Production Line: Napoleonic Reinforcements

Despite last weeks abysmal performance from myself in a game of Black Powder, I am still fired up to get more shakos on the battlefield.

First up is finishing the French infantry unit from last week, firstly by adding a small wing of Grenadiers. These where base-coated using this useful guide and given a generous wash of GW Agrax Earthshade.

Next up and completing the unit is a wing of Voltigeurs. Again painting using the guide mentioned previous and washed with Agrax Earthshade.

Below is a photo of the now completed unit.

Also managed to find some time to get my British Brigade General Completed

And lastly the beginnings of a French Hussar unit, depicting the 8th Hussars. Until the unit is completed and I get a French Brigade General figure - this will stand in for the role. For the colour scheme I used the very helpful guides found in the Perry Miniatures plastic hussars box set.

Also want to say thank you to The Napoleonic Wargamer facebook group for the brilliant tactical advise for my next game -must of been painful reading my last game lol.

All the figures except for the French Hussar (Perry Miniatures) are from Victrix ltd.

Thanks for your time, cya soon ;)

Iron Forest Club Days: 22/03/15 - Viva La Aaaaagh!

This sunday was a very special day for me. For the first time in over a decade, I took my 28mm Napoleonics to the battlefield. I was to play my first game of Black Powder, a Peninsular War game against my good friend and long term suffer of myself Johnno.

We was playing a fictitious scenario set in the backdrop of the Retreat to Corunna. Both our forces - me playing the French, John the British, where vanguards, my forces trying to cut off and slow down the retreat while John's trying to slow down my pursuit.

The game was played on a 6ft by 4ft battlefield and we was using single brigade forces, both 7 units a side with a single CnC. Even though our units where only 10-12 figures strong, we still counted them as "standard".

John deployed his line infantry in the centre of the board, supported by his 6pdr Horse Artillery, also his CnC stayed with them. To his right flank near the hill village was his royal marines and on his left flank through the farmers fields was another line infantry and rifles unit. All his units except for one began in attack column. 

Similarly I deployed my three infantry units in mixed column with my skirmishers deployed in the centre. My hussars where positioned on my left flank with another infantry unit in march column to secure the town while on my right flank, a single infantry unit was to move up the farmers field.

Johnno took first turn and after some ace order rolls managed to move everything except his rifles forward, all except the royal marines and the infantry unit in the farmers field changed formation into line.

I on the other hand did not do so great, managed to get three of my centre units advancing, two on the left side adopting line formation while the right hand one stayed in mixed column - but one of my infantry units did a blunder and decided the fight was not for them and began buggering off the field, immediately stopping me moving the rest of my army - bloody shirkers!

Luckily what did advance was now in musket range, with good coordinated fire I managed to decimate the centre infantry unit, making them rout and flee :)

John managed to push a good number of his units forward again, this time including his riflemen. 

This time his weapons where in range and I was about to get my first taste of British firepower! While choosing not to concentrate fire, he did manage to deliver a pretty even spread of damage across the board,his artillery even managed to render one of my units disordered - ouch!

The game continued with me and John trading fire, while I tried the approach of concentrating my fire, I was hampered by bad order rolls and not being able to get my men exactly where I wanted them and some very jammy morale saves from Johnno who in return began to evenly mount up the damage on me across my whole force. Also with the amount of fire I couldn't risk advancing my cavalry who would surely be turned into swiss cheese if they broke in charge.

Then in one fell swoop, the casualties became too much for my French, two units broke and fled while everything else except he Hussars was rendered disordered. With Johnno's army still in pretty fine order and half my army gone, we called that a decisive victory for the British.

I really like Black Powder, it runs at a really nice relaxed pace, it speeds up the whole manoeuvring side and slows down when the musket balls start flying - just how I like it. With 7 units a side the game lasted just under 3 hours with us chatting, drinking and not playing in any kind of rush at all - not a bad rule system at all and cannot wait for my next game :)

Johnno also wrote a report on this game, giving his first impressions of Black Powder and Zombicide which we also played that day on his new blog, link is here.

Also managed to squeeze in a demo game of Robotech RPG Tactics courtesy of Faction Ray - he has written a more in depth review of the game with more picture here on his blog.

So three new games in one day and defo want to play them again - not a bad day at all :)

Thanks for your time, cya soon ;)

Production Line: Napoleonic British and French Infantry

Its started again!

The Napoleonic War, more specifically the Peninsular War is my favourite historical period to "wargame", I quote/ unquote for the fact that for as long as I have stepped into the light that was historical wargaming over a decade ago, this is what I have yearned to battle but mainly due to bad discipline and laziness - have never seen enough figs completed to take to the tabletop.

So every so often I get the burning desire to get my nap on, I venture into the shed, dust off the collection and see where I stand, paint a unit, get bored, burn out, get tempted by other shiny, put the collection back in the shed where it remains for history to repeat again...

My main hurdle is the high figure count. For years my rule set of choice was General De Brigade but having to paint both forces for this leads into literally hundreds of figures... per side! Until my collection grows to a significant size (When I am 60 :P) than that rule set becomes an option for me.

I have tried skirmish games like All Quiet on the Western Peninsular and Capitan, while a lot of fun, still don't capture the feel of proper Napoleonic warfare. But a few week ago I stumbled across this inspiring article on down scaling Black Powder for the average gamer and gaming space. With the fire burning again I decided that 2015 would be the year this dream is finally fulfilled!

I decided that I would use the following figure to unit sizes for my immediate games:

• Tiny: 3 figs 
• Small: 6 figs
• Standard:12 figs - Cavalry 6 figs
• Large: 24 figs

with standard units being 12 figures, this makes batch painting units much more manageable. After visiting the shed and digging out the collection, realised I only needed one more standard infantry unit a side to begin gaming :) !!!

First off is my 1/45th Nottinghamshire Regiment - I used this painting guide. By altering the white elements to GW celestial grey, was able to basecoat and agrax earthshade wash these and complete them in a single evening. For a fast paint scheme I am very pleased with the results.

All the models in this post are from Victrix Ltd.

Next up is the French, have yet to add the final details to dictate its regiment - probably go with the 3eme. Anyway I used this very helpful guide to paint them and where painting in the same fashion as the Brits. As I type this I am painting the 2nd half of the unit and will post my progress as I get more completed.

Thanks for your time - cya soon ;)

Creating a Historical Battlefield on a Budget part 1

Since getting into Bolt Action recently, I noticed the terrain collection and boards at Iron Forest where not quite cutting the grade. Until now we only had to cater for mainly Sci-fi and the odd bit of fantasy here and there. But that feel of the French country side, with fields and hedgerows and cobblestone towns - we literally had nothing to capture this!

So a new terrain collection was in order, My biggest hurdles would be time and money. Time as in I had a few new people coming down the club, all planning on playing Bolt Action so only had a one week window to make the initial gaming surface and money due to have two birthdays and valentines day to consider.

After soaking up as much as I could on the internet of other peoples budget endeavours - I came to conclusion I wanted to have my first attempt at a "fur" gaming matt. Had always been impressed with the Carnage and Glory demo games I had seen in Wargames Illustrated and plucked up the will to give it a go myself.

After a trip to my local fabric shop (which is thankfully only a thirty minute walk) I came back with more than enough fur for my 8ft by 4xt gaming table for well under £40, I wanted a bit more so I could create hills and such for elevation by chucking things under the fur. 

Now I read a lot of tutorials about clipping the fur but the stuff I bought, when back combed only stood up at 10mm, perfect - time saved! 

So with a tin of Fieldgrey War Spray from plastic soldier company (only thing I had to hand) I began giving the fur a very liberal coat of spray paint.

I sprayed the fur in roughly two foot squared sections, so that before the spray could dry I could back comb it (brushing against the grain of the fur) with a normal DIY brush, this made the fur stand on end and clump in bush kind of fashion.

I continued in this fashion till all the mat was well greened up. You could leave patches the normal colour to represent meadows but I wanted some uniform for modular sake. 

Once covered I gave the fur a very heavy coat of Hairspray to stop the paint wearing off on gamers hands and models, this is the same brand I use for sealing my models, have had nothing but good results and is very cheap and can be found in most bargain stores.

And there you have it, a 8x4 feet game-able matt for under £50, made in under 30 minutes. I am by no means finished with this as I believe I still have a lot more techniques to learn to improve it but the beauty of it as it stands at the moment is that I can go back to it and improve at any time.

Here are some shots of it with some scenery...

In the flesh the mats blend together really well - think the lighting of the spray booth behind me had something to do with this.

The roads where made from £2 worth of adhesive floor tiles I managed to pick up from a pound shop. Just cut them into shape and used sticky tape on the underside to hold them together. 

If anyone who has also undertaken in making a fur mat, please feel free to share any tips and techniques to help me improve this - I am very VERY much a novice in this :)

Thanks for your time, cya soon ;)