Battle of Chianti

Tim and Peter come over for a game of Charge a few months ago and I have finally got time and updated the blog with some photos and a after action report.

The Battle of Chianti was fought along the River Blast between the Imperial forces and those of the Elector of Savaloy. 

The Imperial forces consisted of 2 regiments of Infantry supported to be 2 guns and a detachment of Hussars.  The Electoral forces consisted of 1 regiment of infantry, a company each of infantry and light infantry, supported by 2 guns and a unit of Dragoons.

The first 2 pictures show the Imperial Brie Regiment recently brought up to strength with a newly raised company.  My infantry regiments consist of two 16 man companies plus various officers etc and in all have 40 foot castings and 1 mounted CO.

To pad out the numbers for this game I used some AWI Sash and Sabre figures to support the electoral  forces. These figures are part of a stalled AWI project I started a few years ago and was their first time in action.

In support the Electoral forces had a detachment a Dragoons

The game was played using the advanced rules from Charge on a 6 ft by 6 ft table and was played in my basement wargame room - hence the poor light for the photos.

The action opens with an advance by both sides with colours to the fore and drums beating. The Royal Boursin are a well equipped and a sturdy regiment. It advances on the right bank hoping to secure the bridge before the electoral forces.

The Royal Boursin are supported by the Regiment Brie escorting the artillery battery. The action opens with the Electoral artillery opening fire against the Imperial artillery.  Tim glumly looks on as his artillery are still moving as they are unlimber. Things get worse as one gun is quickly put out of action. A hit followed by a 6 on a D6.

The Brie reach the bridge and consolidate their position 

The Royal Boursin let loose a tremendous first volley which lays low many from the ranks of the Electoral Militia.

Unable to bear the volleys the militia breaks under the pressure and runs to the rear.

In the centre the Sbrinz advancing maintaining well ordered ranks. 

Face Brie regiment turns to face the Sbrinz. Both sides begin trading volleys.  

The Royal Boursin having seen off the militia cross the river Blast to aid the Brie in their fight. With flags flying and drums beating they are an irresistible sight.  

However their march is in vain as the Brie break allowing the Sbrinz to occupy the village and flank the remaining Imperial gun. The resulting volley lays the crew low. 

    

In  a final desperate throw of the dice the Imperial Hussars attempt to turn the tide and the Dolecelatte Dragoons. In a swirling melee both sides are unable to gain an advantage and as both sides fall back to re order the Imperial army decides enough is enough and retires back up the Blast to re order the ranks.

  

Another fun game using the Charge rules.

War of The Spanish Succesion

I have finished my first unit of French (less the flag) of for the WSS. Tim will being doing British and Graham the army of Piedmont. We have decided to use 20mm Plastic figures from the Zvezda GNW range. These figures are really well sculpted and do paint up well.  

This battalion represents the Royal Regimnet and was one of the French units dressed in Grey/White. 

    



Napoleonic 20mm Plastic

I have just taken the plunge into the 1/72 plastic pool and finished my first Sapanish unit using HaT 1806 Prussians with a few 1805 French thrown in. The bases are made of card with 1 pence piece fillers to add some weight.

The method I used was to washed first and then spray with Rustoleum White primer. This is now available in the UK from B+Q. I used a light grey ink and Johnsons floor wash (the UK version of Future) mixed with warter and used acrylic inks for much of the equipment and unit facings. This is so easy to use as it is a flows and stains the colour on. If using Inks do not use any more Future as this will and lifts the ink and it will run

all over the figure. I just used Rowney Acrylic matt varnish to finish.

In all I painted 38 figures in about 5 hours - which is way quicker than my nornal painting time.

The biggest issue you will find is that many wargamers look down on plastic figures as some sort of inferior product. In my group 2 reject the idea of plastic out of hand where as along with 2 others we are now embarking on a doing the WSS using Zvezda GNW figures. See next post for photos

Erbprinz - 1st Company done

The first company of my Tradition is finally finished.  These guys took a bit longer than I had planned to paint. I have tried to recreate the look based on the cover of Charge.    

The hill is my first MDF Old School attempt made from some MDF I got from a skip and then cut with a jigsaw . I have painted it using Dulux Soft Moss -2 the same colour used by Phil Olley. I will shortly be painting my table with this colour.  

Next on my paining table is a company of infantry for my 40mm Prince August project.  Hopefully these will be done in the next few days as they are quick and easy to paint.   

FPW Zinnfiguren (Flats)

I recently bought a few painted FPW Zinnfiguren for German eBay. They were painted but were a bit rough around the edges.  I quickly over painted the 32 figures in a few days and have now finished basing the first stand.  These are a mixture of manufacturers (engravers is the correct term) and mixed together on these large bases (75 by 50mm or 3 by 2 " for non metric viewers). 

These figures have a certain charm and the feeling on movement and action cannot be bettered by full round figures.  

Form the side or an angled view the base is packed with action and looks like a dense formation of infantry. Looking straight on or from the rear does not work with these figures

A closer view shows how a simple single shading brings the figures alive. In fact these were a lot easier to paint then I thought. But then I am a wargamer and not a flat collector. I have some more figures kindly donated to me from Roy Boardman (British flats figure society) and I will be stripping these factory paints off using Dettol and painting from scratch.

My plan is to use these figures for some 1866/1870 gaming use a range of rules including Donald Featherstones the War Game with additions rules in his War Game Campaigns book in the re fight of the battle of Spichern.

Hey ho isn't this hobby fun.

The Campaign

After a couple of false starts I have finally got the Campaign underway. It is basically a 2 player game of the Sport of Kings campaign from Age of Reason. Tim is commanding Britain, Prussia and Sweden whilst I am commanding France, Austria and Russia.


The open move has generated 3 engagements which will be played put over the next 2 months.

The first battle is between the Austrians (7 sps) and Prussians (6 sps). We are going to use Bob Jones new rules Zoauve :Repique rules. http://repiquerules.com/

We are going to play the game as an FPW game with the French representing the Austrians. Each SP will be a brigade which will be represented by 2 wargame units on the table.

The second game is an action America with the French (5 sps) taking on the British (3 sps). The game will be fought as an ACW game with the Union taking the role of the French and the Rebels the British. The game will be played using Don Featherstone’s Horse and Musket rules from the Old School classic - the War Game. Each SP will be represented by a brigade of 2 regiments.

The third game is a much larger affair with a battle in Silesia between Russians and Austrians. Each side has 12 SPs. We are likely to use Piquet for this one but this may change.

Ilkleylads Archive - No 2 - Marston Moor

Here are some shots of a game we put on a few years ago at Sheffield. Infantry units have 40-50 figures per regiment. The game look impressive and we used 3 collections with some 2000+ figures on the table. The Royalists won this one.

Panoramic view of the infantry action






Massed regiments of Cavalry

In your face. Royalist and Scots go toe to toe

Battle of Fontenoy

I will be putting on an OS game at the Leeds wargame show later this year. The game will feature my Prince August collection. I hope that Steve Metringham will also be adding his collection to the game. 

I am thinking of doing the battle of Fontenoy.

More later.

30mm Flats - an Old School Alternative

Well I have taken the plunge and bought a bunch of Kieler Zinnfiguren or Flachfiguren. In all I have bought 67 figures - all Prussians.  They are all painted but will need some work to re paint some paint chips. 

I am not sure how I will base these figures yet - I will either go OS classic and base singularly with green painted bases or base on 60 by 40mm with 5 figures and base and texture as I would standard wargame figures. 

Here a few photos of what can be done with these figures. These can all be found on  British Flat Figure web site. The last one shows the some figures in wargame action.  

And for something different.

I have been toying with the idea of getting some 30mm Flats ftrom Germany. The range of figures is huge and then quality looks fantastic. They are probably going to be hard to paint and I not sure wheter they will work for wargaming. I am going to get a few next week from  

http://www.zinnfiguren-gruenewald.de/pages/ggpag.html 

Probably get some SYW and FPW to start with. 

Anyway thought I would see how flats would look and made a few paper ones over the weekend. These are lots of figures avaialble from  http://www.juniorgeneral.org/

I downloaded a few and played around with them in paint and resized to 35mm.  Here are some French Infantry. This is a quick and easy way to build an army and something I can do with my 4 year old son. One of the advantages is that  once ytou have the master it easy to get units with different facings or uniform colours done.

Ilkleylads Archives No 1

GNW scene with Russian and Saxon Infantry defending against a determined Swedish attack.







A close up from behind the Saxon lines. The Swedish Cavalry take fire but charge foward into contact.







A view from behind the lines.





SYW in India plus some Prussian Hussars. These photos were taken for use in the publication of Piquet Cartouche 2 supplement.