ECW by Norman

 Norman recently sent me some more pictures from his vast collection of 1/32 scale figures.  In this case we have a force of Royalist troops forming a last ditch defence against a Parliamentary assault.  I think the figures are mostly from the 'A Call to Arms' range. Very fine they look too:

Parliamentary troops advance towards the town:

Royalist pikemen

Royalist cavalry emerge from the town gate:

Battle is joined:

The Rape of Piddlington - an AWI scenario

 Phil popped over for a couple of days, allowing us the opportunity to put some figures on the table and to play a game:

The peace and quiet of the tiny hamlet of Piddlington is shattered by the fateful cry, "The British are coming".  Unfortunately for Piddlington it has been chosen as an American weapons and ammunition storage site, that has come to the attention of the British commander.  He has ordered a small force to go and destroy the facility.  Word of the plan has reached the Americans and the local Piddlington militia has deployed and a request has been sent for reinforcements.

Soon the red coats of British grenadiers can be seen approaching down the long road leading to the settlement:

Aware of the experience of others of being ambushed in the wild country, the British commander deployed a couple of battalions on each flank to protect the main force, consisting of the commander, a field battery, the grenadiers and a second line battalion.

A Hessian battalion works its way along the left flank:

Meanwhile, the Piddlington town guard has deployed onto a rocky mound adjacent to the road, hoping they can delay the British until reinforcements arrive:

In the settlement itself is a battalion from the county militia and a light gun:

Seeing little opposition ahead, the British send the grenadiers forward to clear the mound, supported by the gun and the line battalion.  A brisk fight enshews and although the town guard take casualties they cling on and deny the grenadiers from taking the little hill.  The county militia move down the road to meet the threat, but suffer casualties from British volleys. After another turn, the county militia break and run from the field:

With nothing to stop them the two right hand British battalions continue to work their way around the right flank.

More American reinforcements arrive and the village is now quite strongly defended:

On the British left the Hessians and British battalion close on the outskirts of Piddlington.

The fighting on the approaches to Piddlington intensifies, with the Town Guard still managing to hold off the British grenadiers.  Two American battalions storm down the road and rout the British line battalion there, but lose one of their own in the process:

With the road clear the Americans charge down the British battery, but run into a hail of grapeshot and are shattered.

The Town Guard numbers fall every turn and having put up a heroic fight they crumble:

The battered British Grenadiers gain the mound, but come under fire from the village.

The British grenadiers decide to pull back from the summit of the mound and await reinforcements.

The Hessians arrive and the British gun moves up with the commander. Also on the British right the two battalions begin to engage the American left.

Although the Hessians are forced back by the American artillery, the other British battlion begins to engage the American gunners.

The British battalion on the left attacks and destroys the American gun.  The American left collapses as two British battalions attack the now thin defences.  Suddenly it is all over, as the American left disintegrates their exhaustion point is reached and the remaining American units pull out of the village.  

The British set about destroying the stores and set fire to the buildings.  The battle became known locally as 'The rape of Piddlington'.

For rules we use Command & Colors Tricorne, and the figures are mostly Airfix plastics, with some other brands thrown in. This proved to be a very enjoyable game.

 

Jacobites

 I recently acquired quite a large late 17th early 18th Century 20mm army, consisting of six battalions of line, two of horse and some grenadiers.  My plan is to pitch these troops against my Jacobites.  However, a quick review of my Jacobite army in this scale was sadly lacking, so I decided to remidy matters.

After some thinking I purchased several boxes of Strelets 1/72 plastic figures and set about painting them. I didn't want to spend an age on the figures, so I tried something that I have not done before, using techniques employed when painting 6mm figures.  I first sprayed the figures in black primer, then, as I was going for en masse units I added blobs of colour to bring out the weapons, clothing and skin.  I found that I was able to paint 60+ figures in two days.

The results are not pretty, but with a crowd of Highlanders gathered together on bases and viewed on the table they look OK.  Here is the result:

I have bought another box of figures and a load of musket armed 20mm metal figures from Newline to go with these.

Norman's North American Wars

 Once again Norman has sent me some pictures of his delightful 54mm soldiers.  This time it is a fort set in North America, with some pesky local natives lurking in the woods.

Some locals are spotted in the forest:

The fort alerts the troops:

And they deploy out of the fort:

Followed by a brisk engagement:

Back in time for tea and medals!

Red Alert - The other side

 Over the weekend I managed to finish painting and basing the second faction.  To stand out from the blue fleet, I have gone again for a gunmetal base coat, but this time added red and grey highlights.

Here is the second fleet:

Here you can see the six battleships at the front, the command ship with its escort fighters, six cruisers, 12 destroyers and three clusters of fighters.

I also painted three more blue faction battleships.  This completes all of the capital ships and most of the support vessels.  There are a few more odds and ends to do, but I now have enough for the opening scenarios of the game.

Red Alert - Setting Up

 Inspired by a post on David Crook's Wargaming Odyssey blog, I decided to dig out my unopened Red Alert board game.  It was one of those ideas from a few years back that never came to pass.  I have another set that has been painted, but not by me, so I thought it would be fun to paint some spaceships and set up a basic game.

The models that come with the game are quite nicely made and come in a basic green or red plastic for the warring factions.

I experimented with various colours and in the end I decided to give all the ships a coat of shiny gunmetal and then add colours for each faction.

This is the result of my initial effort.  My green ships are now blue and sand colour:

I have started work on the other faction and set the game board up for the first scenario in the rule book.

The Battle of Dunkeld 21st August 1689

Bob Black visited at the weekend and we decided to play a scenario from the Command And Colors game, Jacobite Rising.  Bob had recently played the first scenario, Killicrankie, so it made sense to attempt the second, which turned out to be Dunkeld.  I planned to use my 54mm collection and having recently purchased some small houses, I went about setting up the game.  Some buildings were knocked up from foam board too.

After the action at Killiecrankie, Jacobite forces realised that the city of Dunkeld was held by a single unit, The Earl of Angus's Regiment, The Cameronians. The Jacobites, having numerical superiority decided to attack from the hills surrounding the town.

Essentially the battle would consist of Government forces holding the town while being assaulted by the Highlanders.  This is the starting point of the battle.  The Highlanders occupy the hills at the top of the table, with Government troops in the buildings.  The 'cathedral' forms a strongpoint:

With the roofs removed the redcoats can be seen:

Highlanders move towards the town:

The redcoats take up firing positions, but initially plan to sit tight:

The first attack came from the Jacobite right; their plan becoming clear to attack each building with overwhelming force and this happened against two buildings that stand proud of the main position. Two Jacobite units storm one of the houses:

More Jacobites come charging down the road. 

The Government troops cause some casualties but are forced out of the first house, and make a stand on the road

Several Jacobites fall and the Government forces regain control of the building:

The pressure builds and soon troops in both of the forward buildings are forced out:

The Government troops cling on, holding back the Jacobite charges, but are taking casualties all the time:

In order to restore the situation more troops are ordered forward to push the Jacobites back:

Fierce fighting occurs in the narrow streets.

The government troops regain one of the buildings mow down some of the Jacobites with musket fire:

The threat of Jacobite cavalry, however, forces the redcoats to scuttle back to the protection of the houses

With most of the Government troops in buildings the cavalry are not effective and take casualties while negotiating the narrow streets:

And are beaten off:

Having been slowed down in the centre, the Jacobites tried an assault from their left, with their infantry bursting out of the trees:

Although they manage to score some hits, the return fire is devastating and the remnants of this failed attack pull back:

While all this was going on over on the flank, in the centre the Jacobites manage to evict the redcoats from another building:

Now, technically the capture of the second building should be a win for the Jacobites, however, they have lost over half of their men and the Government troops still hold more of the town.  As per the real battle we mutually agreed that this was really a draw and that the Jacobites had no real hope of taking any more buildings.  Thus we ended the battle at this point and adjourned for tea!

This turned out to be a more exciting game than I expected.  The close combat amongst the buildings saw the fortunes of each side swing back and forth.  The spectacle of shiny 54mm troops added to the fun.