Jägermeister

I've still got the painting bug and am currently working on my 20mm French Napoleonic collection (see earlier posts this year).  Having completed various infantry units and some excellent Italeri dragoons, I thought I should really paint those Esci cuirassiers that have been under the bed since about 1990.  In fact I'd been in two minds about painting them at all because the figures aren't as good as the dragoons by a long chalk and I was thinking maybe I should just get some Italeri carabiniers instead.

Deliberating on all this I was of course distracted along the way and impulse-bought and painted some HäT Industrie Württemberg cavalry (Jägers) in the two weeks it took me to decide what to do.  These were the first HäT figures I'd painted and I found them quite nice with a lot of well defined detail.  The plastic, although a bit flexible, takes the paint very well.

There are only four poses (12 figures altogether) on three identical sprues in the box (and only two types of horse), but one man on each sprue comes with a choice of arms that you have to glue on.  I made one of them a trumpeter in the vivid yellow coat.  I think the troopers look quite good in their black gauntlets, dark green tunics and yellow trim.

Based up for the WRG 1685-1845 rules on 60mm x 40mm bases, with my usual concoction of coarse sand, painted dark earth then dry brushed in a sandy colour and then flocked, I consider that they've turned out very well.  And I think I'm really getting the hang of painting horses now after my initial hesitations. 

Oh, and finally, here are the cuirassiers. I had two ancient packets of them stashed away and was able to make quite a few bases although whether they'll all get an outing at the same time remains to be seen.

So that's it then, apart from six bases of Italeri French hussars to finish and perhaps one or two more Italeri line infantry regiments (possibly to be painted as Saxons or Swiss, just for a change).

However, I'd really like to get some HäT Württemberg infantry now, as well as the HäT French Guard Chasseurs a Pied, but neither seem to be available in the UK at present.  Still, I could always acquire and paint up some carabiniers in the meantime...

French Artillery

It's nice to be back painting again and here is what I finished last week, some French Napoleonic artillery.

Esci cannons with Airfix crew

These are 20mm plastics and the guns come from the Esci foot artillery set, which actually has guard artillery crew.  Being a bit more down to earth I prefer to have fewer rather than more guard units and therefore I paired the guns up with some Airfix (line) artillery crew.

12pdrs

The Esci set is quite generous and comes with two normal cannon (12pdrs I think) plus two howitzers.

The howitzer

I had managed to misplace one of the howitzer barrels over the years (it turned up just after I'd completed all these, of course) and so I used a cannon from the Airfix set.  The Airfix gun carriages are far too small and have the wrong number of spokes on the wheels, amongst other problems, but the gun itself when put onto the Esci carriage doesn't look too bad.

Airfix cannon on an Esci carriage

As the cannon I used was from the Airfix set I nostagically crewed this piece with the few figures I had remaining from the the very first Airfix artillery figures I got, from sometime back in the 1970s.  Not many of them left but they still paint up OK (I had refurbished the remaining marching figures as an infantry unit previously).

The guns and crew are on 40mm x 60mm bases and my usual basing technique of coarse shelly sand painted in Revell Dark Earth, with a bit of dry brushing and then selective flocking, completed them nicely.

One-Hour Wargames 12: An Unfortunate Oversight

The point of this scenario, taken from Neil Thomas' book One-Hour Wargames, is that the defending commander has been tasked with holding the bridge (here's one (or rather two) I made earlier) but is unaware that there is also a ford in the vicinity which may allow him to be outflanked.

Nice bit of planking.

The scenario states that possession of the hill by the end would determine the victor.  This map shows our set-up, with the bridge on the left and the ford on the right.

OHW 12: An Unfortunate Oversight

This game pitched Napoleonic French against a ragbag of Coalition forces, comprising mainly Prussians with some British thrown in for no adequately explained reason. This was the initial setup, with two regiments of French foot trying to cross the bridge, with another two foot regiments plus dragoons and cuirassiers attempting to sneak round and flank the Allies via the ford.

French poised to cross the river at two points

You will notice that the battlefield is actually the reverse side of an old Subutteo pitch with the lines showing though, clearly indicating that this would be a game of two halves.

French infantry plus Mameluke general cross the bridge

As was required by the scenario, the game started with both wings of the French army trying to get across the river as fast as possible.  My scheme was to keep the Allies occupied on the left whilst my cavalry rushed across the ford on the right and grabbed the hill.  At least that was the plan.

French cavalry cross the ford (very old Hinchliffe figures)

However, with surprising alacrity the Allies pushed most of their forces towards the hill leaving a containment force on the French left.  The fight was on.

Prussians block French advance on the left

On the right the French cavalry raced towards the hill but the Prussians got there first.  Meanwhile the French infantry on the right followed up slowly.

View from French right - cavalry nearly at the hill.

Forcing some of the Prussian infantry into square, the cuirassiers were repulsed by close range fire as they crested the hill.  The looming presence of some Prussian dragoons didn't help.

Cuirassiers thankful they have backplates as well

Meanwhile on the French left a prolonged firefight developed with the French proving to have the advantage (eventually).

Prussian infantry running away (for a bit anyway)

However, this was of no help on the right, where the retreating cuirassiers were charged in the rear by the Prussian dragoons and routed.

Prussian dragoons crash into repulsed Cuirassiers

Unhelpfully, the other squadron of Prussian dragoons charged the French dragoons and they too wavered and fled.  The French infantry having just made it across the ford had no option but to form square and await their fate.

Dragoons rout, infantry in square, what else could go wrong?

Meanwhile on the left the Prussians were finding their resolve again, and although chased by a regiment of light infantry, the Prussians reformed, supported by troops from the centre.

For the French left, the tide is about to turn.

With the French right wing either routing or pinned in square the French left was not strong enough to take the hill, or indeed move out of the village, and started to waver and then crumble.  And there it ended after eight moves.

Endgame

Overall, this was quite disappointing performance by the French.  The 'unfortunate oversight' proved to be nothing of the sort as the Allies could quickly move to block the French advance on the right, whilst containing the smaller force on the left.  Perhaps next time I shouldn't split the French forces but then there would be even less to detain the enemy from rushing over to the ford to stop the advance.

It's hip to be square.

It may have worked if the crossing points were further apart or the Allies moved slower, or were inhibited in some way (such as by dice-enforced incompetence) but that was not how it turned out.

In case you were wondering, the figures consisted of Airfix and Esci 20mm plastics (it's not often you see Airfix plastic Highland light infantry on the table), and for historical reasons (and because the plastics aren't finished yet) the French cavalry and generals were represented by some (very) old "25mm" Hinchliffe figures, painted sometime last century.

The rules were WRG 1685-1845, which are still simple and elegant.  I don't know why people complain about the move sequence because we've never had trouble with it.  The only thing I noticed however, was the command and control aspect of it, as I'd forgotten how older rule-sets such as these often allow units to shoot off all over the place, without the requirement to maintain battle lines and higher level cohesion.  Nevertheless, they are still a serviceable set of rules which we will continue to use until we find something better.

Handmade buildings

Finally, the terrain was all scratch built, including the buildings.  You can't tell but the cottage on the right started off as a box that a Hornby goods wagon came in (it's not in there now) and the stones on the chimney were all lovingly hand carved by Geoff from a piece of plywood.

ACW Adventures in Basing No.4

With the infantry more or less all based up, for the legendary 20mm plastic Regimental Fire & Fury and/or Black Powder ACW project (see earlier posts), I thought it was time to start on cavalry.

These are some lance armed cavalry (they are meant to be a Texas regiment) that Geoff did a long while ago and I took the opportunity to base them this month.

The figures are actually very special because Geoff converted them from Esci Napoleonic Polish Lancers, and therefore I thought I'd feature closeups of them all.

As before, basing was done on 2mm thick MDF stands covered with very coarse shelly sand from my local beach, with some Jarvis autumn mix static grass on top, all glued on with PVA.

There is quite a variety of uniforms and in fact each figure is different.  Well, you might as well if you're converting them.

As always, the Esci figures are great in their own right and are a very nice starting point - I think that they have converted across very well.

As you can see, a lot of carving, adding on paper coats and plasticine hats - much more effort than I can usually manage.

Anyway, they're done now so on to the next lot of ACW troops.

ACW Adventures in Basing No.3

I've finally finished basing all of the Union and Confederate 20mm plastics.  It took me a few months of patient plodding but I got there.  They are now all based for Regimental Fire & Fury and/or Black Powder on 30mm x 40mm MDF bases I got from eBay, decorated with coarse shelly sand from my local East Lothian beach, some various bits of landscaping gravel and standard autumn flock.

Here are some of my classic Airfix figures now based up.  Note that I didn't repaint any of them (or give them authentic flags), for reasons of nostalgia mainly (not necessarily laziness).  The front row officer is a converted Airfix French Foreign Legion officer and the standard bearer beside him is a converted Revell ACW figure (I think).

These are Revell figures (made by Accurate now according to the Plastic Soldier Review website) that I converted to Zouaves a while ago...

...and these are some of the Confederates, which I think are Esci.

Just a group photo of about two thirds of the union troops - say cheese!  And finally...

...a poignant little vignette using Esci and Revell figures.  The fence is made from matches.

I've still to base up the artillery and cavalry but at least the infantry are now all done.