Prep for Kirriemuir

Some shots of the prep game we had last night for Kirriemuir.


Looking forward to the game, a few tweaks needed but apart from that and some flocking, all good to go.

 

 

 

 

Rgt Riazanskiy

Well that's the last of the Russian units painted for the Hagelberg demo along with my horses and limbers too. Figures wise that's everything done, (Is it? Hmm I doubt myself so I'll check again after this!).

A wee push to get this unit finished and the plan was to have one more, but time is marching on and it's been a hectic few weeks at work and I've had the cold so I've tweaked the OB and swapped a couple of units around. It's a demo game not a balanced scenario - the emphasis is on spectacle not balanced play!!!

I used army painter green spray to undercoat the unit rather than the graffiti spray I've used. It's a close match in terms of colour and these lads just needed a dicht of Vallejo Russian Uniform, some red, black, white, flesh, mahogany, oiled steel and brass to get them done. It's an easy uniform, but it is getting monotonous now. So this will be the last unit for a while. These are Crann Tara miniatures and are very straightforward to paint, nice and clean. I've popped an Ingo Russian in the shot too, just for comparison. A little chunkier but as I'm not mixing figs in units I don't mind. Had there been more poses and better sculpts from that range I'd have stuck with them for the line too.

Below are my Blotz limbers and Colonel Bill Draught Horses along with a Warbases gun and limber set and some other bits including a rather nice Austrian office I bought on EBay to go with my Austrian Grenzers. In the foreground are some Schaumburg Lipper Jäger which will pair up with my Carabiniers. 

Very annoyingly the Blogger app is now defunct and I am using the web version instead - its rubbish and I have to go portrait to be able to type and see the whole post. Functionality wins users you corporate neeps!

Approaching Hagelberg.

Full  of the cold at the movement so progress is slowing - however the last of the line regiments is almost finished for "Hagelberg" and we should be having another run through it next week at the club.

I need to base up two units and "dress" the bases of a most of the infantry. This means the basing material, a fine dry brush of Vallejo stone grey to take off the ochre colour of the basing material and then a light flocking and tufting. I,prefer to do this in a oner since it helps keep things uniform.

Pictures to follow but only when I can assure myself that the only green stuff on the figures is from the paint pot and not from my nose !

Catching up with myself.

It's been a busy few weeks and I've not had time to post for a while.

I'm still busy with those Russians;

Horses and limbers (from Blotz.com) assembled and painted.
First line regiment completed and based
Second line half finished
Commmand figures completed and based
And a trial run of the game completed.

Plus

A couple of folios put together for some HoW games - 1st Landshut and Emsdorf

And

Some civilians and camp followers finished and a search for some AWI rules completed.

That's not too shabby I think.

Some pics from the Landshut game last week. Austrian Grenz hold off and turn back a mixed bag of Prussians and also sneaky preview of the "rough" run through for Hagelberg.

Hagelberg....coming soon....

First of the Russian Line

It's the last day of my holiday and I managed to finish of the first of my Russian SYW Line infantry units, the Azovskiy Rgt. 

Here's them before they were topped off with the flags. They are Savoia Infantry Marching from Crann Tara's range and are intended as generic figures, hence my use of them in my Russian Army for HOW. 

They are lovely figures, very well animated as are all of the CT figures. I recommend them. 

The flags are copied from Kronoscaf, the excellent SYW website and I can quickly copy, paste and fettle them up to flags, adding a little paint here and there just to lift the colour sometimes, at least at the edges, in this case with gold paint. The flags are mounted on brass tubes, meaning I can swap flags, if I want to, simply by lifting the flag off the wire pole. 

I aim to have a further two units of line infantry for the demo game at Kirriemuir and a total of 6 line units for my army. As they're all in green and red I will be breaking the monotony a bit by interspacing my other units, officers next and after the next one, some cavalry.

The Raid on Wurstdorf - Honours of War Scenario

HOW are proving an excellent set of rules. Last night we played this scenario from the HOW forum as I hadn't had a chance to put together something of my own. You can find it here HOW Forum

We used my Russians as the Pragmatic army and a mix of Hessians and Hoegaarden troops for the French.

An excellent little scenario for a great club game. The "French" achieved their objective of scoring the forage, but the "pragmatic" forces broke their army in the process. A somewhat Pyrrhic victory.

Highlights included the early destruction of the French advance Dragoons following a spirited charge and follow up by the Kuirassier. And on the last turn a death or glory charge by French cavalry into the hussars only to be shot up badly on the way past by musketry which caused heavy casualties and lead them to being destroyed.

Some piccies below.

SYW Russians - The line infantry

First of my SYW Russian line inf using some lovely new figures from Crann Tara.  Also a nice mdf limber from Blotz (www.blotz.co.uk) and a table with map, bottle and plate from a SCW set by empress which I no longer have. This bit was too good to get rid of.

Also a couple of group shots of what I've been working on over the last few weeks.

I quite like the effect of the yellow light !

Heading for home 🙁

Well it's been an absolutely cracking week in Cromarty and I can honestly say I've fallen in love with the place.

Hobby wise I've not done much apart from sticking together some AWI Militia from Warlord. Nice figs which I will get round to undercoating in the future as my Russians await.

However just kicking around for a week, getting out in the car in the sun, top down, in September, (!),  has been great. Down Loch Ness on the eastern side by Wade's road was particularly noteable - the man had an eye for scenic routes that's for sure - as was a trip up to Dornoch and our wander through the village here yesterday. Hugh Miller's cottage and the Court house are worth the time to visit. The latter's passion for geology and fossils (amongst other things) is interesting to ponder when you look across the firth to Nigg and Invergordon and see the drilling rigs stacked up. There's also something new on the quayside, a tidal turbine ready for installation.

Home via Cawdor, Grantown, Dufftown and Huntly. The sun's out, the "tap's aff".

Busybusybusy..busy...bus..y.....ahhhhhhhhh!

It's been a while since my last post. Gaming wise, things have been great. The local club have taken to Honours of War big time and it will be the rule set we use for the demo game at Kirriemuir in November. I've had some great games with these rules, we've played thought all the scenarios except the last and the chaos have decided to build up a SYW army, each!

I've also managed to paint some new figs. However on the work and personal side, things have been flat out and sadly our family cat finally run out of lives last week. He was a character and will be much missed.

I'm currently in Frankfurt as I write this having just returned from Azerbaijan. Two weeks ago I was in Norway.

However, next week and the week after I am on holiday. A week on the Black Isle for some RnR (and for once that's not rock n roll!) and then a week off pottering.

I can't wait.

The Serbskiy foot hussars are finished and based, I have a camp scene and followers, tents, etc painted and ready to base, some mdf limbers to assemble, a few Schaumburg-Lippe jaeger to finish off as companions for their Carabiniers brethren and hopefully my "Russians"  - the new generic foot figures from Crann Tara will be waiting for me as well.

It's going to be good to be home!

Serbskiy Hussars

Some more blue to contrast with my red Russians. The mounted version of the Serbskiy Hussars. I've still to flock the base, and decide what pennant to give them - possibly a white, blue and red streamer with St Andrew icon in the corner as they didn't carry flags.

The base is designed to represent a loose cloud formation. These guys are not very disciplined or organised at all, even compared with other nations Hussars. The figures are mounted individually too, for skirmish gaming, just like the Cossacks.

More Russians are coming

Somewhat inspired by the armies and rules we used at the recent AMG weekender I decided that my Russian army really needed to be a little bigger and more imposing. 

The original plan was for a handful of battalions of Observation Corps, supporting arty and cavalry. To be fair that would have been fine for Honours of War and have fitted in with my other armies. But after seeing the Prussians and Austrians a couple of weeks back quantity took on a whole quality of its own! 

I dug out the order of battle for Zorndorf from Kronoscarf and the excellent Obscure Battles site and did some scribbling. Going 1:1 is just plain megalomania, but I noticed that the Russians were organised in roughly 4 battalion brigades, each of two regiments. I figured that was an easy number to work with and so decided to go with a 1:4 ratio. 

Thus the army will be -

Right Wing
Horse Grenadiers, Cuirassiers, Dragoons, Hussars, Cossacks - two stands each of the first 3 and a whole unit of the Hussars (Serbsky) and Cossacks.

Center
10 infantry units - 6-8 line and 2-4 grenadiers, not quite settled on the proportions but probably 8-2. This represents the 10 brigades of Russian Musketeers and Grenadiers
4 Observation Corps Musketeers, 1 Observation Corps Grenadiers - these are the figures I already have painted up.

Left Wing
Cuirassier Rgt, Hussar Rgt and 2 stands of Dragoons. 

 - Again the DR are understrength but can be brigaded with the other 2 stands if required. 

Artillery
1x 12lb battery (2)
1x 8lb battery (2)
2x Unicorn Battery(4)
Limbers.

Plus Officers and Command, hangers on, etc, etc.

I have the 4 Observation Corps, 1 unit each of the Hussars, Dragoons, Horse Grens, Cossacks and Cuirassiers and the Unicorns (the former and the latter need painted, the rest are done). So that really leaves the Musketeers and Grenadiers and 4 other guns, plus some limbers and commanders and some little bits to brighten up the table. 

I will be going with Crusader for my remaining inf as sadly Ingo's Figuren don't make any decent non Obs Corps Russian infantry. They do have some rather nice figures reloading but the matching firing poses look a little odd. It's the butt of the gun and the elbow. Anyway Crusader seem to match the build of my existing Ingo figures without seeming underfed or over chunky, so they'll do the trick. 

Besides which, ordering stuff in Euro's isn't cost effective now - thank you Boris!!!!!!!!!!!

Quite a lot to do but with such simple summer uniforms, it will be relatively straightforward. Eventually this will pan out to be around 15 units of foot 8 guns, 7 cavalry, limbers, officers, equipment, etc. Still not huge, but the upper limit of what I have room for! It should take me to the end of the year to complete. Not a bad plan, lets see how it goes!!

I've already made a start and done a trial paint job on the Serbskiy Hussars. Nice and bright and a contrast to the Reds and greens which will follow. If used a fine nib pen for the detail on the sabretache. I like these chaps!

AMG 16 - a great weekends wargaming

I spent last weekend playing some fantastic games with some great people from the AMG forum. The games were amongst the best I've taken part in and the company really couldn't have been better. It looks like this is set to become an annual event and I've landed myself right in it as I'm organising the next one!

The first game up was a refight of the battle of Soor, from the War of Austrian succession in 1745. We used the Honours of War rules from Osprey for this. 

The Prussian right wing, facing the Austrians up the hill.

The Saxons advancing in column toward the town and Prussian center.

The Prussian left, with their camp.

Facing them the Austrian left.

Frederick's cavalry charge up the hill

The Austrians advance on the left. Cresting the hill they become exposed to the Prussian guns. 

The Saxons creep closer.

The Prussian left flank is threatened. The guns wheel to fire at the cavalry.

Battle rages in the center

The Austrians close, but has anyone in camp spotted the danger?

Doesn't look like it!

The Prussians didn't quite have the numbers or the dice to punch thru the Austrians. It was getting close though and there were only a few units difference. Great set of rules for big games - this one was  larger than the scenarios in the book, and everyone picked it up quite quickly. 

Thanks to Colin and Robbie for running and umpiring the game!

After that we retired for a while and had a few drinks and then a nice dinner followed by much more drinks til late in the night....

Day Two was more 18thC, this time Great Northern War - a fictional scenario based on a river crossing in Finland. The Russians were to cross the river and surprise the Swedes, who were forced to bring up their forces to hold them back.

The Russian right crosses the Saari

As does the left, oh and here come the Swedes!

Time to get out of there!

The line will advance!

On the right the Russians drive forward....

But it's all over on the left......except for the "Russians Who Would Not Die!"

Another cracking game, run by Paul with some home made rules which seemed to capture the spirit of the antagonists really well. He must have done a good job as I bought a load of Musketeer Russians from him!

And that was only lunchtime !

So.....time for one more game?? Oh yes I think so!

The time, The Sudan!

I'd managed to get myself cut off from by mahdist troops and had to hold out until rescued. That collumn seemed a long long way up the table!

They came on thick n fast and my Egyptians blazed away with their rifles to hold them back, but they burst through the zariba. 

Help is at hand!

However I managed to take out a fair few the Arabs and fuzzies attacking my position and destroy their captured gun. My brave fellah's advanced and escorted her ladyship to the collumn which by now had battled it's way through every clump of bush, dune and rocky outcrop full of the chosen one's tribesmen, lost and found the path, helped the war correspondents who'd wondered off and even bought some dirty postcards! 

Another great game, this time using The Sands of The Sudan rules and some very very very nice classic Hinchcliffe and new Perry figures from Dave. A special mention also goes to his hand made terrain mat - looked almost as deserty as the real thing.

Thanks very much to Graham of Crann Tara for organising the event and to everyone I gamed with. It was a real pleasure and I'm looking forward very much to doing it again next year.