Early morning painting.

 

Having gotten out of bed at 6.00 am for work for over 40 years I still have the habit of waking up early . This morning I awoke at a quarter to six and wanted the loo . this woke the cat up who sleeps on the bed who then pestered to be fed , this woke the dog up (who sleeps downstairs) who started whining - so I got up ! Having done the morning crossword and had my breakfast it wasn't even 7 am , so I thought I'll have a look at the next batch of my Irregular FPW . One of the things I find is that playing a game always gets me wanting to paint more of them . These are two units one will be Bavarians and the other either Turcos or Zouaves .

I decided on a Bavarian Infantry unit , I like painting Bavarians ! any army that has sky blue uniforms gets my vote. In reality the uniform was probably a darker blue but seeing I've got a new bottle of sky blue paint I'm using it ! Here are the first figures ready for a coat of varnish which will cover up any mistakes in painting . All done before 8am ! a good start to the day - if only I was as motivated in other aspects of my life . .

 

An interesting fact I didn't know ....

I was reading through 'Toy Soldiers' by Simon Clark and came across an article about Britains figures before 1945 being painted in a mixture of Printers Ink rather than Enamel paint ! . A London company called Kents supplied the Printing Ink and it was mixed with a clear varnish, the mixing was done in batches which varied and was then given to the painters  , unfortunately this had a habit of separating and had to be remixed regularly . This gave rise to some of the colour variants you encounter in old figures, an almost matt finish and an translucent finish  was due to insufficient mixing . The different batches which where supplied to the many 'out workers' who painted the figures at home also accounts for the colour variants .

 

The Battle of the Eglise sur la colline (Part3) , The Debacle .

 

The French Vivandiere manages to patch up a casualty , meanwhile on the left ......

The French Artillery open fire on the Prussian Jaegers .

The Uhlans charge into the flank of the French column ! , who fail their test and -

- are scattered and destroyed - Oh dear !

Things are not going well on the other flank as the French Infantry once again fail to rally .

The game is lost for the French with both flanks gone ! . A victory for the Prussians ! 

Think Emile Zola probably sums it up ! . A great game though, which I enjoyed and has got me wanting to paint up some more figures and let the French seek their revenge .

The Battle of the Eglise sur la colline (Part Two) , in which things do not go well for the French

 

The gallant Prussian Artillery Officer has to man the gun single-hand (the dice tell how long it is going to take him to load it)

The Franc tireurs move up to support the Line Infantry.

The Prussia Uhlans charge the French Hussars !

The Cavalry melee !

-does not go well for the French ! 

The surviving Hussars rout off the tabletop without even pausing to consult the rules .

On the other flank things do not go well either , having taken 5 casualties the French fail their moral check and retire one move (hence the dice) will they rally next move ? . To be continued .......

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Where have all my BOTS gone ?

 

Just noticed my last few posts have returned to normal levels of hits/viewings, has Big Brother got tired of my endless ramblings ? , have I broken something - "does not compute ***** bzzzz !" anyway back to the O.S. FPW battle in the next posting . 

The Battle of the Eglise sur la colline.( Part One )

 

The battlefield , the French are entering the table on the right and the Prussians on the left.

The game will last for 10 moves , this is the patient move tracker I've made.

The French gun unlimbers and open fire on the Prussian Uhlans .

The start of move 2 , the Frech Hussars deploy in the center as Prussian forces move up to the church and down the road in the distance.

Prussian Jaegers advance swiftly in skirmish order towards the church .

The Prussian Artillery deploy but are hit by counter battery fire from the French which causes heavy crew casualties . The French got lucky and the Prussians couldn't hit a barn door !.

The leading French Infantry deploy into line and come under fire from the opposing Prussian line.

The Prussians also take casualties - loosing an Officer as well . Too be continued ........

 

Going the full Featherstone !

Having got enough figures painted up for a game I set the table up . One of the problems when playing Old School is the number of individual figures to be moved . Don Featherstone suggests using cardboard templates with a few figures on them for the first few moves till they start shooting or being shot at .

I was thinking on this when I noticed one of my neighbours had a skip in his driveway (some building project I think ?) , Now I can never pass a skip without peering into it for anything useful , there is of course usually rubbish , however in this one I noticed a couple of pieces of wood that might be useful ! . My neighbour said I could have anything I wanted - so I took them home , cut them to size and painted them .

Here we have one in action , when they get near the enemy I will transfer the full unit to the tabletop.

And one being used for a unit of French Hussars . Having got this sorted the battle report will be appearing next .

 

Converting 2D Wofun .

 

I bought a couple of Wofun 28mm French Foot sprue to convert into Danish which were hired by the English Government to supplement the existing forces.They are ideal as they have very plain uniforms and standards.

Here is the Danish Regiment Prince Carl which had yellow facings and stockings . The tricky part was painting the flags .

The rear of the unit , again the flags took the most time - trying to get the shading and folds right .

The finished unit , based and edge shaded ready for action. I have a couple more units to convert in the next week or so.

The Greate Civile Warre Campaign - The Battle on the Black Moore .

 

So 'S' came round for our first ECW game . I deployed first , my force was 2 Trained Foote , 2 Raw Horse and one Veteran Horse . Simon drew cards that gave him 2 Trained Foote, 1 Raw Foote, 1 Veteran Foote (The King's Lifeguard ?) , but all his 3 units of Horse were Raw !.

My deployment , I was feeling somewhat intimidated being out numbered by his Foote.

'S's line up, he was bothered by the fact that his Horse was poor .

He advanced boldly and both sides started a firefight , I advanced my Horse on my left to counter his.

'S' put King Charles at the head of one of his Squadrons of Horse and charged mine - broke it and caused another unit of Horse to rout and he pursued both off the table ! 

My Lord Fairfax charge a unit of Royalist Horse and beat it but my Foote now unsupported on their left and out flanked were rolled up and fled ! . Fairfax left the field with his Regiment of Horse just as the King returned from the pursuit to find his enemies had fled ! , a glorious victory for the Royalist cause and he could continue his march . Fairfax retired to try and gather his scattered Army and fight again. A rather quick game but the rules worked well and we are both looking forwars to the next one .

Ye Greate Civile Warre Campaign.

The King raises his Standard at the towne of Scarbourgh and amasses his forces before marching across the country to reach and lift the Siege of Chester. This will be a series of games played between myself and my wargaming comrade 'S', we will be using Wofun 28mm figures and  a set of rules by Andy Callan (free rules from Wofun)

King Charles the First and his escort  (played by 'S'). The Royalists find their line of march blocked by the enemy and they are forced to deploy.

My own alto ego , having intercepted the King's army I am going to deploy my forces to block his progress.

The table laid out ready for the game. The blue dice delineate the deployment area for the Royalists and the red for the forces of Parliament. A fairly neutral set up a few hills on either flank and some marshy ground near the sheep pens on the Parliament right ..The forces will be chosen with the drawing of cards to find the troop types which adds a degree of uncertainty to the Generals . Hopefully the game will be played out on 'S's next visit .

 

 

Pennies from heaven.

Having bought a load of MDF bases because I couldn't find my stash of pennies,  guess what I've found!

 

Fortunes of War.

 

I decided to make a couple of 'Fortune of War' markers for my games. Here is the Prussian one , the marker is 2D metal , . At the start of the game both sides roll a D6 and put it on the marker, the points can be used to add too and alter dice rolls during the game - +1 to add a point to a dice score or pay for a reroll . The Prussian General has rather poor luck with only a 1 !

The French General however has scored a 6 and will use these to his advantage in the forthcoming game.

A glimpse from the past .

 

Found on Facebook were it is doing the rounds , from an era when boys (and perhaps the better sort of girls) were encouraged to mess about with molten metal - I notice he has had the foresight to use a tray under the melting pot , but the lack of PPE is alarming!

Free shooters.

To appose the Prussian Jaeger I've got these Francs tireurs done, again Irregular Miniatures.

They are actually a mixture of figures , the Officer is from the ACW range and the riflemen are Garibaldi figures from the Italian War of Independence . The Francs tireurs seem to wear a mixture of uniforms so these are ideal for them , I'll be getting the other half of the unit with my next order.