January Painting

The month started well but production has tailed off with no painting being done in the evenings. I'm just too darned tired at the moment.

So what did I achieve?

Hussars - 16 figures for two regiments = 32 points
Swedes - 25 figures = 25 points

Total points for the month = 57

Great Northern War Update for January

So there you are busy painting away, all the figures assembled and laid out on the desk. You think you have an idea of where you are but you're not quite sure.

That's me.

I had just about completed another ten Swedes when I began to ponder the actuall number left.

The photograph is the (almost) entire collection I have planned for the Swedish foot. I say almost because I now find I have a surplus of musketeers but insufficient grenadiers. There are 10 figures required to complete this stage of the project.
In the photo you can see that 1 battalion is complete and entire, a second only requires the officers, a third is about a third of the way through it's painting and the last barely started.

Still progress is being made.

Monday 19th January

The first game of the year and it's a French victory!!

Facing a combined Anglo-Dutch-Imperialist force the French took victory on the field although with heavy losses. Eleven French battalions and twenty seven squadrons took on eleven enemy battalions and twenty one squadrons. (Approximately 1,000 figures).

The French used their superior numbers of horse on the left to stall the Imperial Kuirassiers facing them. It had been intended to sweep the flank clear of the enemy but with determination the enemy held their ground until late in the day.
The reverse was true of the right flank where the enemy were determined to clear the French from the field but stubborn resistance from the French dragoons kept the flank secure. It did require two battalions of infantry to seal the flank just to make sure though.

In the center the Austrian advance was stalled by two battalions of French, depsite the addition of battalion guns to the Austrian foot (and an ability to roll six sixes in a single throw!). However it was the Maison du Roi who finally routed the enemy line. Initially baulking at the idea of charging a formed line it took Villeroy in person to lead them into the enemy. In a single swipe they cleared the first line of foot and crahed into the second. This reserve line proved to be made of sterner stuff and held the initial charge. Subsequent fighting made the enemy waiver and then flee.

Perversly there was a similar story developing on the right of the center.

Here the French had advanced but wre slowed by the musketery of the English. Eventually the English retired which left the flank of one of the French german battalions exposed to the formed and ready Dutch guard horse. Luck was on the French side as these too also decided not to charge a formed infantry unit. Their colonel was obviously of better material than theire leite French counterpart, because he mananged to start them off in a subsequent move. Unfortunately it was a doomed charge.

The French held their nerve and fired at point blank range. After the smoked had cleared the number of empty saddles was indication enough that the enemy were not able to continue.

So with their right flank being presed by the French horse and their center facing fresh battalions the enemy withdrew from the field.

My thanks to my fellow gamers - Andy with his Austrians & Mark with Maritime powers. Figures are largely Front rank although most of the English are the now oop Stratagem range. Rules used are our club own set, brutally blood thirsty they may be but we do get a game played to a conclusion in three to four hours.

General Sir John Moore

Two hundred years to the day since his death at Corunna.

First source or last resort?

How do we construct those armies we are so fond of playing with?
I'm not talking about the purchasing, painting and basing elements here but the research into what to buy and how they should be organised.

For me there are some easy answers. My Napoleonic French are based on an 1809 French Corps in the peninsular. I replaced each division with a brigade on the table top and the divisional commander became the brigade commander. Easy.

The wars of the twentieth century are even easier. We are inundated with orders of battle, unit composition, organisations and structures that it is hard not to recreate any unit.

Slightly harder for the Wars of the Roses. There are no lists and orders of battle. We might know who commanded the men and who fought alongside his banner. With a lot of research we could find out how many lances each of those nobles were capable of bringing to the field. However, I took a more pragmatic approach - for every knight there would be 1 man-at-arms, 2 bills & 4 bows. The nobility I took from the list at Bosworth.

Taking Ancients my first port of call would be the WRG Army lists. Not a popular set of rules today but thirty years ago they were the norm, and whatever your feelings about them the army lists do give a starting point for a host of armies that would otherwise remain in obsecuity (perhaps with good reason?). From there you move to other sources for fleshing out the detail if you have them. Today I guess we'd be using the WAB books for our lists (but at a much greater expense) and they have the same restrictions that WRG did - they are someone's interpretation of the history and not strictly factual at all times.

The Malburian Wars are not as hard as we might think. There are orders of battle for many of the larger engagements and there are numerous sources that have given their understandings of the events. It may take some reading to work out whether a unit was there in full strength or not - and this is especially true of the horse where orders of battle are normally stated in squadrons and not regiments. So how did I do it? On a wing and a prayer if the truth be known!

Holiday Reading

Plenty of time during the holidays to sit in a comfy chair with a hot drink and a good book.

So the first book was "Under Enemy Colours" a tale of daring do and their consequences in the Royal Navy during the French Revolution. Actually for all of it's 400 pages there isn't much daring do. The book deals with the effect that a cowardly tyrant of a captain can have on the crew and the consequences of change wrought by a more than capable lieutenant.
As you read it you'll find yourself thinking that nothing is new, and that it feels as though you've read it all before. you proably have since the book leans heavily on the tradition started by Forester & O'Brian and continued by Kent and the like. Russell brings no new twist or insight despite being an accomplished storyteller and the novel does jog along at a very nice pace.
If this is your first taste of stories set in the age of sail you'll be pleased with the book. If you already know your topsail coarser from the mainsheet coarser then you'll want to miss this one and reread Hornblower.

Moving back in time then we go to Medieval England and the battle that gave us a "band of brothers". Happliy Cornwell doesn't use any Shakesprean quotes nor any dialogue keeping the language familiar, and in place very familiar!
The main character is, like all of Cornwells heroes, a flawed man. Killer & humanitarian by degrees Nick Hook is always in the right place at the right time. The other characters are less well defined and I got the impresion that they are there only as a backdrop to highlight a flaw or an asset in Hooks personality.
The book has everything that all of his other stories have. Men at home wanting Hook to come to grief, men abroad wanting to bring Hook grief, men at home wanting hook to help them save the world and a beautiful woman to bed. This time though things are a little darker and at time bleaker than other novels by Cornwell. The trend started with the inquisition in the Grail series and the horror of the time continues (Thomas of Hookton does get a reference in the book by the way).
"Azincourt" does deal with battle very well,and it is one of Cornwells strengths when writing about fighting. The blood,snot, mud and tears are brought home time and again along with feelings of terror and exileration.
So again another novel that has nothing new except to bring to life a campaign that still lingers in the mythology of the English as one of the greatest battles of history.
Is it as good as others he's written? Yes, definately, in fact it's Cornwell at his storytelling best.

Happy New Year

Let's hope that 2009 is a better year than 2008.

We always wish that the new year is going to be better than the previous one, no matter how much we enjoyed the last year.

2008 wasn't a bad year for me personally. There were ups and downs as you'd expect and some low points that had nothing to do with wargaming (and some that were), but keeping to a wargaming theme my biggest regrets of the year were that we failed to refight Oudenaarde for the 300th anniversary and that the UK Big Battalion game was a non-event. My highlights for the year were the completion of my WSS project and the new terrain boards made by Malcom & Andy for the Great War.

Rash purchase of 2008? Some 40mm Woodland Indians from Sash & Sabre. At the time I thought about painting and selling them. Then I thougt about a 40mm FIW project. Ultimately they sit in the same box they arrived in untouched.

So what we aim for in 2009? Me I'm targeting another 1000 painting points although with fewer horse in sight this is going to be a tall order. To achieve this I'm intending to get a lot of the GNW figures completed but how far this goes depends on Bill at Musketeer - if the output of new figures is as slow as the last twelve months then the whole thing may be abandoned (just how long do you wait for new figures?). At the same time I want to rebase and modify my Wars of the Roses set up and with some figures that I found recently I should have a couple of new units. Finally I intend to finish the 15mm Austrian Napoleonic project, half of which has sat in the blue box for more than two years now.

So here's looking forward to a prosperous new year for one and all.

Happy New Year!