The Gordon's Square

Before the last convention - seems so long ago - I was given a bunch of Victrix Napoleonic era Highlanders so had gathered enough for a sizeable contingent.  As we were doing a Waterloo cavalry clash scenario I thought a square of infantry, or as it turned out a half-square, would be a good 'ground-filler' and obstruction for the swirling masses of cavalrymen.  I tacked these upon a chevron shaped board and had them in the battle.  However it seemed that most ignored them entirely, including myself apparently as I took no photos of them on the table! None. hmm. 

Fast forward to the recent days when I was playing around with the groups of miscellaneous "petal" bases a gaming buddy and entrepreneur had cut for me as samples ( as I am planning to order more in the near future!). 

3D-DZYN website for these bases and other good stuff.

I started arranging these and found that all the various 20mm rounds could be set up as a two-deep alignment and long enough to form part of a square formation, essential for facing a cavalry attack.  In this case, the rest of the square can be imagined off-table.

Of course the groups of bases can be placed in a line for those big-battalion games.

I would have liked more 'fill' in the square's centre (dead, wounded etc) but the piper keeping up the boy's spirits, plays his part.

French Cuirassier charge past

A couple of the lads show their contempt of the French efforts (old Westphalian Miniatures "rude Highlander" figures) 

If you look closely you can see the various groups of rounds.  I love the look as they do appear individual but can be moved as groups - good for aging wrists! See the link in the text for Ron's offerings. Added the dice frame on the Colours stand just in case it is needed in future games

Napoleonic Baggage.

“Napoleonic baggage” is what he brought to his marriage to Marie Louise….
…or perhaps the necessary wagons on which an army must exist.

Needing models for both the grand game and the newer smaller focus of all-cavalry actions, I based both horse and wagon onto thin bases, but then created the thick bases of the grand game for attaching them temporarily.
These are my Dutch-Belgians of the ‘Waterloo Campaign’.  The horses are Essex, the riders plastic conversions, and the wagon is of MDF wood from Warbases.

The double team looks better for the smaller scale game while a single team - below- is more representative in the larger scale game 

Measuring Template

A group of us rather distant wargaming friends - two countries, five cities, 500kms between - and this before COVID - have been working on an all-cavalry Napoleonic rules.  Up to this point as we were still developing these rules and as among friends we 'winged it' and did not get very picky about distances and angles and such; " yeah, close enough".  Thus we have had not the need of such devices.  However should we find the odd participant who might well force the issue, I decided we need to determine charge angles and directions so a template is required.  I finally thought about this and came up with this example:

(rather fuzzy photo to start things...)

Photo 1

Photo 1:  the template is the width of a full strength French Cuirassier unit with the angles at 45 degrees

Photo 2

Photo 2:  This shows the start of the player wheeling his unit to the right at the maximum 45 degrees for further movement. Each successive horsemen will be deploy beside.

Photo 3

Photo 3: shows the unit now fully deployed.  The distance is considered to be 6 inches thus far (...close enough) should any further forward movement be required. One inch can be subtracted from the distance moved for each figure less in the unit.

Photo 4

Photo 4:  the template now deployed in the front-center of the formation providing the check of the angle of movement allowed by the Cuirassiers to attack the British Light Dragoons in the background indicated by the left side of the white strip and continuing along the template.  Obviously move it to the other side for a left hand turn!

The templates are made from thin plastic sheets and I have made extras for all the lads (when we next meet..)

You might have noted the poor dead French infantryman on the template.  He is there merely for decoration!  I had a few left over from the Perry Dragoon Box.  I used the British ones as 'rough ground' for the game, so thought to be fair about it....

Wading ashore

"I truly hope that puddle on the floor is from the ocean and not from your crotch, Kowalski!" intoned the tank commander to his loader.  But even he couldn't wait to get to the beach before thoughts of sinking entombed in this hunk of metal overcame him......

WillB, made his beautiful WW2 Sherman tank with a Rubicon kit which offers MANY variations. (link: Will's build )

Of course this leaves some extra bits left over.  Two of which were a hull (top only) and turret with a spare gun.  "Perhaps you might model a dug-in tank or something" he said as he offered the parts to me - he knows I enjoy the creative thought process of how to 'justify' any of it on the tabletop.   I thought about it for sometime and finally watched some video of the tanks in action and expert modellers employing some techniques to make it look convincing:  the tank in water, perhaps wading in on shore on a Pacific island beach.  Do I have a US Pacific War army? No.  Not even planning to have one which will be surprising to people who know me ....

While I did watch the various expert modellers display their talents, they make it look so easy.  All I have to say is don't stare too long or hard at MY model!

P.S.  Photographed on my new "Island" neoprene mat.  And yes, from personal experience, tropical waters can be that colour!
P.S.S  This makes two recent posts where only the top half of 'submerged' models.  Hmm. But I do stick my head in the water while I swim nevertheless.....

Mon du, this water is cold!

Napoleonic French Pontoonier/Engineers

I came across a small bag of rather roughly cut nude torsos whilst digging in my boxes.  These were remnants of the re-attaching correct torso to the legs of a large group of Ancient Celtic warriors.  Found in the club's B&B,  the seller had obviously randomly glued bodies to legs not realizing until too late his mistakes and then gave up on the endeavour.  Some damaged torsos from my cutting of the offending bodies was the result.

But now I took a second look and thought they could be used.  The attached heads of some were removed, the torque neck chain scraped off as were any wrist bracelets, etc. The hands were utilized if possible, or removed and replaced with ones holding various construction implements and some with muskets from spare Zulus arms, among other sources.

The rather exaggerated wide-arm pose of these ex-Warlord ancients was kept but justifying the posing was challenging!  Much far reach of the mallet or shovel.  Waist high in water and not wanting your 'powder wet" the figures seem to be wishing to keep them dry, their cartridge boxes are bits of sprue frame and paper belts.  I added some more belting to be held to one of the musket men as my wife thought he was holding a purse!  I agreed sheepishly, so needed to do that alteration.  But she does enjoy their manly physiques.

To make them ‘Napoleonic’ I added some of the many spare heads giving them mostly French forage caps.  These now can be added to engineering units building a bridge across any contested river.

the 9th Cuirassiers

I am still just an aim and shoot cameraman with only one setting on the camera and no inkling how or to what setting to use; so I take the opportunity to take photos during club night as the camera seems to love the lighting.

This month's 'target' is my newly painted French cuirassiers mounted singly.  Each unit is six figures with two units forming either two wings of a full regiment or two squadrons of the regiment or perhaps only sections of a single squadron, depending upon how the viewing wargamer considers the scale of the game.

Of course ALL wargame units are of a ratio much smaller than the historical formation and if 100 miniatures strong it could represent a squadron or the regiment at a 1:5 ratio.   But that many would be totally unplayable on the table; so we must scale everything back. As the perception to the level of play varies from player to player, I tend to just say units to describe formations of play in the game.

Merely because of availability, my formations tend to be two units of 6 for each.  I try in most cases to add a commander for if should the rules and need arise.  I have another cuirassier formation being 're-equipped' for action (I 'stole back' a group of cuirassiers I painted for a buddy as part of a trade and now under a touch up.  Now will have to replace them with lots of other stuff I guess, as I got hot and heavy about doing more of the French armoured horsemen!

The first of the regiments done

The commander is an officer with bicorne hat attached and with a bit of GS for the Frenchman's plumage 

The rules will have group moves with players either having a separate figure or one 'internal' to the unit, if they don't want to have/paint another.  Both methods will work.

a magic trick...

A request from Ron, had me thinking about bases.  He was starting up a new MDF company and wanted new ideas for bases.   I suggested 'petals' and 'clumps'.

Huh?

Let me explain.  When doing my Samurai army, I went to thin wood rather than card as it would be stiffer as they were carrying multiple metal figures in a spread out group

A trip to the art store Micheal's produced various circles,  ovals and a flower petal cutout which I could get numerous small circles.  I left one roughly intact for the musician/banner group

banner group on 'petal' multi-base

From any distance it looked like a group of individual stands rather than one single element. Too bad it was almost the last stand to be done or I may have altered my basing scheme from the start!

But this in mind, I suggested to Ron this petal ideas along with clumps of seemingly singles all attached to make group moves made easy.  I don't like the sabot concept and do enjoy the look of each figure as an individual; but as moving individual figures, especially stretched across a table at full extension time after time is rather tedious and sore on the back, it gives the benefits of both.

We can see this in this photo of a line of six Roman Auxilia being held, as if by magic by two digits of the hand.

the Roman Auxilia

my magic trick!

12 figures on only five stands

same rank as from the previous photo

The rest of the army is grouped in various sizes to offer any combo of casualties to the unit.  I have subsequently suggested two rank versions which again offers a look of individually based miniatures but with a group move effect.

You can see his comments on his company's blog at: https://www.3d-dzyn.com
He is going over pricing currently and hopes to start in earnest in August.  I will put in an order for more!

Zulu using TMWWBK

The British camp defence. The British rifles in line provided huge firepower.  The NNC, with their red rags around the heads for identification,  provided additional firepower....well a bit anyway and luckily were not challenged in combat.  

Having just looked at my 15mm Zulu War collection the previous day when the call went out to host a game I thought of using them - they have been in the boxes much too long!  Hmm, using which rules?  Having played “The Men Who Would Be Kings” recently I figured I could guide everyone through and as JimF also joined, he could help.  Actually the first time using tribal forces by any of us (and it showed!) .

 I took the roll of the Zulu in my recreation of the famous Battle of Isandhlwana so I wanted the British players awed by the numbers facing them. They were not; despite having painted and based the remaining 96 I had yet to do, during the previous day. This ultimately gave the Zulu 6 impi/units with 48 figures each.  Actually not as impressive as it might sound as TMWWBK has the British infantry unit at 12 figures and a tribal at 16.  My 48 still represents the 16 strong tribal unit but in bases rather than individual figures; but the look on the table does somewhat display the historical strength disparity in this battle.

The 'historical attack' of the Zulu upon the British at the mountain of Isandhlwana.

While having appealing mass, still represents the 16 suggested by the rules.

I was discouraged almost immediately by my poor activation rolls for the Left Horn which did not get the order to advance apparently. Wrong side of the hill from the rest?  But the other impis were soon advancing at the double toward the British lines.

Francis commanding half the British which included the Natal Light Horse and he had them scout the plateau then do a sneaky move to go between two Impi,  which had left a gap, to move into the rear hoping to distract them (me) from advancing further.  I ignored that move and managed to move into contact of the left flank British company destroying half of that formation but excellent dice rolling by Jim (six of the twelve dice were 6s!) had my boys bounce off.  That was the closest the Zulu would get to any victory.  The overwhelming firepower by the British would not allow the Zulu to make contact despite their excellent discipline.

The excellent 'leadership' bonus of the elite modifier and my decent die rolling, had the Zulu arrive this far...they will however be shot up soon.....

The Left Horn finally came into range but by then the other units were spent.  In the post battle analysis, my advance without waiting for the Left Horn units was criticized as not timing the attack to arrive together. Probably correct. Using “Go To Ground” activation might have saved those units of ‘the Loin’ shot up, for later.  Also we started to talk of tactics (!) like using one unit in line to soak up hits as others come behind still fresh.  I set up my units as per the historical model and the usual Zulu way, but food for thought.  

only 5 of 16 left but my die rolls their bravery and discipline keep them in the battle.

While using 15mm figures, we made no changes to the rules including that of distances so using inches.  The Zulus with the extra d6 of movement and my unusually good activation die rolls for most of the game had them moving rapidly…into the rifle fire…. and defeat. History not repeated.

Murat at Eylau

Murat at Eylau

Our big Napoleonic game for the upcoming Enfilade! convention in Olympia, Washington State this year is Eylau.  A large, but largely indecisive battle between the French and Russians.  This battle was notable for the very large cavalry charge led by the flamboyant French cavalier Joachim Murat across the snows to charge the masses of Russians during this winter battle.

Many paintings of this event have been produced to portray this colourful character of history.

Murat during the Battle of Eylau 1807

Murat is on the right of the command knot.

While I already have a figure of him in his uniform during the battle of Heilsburg (see my previous post: link ),  this fashionista was notable for his various attire. Each was distinctive at the different battle and as we have one player paying us in beer in order to command the massed French heavy horse,  I decided we must have him play with the correct miniature.

I initially was going to make the model myself out of the plastic bits plus a lot of ‘green stuff’ but then noted that the figure manufacturer “Gringo40” offered a good option.

The Gingo40 version from its website.

I purchased him  (plus three Mamelukes to fill out the order).  Still, the price along with shipping, seemed quite expensive.  The minis, including our Monsieur Murat,  are a bit tall having rather thick bases for the normal 28mm,  as have done with this Murat, I will need to dig trenches in the MDF base to place the figures into, to drop the height somewhat.

The Gringo40 figure is not badly done with the pose obviously based on a famous painting (see above).  However, that absolutely ridiculous sword I removed,  replacing with the proper riding whip

Murat at Eylau without that ridiculous Gringo40 overly-large simitar!

The ground work is incomplete.  The battle, and thus his fur-lined cloak, were for the winter conditions which apparently were horrible with snow and freezing conditions.  This would suggest a snow covered terrain on the base.  However the rest of the armies are with green grass as will be the tabletop terrain.  We will fight the battle in May not February so no snow. Thus the whitened base will look very strange on the table and go very much against my ideal of visual continuity.

But do I portray the snow??, leave as is?? or add the grass and say “what-ev-er!” ??

Ah, these little wargaming hobby dilemmas which keep us up at night  :)

"Nagashino Fences"

I wanted some fences as a terrain feature for my Samurai games and thought the pole fencing represented as per the famous battle will look good.

 Rather than a bamboo skewer construction, I thought styrene rods would glue together strong enough to allow me to wind sewing thread around each of the cross beams.  I found some likely coloured thread within the household sewing kit so I would not need to colour it.  By gluing on the upturned leftover sprues (from all of my other 'plastics' ) ,  I could achieve a regular spacing with the upright poles firmly attached to the base with the length of the sprue and not individual poles, thus ensuring a stronger bond when glued to the base cardboard.

The white portion is yet unpainted as it will form part of the basing.

Musings on numbers and bases

In the Lion Rampant rules, and while I have yet to exam, I must assume for TMWWBK rules also, hints are given by the author to increase or decrease the number of figures required for the game.

But really it comes down to the number of bases not the number of figures.  With that in mind, I mused about my 15mm Zulu collection and, having LOTS of Zulus but not all that many British, whether I could have 12 elements on each side but discount the actual number of figures that represents.  Let’s be honest, few of us would not envisage hundreds of natives descending upon the thin red line.  However with 12 figures for each opponent....well 12 vs 16 for the native but not that disparaging all the same.....it gives not that dramatic effect.

However if one looks upon each stand equivalent to a figure, then 12 stands is a unit.  For the colonial types these can be of a single figure; but for the natives one can place 3, 4 or many more on each.  These multiple figure stands still equate to but one “figure” for the sake of the rules, but now we are talking about 4X as many on the table and giving more illusion to the masses of natives opposing the few colonials.

Having my samurai at hand, I laid out all my multiple figure stands to oppose the singles.  Looks like a massive outnumbering but each unit has only 12 elements.

If I were to make the multiple stands a bit smaller, both units would have the same frontage/width and thus equal in the eyes of the rules.

Just musings at this point but something I will look into for the future.

ECW pike rebasing...again...sigh...

What is it with me and my ECW collection?  How many times will I rebase the darn thing?!

Well, OK, this rebasing (the fourth, or is it the fifth time?) is only the pike elements and not the entire collection.  I made the visual/mental error in thinking - regarding my own predilections - that the pike should remain in a regular formation of even ranks and files.  But this basing contrasted with the rest of the collection - another visual "unifying" predilections kicking in, I guess - so I finally decided that the circular basing would indeed work also for the pike.  I had to order for new mdf bases.......

Here is a comparison of the two styles:

old (in rear), new (in front) and hopefully the final basing of these units painted almost thirty years ago!

As the poses of my old pike units do vary considerably, the irregular pattern now does rather compliments than distracts - in my jaded opinion.   More skirmish-y look also, which is the feel of the rules (a Lion Rampant version or the newer Pikemen's Lament).

the 'old' basing to the left, newer to the right

I have the 12 pikemen glued onto four bases with a 4 figure, 3, 2, and 1 figure base of different sizes/shapes to allow for any varying number of casualties to be removed.

The interesting visual perception, for me at least,  is it having a much "tighter" formation with the newer circular bases even though the width is but ten percent shorter than the older square style.

"Shogun Era" Japanese Peasants

12 figures.... only 1 point... for my Lion Rampant Japanese Clan.
While I don't really know if doing these 12 figures is worth doing for only the 1 point value for my Lion Rampant games, it was interesting to do nonetheless.  I used one pack each of the Perry peasants advancing and Ikko Ikki (the poses with some armour) .

Most of the spears and weapons supplied I wasn't thrilled about so I replaced some with a sturdy length of steel rod, angled the end to a point and painted as green bamboo. Yes, fresh bamboo would not be a good choice but I take it as an expediency for the poor people of the village and more interesting to paint than plain wood.

I used the smaller 1 and 2 figure basing for this unit feeling it will give a 'closer' feel of the unit portraying the fear which they might have, facing more trained troops --- and make casualty removal that much easier!
  The bases are, again, random shaped to prevent the 'ranked' deployment unlikely for these people.

Russian Cuirassiers

The new job is such a time-kill.  So I am really struggling to get the time to paint.  Thus, these and the other units I have done recently have been rushed and suffer from that, and perhaps from a poorer eyesight I must grudging admit.  However I have finally got the last of Lavrov's 5th Corps (the Russian Imperial Guard) done.  These cuirassier regiments of the Emperor's in dark blue facings and the Empress's in rose , were combined with the Guard Infantry to be the "Shock Force" of the combined Russian armies at Borodino. However it seems poor Lavrov had a "nervous breakdown" and thus the corps command was compromised.  It was thus not really directed into the battle in a meaningful way but was committed into minor counter-attacks throughout the battle.  We shall see how this pans out during our re-fight.

The blank patches at the rear of the base is for the attachment of a commander's identifier label.

The Russian army is assembling....

( I wonder if the CIA spy-detection super computer picked up the title and flagged it ? .... )

Anyway,  I finally completed the first two of my infantry corps for the upcoming Borodino battle.  With a ~2000/base ratio, a corps does not amount to that many figures but does look fine on the tabletop.

I painted all the figures in rather large groups according to same pose then mixed them per base. Thus glued, then I painted on the appropriate shoulder board color and attached the correct flag for each regiment representing some which were in each corps' divisional OOB.  The proportions of grenadiers to line to jagers are as close as possible given the large ratio.

One might note that I decided to have my jagers in march order than indeed skirmishing.  If I expand my Russian army ( yeah, it might NOT happen...)  then I have some modified OG models (running at full sprint!) to fulfill those lights elements; but the plastics are lighter in weight.

The 8th Corps under Borozdin:
4 grenadiers, 2 line, 1 jager, 1 artillery and the commander

I found flags for enough regiments to have all with standard bearers (except the jagers which did not carry)

The 4th Corps under Tolstoi:
1 grenadier, 3 line, 1 jager, 1 artillery and the commander

In this case, I had but one standard bearer left and so added the colonel's colour. The other 'command figures' (drummers, officers ) were spread out among the remaining units.  If not enough, they did not get one at all.  A quick view of the mass does not make this evident lack obvious and I think it not worth it to buy the extra sprue or command pack to make it so.

Speaking of the Russian jagers, they can be represented by the usual line troops as they were identical but for their black belts and green facings. (among other minor details)

Only two of the seven infantry corps for the game.  I have one more infantry corps to do: Lavrov's 5th Corps -- and a few cavalry corps --- but the remaining will be completed by other players for the battle and thus they will have the exciting task of commanding their own figures in the game.

Sneak Preview

I am currently painting Russians for the Battle of Borodino game.  Awaiting to complete the Jager units but looking to get the line units all "terrained" up.   Yesterday glued on the line units onto the bases when I had a few minutes.  I show a couple pictures to demonstrate how I do the terrain work.

close up of one of the completed bases with die frame and blank space for a label. For these I don't do a lot of 'shrubbery' as the mats are plain and I want the stands to blend in.

and under the nice lighting of the game hall showing, hopefully, the bases blend into the mat 'ground' in spite of the practical thick bases (to pick up and move the fragile plastics rather than by the miniatures)

A tutorial is at  link   .  The technique is quite simple but I hope effective to give a pleasing image of pastoral field cover and to blend in with the mats I use.

The initial start of the putty cover.   Note the painters tape to cover the label area.  Also the edge of the flag needs to be painted so it doesn't look so paper-y.