The Great Plastics Revival - French Infantry and Artillery

 Over the past couple of months, I have been working through the mountain of French Line and Guard infantry and artillery.  The figires are a mix of Airfix, HaT, Revell, ESCI and Italeri.  

First off, we have the line infantry, with 11 battalions and three batteries of guns:

Airfix line infantry:

Esci line infantry

And the Imperial Guard, consisting of, five Old Guard battalions, two of Young Guard and three gun batteries:

I'm now starting to sort out the Prussians.

The Battle For Donville - Rapid Fire

 Bob Black came over for a quick game earlier in the week and after a beer and a light lunch we went to the war room, where I had set up a scenario borrowed from the July 2025 Miniature Wargames (credited for the map):

Essentially, US forces in the shape of an infantry company are holding the vicinity of the central farm, while elements of 17th SS Panzer Division, supported by Stug IIIs, Panzer IVs and the 17th Artillery Regiment.

The US forces have advance warning of the German attack and rush to send reinforcements to the area.

Here is the table, looking at the central farm area, viewed from the north.  The US infantry can be seen lining the hedgerows around the farm, a single Sherman has arrived and there is a machine gun covering the diamond shaped field within the small copse.  An FOO team has also turned up and moves towards the taller of the three buildings:

German infantry arrive, emerging from a wood on the western edge of the board and move towards the farm:

Bob, playing the Germans, sends his first Stug III rushing up the road and straight into the field adjacent to the farm. The Sherman takes aim - and misses.  The Stug fires and the Sherman is destroyed:

A US bazooka team flanks the Stug from the hedge, but they are out of range. Now the US troops are in trouble, with an assault gun in the area of the farm and nothing to deal with it.

Meanwhile the German infantry begin to work their way through the hedgerows:

Some enter the field and are mown down by the concealed US machine gun:

To add to the US woes a second Panzer Grenadier company with heavy weapons dismount from their half tracks and follow up behind the Stug:

The Stug, meanwhile, crashes through the hedge and engages the US infantry, some of whom retire into the farm buildings. German artillery hits the farm and HE rounds from the Stug cause casualties. 

The Panzer grenadiers close in, but they come under fire from US artillery and small arms:

The US machine gun is taken out by German artillery and heavy fire from the hedge, allowing the German troops to close onto the farm:

Most of the US defenders are either dead or wounded and the farm is quickly cleared and occupied by German infantry.  The Stug takes up position in the farm to cover the approach road:

To make matters even worse, a second Stug arrives and rumbles up the road to support the Panzer Grenadiers in the field, who have taken heavy casualties from flanking fire:

This final US defence is soon disrupted as the half track pours machine gun fire into their position. Despite three shots from the Bazooka team, all miss and the half track causes havoc:

At this point the first US reinforcements, in the shape of armoured infantry and heavy weapons company arrives:

But, it is too late.  The Germans have two tanks and a half track in the farm, with the remnants of two infantry companies.  Also, the US FOO spots more Panzer Grenadiers approaching the farm across the fields:

Outgunned and with the Germans in control of the farm and key road junctions the US commander calls it a day and withdraws what he can save.  This was a resounding win for the Germans.  A very interesting game that played well with Rapid Fire rules.  The loss of the Sherman early on was a major disaster and spreading the US infantry out too widely was probably a mistake, putting the Bazooka team out of range.

Britains Deetail French Foriegn Legion

 Linked to my Funny Little Wars idea I have now finished painting the French Foreign Legion (FFL) infantry.  As with all Deetail figures the mouldings are quite nice and look so much better with a little painting. I have enough for a couple of companies  and a Gatling Gun.  They will be supported by a squadron of cavalry, which I painted a couple of weeks ago.

The whole unit:

The Gatling gun

And the Bedouin Arabs, twice as many cavalry as the FFL:

As well as around 50 foot:

Most of the Arabs are still in their rather gaudy factory finish.  At some point I will paint them all.  In the meantime, I have just repainted the bases to get rid of the lime green colour.

Funny Little Wars - Turkish Infantry

 Over the last few days I have been assembling and painting a small Turkish force.  The figures are 54mm from Irregular Miniatures.  They went together well, required a small amount of filing and drilling and the paint went on easily.  I used a grey primer for these figures.

The uniform colours may not be strictly correct, but I based my colour scheme on that used on early hollow cast figures:

Funny Little Wars

 Some time ago I purchased a copy of the book 'Funny Little Wars', a set of rules based upon the  famous HG Wells rules, Little Wars.

Over time I have been accumulating some 54mm figures to try out the rules.  My firs unit, Turkish artillery, are by Irregular Miniatures, having adapted some kneeling riflemen into gunners.  the gun is an old Britains matchstick firing piece:

I have also painted up some Britains Deetail mounted French Foreign Legion (FFL).  They started off like this:

And after some paint applied:

I have also painted some FFL infantry as well as a Gatling gun.  My plan is for the FFL to take on my Britains arabs.  The Turks/Egyptians will provide an enemy for my Britians British.  I also have some Mahdist warriors.

The Great Plastics Revival - The Austrians

 Yesterday I finished off the last of the Austrians, completing 10 infantry units, 4 of artillery and 3 cavalry. This all makes up to a nice army that can be organised into two divisions.  I also uncovered a large amount of unpainted Austian that will no doubt have their time on the painting table in the future.

Here is the Austrian Army:

Next will be a few more British and then I will look at the Prussian army.

The Bavarians arrive and some old favourites

 I have managed to sort out around half of the Bavarians - the easy ones.  The rest will require considerable work and there is a regiment of dragoons that will need a complete repaint.

Here are four infantry battalions:

Another quick task was the basing and touching up of two old favourites.  Some Airfix foot artillery:

And some Airfix French infantry:

I'm not sure what I will do next.  There's a lot of French infantry and artillery to do and large box of Austrians.  Further down the line I willl look at the Prussians and Russians.

The Great Plastics Revival 3 - French Cavalry

 The bank holiday provided the perfect opportunity to deal with one of the biggest projects of the plastics revival.  I decided to tackle most of the French cavalry.  They were in a bit of a state and some needed a bit of repair work and all required rebasing.  In all I found nine regiments. Here they are en masse:

Two regiments of dragoons (Italeri):

Two regiments of Airfix Cuirassiers:

HaT lancers and Italeri hussars:

HaT Guard Marmelukes and Horse Grenadiers:

And Italeri Cuirassiers:

There are another three or four regiments to paint, but these require quite a bit of work.

The Great Plastics Revival 2

 Some more figures have been tidied up and rebased:

Airfix British line infantry:

Some British light infantry, I think by Revell:

British heavy cavalry, by Revell, Hat and ESCI.

A brunswick brigade, figures by Hat:

The first of the Prussians, Airfix figures:

The Great Plastics Revival

 Over the decades our family has accumulated a huge collection of plastic Napoleonic figures.  They have been painted.organised and reorganised and repainted many times. The result of all this is that they have been dispersed and set aside as new projects took hold, or they were replaced by metal castings.

As a result of a mistaken purchase, I have decided to centralise all of the figures, repair and repaint where necessary and to use standard basing.  The mistake occurred when I was looking for some plastic French cavalry to go with my Les Higgins collection, until such time as I could find some metal originals. I put in a bid for some French Hussars and a few Riflemen that were going cheap on eBay.  I forgot about the bid until just before the auction closed and I thought, as I was the only bidder, I should take a look in more detail.  To my horror I could see why there were few bids, it was collection only.  Luck was on my side, however, as the location of the lot was about 5 miles down the road, phew!

I then looked at the description and realised that it was not just some cavalry and infantry, but a complete collection of over 1,500 figures.  My bid of around £20 looked too low but I remained the only bidder and won the collection, which is now sitting in my garage.  I am guessing that most other people failed to fully read the description and were put off by the 'collection only' condition.

To cut a long story short I now have an additional massive collection of painted plastic figures and it made sense to merge these with our existing holdings. As most were sitting dormant in attics and cupboards, the rest of the family were glad to shed their figures, no doubt grateful for the additional storage space.

So, there we are.  This little adventure has seen me painting and basing hundreds of figures and I thought I would share some pictires as I complete them.  First off figures from our original collection, repainted and baed.  Starting with some British:

Some Airfix Highlanders:

Airfix line infantry:

Revell Rifles:

More Airfix line infantry (with ESC! officers):

Revell line infantry:

Airfix British Hussars (I missed touching up some of the swords!)

I am working on some Bavarian battalions at the moment.  More pictures to come over the coming weeks.

An ECW Test Game

 For many a year I have wanted to have a go at English Civil War wargaming, but have been frustrated by the various sets of rules that I have tried.  A year or so ago, Bob Black gave me his massive 28mm ECW collection and I felt that it was time to put some figures on the table.  

A couple of weeks ago Will came over and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to try out some ECW rules.  I have had a copy of Bob Cordery's book, 'The Portable Pike and Shot Wargame'.  It is not really a rule book but more a collection of ideas.  Within the book is a set of rules by Alan Saunders, which adapt his own rules to match a gridded playing area.  We decided to give these a go.

Will commanded a Scottish army and I the English.

Two similar armies were laid out on an open table, with a single road and a few low hills:

We worked our way through the rules.  The game begins by both sides rolling for initiative.  If both players roll the same number a random event is introduced from a list within the rules.

As in many ECW encounters our game began with a cavalry engagement on the flank.  This would last most of the game.

Both sides exchanged artillery fire:

The cavalry action went back and forth with a slow accumulation of casualties.  

Infantry units began to close

Will attempted a flank attack on one of my units using another of his cavalry regiments, but that did not go well and they were beaten off.

An English cavalry counter charge occurs against Will's horsemen that have pulled back:

Battle is joined between the two cavalry units as some pikemen try to turn the cavalry flank.

At the same time, I launch my infantry

Battle is joined in the Scottish centre:

Finally on the left Will's cavalry collaps and this allows my cavalry to run riot amongst Will's guns and infantry

The high point of the battle as the Scots are forced back.

Finally the Scots break and the English claim victory.

After a slow start we got the hang of the rules.  They provided a fast moving and really enjoyable game.  We plan to give them another go when we next meet.