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Wednesday 28 December 2022

Ancient Ancients

 I have a small drawer full of really old Minifigs ancient figures, including Romans, Persians and Assyrians and a handful of Greeks.  Every once in a while I dig some out and for a change paint them.  On this occasion I have completed some AA 4s Assyrian Heavy Archer Firing Bow and AA 7s, Assyrian Light Spearman with Shield Advancing.  Although, they don't look like light spears to me, more telegraph poles.  

I did consider replacing the spears but thought that would diminish the charm of these early wargame figures:





I have a few more Assyrian types to paint while the mood holds!


Saturday 24 December 2022

Minifigs Nassau Grenadiers

 I started these figures a couple of years ago and then set them aside as I already had one unit of grenadiers and did not really need more.  In reality there was just a company of grenadiers in each battalion. However, in the old Minifigs S range there were no line troops for Nassau, just these figures complete with standard bearer.  If you wanted Nassau line infantry in shakos the only option was to use French infantry in later uniforms wearing trousers.  These figures are quite hard to find nowadays.

So, I decided to use a bit of modellers license and add these grenadiers to my Anglo Dutch army, acying as combined grenadiers battalions (which I am sure never occurred).




Merry Christmas everyone!


Monday 19 December 2022

Warrior French Light Infantry

Having made a slight dent in my napoleonic lead mountain, a French Light Infantry battalion comes off the production line.  These are part of a number of projects close to completion that I hope to finish before Christmas.  The cold snowy weather has helped a lot, although the list of domestic jobs have now stacked up and will eat into available spare time.


The figures are 25mm by Warrior:





Sunday 11 December 2022

Mystery Fort

 I took a bit of a gamble and purchased a small log fort that was clearly a toy and designed as some form of child's shooting game.  A bonus was that it was cheap at around £12 with a good number of lovely Minifigs S Range Crimean figures included:


When it arrived, I removed the centre and added a new floor from card.  With a bit of paint I quickly had a nice size little log fort that would work from the ECW out to the SYW and possibly beyond. Seen here with some SYW 25mm Minifigs infantry:


My question is, does anyone know what the original fort was called and who made it?  I think it originally worked by hitting the flag pole with a projectile which tilted on elastic bands causing little plastic spikes to come up through the floor and knock figures over.  I removed all of that.


Thursday 8 December 2022

Ros Figures 25mm French Guard Horse Artillery

 As i continue to work through my collection of Ros Figures on an occasional basis, over the past week I have been working on the delightful French Imperial Guard Horse Artillery set.  Consisting of a gun, an officer and four gunners the set dates back to the late 1970s.  The detail is nice and crisp and apart from a few lumps and bumps on the base there was very little flash to contend with:




25mm French Imperial Guard Grenadiers

 Another Warrior unit rolls off the production line.  This time it is a French Guard Grenadier battalion.  I started these a long while a go and they have been sitting unfinished in a box.  Whilst my Warrior mojo was in full swing I decided to get these finished and based.



This is my second guards unit of an eventual formation of four.  As always with Warrior figures these crude little castings come to life with a splash of paint.

Saturday 3 December 2022

25mm Warrior French Infantry

 For the past few weeks I have been paint converting some Warrior French infantry into Nassau and Brunswick troops.  yesterday I finished off some Warrior French as er....French, just for a change!

As always, these delightful figures are fun to paint and is is great to see these quite crude castings emerging as rather nice figures:




Thursday 1 December 2022

Warrior Austrian Hussars

 These figures have been hanging around part painted for a couple of years and so today, I set about finishing them off.  Rather crude, but rather nice in their dashing uniforms.



Saturday 26 November 2022

More Brunswickers

 Representing the 1st Line Battalion, some more Warrior Miniatures French, paint converted into Brunswickers.  I will probably paint one more and then will concentrate on some Dutch/Belgians.




Saturday 19 November 2022

Warrior Miniatures Allies

 That venerable old school firm Warrior Miniatures caters well for the main protagonists of the napoleonic wars but there is limited coverage of the minor states.  There is a Brunswick element in the British section of the catalogue, but only for the Lieb Battalion with  the distinctive long coat and horse tail plume, but no line troops. Thanks to the work of Jeffers there are some Saxon troops available but that's about it.

I needed some of the minor nations troops for the 1815 campaign, so I set about paint converting some of my abundant French infantry casting.  Jeffers also upgraded these figures but as far as I know were never put into production.  John Holt the owner of Warrior Miniatures sadly has suspended the production of the Warrior range due to illness.  It is not know when or if production and sales will resume.

My idea is to paint a few battalions of German and Dutch troops to supplement my allied army.  So far two units have been completed.

A Nassau  line battalion:


And a Brunswick battalion:


I will add to these units occasionally.

Monday 7 November 2022

Battle Report - Talavera 28 July 1809

Talavera is a battle that I have long wished to play, using the Command & Colors game system as the basis. I also wanted to play with both the British and Spanish elements on the field. After a bit of searching I found an enlarged version on the C&C website called 'Talevera La Grande Battle':


Will came over this weekend and so the troops were set up on the table.  From the French side:



And from the Anglo Spanish point of view:



The game was played using our in house rules, using dice to determine initiative and action points. Also, from previous games we added another tweak; units forced to retreat by a flag symbol finish up facing away from the enemy and are classed as disordered until rallied next turn and using up action points. This allowed cavalry to pursue and cut up retreating troops - as I was to learn shortly. We do not use the C&C game cards at all. 

I played the French and kicked off by having a probe towards the Spanish side of the field by attempting to attack the two gun batteries on the ridge.  These guns were behind an earthworks, proving to be a real challenge to dislodge:


The attack did not go well and the two French battalions were soon retreating having taken some casualties.  The action for this small ridge continued for much of the game sucking more troops from both sides:

Finally one of the batteries is overcome
On the opposite flank the British withdrew most of their infantry onto the reverse side of the ridge.  Seeing this the French now made a demonstration against some Spanish infantry in a fortified farm, with light infantry, supported by artillery moving against the buildings:

However, this small action grew into a major encounter as both sides poured more assets in. The Spanish were ejected by the French light infantry, who were in turn pushed out by a British battalion.  The French advanced a brigade of cavalry and British cavalry advanced to counter the move, A huge cavalry battle ensued.



The French were pushed back with the cavalry brigade being all but destroyed. French infantry were also beaten back and the allied left was stabilised.

Back over on the left the French continued to push forward against the largely Spanish forces, but once again were beaten back. It took several turns to rally the troops and sort things out:

Meanwhile, a pesky regiment of Spanish hussars continually harried the French, cutting up some French light infantry and eliminating a horse battery:




On the opposite flank the successful British cavalry over extended themselves, attempting to ride down a French battery, but the river and hill saw them decimated by musket and artillery fire.
With the British cavalry beaten off, the British infantry advanced forward off the ridge.
Hoping to take advantage of the disarray caused by the failed cavalry attack, two battalions of highlanders stormed across the river in a headlong charge:
Initially they were quite successful, but rallied French guns and infantry began to cause casualties, especially from short range artillery:
Although one French battalion routed, the highlanders were beaten back suffering severe damage.

back on the opposite flank the French reorganised for another push forward and although the second gun on the ridge was finally dislodged the Spanish, suffering high casualties held firm:


The Spanish pulled back and strongly held the village of Talavera and could not be dislodged:
Without making any real progress on the left, French attention shifted back to the right and centre.  Some fresh French battalions began to move against the allied centre which had been weakened by the loss of the highlanders:

Once again the allied cavalry intervened with a flank attack against a French battery that was causing problems by bombarding the fortified farm.  As before, this attack faltered and the cavalry failed:
Once more the French pushed on up towards the ridge, supported by cavalry and once again the remaining British infantry and cavalry counter attacked:


And the French were pushed back across the river, having lost more men and a regiment of cuirassiers:

Undeterred, hoping to win by sheer weight of numbers more French troops were pushed up the ridge




Eventually the French losses became too great and on both flanks they were unable to gain ground, being halted on the river time and again. The French exhaustion point of 15 was reached and an allied victory was declared.  The final score was 15 -13 to the allies.

A final view of the battlefield:



This was the largest battle Will and I had fought and it was a lot of fun.  The rule tweaks worked really well and allowed cavalry to be used to full effect. The battle lasted about four hours which was good for such a sizeable action. 

We are contemplating another large action in the coming weeks and will continue to put our rules adjustment ideas to the test.