1870 Gravelotte - St. Privat

This is probably one of the biggest games I've played so far at the club. One of our members Mark had put an email around asking if anyone would be interested in another of his ever popular 10mm Franco-Prussian games. Ever since I'd taken part in one of his games a couple of years back I'd become more and more interested in the period. On this occasion I was finally happy to provide some of the Prussian forces. Doing Gravelotte-St. Privat in its entirety was going to mean a serious amount of figures on the table. Even if the limited time scale before the game gave me little respite in what became a hectic painting schedule: Two Saxon Divisions along with nineteen batteries of artillery (finished only the afternoon beforehand!).

As always for Franco-Prussian we used the Kallistra Hexon Terrain system (Paul from Kallistra was also in attendance). This always speeds up the game, as there's no general measuring and mucking about. Just a counting of Hex tiles. Again we also used Mark's own reworking of the excellent '1870' rules.

The actual battle of Gravelotte-St.Privat was an extraordinarily bloody affair. The French had dug themselves into the heights and linked up several farm strongpoints with earthworks. Due to their restricted view the Prussians had mistaken the French troop movements as a rearguard force, and it was only later as the battle unfolded that they realized that the enemy had arrayed itself to face them and had made all the necessary defences. The only weak position was considered to be the French right - a flat area north of St.Privat. But rather than wait patiently for the Saxon Corps to make its way round in a wide arc (and for reasons still hotly debated) the Prussian Guard in the Second Army were ordered forward into brutal and bloody assaults against the fortified position. Similarly the First Army in the Southern aspect had been sent careering into the Manse Ravine just under the eyes of the French guns, and where they spent several hours being shot to pieces. The day was finally won by the Prussians (though both sides were in doubt about the outcome for another 24 hours afterwards) by the Saxon flanking move and continued pressure on St. Privat by the Guard.

To do a quick overview, in our club game the breakthrough was actually achieved more in the south. The spirited surge of Prussian forces had (though with some difficulty and loss) broken out onto the heights around the Farm strongpoints of Moscou and Point de Jour. Alternatively the Commanders around St. Privat (including me!) had sought a huge cavalry engagement on the flatter plain, and got one in the form of some fierce French cavalry counter attacks. This incident swirled around like an enormous bloody cauldron for many turns until both forces were nigh exhausted (like Dave said - "impressive but tactically pointless" - which pretty much sums up the real experiences of cavalry during the Franco-Prussian era). The Saxons unfortunately were absolutely dogged by bad luck (read: 'bad dice rolling') and could hardly get a decent charge into the enemy. The slow moving, hesitant troops were being somewhat easily held up by French troops secure in their defences much to our frustration. Nevertheless some success was scored by the Prussian Guard Infantry who finally assailed part of St.Privat and started to push the enemy back....that was until the French Imperial Guard turned up as reinforcements! Achieving what the French had failed to do in reality, and giving them a marginal victory.

On a final note, all thanks has to go to Mark for putting so much effort into what was a brilliantly enjoyable game. Also to those members of the Sons of Simon De Montfort Wargames Club for turning up and providing the fun, friendly atmosphere! 

The French defences around St. Privat.

Prussian Troops prior to their assault before the Manse Ravine.

The Saxon Corps attempts a flanking move.

The Prussian Assaults go in!

Ronin Samurai Skirmish Game

Last Wednesday was my first taste of the new Osprey Samurai skirmish game. We decided on a simple scenario of four separate factions (including Ian's very lovely Korean faction) attempting to intercept a civilian messenger passing through a small village. Who exactly carries the message isn't known, so basically your group had to approach and accost each of the several civilians present on a D6 roll (4,5,6 being the message bearer). Once the message was found, the civilian was to be led by your faction off the board.

The game mechanics are extremely simple, and each figure is an individual with their own (sometimes particular) attributes. In this sense it's far more like a Role Playing Game. Initiative rolls are made at the beginning of every combat round and the players are allotted a certain amount of combat actions depending on their troop type and special abilities. So for instance Samurai would be given more actions over ordinary Ashigaru or peasants. Each player secretly chooses how many attack or defend actions they will take and places them on the table. Common sense states that it's usually better to use a 'defend' action against an 'attack' but again that would depend on each characters armour and skills. Wounds are caused by getting die rolls that surpass the opponents armour values etc.

Our game turned out to be particularly bloody, with Russ' faction concealing their highly skilled bowmen in the treeline and sending peasant allies out to scour the village. Shooting down those who ventured too near. Simon's group went pell mell into the village center whilst trying to screen himself using his own (lesser skilled) arquebus and bowmen. Ian's Korean's were definitely intimidating as they charged across the bridge and seized the first civilian (to no avail, as the message was still not found). All this time Russ was causing misery with arrows finding their target on a regular basis. In trying to avoid this and the excitable Korean invaders, I suddenly turned a corner to notice Simon's faction about to pounce on another retreating civilian. As he crept along the side of a building I tried a couple of pot shots before hurling my men into battle. In the meantime I'd sent a lone Ashigaru around the flank to steal the civilian away (who it turns out had the real message!). After the multitude of flashing blades had ceased it was revealed that I'd slightly bested Simon's faction - but only just! Whilst Ian's foreign devils managed to grab my lone Ashigaru and take the messenger for themselves.

In conclusion, a highly enjoyable game and one which I'll certainly be investing in. Oh yeah, and I resisted the temptation to shout "Banzai!" at every opportunity.....

28mm Westphalian Light Infantry

This month it was back onto the Napoleonics. I picked up these from the York show and someone's bits box. The guy sold me 24 unpainted figures for just £7, so I was determined to dig around for a complete regiment. I decided on Westphalians after reading a Wargames Illustrated article on them a few years back. Not the most excellent of troops to field, but they do look quite splendid! I was also pondering some French allied expansion after having so much fun with my Italian and Polish Brigades during our club games. The models themselves I'm told are old 28mm Essex (?). I particularly liked the wounded officer/standard bearer!

I also decided to concentrate on my bases a bit more (basing had usually been an afterthought in my earlier modelling exploits). The shrubbery was provided by Tajima from their excellent range on Ebay.

Treemendus Scenics

This is my first attempt at creating my own trees. I used one of the kits available from the Treemendus website http://www.treemendus-scenics.co.uk/ which along with the strands of wire, horse hair, bark dust, scatter, glue and other bits also came with a handy 'how to..' guide. I was really surprised just how quick and easy it was to make the finished item, the whole thing must have taken me an hour in total (not including drying time for the filler on the base). The wire in the pack can easily be divided to make four medium sized trees suitable for 20mm-28mm gaming. After twisting the wires together to make the trunk, roots and branches I glued it to a thick card base and covered it with the filler. I left some of the tops of the roots protruding from the soil to give it a realistic effect. Afterwards I mixed the bark dust with PVA then coated the whole thing. Next I gave it an ink wash to bring out the detail a bit on the branches etc. Next I painted the earth base with a Vallejo Dark Chocolate Brown with a slight highlight. Whilst all this was drying I pulled apart the horse hair and sprayed it with a GW dark green spray, then covered it in hairspray whilst coating it with scatter. More PVA was applied to the base and some bark scatter added, then finally I gave the whole tree a blast with matt varnish spray to make sure everything stuck.
All in all, not a bad first effort I think. I'll probably save even more money by sourcing my own scatter, wire and individual items from now on, but if you've never attempted this before and fancy having everything in your hands ready to go then the Treemendus kits are ideal. (P.S. Extra special thanks to my girlfriend for having the patience to take the above photos whilst I made tea!)

Congreve Rocket

I thought I'd post up a couple of photos I took at the National Space Centre in Leicester last week. The Congreve Rocket is on the first floor along with some of the engines from the WW2 V-Weapons. Myself and my partner were there for the British Sci-Fi Convention. A really great weekend where we got chance to chat to some of our childhood heroes. The best part was maybe talking to Jamie Anderson (son of Gerry Anderson of Thunderbirds and Stingray fame) and having a hand sketched Judge Dredd picture given to me by 2000AD artist Lee Sullivan.
There's a ton of figures on the painting table right now, along with scenery and other stuff. I'll post up the pictures as soon as I've finished. In the meantime here's Davros!

AWI 28mm Highlanders

Some Redoubt Miniatures AWI Higlanders just off the painting table. The first time I've ever painted Tartan, so please excuse the rough lines and simple design. I went for a dark green (Vallejo Black Green) then some Prussian Blue lines overlaid with Flat Yellow. The Yellow came out quite bright so I went over the Tartan at the end with a Brown ink wash. Turned out OK I guess, but I'll keep trying some different techniques. Especially as I've had a load of Highland Clansmen through the post recently. I want to use these AWI figures for some FIW Musket and Tomahawk games. I bought them from Colonel Bills stall at Triples last year and was assured by folks they'd go alright with FIW.

Stealing from a Wargames Show?

On the drive up to the York Wargames Show a few weeks back, myself and a couple of friends discussed the occasional thefts from stallholders that take place now and again. This was mainly prompted by the disturbing report that one of our favourite regular vendors Dave Thomas had lost some Warlord ECW Battalia boxes to an outbreak of thievery at a previous event last year. I was shocked not only for the fact that it was a bit brazen to just grab and walk off with a fairly large amount of stuff like that, but also that anyone (who no doubt enjoys Wargaming) would steal from companies or individuals that are such an essential part of ones own hobby. Let's face it, robbery hardly contributes to the continuation of the hobby does it? Rather it aids its decline. My friend Simon also pointed out how weird it must be for these individuals to cast an eye across their collections and say to themselves "I nicked most of this". When we arrived at the show it was interesting to see that Dave T had quite reasonably taken the step of placing a CCTV camera at the back of his stall.

Sociologists and psychologists have a plethora of reasons for why people steal, but one thing we can be sure about is that lifting a load of model soldiers from a Wargames Show doesn't fall into the category of "stealing a loaf of bread to feed a starving family". More likely it's a case of petty selfishness and the concept of getting something for nothing. If someone wants to save money there's always a bargain on the Bring 'n' Buy stalls or EBay for god's sake.

Far from being 'faceless corporations' (and this may come as a surprise) but where Wargames Shows are concerned many of the traders are not making a fortune from what they do - in fact many of them have full or part time jobs outside of it, and the Wargaming business is quite often something they do as an extension of the passion they have for the hobby. If you inhabit the kind of moral grey area that makes it ok to rob from their business, then you may not appreciate that it's pretty much the same as putting your hand in someone's jacket and lifting their wallet or breaking into someone's house.

I know that this activity is likely down to a small percentage of unscrupulous people and that the majority of folks help to make Wargaming the kind of fun and inclusive community that it's meant to be.