2015 Already

Well first off a belated Happy New Year to you all and thanks for following, I've spent the last couple of days mulling over a new project or 2 for 2015, Also in terms of keeping expenditure down I'm looking for smaller games, I've already got a number of large collections for various periods so want to settle on something smaller.

So the first project is Lion Rampant, the Medieval rules by Dan Mersey and published by Osprey. I've been following a number of blogs which have featured these rules and they do look interesting.

So that's the rules now which figures. Looking around my unpainted stuff I have a box of Gripping Beast Arabs and a box of Fire forge foot sergeants that need to be built and painted. With these I can base my games in medieval Spain, The Holy land or the Green fields of England. I can also use some of the mounted figures from my El Cid collections for the Arabs.

The only other project I am settling for is "Songs of Blades" a fantasy skirmish game, this will give me an excuse to paint up quite a bit of my unpainted lead which has sat in boxes since I was a teenager.

After this I think I'll be concentrating on just adding odd units to my various collections, Napoleonics, WSS, ACW and FPW. This should keep me busy.

2014 Year end review

Well it's that time of year where People start to review their progress on the previous years projects. So what did I set t to achieve.

So on to projects for 2014.

15mm Napoleonics - I wanted to complete enough troops for both the Austrians and Westphalians to allow me to run some divisional level games at the club. This has been my mainstay interest this year. So much so that I have continued to add units to both sides with no end in sight

15mm FPW -  I was aiming to try and get the Bavarians up to corps strength. This has been an epic fail with not a paint brush dipped or purchase made. However I did obtain some Bavarian and Prussian cavalry from Mick and aim to paint them up for a large game sometime in May.

10mm Crimean War - I needed to complete 1 more Russian infantry division and some cavalry. I also had a hankering to painting up a Turkish infantry division. Like the FPW stuff another epic fail.

15mm WSS - The Friedlingen project needed a bit of a kick start this year and progress was made early in the year with the completion of all the French infantry I required. I even purchased some cavalry, but since then it has stalled again.

So apart from lots of Napoleonics, what did I actually paint. Well fist there was some Skaven for WFB 3rd edition, don't know why just an urge I had. Always fancied painting some up and managed to pick up some bargains on E-Bay. I then decided to re paint some of my old Citadel men at arms that had lain unloved in a box for over 20+ years. There was also a handful of figures for Blood bowl which included 2 Trolls.

On the historical side I did finish off some French Regulars for my Musket and Tomahawk collection. I'll need to add some more British rangers to balance things out. In 15mm I painted up a mixture of Poles and Turks for some Renaissance battle which will need to be significantly expanded.

Painting \Totals wise is slightly down on last year, but I put that down to spending a couple of months re-basing Darren's Napoleonic collection.

15mm artillery - 12

15mm foot - 881

15mm cavalry - 145

28mm foot - 172

28mm cavalry - 8

Gaming wise I did get involved in 2 historical battles. The first was a re fight of Bunker Hill in which i was the Americans against Neal and Dave, A good fun battle in which I sneaked a minor victory. The other was Ramillies, a great hard fought game at Micks. it also saw Darren get back on the wargaming scene after a absence of a few years.

So what's for 2015, I'll leave that for another post as still a bit undecided.

Brozeczinski Grenadiers

These guys are my last unit of Austrian Grenadiers to finish off my brigade. They are the Brozeczinski Grenadiers made up of companies from the 24th, 30th and 41st line regiments. Like the rest of my Grenadier units the figures are all from Warrior miniatures. The flag is from Warflag.

Brozeczinski Grenadiers

Brozeczinski Grenadiers

Brozeczinski Grenadiers

After these guys I have enough figures left for one more line regiment and a couple of units of Hussars to paint. In the New year I will probably add to these some Uhlans and Grenzers  along with a couple of Hungarian line regiments.

On Thursday it was the last night of the year for the club before we reconvene of the 8th January, all we did was set up a large Napoleonic game with Austrians and Prussians defending a ridge against a larger French force.

A couple more Napoleonic units

As promised in my last post, I have manged to finish the bases on the next two units for my Napoleonic collection. First up is the 2nd battalion 9th Regiment for the Duchy of Warsaw. Like the other 3 units that will form this brigade the figures are a mix of Essex and an unknown manufacturer. Once again I went for the blue winter trousers. The flag is homemade until I obtain something more suitable.

2/9th Duchy of Warsaw

2/9th Duchy of Warsaw

Next up is a third unit of Austrian Grenadiers. I have found in all our games so far a brigade of just 2 units have been rather ineffective. So I've determined to increase the size of the brigade and this is the next unit. It is only 24 figures, but I do have another on the painting table at 32 figures.

Austrian Grenadiers

Austrian Grenadiers.

Now back at the club we had a bit of a clear out. it is amazing how much junk you can accumulate. We've also re arranged the gaming tables to give us more room on the large table. We even had time to run a small FPW game which I will feature in a later post.

Quick painting update

Just to prove that I have started to paint some figures again I decided to take a couple of photos of some finished work. I've still got 2 infantry battalions that I need to finish the bases on before I post pictures of them. So first up is another Divisional Commander base for my French and Allies troops. The figures are both from Essex Miniatures.

Divisional Commander base

Side view

I also decided to go back to my Bruswickers' and try and round the force off. I've purchased some extra infantry figures to increase the size of the units from CGM and I also plumbed for Lancashire miniatures for a artillery battery. It has been a while since I've used Lancashire figures and I was pleasantly surprised.

Brunswick artillery

Brunswick artillery

Hopefully by the weekend I'll be able to post up pictures of the finished Austrian Grenadier battalion and a Duchy of Warsaw battalion.

It's been a month

I cannot believe that it has been a month since my last update. So what have I been doing. I've still been checking out everyone else blogs buts just haven't had the time to do any posting of my own. As for painting, I've only just managed to pick up a brush this week to finish off a couple of units that have sat half painted for well over a month. I blame this squarely on re basing figures for Darren and now John. Thankfully this is coming to an end, all that is left of Darren's french are 2 cavalry regiments, just waiting for some more bases. Then John decided to get in on the Napoleonic lark and decided to purchase some ready painted Spanish (just because we didn't have any). He has approximately a division now and yours truly was asked to re-base them.

On the gaming front we have been running a rather large Napoleonic game over the last 4 weeks. It has basically been if we have the troops lets use them. It all centered on a Westphalian division holding a ridge against a Prussian division. Both sides then being reinforced over the 2 days of fighting by large numbers of additional troops. Here are some photos to give you an idea of the game.

Westphalians awaiting the Prussians

The Prussians begin their attack

French light cavalry brigade arrives

Poles and Dutch move into position

The 1st British division arrives

More British arrive to support a Russian brigade

The battle lines

After this I forgot to take any photos of the game. It became an engrossing battle. After the first days battle both sides pulled back and re aligned before going at it for a second day. It was at this point that the marked superiority of numbers of allied infantry was to prove the winner. At one stage it was 42 battalions against 27, of which 9 were on the wrong side of a river and blocked by the Austrians.

It wasn't until after the game that I decided to do a quick reckoning of the available Napoleonic troops we had at the club.

French - 2 Corps
Westphalian - 1 Division
Polish - 1 infantry brigade
Dutch - 1 infantry brigade
British - 2 Divisions and a cavalry brigade
Brunswick - 1 Legion
Russians - 1 infantry brigade
Prussians - 1 Division
Spanish - 1 Division
Austrian - 1 Corps

Now Harry is talking about getting some Russians as these are the only remaining force from the main protagonists. When I finishing adding to my Austrians I have a hankering to paint up some more Dutc and possibly some Bavarians. Keep me going through the winter months.

What's worse than re-basing figures

Sorry for the lack of posts for this month but I have been busy. With Darren returning to the club and getting a taste for Napoleonics using the Black Powder rules, I had already based the British, French and Prussians he had left at the club. These were each roughly in brigade strength. Darren then subsequently went bought a full French army off another of the lads and asked if I would base it up like the rest. I agreed not knowing the actual size of the army. Lets say when it arrived in Five full boxes my first thoughts were, this won't take long. Lets just say I have been slowly making my way through them. There is all sorts in the boxes, Cuirassiers, lancers, Grenadiers et al. over 20 pieces of artillery and plenty of  Generals.

So progress so far. One box full of figures completed including his last unit of British. There are 11 infantry regiments and 4 Horse regiments completed with some officers.

Completed box

Completed box

Work is also underway on a second batch which just need some static grass added to the bases tomorrow night once the varnish has dried. This lot includes 7 artillery pieces, 2 Cuirassier regiments, 5 Dragoon regiments and a further 9 infantry battalions with sundry brigadiers and a Corps commander base.

2nd batch

In between all of this re basing I did manage to get up to Micks for a re fight of 1st Bull run. A very enjoyable game using Dave's excellent collection. A full report is available of Dave's blog here.