Toy Soldiers in Art No. 8

 

Found on the interweb - Mrs K has not fitted one to our house - yet !

Trouble in West Toieland (part 2)

 

Hodge gives his opinion of my tactical skills - he's not allowed in the gaming room as he chews things - so was evicted swiftly.

Brigadier Pettigrew is injured whilst trying to bolster the Cadet's moral as they take more casualties from the Jaegers.

Reinforcement arrive for Army 'Blue' as the left hand unit of Cadets deploy. In the distance the Chasseurs see off the Hussars but come under artillery fire .

The striken field towards the end of the game . Interestingly the 2 'cameo' figures never fot a chance to get involved.

The Cadets charge the 'Blue' infantry causng casualties but are driven back - 'Blue' was having a run of lucky dice throws and card draws at this point with 'Red' army powerless to respond. More 'Blue' reinforcements arrive down the road on the left.

End game , the Cadets on the right flee with the remnants of the Chasseurs retreating through the village followed by the Cadets in the center . With the majority of the army in flight the Cadets on the left fall back as well . An overwhelming victory for 'Blue' Army , they had a fortunate run of cards drawn plus some accurate artillery fire and shooting from the Jaegers which meant 'Red' Armt never really got a look in . As it was the Cadets first action the curse of the newly painted figures must have struck again !

Trouble in West Toieland (part 1)

 

As they approach the village the 'Red' force deploys with the Cavalry moving through the village and the Cadets going left and right . Notice the 'Blue' Jaegers have managed to move up to the wall on the right due to some crafty playing of cards and some high dice scoring for movement.

The Chasseurs deploy to face the enemy Hussars .

The Cadets moving up the road through the village are hit by accurate Artillery fire before they can deploy !

Likewise the Cadets on the right are peppered by rifle fire from behind the wall as the form up.

The 'Blue' army Hussars charge the Chasseurs who countercharge and drive them back . Part 2 to follow......... ......

The return of the 54s , Trouble in West Toieland.

So after a bit of a hiaitus I'm busy wargaming a small battle between the forces of the 'Red Army'  and the invading 'Blue Army' Here we see the small hamlet of West Toieland , there has been a report of a small force of 'Blue' troops in the area and General Pendergrass has set off with a force to investigate. 'Red' army on the road to the right ' 'Blue' army on the left table edge.

'Red' army has a cameo apperance of a Boy Scout to help .

'Blue Army has a Staff Officer to help them.

The 'Red' Army move down the road to West Toieland. The force is a unit of the 'Chasseurs D'Patio' and 3 companies of the 'East Point Cadets'

The 'Blue' Army force - a unit of Brandenberg Hussars , a gun and crew and Company of Jaegers here in open order. A battle report is to follow .....

 

First fruit .

 

Things have been progressing slowly as 'real life' and other things have interupted my painting , but I have got my first unit of Lancastrian Men at Arms done , some in the livery of Henery Percy , Earl of Northumberland . These painted up quickly as they are mainly armoured which only took some washes and highlighting to get most of the figures done .

I have also glued up and undercoated a unit of Longbowmen which will be next up to paint , hopefuly in the coming week.

An eBay find, more F.A.N.Y.

 

I don't buy many 54mm figure from eBay nowadays - I think I have enough (!?) and prices are steadily rising and when I saw the above group starting bid of £10 I thought I would bid for it but not get into a biding war . They are of course members of the F.AN.Y. (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry) To my surprise nobody else seemed interested and I was the only bid for them ! . Rather pleased with my purchase - and a bit smug ! 

I remembered I already have one of the castings -.: F.A.N.Y. (tonystoysoldiers.blogspot.com) with added plastic horse .

Toy Soldiers in Art No. 7

Found on a Facebook group (?) Don't think he's going to miss at that range and I think his sister (?) maybe a casualty as well being in the range of the 'cannister cone' . French I think and maybe paper/cardboard soldiers ? the parrot looks intrigued by the proceedings ! (click on photo to enlarge)

 

Stuff arrives !

So things are getting real ! , my order from the Perrys arrived this morning , that's very quick service indeed ! 

And I got a free figure as well , Henry Tudor at Bosworth I think, as he's brandishing a crown . Now all I have to do is start gluing things together - a task I find enjoyable as it takes me back to my youth gluing model aircraft kits 

The separate Men at Arms sprue arrived yesterday and I've got them glued up and undercoated ready for painting , so things are progressing !

 .

 

Oh No !, not ANOTHER project !

 It's all well and good me doing these various 'Wofun 2D projects' - BUT it doesn't involve me having anything to paint ! and painting figures is such a large proportion of my hobby. To this end I started casting about for some figures to paint , now I have unpainted figures in the 'corner of shame' under the wargaming table - but  none I wanted to paint ! - this is starting to sound like I'm making excuses and building up a case for buying more Toy Soldiers !. *

Whatever project it was to be had to have limits and a set of rules that I like to play with them .I've always liked the idea of the Wars of the Roses - or The Cousin's War as it was called at the time - but the battles are a bit boring, one side runs at the other - one side runs away and is slaughtered - there might be more to it than that - but you know what I mean. Then I saw an article about using 'Lion Rampant' for the WOTRS , the advantage of 'Lion Rampant' is the games are short, fun AND you don't need many figures ! plus it has about 12 interesting scenarios..

An obvious choice for figures would be the Perry Miniatures plastics, in the rule book it suggests a force of 1 unit of Men at Arms (6 figures) , 2 units of Bowmen (24 figures) and 1 unit of Billmen (12 figures) - very doable ! - So I ordered 2 boxes of the above - interestingly they where cheapest straight from the Perrys. 

To add some variety to the forces I also ordered their box of Mercenaries , which will allow to to add / mix and match some Crossbowmen , Handgunners and Pikemen . 

I sat back rather pleased with myself - then I realised -I was short on armoured Men at Arms - the Bills and Bows box only has 4 each - BLAST ! I needed 12 ! - however I looked on eBay and managed to pick up one of their armoured Men at Arms sprue so saving the day . So I'm looking forward to starting this project, I aim to keep the core units small and add on Mercenaries to get some variety . - watch this space !

* it is !

Toy Soldiers in Art No.6

 

Mrs K laying the artillery on target,  pinched from 'A Gentlemen's War ' on Facebook 

The Clash at Kutzdorf - redux

 

About 3 weeks ago I had to cancel and take down the  next battle in my ongoing 'Snakes & Ladders' 7YW campaign and having returned from holiday I've reset it  and have played it through to a conclusion.

The Prussians have to drive the Austrians from the ridge (nearest the camera) and having the advantage of appearing on the flank .

The Prussian advance was slowed by the Austrians being able to play a Strategy Card .

The Austrians moved the left flank Infantry Brigade to block the Prussian advance .

The Austrian Cavalry fared badly under heavy Artillery fire and had to withdraw - luckily the Austrian C-in C was able to play another Strategy Card to rally them .

Rather surprisingly the Prussian Frei-Korps managed to rout the right hand Austrian unit , however they where counterattacked and driven back into the woods and by the time they had rallied the game was over.

The Prussians tried to bring their Cavalry up to turn the Austrian left but they where thwarted by a Austrian Battalion who managed to turn to the flank and drive them off.

Apologies for the poor picture quality of the later photos - they were taken in the evening and my lighting in the room is not brilliant . I play my games over 12 moves and then evening falls - this is the end positions of the armies , both sides had taken similar casualties but the Austrian still held the ridge and another Prussian attack I think would have failed - so victory was given to the Austrians . We will have to see how this affects the overall campaign in the next posting.

Mr and Mrs Walker take a holiday -part 2

 

We popped in to Beverly to have a look around the 15th century Minster - a fine looking building .

The only problem was we had to go inside singularly as the other dog sat outside - Charlie moaned the whole time - he doesn't like us being separated whilst on holiday, plus he has no regard for Medieval architecture .

We were lucky enough to see the Gaia exhibition which as been doing the rounds all over the UK .

We also visited the Humber Bridge , when it was opened in 1981 it was the longest single span bridge in the world - it's now the 20th !

Mr and Mrs Walker view the bridge - even Mrs W was impressed !

The only military aspect of the holiday was coming across this pillbox on a golf course near Flamburgh Head 

Side view with dog for scale - a good holiday overall !

Mr and Mrs Walker take a holiday.

 

We've been on holiday staying near Beverly in East Yorkshire . The weather although blustery was mainly dry and we missed Storm Agnes . One of the walks we did was around the deserted Medieval village of Wharram Percy which was hit by the Black Death and finally deserted with the introduction of sheep farming .

The village church which is the only thing still standing nestles in one of the wolds or valleys , I last visited the site about 30 years ago when the archaeological digs on the village were still taking place.

We were accompanied by Mr and Mrs Walker , here seen viewing the church which was still in use in the 18th century.

Reg Walker was very enthusiastic to the see the church interior , Mrs Walker less so .

Some of the carved heads on the arches 

This one has seen better times.

I especially like this one of a woman in a wimple headdress(?)

A rather grim looking man on this one.There is probably a technical term for these types of carvings but I can't remember it.

The author and faithful hound in the Churchyard .

An artists impression of the village in it's heyday (circa1300).

Sadly apart from the church and a few grassy mounds nothing is visible now , but still a magical place I think.