Rather predictably (for anyone who knows me) I changed my mind about the building bases I completed a few weeks ago. The plain green bases just weren’t working for me so out came the brown paint and flock, lots of flock.

My original idea was to go for an old school look rather than a more mainstream effect however because I wargame on flocked terrain tiles the bright green bases just stood out too much. I’m happier with the way they look now being somewhat more scenic but not too much so.

This has been a pleasant distraction from finishing the British light dragoons but hopefully I’ll have those done by the end of the week.

Somewhere in Belgium

This is the finished Airfix (Dapol) village although I confess I think it is probably ‘somewhere in Surbiton’ rather than Belgium. These kits were of course devised for use with model railways and their original designers may have been horrified if they discovered they became the focus of so many large scale battles during the 60s and 70s.

I actually only ever possessed one cottage and La-Haye-Saint model back then so I’ve enjoyed making these up to provide real estate for my Hinton Hunt’s. The only remaining kit I have to make (eventually) is the windmill which I will be using to provide the emperor with a suitable command post.

These scenic items have been long overdue and I now feel I have enough buildings, trees and hills etc. to properly populate a 6’ x 4’ table.

Saint-a-Mont

This is the finished version of my converted Airfix La-Haye-Sainte model. The building has been cut down in size to give a smaller footprint than Hougo-Sainte although it has been mounted on the same A4 sized base.

The view from the main gate. I gave this model terracotta tiles
rather than grey as these are fitted to the real restored
Hougoumont buildings I visited earlier this year. Not that this
is supposed to represent Hougomont as such.

Aerial view to show the layout. Note the 'impossible to exit
with a farm cart building' (bottom right). The farmer may
have to disassemble his cart everytime he needs to use it.

Gneisenau calmly directs the defence of the farm. He is
confident that even C grade Landwehr can defend the place
as he has a copy of Muskets & Marshals version 6 in his hand.

Achtung, hier kommen die frosche!

I’ve enjoyed making and painting these models and now I just have the village base left to complete.

Hougo-Sainte

In the end I decided to spare my old model of La-Haye-Sainte and by performing some modest surgery (cutting off the garden wall) managed to squeeze it onto an A4 sized piece of MDF. The old version can be glimpsed here.

I’ve decided to go with Roy’s A4 system of bases to represent BUA’s rather than base the buildings individually. I haven’t bothered with flock or any fancy stuff and have just given the base an old school simple coat of green matt household paint (B&Q “Sherwood” if you’re wondering).

I plan to have three BUA bases in total and these will be the two farms (Hougo-Sainte and Sainte-a-Mont) and a village base with both cottages and the church (Plance-not). I think this will really be all that I need for the scale of games I’m likely to be playing as I do like to keep a fairly open battlefield.

La Ferme

As you can see I’m on a bit of a roll now as far as buildings are concerned. After my visit to Hougoumont earlier this year I decided to buy another Airfix La Haye Sainte model on eBay with the idea of making some sort of Saint-a-Mont type of building. What you see here isn’t quite what I had in mind but it is a farm of sorts on a much smaller footprint (10” x 7.5”) than the original model.

Converting it turned out to be much harder than I thought and some prior planning might have been useful. It’s not likely to win any prizes for agricultural design as farmer Jacques will struggle to get his horse and cart out of the barn due to restricted turning space.

Following the controversy over basing infantry and using them in buildings in my last post, I have gone for a dual purpose finish with this farm. The figures can either fit inside the farmyard or be placed around the perimeter depending on your basing preference. Roy, Matt B – you can relax (not that Roy was ever going to rebase 2,000 figures).

I am now eyeing up my old La Haye Sainte model to see what further havoc I can wreak.

Buildings in Muskets & Marshals

In the Leipzig game last year Roy had the idea to represent built-up-areas using an A4 sized piece of MDF. This worked quite well except that it threw up some problems of ground scale. Under my rules only one unit of infantry can occupy a BUA at any one time and the A4 size distorted the number of attackers versus defenders as it potentially enabled up to 6 units to attack the lone defending unit simultaneously.

This was on my mind when I bought the recent clutch of Airfix buildings and I have decided to go back to my old idea of using individual buildings as separate BUA’s that can be joined together to form villages and towns. Each building will have its own separate MDF base that will project from the side of the structure by 25mm enabling the placing of a single rank of figures around the perimeter. During the movement phase the defender will be allowed to move any of his troops around the perimeter to meet a threat with no penalty to firing. Normal firing rules will apply with troops able to fire at any target in range (the old rule that up to 12 figures may fire from any side of a BUA will be scrapped).

I used a similar system years ago and it seemed to work quite well as I remember. I do need to have a rethink about Hougoumont type strongpoints as again these occupy a large area. The solution may be to divide them into two zones and allow a unit to occupy each. I will be rebasing my old La Haye Sainte model shortly and will put more thought to this then.

Note: those using figures mounted in 2 ranks can retain the old rule. I think I feel rule version 5.6 coming on…

Church of Saint Boniface

Having enjoyed putting together the Airfix cottage I felt inspired to have a go at the church next. Things didn’t go quite as well this time and there are a few dribbles of polystyrene cement where there shouldn’t be and some gaps that will need filling. I also decided to leave off the fiddly bits like the bell, drain pipes and crosses as I’m sure these would only get broken over time.

The building modelled doesn’t say classic English church to me so I was intrigued to find out that it is based on the old church at Bonchurch on the Isle of Wight. Interesting that Airfix chose this as the basis of the model rather than one with a more traditional Norman tower. I seem to remember having a plastic kit of a church when I was a kid but it certainly wasn’t this one.

This new church will be replacing my old Superquick one that has taken a few knocks during several battles and two house moves. I’m sure the vicar and verger will be pleased to have some peace and quiet at last.

This model is listed on the Dapol website as C029 Village Church.

A new billet

Back in the early 70s I had a total of four model buildings for use with my Napoleonic armies. Two Superquick ones (including the church as here), an Airfix La Haye Sainte and one Airfix cottage. The Airfix cottage was a real pain to assemble as the bits didn’t go together properly and mine fell apart several times before the polystyrene cement finally dried. The finished item was forever a bit on the wobbly side.

It was only recently that I realised that this cottage, together with several other Airfix buildings, was still in production from a company called Dapol using the original moulds. They’re made in Wales from recycled plastic which means you can feel very good about yourself if you buy one as you are both helping the environment and Wales at the same time.

Having purchased one I was relieved to find that it went together very easily and I think this is because the plastic is quite pliable unlike the hard plastic of the original. The only thing I wasn’t too happy about was the windows which, if put in correctly, make it look like a double glazing salesman has recently visited. I decided to reverse them (with the window sills on the inside) as I felt this gave less of a 20th century suburban look.

I’ve been mulling over some ideas on built-up-areas for Muskets & Marshals that I will expound upon at a later date.

Timber!

For the last few nights we have been lashed with wind and rain down here in the west country. This morning when I opened the door to the wargames cupboard I was amazed to see that one of the miniature trees had come out in sympathy with the "real world". Fortunately there were no casualties - all the Hinton Hunts were safely stowed away in the display cabinet, but if Wellington had been under that tree I hate to think what could have happened.

Now just waiting for some miniature Council Operatives to come along and clear away the debris.

A Realistic Tree

About four years ago I bought a Woodland Scenics “Realistic Tree Kit” but never got around to making the trees. As I now have a proper wargame table I’m in need of a bit more scenery so last night I finally opened up the box. The trees are very simple and satisfying to make – just bend the branches and stick the foliage on with wood glue.

When I started wargaming as a teenager I never had much in the way of scenery and I always wanted to have some decent trees like the ones made by Peter Gilder and pictured in Miniature Warfare. My brother and I had to make do with some of the Merit trees (out of the “Blue & Grey” ACW Playset) with the odd Britains one thrown in for good measure. Eventually I progressed to the ownership of some K&M trees in various scales that I still have and use today.

Anyway, I’m really pleased with these new ones and there’s enough stuff in the box to make six trees which I thought was pretty good value for money. Not quite as good as Gilder’s but near enough for me.

La Haye Sainte

Quite some time ago I bought an Airfix model of La Haye Sainte on eBay thinking that it might be a nice terrain centrepiece for the Hinton Hunts to have a scrap over. I bought it before we moved last year and it has been off the radar in terms of modelling priorities since then. However, following the Battle of the Crossroads the Duke of Wellington has been looking for a position with a decent stronghold on which to anchor the Allied line against any further French aggression.

The Duke and Sir Stapleton Cotton investigate the defensive properties of the farm

I used to own one of these models back in the early 70s when it regularly took part in battles waged on my bedroom floor between large armies of unpainted Airfix Napoleonic figures. I never glued it together because I didn’t really have the space to store it so it was usually in a pretty ruined state by the end of hostilities. This time though I have given the model the full treatment by sticking it to an MDF base and painting and flocking it.

Mercer and one of his men are digging potatoes in the garden (or are they cannon balls?)

I’m actually pretty impressed with my own handiwork because I’ve never really attempted much in the way of scenic items before. Even Mrs S seemed to like it “that’s very nice and very sad all at the same time”. Well sad maybe (I’m reminded of the episode of The Royle Family where Dave makes a toy farm for baby David) but at least the Duke seems grateful and he has just put in a request to Horse Guards for some Riflemen to defend the place.

Superquick (not)

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon a new local model shop and anxious to support such a brave enterprise I ventured in. Amongst the display was a stand of Superquick cardboard building models. I had imagined that this range was long since defunct and was excited to find that the church model (ref B29) was still in production. This was exactly the same model I had last constructed in 1970 for my old Hinton Hunt army to fight around (sacrilegious lot). It was obviously just what I needed.

Then a couple of evenings ago I thought I would assemble the thing as a bit of light relief from painting. I figured that with my finely developed adult model making skills it would only take an hour tops, leaving me plenty of time to settle down with a glass of malt to watch another re-run of Waking the Dead on UK Drama. Alas it was not to be.

Five minutes in and the vestry window was covered in glue, how did that happen? Then the belfry went wonky, this was not turning out as I had hoped. Perhaps my teenage skills were better than I remembered. Next I super-glued my index finger to my thumb whilst accidentally fixing tab A to tab C instead of tab B. How retro was that – I was actually making a worse job of it than I did aged 14. Eventually (two days later) after a total of three and half hours hobby time, the model was complete. I won’t be making another in a hurry.

My original model disappeared many years ago but can still be glimpsed here.