The Quest for the Jade Buddha (part 2)

 

The 'Dare to Die' unit discover the body in the cabin ! 

And are attacked by the Russians - who they promptly slaughter - almost to a man ! 

The Mongolians spotted the Russian Commander all alone and charged him - he had to flee off the table and didn't return for the game ! (horse bolted !?) , not good leaeership at all !

Things get worse for the Russians the Cossacks find it hard to rally (absence of the General did not help !) and flee the table !

In the centre the Russians charge into the village to try and capture the centeral objective .

The Officer unit trys to help but are caught in a crossfire and are whittled down to below 50% and have to retreat .

TheMongolian cavalry drive the White infantry back and the infantry is driven out of the village - things are not looking good for the Whites !

The Chinese Warlord Fung Shui enters the Temple and comes across the Buddhist Monk . That is all three objectives controlled by the Chinese forces .

With the Commander absent , the enemy holding all three objectives and having lost half it's units the Russians retreat off the table - a resounding victory for the Warlord Fung Shui , what this means will become apparent in the next episode ! 

The Quest for the Jade Buddha (part 1)

 

I dice for the position of the arrival of units as they move onto the board , the Chinese got an even spread of units acrss th table on the first move.

However they drew this chance card which delayed the arrival of a unit.

The 'Dare to Die' unit dashes towards the ruined log cabin .

The Russians came onto the board mainly on the right . Note the Cossacks dashing forward towards the village still in column - risky !

Unfortunately the Russian Commander arrived on the far left miles away from his troops - this does not bode well !

Unfortunately the column of Cossacks came under fire from two units of Chinese troops and took heavy casualties .

Luckily the Chinese Commander drew a chance card that cancelled out the previous card and allowed the unit to come onto the table ..... 

Part two to follow 

The Quest for the Jade Buddha (prologue)

 

The first action of this series of games takes place on the above table , the White Russian force appear on the table edge nearest the camera and the Chinese on the far edge .

I will be using this set of rules which a quick to plat and simple enough to remember and the chance cards and command dice make it easy to play solo.

The Russian Commander 

The White Russian forces three units of Militia , one Line unit and one 'Officer' unit which count as Elite , in the background is a unit of Cossacks 

The Chinese Warlord 

Again six units made up of three Militia , an SMG armed Assault unit and a Fanatic 'Dare to Die' unit , the Cavalry are provided by Mongolian tribesmen

There are three objectives to capture the first on the left is represented by an enigmatic Monk in a ruined Temple .

In the centre a lurking stranger .

And on the right the body of a Messenger in the ruined cabin in the woods .To capture these the units will have to move onto the objective and hold it for two moves ....

PS unfortunately I managed to delete the original of this post whilst fiddling with Blogger and don't seem able to retrieve it , luckily I still had the photos and have been able to rewrite it , but all the original comments have been lost - Oops sorry about that ! 

Coming to a Wargaming Table near you soon ............

 

Toy Soldiers in Art No.20

 

Well there has been little progress on the hobby front this week due to home decorating projects , however in an idle moment I have found the above postcard online . It has five children of various ages and a display of model ships and toy soldiers of various scales . Some of the children seem to be wearing lederhosen and Tyrolean hats which points to a Austro/Germanic location ? . There look to have a family resemblance  and the middle three seem to be gals ! (of the better sort - H G Wells) , I can't quite make out the figures but I would guess at the earlry years of the 20th century . (click on photo to enlarge)

A load of new recruits for the Almannia Expeditionary Force (AEF)

I noticed these on eBay , they were Zinnbrigade homecasts I already have some which I painted up last year (.: Almannia Expeditionary Force (AEF) on parade. (tonystoysoldiers.blogspot.com) and wasn't sure I really needed more (of course I did) I placed a bid and rather forgot about it determinned not to get into  bidding war for them . Interestingly they were the only toy soldiers the seller had the rest being clothes, trainers and assorted junk - very odd !. And I won them ! with postage less than a pound a figure 

There are 53 of them which will make 3 units of 12 for AGM rules plus Officers and a Standard bearer and this rather smashing Band ! . They are not badly painted in a Toy Soldier style but need a few touch ups and basing and then a coat of gloss varnish which I hope to get done this week and then hopefully onto the tabletop .

 

A glimpse of a Golden Era of Toy Soldier production.

 

I came across this series of photos of the Britains factory circa late 1940's when most of their products went for export to pay for World War Two . They are from a Pathe News film which were shown in cinemas as news articles before the big picture These two ladies seem to be cleaning up castings .

Here we see a young lady painting up cavalry figures - OMG just look at that pile of figures !.

Serried ranks of metal goodness.

Another view of the painting process .

Here we see the figures being picked ready for packing into their boxes.

Just look at all those boxes of toy soldiers !!!

They are held in place in the boxes with thread .

'Changing the Guard' a  magnificent set of figures in their presentation box , worth a small fortune nowadays.

The finished product in the familiar red box. I find these photographs fascinating a glimpse of a bygone era .

Maybe answers to 'Anybody have any idea about this uniform'

 

In the last post I asked for ideas about the above French uniform , thanks to everyone who tried to help. Here are some of the pictures/photos I've come across over the last couple of days searching the internet .

Similar and the hat might be the same , it's of a French Zouave taken about the time of the First World War.

Again the hat is similar although the jacket is different 

Again French Zouaves during WW1 , the hat is being worn in different shapes as the individual wants.

Not a very good illustration but shows the variety of uniforms worn by the Zouave Regiments during WW1 .

A model of a WW1 Zouave . So my best guess is a member of a French Algerian Zouave Regiment about the time of the First World War 

Anybody out there have any idea about this uniform ?

A relative sent me this picture , a friend of their's had bought an antique wooden chest and inside the lid was pasted the above photo . The box belonged to a Frenchman (see photo below) and he is standing in front of a studio backdrop to have his picture taken . He seems to be wearing a fatigue uniform and a forage cap which is similar to the short lived 'Broderick' cap worn by the British army prior to WW1 . The uniform is maybe dark blue or khaki ?and has a lanyard over the left shoulder I think ?. I cannot make out the badge on the cap I'm afraid . 

This is the plaque on the lid of the box with his name and address {?} anybody have any ideas ?

PS 

This is a photo of the keyhole plate of the box , I wonder if it could be a repurposed cap badge (it's about 30mm - 1" size) it looks similar to the badge on the cap . Looks Algerian/Morocan ? 

 

The Volontaires Estranger (finally).

 

About twelve months ago I started casting and painting a new unit for my SYW-ish collection .The Volontaires Estranger and I have finally finished painting them 

The figures are of course 40mm Prince August , a mixture of moulds to get a unit of 12 soldiers , an Officer, Trumpeter and a NCO .

I also found a semi-flat camp fire in my bits box which will do as a objective marker .