The Battle of Prestonpans (conclusion)

The game was soon over with the British centre gone , the Highlanders pushed Murray's Foot back on the left as the Clan that pursued the cavalry rallied and wheeled round to face Murray's disordered regiment nearest the camera .

On the other flank Clan Appin charge the reserve squadron of Gardiner's Dragoons .

Murray's regiment flees having lost the second round of melee , Sir John Cope escapes with them , so living up to his historical counterpart .

On the right the highlanders fire a volley at close range into the right hand squadron and then charge home - the dragoons then rout , this triggers a morale test for Guise's regiment of foot and they run which, as these tests are cumulative causes the reserve squadron of Dragoons to fail it's test and so the  entire Government army routs from the field as was the historical case .

The rules worked well , but the British were always up against it . This is the problem I find with historical re-fights - at what point do you make it more of a 'game'? , if it follows the exact course of history is it a bit pointless ? , if it turns out totally different it is no long 'historical' ? . The rules in the 'Paper Soldier' book I think are very historical and the tactics for either side are very limited and reflect the actual combatants very well , if you replayed this battle using 'Black Powder' it would be more of a 'what if' game and perhaps more entertaining as a two player game . I think I must replay it at some point using the 'Black Powder' rules and compare the two . I enjoyed playing it and am pleased with the result , I must get these figures onto the table again soon .

The Battle of Prestonpans (part2)

The Jacobites surge forward , the rules allow for a variable move distance hence the rather ragged advance . The British guns open fire but cause no casualties.

Hamilton's Dragoons move forward on the left flank .

The clan regiment fires a volley and the untrained mounts of the Dragoons panic which causes the whole unit to rout off the table , Thomas Murray's regiment become shaken as they witness the Dragoons fleeing past them .

The Jacobites pursue the fleeing cavalry .

The British line opens fire , Lee's on the right flank drives of the Cameron clan regiment , who flees back across the moor . However in the British centre the regiments of Lascelle and Guise panic, firing wildly then rout off the table leaving a huge gap in the British line .

Lee's regiment although shaken holds it's place and drives off the Cameron's . The flanking clan regiments ignore their fleeing comrades and keep advancing .

The Clanranald regiment charges home into Murray's driving them back , General Cope joins them trying to hold the Jacobite advance . Things are not looking good for the Government army , part 3 to follow soon .

The Battle of Prestonpans (part1)

Decided that the first tabletop battle of the new year would be a refight of Prestonpans . Here we see the battlefield from the Government side with the Bankton House enclosure on the right of the line and nearest the camera the wall garden of Preston House . 

The British right , from the L to R Guise's and Lee's Regiments of Foot , flanked by a Squadron of Gardiner's Dragoons with the artillery in front manned by sailors from the fleet . In reserve another Squadron of Gardiner's .

The Left of the line , 2 Squadrons of Hamilton's Dragoons , Then Thomas Murray's  and Lascelle's  regiments 

The Jacobite right Keppoch's and Clanranald Regiments commanded by the Duke of Perth .

The Highland left Clan regiments Cameron and Appin under Sir George Murray .

The reserve commanded by Bonny Prince Charlie comprising the MacLachlan's and the Atholl Brigade .

I'm using the somewhat simplified set up from the 'Paper Soldiers book' .

The troops are deployed ready for battle . It will be interesting to see how long it takes , the original battle lasted all of about fifteen minutes . Part two up soon .

Nearly done .

Well I've just finished off my last two units of the Government army for my '45' project , above is 'Hamilton's Regiment of Dragoons' (14th) . It's just about a year since I started this collection and I'm somewhat amazed that I've got it done .

Hamilton's was at Prestonpans were it fled with the other British cavalry when the Highlanders charged . It didn't perform much better at Falkirk I'm afraid either . The figures are 1/72nd scale Strelets and were originally 'Dragoons of Peter the Great' from the Great Northern War range . 

The final British Regiment of Foot is 'Thomas Murray's ' (46th) it was at Prestonpans were most of its troops were captured by the Jacobites when the British army routed . I hope to put on a Prestonpans re fight in the New Year . I'm always a bit sad when I come to the end of a project as I've enjoyed painting these up immensely , I have odds and sods to paint up such as dismounted figures for Hamilton's Dragoons and some transport waggons but will get them done in 2020 .

I do like plastic 20mm 1/72nd scale figures (a somewhat forgotten scale I think) . I must now start thinking about next years project !? .

Goverment Grenadier Companies .

I've painted up the Grenadier figures for my British Government Regiments of Foot . The figures are plastic 1/72nd 'Red Box' figures , my project is the Battle of Prestonpans but I'm also going to do some "what if " scenarios and there is evidence that later on in the campaign the Duke of Cumberland combined the Grenadiers together as was the practise on the Continent which these figures represent . 

They are from the regiments of (L to R) Lascelle's , Thos. Murray's , Lee's and Guise's . I have only one battalion to paint now to complete the Foot for my British army. 

Do you get it ?

Been painting the odd base or two for my '45' project.

Back into the '45'

After quite a while I've started painting up some more figures for my '45' project . These bases of Highland skirmishers have been blacked up and awaiting painting for a couple of months so I thought I had better get them done . They are still a work in progress needing varnishing and the bases painting and flocking .They are a mixture of 'Strelets' and 'Red Box' figures in 20mm - 1/72nd scale . I've got most of the Jacobite army done only needing a couple of cavalry bases and the odd leader or two , the Government forces need more - another Regiment of Foote and Dragoons . Hopefully when I return from holiday I will make a start on them .

Some More '45' Figures Finished .

Although I have been playing a lot of 'AGW' I've been busy painting some more figures for my Jacobite Rebellion project . This is Brigadier General Lascelles Regiment of Foote with their distinctive white facings , they are Red Box figures of course.

Here are some Government artillery manned by sailors from the Fleet , only at Culloden was the British artillery crewed by the Royal Artillery, at Prestonpans the sailors fired their guns once and fled ! , at Falkirk the artillery got stuck in a morass and played no part in the battle . The figures are converted Mars TYW gunners .

Strathallan's Horse , the Jacobites had very little cavalry and only about 40 at Prestonpans . These figures are converted 'Strelets British Light Dragoons of Napoleons Egyptian Campaign' - hats cut off and bonnets and plaids added with 'green stuff' . Sorry for the not brilliant photos as my camera battery needed re-charging so I had to use my phone - which isn't brilliant .

A Productive Morning .

We have a new computer table/cabinet which came as a flat pack and was assembled by my good self and my wife with coincidental help from the dog . I will draw a sad veil over the problems of the construction which involved many unlabelled components and a myriad of different types of screws . Having got it finished my wife said - 'I hope you are NOT going to get paint and glue over this one !' 

Hmm ! so I got a new cutting mat !. Although I've been full throttle with my 40mm Imaginations and AGW rules I still have a lot of my Jacobite rebellion figures to do , so I spent the morning when I should have been gardening cleaning up another Government battalion of Foot and a Highland Clan Regiment . There was rather a lot of flash on the highlanders so I tried using a hot knife blade to get rid of it - it worked surprisingly well ! although you have to be careful with sword blades . Here they are ready for spraying .

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Playing With Fire .

No - not a small shrine to wargaming , One of the problems Johnny Cope had at Prestonpans was a lack of artillerymen , he sent to Edinburgh for some but they got lost and never arrived in time for the battle . To man his guns he had to rely on sailors on loan from the navy (in fact it was only at Culloden that the Government artillery was manned totally by artillerymen ) . So I decided to try and convert some figures into sailors .

Looking through my spares box I found some 30 years war gunners and thought these would maybe do . Rod from https://rodwargaming.wordpress.com/ converts his figures using an electric soldering iron , not having one of these I resorted to a candle and an old craft knife  to alter the figures . The figure on the left has had his 'floppy' TYW hat converted into a tricorne by the application of the hot blade being used to remould the brim .

This man with a linstock has now a period tricorne , the other figures had wool hats which will do as period naval attire  . This was very much a learning process - it's VERY easy to decapitate figures with a too hot blade , the plastic when molten is VERY hot ! and when you use your thumb to press it into shape you end up dancing around whilst sucking the aforesaid thumb and swearing loudly which alarmed  the dog and my wife ! . However think it has been a success as one must suffer for ones art and I hope to get them painted up soon .

Refighting The '45' .

'A' called round for a game and the first thing to do was remove Hodge from the battlefield - cats aren't allowed in the gaming room - not after the dead mouse incident .

Having got enough figures painted to play the sample game in the back of the book I thought it was time to try them out . I've been playing around with some small solo games and so was ready for a live opponent .

Here is the battle set up with the British nearest the camera and the Jacobites on the left .

The Government line with Lee's Regiment of Foote in the foreground . 

The Camerons are on the right of the Highland army .

'A' searches the rules for loopholes . The rules in the 'Paperboys' book are cleverly designed to reproduce  the field battles of the '45' in a quick and simple way, we played two games in the evening swapping sides for the second . I don't think they will handle the smaller skirmishes and raids as well and for these I will be using 'Black Powder' . It was nice to get the new figures into action and this has spurred me on to get some more painted up.

Colonel Gardiner's Regt. of Dragoons.

The next unit I've finished are a squadron of Gardiner's Dragoons , they are converted Zvezda Russian Dragoons - well all I had to do was CAREFULLY trim off their moustaches and I think the rest of the uniform is close enough . They are portrayed being a bit more belligerent than they were in the actual rebellion , they fled at Prestonpans , partly due to their horses being so badly trained that they bolted at the first gunfire and the commanding officer being wounded at a crucial moment . Their performance was not brilliant at Falkirk either.

Perhaps somewhat controversially I have 'docked' the horses tails , this was common practise in British cavalry and never portrayed on model horses for some reason (looks odd ?) - I think this practise had died out by the 19th century (?) I'm also doing dismounted versions of these figures.

Lt. General Guise's Regiment of Foote .

Been busy finishing off a number of units which have been held up somewhat by real life (Spring cleaning etc.) and the first up is Guise's Regt. of Foote (6th) . They only had 2 companies at Prestonpans , the rest being scattered across the Highland forts , but I decided to do them at full strength .

The figures are of course by 'Red Box' and are rather nice - they were troublesome to paint however - lots of straps and I struggle painting yellow properly . 

I also did another Government commander - Colonel Peregrine Lascelles who commanded the infantry at Prestonpans , he is a converted Great Northern War Russian Dragoon officer. 

Coehorn Mortar With Crew And Transport.

Finally getting through the backlog of painted figures that needed finishing off . First up is the Coehorn mortar and crew for which I did some conversion work on the figures .

The mortar needs some transport and it seems they just used a light cart to carry it around . The cart is a MDF model , the horse a spare plastic one and the driver a converted Lowlander . 

The completed group, the gunners are converted Imex AWI artillerymen , rather pleased how this has turned out and it's a bit different from the usual run of the mill artillery .