Good News,Bad News!

Good news first,I have finished my "bargain" figures from Warrior Miniatures,and have received,today, 14 cavalry/officer figures-hurrah!!

All 8 "regiments" in line,awaiting those "pesky" Scots-the flags are free downloads from Warflags.

One of two officer figures sent to me by my mate Chris-lovely figures but don't know manufacturer!

Two of the 4 "spare" figures were converted into artillerymen,the other two ended up as casualties(c/w WW2 Japanese "muskets"-nothing gets wasted in my world!)

Next good news is that we are playing an Ancients game on Sunday..................

A quick look at the scenario and table as the "boys" will see it on Sunday-could be bloody!!

A couple of shots of the Warrior cavalry-I've just attached the arms,which was very "fiddly" and caused a bit of bad language,but a combination of No Nails and Superglue eventually worked out well!

Virtually no cleaning up needed-but look at those arms!!

Top photo shows Troopers awaiting right arms,middle shows the "General" figures fully-armed! and bottom shows the whole ensemble ready to be under-coated-hurrah!!

Now for some bad news-firstly Paul won't be playing on Sunday,he has had to have a second dose of anti-biotics for his chest infection-get well soon matey,and secondly I have been diagnosed with "epiretinal membrane" on my right eye(been bothering me for a while I think-well that's my excuse for bad painting anyway!!) awaiting appointment at RVI asap. but am ok apart from a bit blurry vision.Roll on Sunday.

1815 game pics

As John mentioned in his great report on our game at Dave's house, these are some views of the game taken from the hard pressed allied side.

A "what if" Napoleonic.

Last night we had a full "house" down at Dave's bespoke wargames room,playing a "what if" type scenario,with Ney having reached Quatre Bras before Wellington,and the allies having to retreat before the French threat.Paul and Brian were the Dutch Belgians and Allies,whilst Graham and I were Derlon and Ney.

This shows the initial set-up before Brian and Graham arrived-Paul and I had to write orders for them,but they both chose to ignore them and do their own thing!!!-leading to a very close run thing in the end.Reinforcements arrived on the table in ever increasing numbers until we thought the table would collapse,but the figures had recently been received from Srilanka,and they deserved to be shown-fantastic paint jobs and beautifully based by Dave and Paul.

Action!! and we all got stuck into it,with more and more figures arriving on the board we had to try and manoeuvre into position,both sides aiming to take a flank-thrilling stuff!

Lok at the action across the whole board,neither side gaining an advantage at this point.

Top photo shows my 8 squadrons of Cuirassiers arriving,but because I had deployed my infantry,I had no where to put them!!!-bottom photo shows the action across the table,and Paul's heavy cavalry appearing to combat mine!!! Graham was just about holding his own(steady!!) against Brian on the far left flank,where guns were blazing and cavalry were shaping up to take each other on.

Unfortunately this is the last photo I took,but it shows my "heavies" about to cross the ford and out-flank Paul(winning the game!)-Both Dave and Paul took photo's so I'm sure they'll post some soon-thanks to Dave,and Paul for laying on such a spectacular game-I am told they have "hundreds" more figures available!!!!

Roll on next week-possibly Ancients.

Inspiration(!)

Inspiration comes in strange forms!-last week Paul and I visited the Border Reivers Club,and winessed a WW2 tank game,and this gave me the inspiration to try and formulate a set of simple(very simple) rules that would not involve the throwing of "thousands" of dice to achieve a result.Now when the "boys" talk about 75mm guns and 50mm armour etc. it means nothing to me:to me a tank is a tank is a tank,whether it's called Matilda,Tiger or "Scooby Doo" but I still like to see tanks,mortars APC's etc.etc.marching across the wargames table-strange!! So I set about making the rules I would use as user friendly(to me) as possible-working on short,effective and long range for all weapons,I initially made two sets of "new" dice,giving short range a better chance of hitting the target,and long range a worse chance of hitting the target-simple!

The figures(tanks,apc,infantry,mortars and artillery etc.) were all bought from The Pound Shop millions of years ago,and are quite impressive(I think!)

What are you looking at????

The "new" dice-red is short range and has 4 hits(full colour) and 2 misses,the black,effective range has 3 hits and 3 misses,the blue,long range has 2 hits and 4 misses.My idea was to throw the appropriate dice,and if a hit was recorded,then throw an average dice-a 2 or a 5 destroys the target,a 3 or 4 would see the target receive a "red pom-pom"-three pom-poms and the target is destroyed!

A luminous "flash" indicates when a target is destroyed!!

I had three very enjoyable games(does the terrain look familiar?) using my simple rules,which worked a treat,but probably not for the "purists"-I love the diversity this hobby gives to me and I hope to get inspired from many other sources in the future!

Napoleonics rule!

Because of holidays and sickness,it fell to the "three stooges" to fight this fantastic Napoleonic game last night.

Scenario and table before any movement-Larry and Mo, in the guise of Brian and Dave, commanded the French,whilst Curly(me!) commanded the British.

Early days as the French commanders execute their attack-they had a good plan,and it worked out quite well in the end-however the "wily" British commander also had a good plan,which almost worked out quite well!!

Top photo shows Dave's first attack about to come in,bottom photo shows Brian's attack about to come in-was I worried????-Nooooo.

Now is the time to start to get worried!!-I am being pressed on two fronts at once,and the regiment in the bottom photo has low morale-oh dear!

An overall view of the table about half way through the game-a most undignified bout of "gloating" took place shortly after this photo,when Dave was firing his artillery on the British regiment placed to the left of the gun(bottom right) and consistently hit them at long range,and then,not only hit them for the fourth time,but also killed their Colonel!!-both French commanders showed scant respect for my feelings,which were hurt badly(but not as badly as that regiment that had to retire(it's good being retired!))

The French have breached the walls,and hand-to-hand fighting is taking place in the streets and alleyways of the town-this is not looking good!

The action in the town is still on-going,but my morale is "flagging"-Brian's attack on my left flank has stalled and he even lost a regiment,caught in line by my light dragoons-hurrah!!-On my right flank,my cavalry has launched a last ditch charge to try and secure the flank,but up against Lancers,I had little chance.....................

The forlorn hope!!!!-actually no hope!

One last shot showing the British leaving the town in French hands!-this was,by any standards, a good Napoleonic game,full of laughs,banter and "give and take" from both sides-well done to Brian and Dave.Next week we will be playing another Napoleonic game at Dave's house,featuring loads of his,and Paul's newly painted figures-roll on next week!