Rebasing of the War of 1812

A rather old report admittedly, but I changed the basing of my War of 1812 collection a few years ago from thin irregular shaped stands to thick square bases.  Originally I believed that the irregular shaped bases 'blended' into the table top making the stands less obvious and showing the miniatures in a natural environment.  However, I had based up some AWI French to match Kevin's style and found, after much musing, why I would like those rather than the 1812 versions I placed beside them?  Well, I guess it was the uniformity of shape and the very thickness of the MDF laser cut wood. 

Darn.  Now I would need to re-base literally hundreds of stands.   And I needed to order hundreds. Bugger. But for the most part I could, with minimal trimming  put the 1.5 inch stands onto the new 40mm squares.  It took a good long time but I think the effort was worth my new affinity for this collection.

Obviously I like thick bases, some don't.  But in the end it is but one's own hobby and the gain we get from what we like.

Here are the before, during, and after photos from doing one of the units. 

Admittedly these photos of these Upper Canadian Militia were taken on a rather bright greenish cloth which forms my on-the-dining-room-table protection than the matching terrain mat I have on the gaming table but one's units could be plunked down on any various terrain so the effect should be the same.

a dismounted American General

I set up a scenario for an American landing on a river shore by boat and realized that all my American officers were mounted on horses.  With much doubt that the original landing would consist of the landing of the great beasts to complicate matters, the first Generals on the scene would be doubtless on foot.  As I had none, I would create one for myself.  Taking an Old Glory artillery officer, I proceeded to modify.  The original is on the right with the shako and my efforts to create the new officer on the left.

The most noticeable alteration is the addition of the bicorne or "Chapeau Bras" which the Americans embracing French parlance for "arm hat" was a notable distinction of the high command.  Rather than try to remove the head from one of my existing painted figures, I made the headgear from 'green stuff'.  With impatience and excitement to get him completed, my touching of the still rather malleable epoxy to attach the rather recalcitrant tassels, had the bicorne a little more east-west than the rakish over the right eye angle which the Americans seemed to wear their hats. 

The rear shot shows the removal of the over-large Old Glory cuff on the artillery officer's arm and smoothing of the boots to allow the addition of the General's riding boots showing the white cloth on the back of the knee. A paint job later and the miniature is now ready to command (...the disaster to come, I may think!)

Paying more aTENTtion?

It has been awhile for the blog as the start of the school year in September is always a transition period.  The nice long days of summer are over (although in all honesty we are enjoying a very nice warm, even hot, stretch of beautiful weather.  Rare for the Vancouver region.)
So with the nice weather I do not really want to go into the 'cave' to paint and thus I find more 'slap on the paint' type things to do while outside or upstairs in the sunlight.  One of these were the 15mm 'pup' tents.

showing a small sample of the 15mm tents I painted

I had found obviously scrap pieces of long wood strips which had been used in home interior construction in triangular lengths.  I thus cut these strips into inch long sections.  While waiting between bus charters, I simply used hand held sandpaper to round off all the edges.[I previously did not do this and the results were not very realistic].  I then used a very large brush to paint the primered wood a light cream color and then a fine brush to add the shadows of the creased canvas.  Some of the tents were given a black color on the ends to portray an opening.

The rear tent is upset to show that all are indeed made from solid wood.

 I am debating whether to leave the tents or mount them on terrain pieces of 4 or 6 tents. Doing that, I can add more "lived-in" details which look good such as cooking pots, chairs, laundry lines, etc.  However that does limit the deployment somewhat.  I may do that with the 25mm versions and leave these as is.

Of Sprues and Men

The local hobby store [Imperial Hobbies, Richmond, BC, Canada) had its annual "Customer Appreciation Sale" with 25% off (being in business for -you guessed it- 25 years) and thus like a kid with a new $10 bill to spend for the candy, I went a bit crazy and picked up more plastics for my Napoleonic project.

Yup, now more snipping, and scraping, and glueing.....

I bought two more Prussian Infantry boxes.  Over doing it for the 1814 battles I had in mind, but Plancenoit (action during the Battle of Waterloo) is now doable!

I also could not resist picking up a box of Victrix French Guard which, along with the sale price, had an old price sticker on it. Woo hoo! My new Young Guard!  All be it with Perry heads rather than bearskins being the lesser guard types. But all in the practical greatcoat....

I read my good friend's latest blog entry (link: Kevin's blog) about his foray into constructing plastics and was amused at some of the same problems I encounter.  But I also noticed some differences.
Perhaps it is my Virgo-ness coming through (Virgos are apparently eminently practical and pragmatic*) but I took a somewhat methodical approach to clipping out each pose separately and placing them into empty blister trays (never throw those away!) and then going on to the next. I also placed all the arms into container trays along with the sprue tab with the code number so I could find them quickly.  Thus the whole procedure should have been quick. However....

...well, Victrix being Victrix with all the arms separate and to a large extent interchangable, one can start really individualizing each figure.  The box has both marching and standing firing/loading poses and so must be separated.  As I have but 10 figures to a stand/unit (I actually planned it this way to take advantage of the configuration of the boxes of plastics) it came out to 6 units or the entire box of 60 figures - if one is OK with putting only 2 various command figures for each unit.

The photo shows the cut up sprues (note the uniformity!), the separated poses in old blister packs and the arms separated into each tray.  Anality in its splendor!

Thus, the whole glueing procedure is quite time consuming.  Fun - in a wargamer demented way - but consuming.  With lots of swearing.  But that just might be me.

As I write this evening, I have still have the packs to glue so they are not yet done. 


[* my wife scoffs at this suggestion as NO wargamer can be so described <grin>]

Hessian gun color of the SYW - part 2

Here is the repainted Hessian artillery piece which I finally decided to repaint.  The decision was wholly based upon the previous paint job which I did not think entirely satisfactory (not that the repaint is much better!)

However the lack of my enthusiasm for the, to my eyes, the outrageous colour scheme finally settles my internal debate whether I will want to continue to collect that Landknecht army with their clashing colours and such.   I guess the answer would be no.

The piece and the crew are by Front Rank.  Their gun models are very substantial and especially this howitzer!  I drybrushed a bit of gunmetal on the wheels to indicate wear.  But overall the painting is poor as I could not manipulate the model too much as to do so would pour even more loose flocking into the paint!  I actually think this is the third repaint the poor model has sustained.

Hesse-Kessel gun color of the SYW

So I am paddling through the Net, looking for neat things of wargaming or military history and I come across this well researched blog on ordinance of the Seven Years War.  http://crogges7ywarmies.blogspot.ca/



and the entry about the Hessian artillery is interesting if not aggravating. 
LINK







                                                                         
Why aggravating?  Well, if to be historically accurate, I will need to not only repaint my cannon (a difficult proposal as they are glued to terrained bases), but I must paint them in white and red!  The colour scheme seems very gaudy to these 21st century eyes.
With much else to paint, do I go back and spend some time on this?  Hmm.

White and red?!
Yes, yes, the ducal colours and all that. But really.  Tough colours to paint at the best of times......

SYW game (March 2012)

While viewing an old memory card, I rediscovered photos of the Seven Years War 28mm battle I hosted back in March at the local convention.  I used my  Hanoverians, Brunswickers, and Hessian-Kessel forces I have painted for this  fictional battle between these historical allies as I have yet to paint their French opponents!

To be honest the game was dropped from my mind as it was a quite the dud.  My scenario was a poor one it turned out, and the scenario then lent to a type of play which did not suit the simple type that my home-brew rules could account for as they had done in the past.  I perhaps made the error in informing one of the players that the rules were based on a DBA-ish attitude, and so he, experienced with DBA, then proceeded to play the units as in that rule set and doing pirouets and 'manoeuvres' , while OK for DBA, were not really in my rules concept or accounted for.  Thus the game was halted many times for "considered conversation", gentlemanly as it were, about 'correct tactics' and changes required et al.  Not a really good experience I will admit for everyone and for which I apologize.  I still love my collection but the game had me quickly going on with other projects.  My poor French, equal in size or more to the Germans on the table will have to wait some more (already 15+ years of being primered!) to await the painting table......

Front Rank horse - Hessians

I place infantry units with most of the figures in one rank for that SYW look but place a couple of figures in the rear to "thicken up" the line which looks good on the table but does still allow the linear effect I believe.  These are Front Rank Prussian figures I painted as Hessians.  This collection originally was quite the hodge-podge and so with the re-organization many units do not have flags or sometime even officers but I never worry about such things if they are not available. 

Old Glory horses vs Perry horses comparison

Mark, a wargaming buddy of mine, wants to do some American dismounted dragoons for the War of 1812 Battle of Sackett's Harbor.  No one does these and so he will attempt to create some from the Perry Napoleonic French version.  With this he asked "How do the mounted OG & Perry Dragoons compare size-wise?  Any idea? Are they acceptable if kept in the same unit?" 

I will let the attached photo demonstrate that the Perrys are much larger; especially their cavalry.  And correctly so IMHO.  Most metal versions of horses, and this is particularly true of OG, are horrible examples of the species.  However as a grouping I guess they do the trick but cannot be mixed with many other manufacturers.

Old Glory American Dragoons from their War of 1812 range (left) although the horses are used for many of their ranges I am afraid.  Perry plastic (right) from their French 'heavy cavalry' box.

As the OG horses are quite short in stature, the dismounted Perry dragoons are  quite tall in comparison.  But they would be separate units.

The photo - rather poor rushed as it was to provide him with a quick answer- is from table view and the figures are at an even level.  The figure on the right is a French General I built from a cuirassier but the horse would be the same as their French dragoon version and the dragoon riders would be the same size.

Modelling Prussian Hussars

I am in full summer mode with my wargaming.  That is to say, I am enjoying the sunshine as much as I can by doing as much as possible outdoors.  Thus lots of figure preparation (scraping and knifing of mould lines, cutting off of sprues, gluing, primering, gluing to painting strips...that sort of thing) Not very interesting or exciting but necessary and only sightly less fun than suntanning while drinking beer ;-)

I don't do much painting at this time (to be done under bright lights in the bowels of the house in the most hideous of weather...).  Well, mostly.  Because our Spring this year was not very sunny or warm, painting season was extended and I did get a couple of units done including this small element of French Garde Grenadier a' Cheval (Imperial Guard Horse Grenadiers)  Perry metal.

and some Napoleonic French skirmishers (plastic Victrix)

Neither units have been mounted on bases yet as they are not yet available.

The one unit which is interesting, is the newly done Prussian hussars.  I only need 3 (one element) of these boys and did have left overs from the Perry French Hussars boxset.  Having been inspired by other's conversions and a quick look at my uniform references, it really did not take much effort; especially as I only had to work on three of them.

The heads are simply extras from the Prussian infantry set as the Prussian horsemen also kept their shakos in covers; the valise ends with shaving of the 'Frenchie' trim;  the rear portion of the fur saddlecloth was shaved off the horses hindquarters to conform more closely to the Prussian version; and I added a GS bag to cover the small area which gaps between the valise and the new area of void of the wolfsteeth trim of the fur.  The left side you can see, is effectively covered by the sabretashe.

...and yes, while on campaign they would probably have not worn the pelisse (the flowing cloak) I added it as they were much too nicely sculpted to left on the sprue and a hussar is hardly a hussar without one! (especially in the rather plain Prussian army)

I, Squirrel

Miniatures wargaming is a strange hobby. You spend countless solitary hours shut away in some dark, probably disordered and no doubt isolated part of your home toiling away on painting, terrain or simply research and contemplation; only to reemerge to join many other such individuals to play together at large gatherings and share what is really your own individual endeavour.

It is also, for the most part, a foul-weather hobby. For those fortunate to be in climates which have nice, or even hot weather year round, most activities are done whenever the feeling allows. But for us in more differing patterns of cold, rain and snow, the hobby takes a somewhat more seasonal aspect.

When the weather is nice and sunny, thoughts turn to outside tasks and pleasures, gardening, sports and the like. When in winter, cold and rain, the comfortable surroundings of the painting table seem a wonderful idea. Thus for me, my wargaming routine changes much with the weather. I try to avoid spraying primer in the house and so I spend much of the summer preparing (using a knife to clean up metal figures, or gluing plastic ones) and primering them, attaching to painting strips and storing away for the long winter months. I am as a squirrel with nuts. I like to have many miniatures in supply so that whichever interest I have, I will have units ready to paint. Of course, in the meantime I will have added even more to the 'ready collection' so that I still have armies which I have available in boxes ready to hit the painting table from 18 years ago (!) ...but such is my mania.

So, lately I have been busy prepping figures for the winter and with work interrupting my life (sigh) I have not really had anything interesting to blog sorry to say.

ECW game

Andrew came over for a daytime English Civil War game using my 15mm collection which has, very unfortunately, has not seen daylight for a long time.

The game, using a concocted home-brew set of rules went OK despite them having too much taxing addition and subtraction.  I think we may be getting too old to go through all that!  After the game, I revised the combat factors to more manageable modifying calculations without really changing the overall feel I hope.
Anyway, here are a few photos of the game in progress.

Royalist cavalry in the foreground and infantry in the middle.  Most are Essex [15mm]

Andrew is placing his General for the Parliamentarian right wing cavalry's group move as the Royalist infantry (middle) has advanced ahead of their immobile artillery.

The 200 foot General's view of the battle roughly based on the famous Battle of Nasby.

The Royalist cavalry advance.  15mm Essex from my collection

the pelisse

Now this is the interesting thing about plastics - they are truly three dimensional.
I purchased the box of the Perry French hussars; three of which I painted as the 10th sans the pelisse.  Then I glued on the pelisse (I love this optional aspect of plastics) to create the Garde du Honor. The Perry pelisse is designed to billow out with the 'movement' of the obvious charging horse and rider and is truly quite dramatic. Wonderful stuff.
However, I was forced to consult my reference books to find out what color was the internal lining of the pelisse.  I had never before needed to paint this area as all the previous metal versions were tightly molded to the rider. I don't believe there has been any metal figures with the flowing pelisse either attached or to be glued as this metal option would be impractical.  With plastics it is not.

 For the record, I discovered the lining was white but I thought that a bit too stark for the figure and went with a more mellow light grey. Nevertheless, it was interesting to discover this new aspect of plastics.

 the French Garde du Honor (Perry plastic hussars 28mm)

Scale Creep. An observation.

I have some Napoleonic French Generals already painted (I just like their uniforms!) and started to mix and match for use on bases when I noticed the huge contrast in height.  Hmmm, they seem the same size.  But when side by side the difference is notable. What is interesting is both miniatures are sculpted by the same person!

The case in point.

by Foundry

 Now compare to the following

by Perry

Both look OK and here they are together

Again, very similar [as they should be as both were done by the Perrys albeit the former in their days with Foundry]
 
and from the rear.  The horse to the right has a slightly large rump, but fairly close.

However together, and the camera picture taken at table level, reveals the older Foundry to be much shorter in the legs of both horse and rider.  While the torso is similar, the short legs make the whole figure seem stumpy in comparison.  It is interesting that one does not realize that when the figure is viewed alone.

It is in the legs that the "scale creep" is most obvious.
Just my observation.


Note: apparently the owners of Foundry at the time liked the stumpy look and had all the designers cater to this view.  Obviously now away from that environment, the Perrys have moved to a much more proportional style which is why they are considered among the best in the industry.  Their plastics, with that mediums ability to allow for very slight structures, have the most realistic sculpts. 

I consider the Perry brothers to be one and the same.  I had the priviledge way back in 1989 to visit them at their studio and even they could not recall which had done a particular sculpt!

French units for Battle of Hanau starting to form

Thrilled by my discussions with Seth for our upcoming game (well, in less than 12 months!) of the Battle of Hanau, I have now purchased all the French forces required.  The last were the artillery and Guard horse which I ordered from Perry Miniatures. Of note, they were at my doorstep within 6 days of the internet order!!  Good, fast service.... and the postmen must have been in a good mood...

The units are small (especially in my (the depleted) French army) with infantry stands usually of only 10 figures and the cavalry with the agreed size of three to an element.  I had a small trepidation that that few cavalry figures would not look all that effective but I think with the other elements having also few on the stand, it looks to be in proportion.  Certainly not the masses one sees in, for example, the Black Powder rule's photos, but as I can sit down and complete the unit in a couple of hours......

Here a couple of quick photos of those units I have now completed:

The Fusilier-Grenadiers of the French Imperial Guard. Two elements.  The rank and file are Perry, the officers and drummer Victrix and standard bearer a metal Essex.

"Maurice has a little lamb, little lamb..."  While I needed a another figure to join this unit, the extra is a Victrix standing pose which seemed out of place with the majority Perry marching so I turned him a to stop to feed a stray lamb.  I will let you decide it's fate: mascot or dinner

The French Carabinier heavy cavalry unit in support (Perry plastics)

New French Cavalry General

With the convention glow still alight and thinking of the games planned for next year, I worked on some of the Perry plastics whose introduction actually started this Napoleonics project. 

While the units will be small and so I don't need all the figures in the French Heavy Cavalry box, so I decided to convert the beautiful officer into a General.  I took a spare bicorne from the infantry and simply glued it onto the torso (that is one of the really good points of plastics - easy converstions!)

Taking a bit of green stuff, I modeled the fancy hat plumage.  The right hand of the figure was designed to take the sword with the hand within to be glued on.  In lieu of, I had the arm come up along the side of the horses neck and made a GS hand.

   The escort is a cuirassier with shouldered sword.  Both have very nicely sculpted horses (as far as I am aware--- I have been around but one horse in my life!) but look the part.  Some of the metal beasts of other manufacturers are very bad examples indeed.

Post Script: the camera certainly has a trick of picking out mold lines which normally go unnoticed!  I will need to touch up on those...

a battle against the Chickasaw

My good friend Kevin Smyth (see his blog at : blog link) put on not one but two games of a fictional engagement on the Mississippi River between the Americans and Chickasaw Indians with the first having their Spanish allies fighting with them.  Tabletop forces not usually seen these.

I played in the scenario in which the Americans task was the take the Chickasaw village and burn the corn. 

 After the obligatory wargame "you take the right, you the left and I guess I get the center" command allocation, we planned the usual wargame tactics; march straight up and see what happens.

The American advance and the accursed dice

 The victory conditions were points given to take the stockade, destroy the houses and burn the corn. [ Each square of corn had a small point value ]  It would appear to win, we needed to do all three but they seemed very far away and we still had a creek to cross.

two of the American objectives: the corn field and stockade

 We were about to just that when the 'injuns' came to us...in a rush...with hatchets in hand!  The Brother vs Brother rules Kevin uses are very simple and very 'deadly' and many miniatures were soon removed. 

Ah Jeb, ain't we supposta' be attacking dem?

The poor militia on the right were massacred and the Regulars were hammered.  While the cannon were temporarily taken by the natives, the Regulars managed to continue the advance with the few left.

Thankfully the Chickasaw could not spike the guns and the Americans eventually recaptured them only to give them up again with the defeat it could be assumed, as the civilian drivers had long since ran their limber horses from the fighting.

 We tried to claim at least partial victory with some of the Regulars inside the stockade, however they were outnumbered by the defenders and while we were inside the nicely modelled cornfield, we had yet to start to burn it as we were too busy fighting off the native warbands.

the American Regulars struggle to get through the cornfield with another Chickasaw attack possible. 

 Thus the action ended with no victory points at all.  Apparently this was a much different result than the previous playtest! 

the militia of Kevin's collection. Perry's if not mistaken.  Nice, effective, painting style.  All the figures and terrain in the photos were done by Kevin.

my DBAing at Enfilade

It is only at the Enfilade convention that I game DBA. I have quite a few armies based for these rules and so I bring some down for the 3 hour drive down the freeway. Yes Europe, we need to drive some 300 km or so to get our gaming in!

If I have wondered around the convention looking at games and chatting with once a year gaming friends, I sometimes get 'hit on the head' and get volunteered to play in the DBA Open tourney.  They were again one short and needed another to have an even number. Oh what the heck.

Of course, in a "Open" tourney players bring what ever armies please them.  Some bring an army they have not yet played, others a 'kick butt' version.  I had played my Spartans earlier so continued with them.  Only playing once a year does not help in remembering match-ups so I like the 'mono' type armies. While my first game was against Samurai which I managed to win, unfortunately, many of the players this year used medieval armies full of knights.  My spears do not match up well with knights.  I faced these in the next two rounds losing both and dropping out of contention.  As I said to myself, "Boy, don't bring a spear to a knight fight!"

my Spartans in the usual situation for my troops - bad!

the two figure Psiloi stand in the rear of the hoplite line helps....a little... against knights. 

This shot shows the end of my game against the Teutonics. While the formation is the best I could do against knights the dice again destroy any hope of victory.

Battle of Crysler's Farm at Enfilade

Kevin, Mark and myself wanted a private game to get our heads around the Regimental Fire and Fury rules so we planned to get one in during the last game period of the convention. I knew I would be tired.  Two previous days of non-stop activity at the convention, only convention food, and drinking of scotch until 3am with Mr. Palmeroyq and lads certainly did not help! {note: the 'q' is not really a typo...but that is quite another story ....}

The three of us are very much into the War of 1812 and are fascinated by this small but historical important war for North America.  One of the battles was Crysler's Farm, so we were determined to make it a good re-creation.
Mark created the ravines and cut out a piece of cloth for the muddy field while I supplied most of the troops.

Joe joined us and we plowed through the rules having agreed to up all movement by 150% and ranges by 200%.  It seemed to work.  For the test of the rules we gave the Americans too much credit for the quality of the troops and the results of the actual battle which the British effectively dealt with the American numerical superiority was not evident in our tabletop affair as the Americans, while a little tardy at times, shot up and successfully charged the British units.
 
We ended the game as we were virtually the last ones left in the room at 6pm!

The confident British regiments have advanced but so too have the more numerous Americans

"Onward Boys!"  Later War of 1812 Americans by Old Glory with American General by Old Glory on a Front Rank horse.  These troops are substitutes from my 1814 Niagara collection (and thus why in gray) The Americans in this battle would have worn an early version of the "tombstone" shako probably with a larger front plate and a blue coatee perhaps with red facings.

These are my 49th Foot which wore their greatcoats during the battle.  I also gave a Victrix artillery crew overcoats (seen on the left) 

Barnes' command of veteran troops (Old Glory Napoleonics)

The Americans move up to one of the ravines which Mark did such a good job creating for the battle.  The now infamous disorder marker of the slain with the Stars and Stripes draped over as noted in previous posts is also shown.

"Hanau" basing style prototype

A good wargaming buddy, Seth from Seattle, and I (and perhaps other crazies who want to get in the fun) are involved in a project to do the Napoleonic Battle of Hanau, late 1813 for its 200 anniversary.

This battle has Napoleon and his wrecked army retreating to France after the massive engagement of Leipzig and the Austro-Bavarians are attempting to stop and defeat him.

With the idea that all the new plastics being produced light in weight and thus the wargamer could put many on a single stand easily and combined with a simple set of rules based, at least on principle, upon DBA; we originally thought of huge stands and many figures.  But sobering (but literally and figuratively) to the fact that it would involve both massive out lay of money and painting, we cut back much to create 12cm wide bases of hardboard with approx 10-12 figures for ordered infantry, representing some 1,000 men.  Rules which employ a single base concept such as Impetus comes to mind as does La Grande Armee among others.

Here are the first of the bases I have quickly done up.  I hope I will like them as I have already purchased much of my French forces already!



We have debated whether to go white for the label area or a more muted color.  The white has the advantage as being white - easier for all to get the shade correct - and perhaps gives the impression of a boardgame chit which is essentially is.  The rules will certainly produce a very stylized tactical game but should be good for the convention setting.


The holes are for the 'recoil' marking for which gribbage pegs will be used.  Since these are Old Guard, I get to drill many holes; Seth's Austrians....not so many..... <grin>

The figures are 28mm Victrix plastic figures, with some conversion; mainly in making the cross belts as I did not put on the backpacks and adding a couple of Perry heads etc.   These are my old "Plauche's Battalion" ex of my War of 1812 collection.

While we have agreed on 12 on a base for formed infantry, I did not have enough and do not want to paint more for these units.  As all French units were extremely understrength during this battle, I feel I can get away with it!  While the formed "battalions" of my Old Guard will be at 12 strong, most other units will be only 10 strong as that seems to be a good number to take advantage of the way the plastics are packaged.  They should look very depleted verses the Allies full strength masses.