a new year

well, Its almost new year which always makes me want to start a new period. So this year I am going to start a Napoleonic Russian army. I will continue to work on some existing armies but I am looking forward to starting something new. So my lovely wife has started the ball with a christmas present of the first 100 figures. so here goes nothing!

Belgians

here are some shots of the Belgian 7th line. Just finished the light company this week. I have 2 more companies and this unit is done at 35 figures. the picture behind the light comapnie is La Haye Sainte.

Perry Fench

well finally back into a period just to bad I don't have more time to paint. the story of life. here are my latest( this morning). they are the plastic French Napoleonic infantry. What a great time for wargaming! Perry figures are my favorite sculptors and it sure shows why with this box set. the figures are easy to put together and really look sharp. and at 42 figures for 27 dollars a great buy as well. The figures are part of 2 different companies and I am going to mix some infantry with habits to complete the companies.

Doldrums

don't you hate when the doldrums strike? I will be all jazzed on a period, start painting and then blah. nothing, no energy, the life has been sucked out of me. Some more resolute souls may take this as a challenge to work harder but not I " brave sir David ran away" to quote a too quoted movie.

What to do when this strikes ...I know find a new period! but in the meantime I have been playing around with some old periods. finished some Liberation 20mm figures for my ongoing Rhodesia project. It's kinda funny I feel like I have finally got the hang on Rhodesian camo and most of my figures are painted. oh well, I have heard that liberation miniatures is coming out with more on this line so maybe I will paint more.

The 2 bare headed chaps are Australian SAS figures from the Vietnam range. I think they look quite good as long pants Rhodesians. One nice thing about these 2 figures is that you can't see jacket lines on either figure which makes it look like they are wearing the 1 pice overall . The other figure is a South African. I have figures from that purchase left over and I am planning to paint them as RAR or support unit or PATU figures. and last is a zipra RPG gunner painted in soviet para camo.

Dutch lines

Here are all the companies I have finished based and grassed. Each militia bn had 6 companies If I am not mistaken, just 2 to go. unfortunately I don't have them so I'll start work on the Belgian 7th line for now.

the picture in the background is from Waterloo. I took It 12 years ago. It is looking from the French lines at the position that the Dutch held early in the battle. it would have been on the forward slope just to the left of the copse of woods.

finished today

I finished 1 more company of militia and finished basing the command company. I know nothing about birthing no babies.... I mean photographing miniatures, but I am going to play around with it some .

Maybe someone should tell them to turn around!

Dutch Belgians

I will start trying to model part of the attack on La Haie Sainte by I corps. and I will start with the much maligned, I think falsely Dutch-Belgians.

First half of the first bn of dutch militia is done. all figures are Perry miniatures and I have reverted to layer painting for this period. which means it will be slow. I try to get new ideas for painting by reading the blogs of other painters. One of the best is Der alter Fritz. He turns out what to me seem like huge numbers of figures all well painted. whats the secret? In one of his blogs he noted that he paints for 1 hour a night every night an a 3-4 hours on saturday. heck, I can do that! so lets se how that works for me. Thanks Fritz for the idea.

This bn is the Dutch 7th militia bn of Biljandt's brigade. and while it didn't perform that great at Waterloo, the Brigade was an isolated force that met the initial attack of D'Erlon almost by itself. It had performed quite well at Quarte Bras for militia, and between the 2 battles the brigade lost 43% of its strength. That's quite respectable for any force, let alone militia. I think if properly deployed would have done much better than they are given credit for.

new period!

I have finally tired of painting mainly brown. I need some color. So I have embarked on yet another period. Napoleonics! Waterloo to be precise. This has long bit a period I Have wanted to do and with the great Perry plastics the time is right to jump into it in a big way. Well here's to making the plunge.

first I have purchased and read (minor miracle)the rules General do brigade by David Brown. Numerous reviews on the web talk to the excellent of these rules and I Have to concur. Well written with 48 pages in the core rules, I felt overwhelmed and thought I would never remember the concepts (long gone are the days when I would read 100 pages of rules in a night and play the game the next day). But the concepts are remarkably streamline and logical and elegant, if I can use that word. I will reread them week and play test sections of the rules, so we will see how they translate to the table, Well done. They are designed for the large battalion, 24-36 figure BN's are the norm and I want a large scale feel. Waterloo is the quintessential Napoleonic battle and I want to scale it right. Obviously I will be going for parts of the battle on this scale and trying to game in small parts rather than the whole enchilada.

Queensland mounted infantry

Here is week 6's turnout. 10 Australian mounted infantry. the Queensland Mounted Infantry were involved in several important fights and were rightly feared by the Boers. The figures are old glory. I am a little unsure of the composition of a MI unit, whether it followed an infantry or a cavalry TOE. If infantry I will paint another 10 figures to round this unit out. totals are now British 28 Boers 32.
As a side note The osprey book on the Australian army shows a Khaki with a greenish tint which I liked. I painted part of the unit with this color and I also used a darker khaki that was more typically use in late war.

More Boers

Here are 8 more Boers. Just finished the last of my initial purchase of Boer infantry. I painted 3 figures with orange pugrees. I now have 2 commando 1 Orange Free State and 1 Transvaal. each is 14 figures. Totals now for week 5 are 32 Boers and 18 British.

The Sword and the flame

this is the first play test with the sword and the flame rules. I have owned the rules since 1986 and this is the first or maybe second time I have played with them. The rules are straight forward and I enjoyed the card drawing system for hits and the variable movement rates as well. The fact that I only skimmed the rules and haven't read them though in years also says something for their ease of play. we did not do hidden movement and I used all figures I had painted by week 3 so this gave a decidedly pro Boer to the set up. we had 1 British platoon dived in 2 attacking 1 battery of artillery and 24 Boers.

middle game

The long range fire is having an effect on the British wearing them down. they do however make all morale checks and keep advancing. The Boers have a longer range of fire than the British but are weaker in morale so less likely to accept the same causalities as the British. The British do make a key hit on the boer leader which will further complicate morale issues is they come about. I found the middle game to mimic some of the historical issues that we have read about without being overly complicated.

Charge!

this is the end game. after taking 70% losses our gallant half company is within range and charges the Boers. However a dice role determines how many figures find their way to the rear. I rolled a 2! so only the officer makes the charge! will he win the VC? alas, no he is cut down with the Boers fire phase so is unable to make war gaming history. All in all I like the rules and look foward to more games with a lot more figures.

references

Since I didn't know a Boer from a boar when I started this period here is a list of books I have found helpful. When I start a period I like to follow similar research techniques. First, Uniform help then a broad overview no more than 150 pages just to get a feel for the period. A indepth work is next then books about individual's or individual units.

Uniform help Osprey makes several books. I have found the most useful Ian Knights volume 2 Of his Boer war books. Good plates and text divided between campaign history and equipment/ tactics. highly recommended 4/5 stars. Other osprey books I have found helpful are the Australian and Canadian books. there are several other titles that look interesting but I do not have.

My overview book was Micheal Barthrop Slogging over Africa the Boer wars 1815-1902. Tons of good pictures and a lively text made this a quick read. The part on the 2nd war was around 100 pages, my only quibble was a lack of good maps,recommended 3.5/5 stars.

On a More involved note I am halfway through Thomas Pakenham's the Boer war. At 613 pages there is more than enough detail for everyone. Good background information and plenty of good battle information and maps make this a long but worthwhile reading 5/5 stars.

week 3 work

Here is week 3 figs. I completed 8 Boers this week for agrand total of 24 Boers and 1 artillery piece and 18 British. I did not finish anything in week 4. but I am working on 8 more Boers. In the Osprey book volume 2 on the Boer war It shows different color pugrees for the different Boer contingents. I did not want to overdue the look so I just painted a few. The Transvaal used blue or green. my unit has green ones. Orange free state...well you can guess which color they used. and white was used by cape Town rebels. although why you would want to announce that you are a British subject is a little beyond me.

old glory Boers

Finished some Boers this week. I really like the old glory figures for this range. Good poses for the most part and I think they capture the look quite well. I have heard alot of bad press on this range but I definitely like them. and compared to wargames foundry 8 figures for $18.00 old glory is 30 figures for $18.00 with their old Glory deal.

week 2: 12 Boers finished.

Boer Artillery

Most Boer units were dressed in their every day clothes. Two exceptions were the foreign volunteers and the artillery. the Transvaal Staats-Artillerie were involved in most actions in the early war period. using both Creusot 75mm guns and 1lb pom poms to great effect.

total for 1 week 18 British 4 Boer 1 artillery

Boer war

Well, after much dithering on new periods I am finally off and running on a new period. I have wanted to do a colonial period for a long time and have just been trying to figure out which period to do. The Boer war has been on my short list for a while and with the old glory deal and the army painter it seems like the time.

This period has a lot to appeal to the gamer. British, Australian, New Zealand, Canadian and South African units. lots of mounted units, armoured trains and an opponent that is just as good if not better than the British. I am planning on using the sword and the flame rules. units will be roughly 20 figure infantry units and 10 figure Cavalry units.

The first unit finished is a unit of early war British infantry unit. I used the army painted system which made painted a ton easier. I did have a few incidents though. first was afer dipping the figures in the pot you need to shake off the excess. for 17 of them that was not a problem the 18th however was dropped in the dirt with this sticky syrrup like substance on them. I fixed it but it is still somewhat noticable.

One of the pictures, one shows a predip group just painted with one layer of midtone paints and the other 2 are fully done after beiing dulcoted.

B'Maso

Just when I think I'm out of the period something comes along to get me going again. In this case it is the period set by too fat lardies, B'Maso, and the rules set Troops weapons and tactics. I just ordered both and one of the great parts is you can get it on PDF, no waiting! My short attention span likes that. I will be doing a more in depth review after I finish reading both sets and who knows maybe another Rhodesia game?

army painter

I have wanted to try out the army painter system for some time now and here are the 1st 4 figures. They took a grand total of 15 minutes to paint I quite literally slopped the paint on them and then let the army painter do its thing. results are pretty good I think. However, I really enjoy painting so I am a little perplexed whether to keep going with this style. I have a weird feeling I'm cheating! I do think it will make some periods much more attainable.

The figures are painted in the style of the Royal Rhodesia Regt of the 1960's. after UDI was declared and prior to 1970? Rhodesia continued to have the Queen as official head of state. during this time the security forces looked much more like commonwealth forces form around the world.

New Figures!

here are the first figures I have painted in the period in quite some time.

These are ZANLA guerrillas with SKS rifles. I went with a more worn denim look for the dominate color. I don't think the shorts are entirely accurate for the period from looking at pictures but since they come mixed that way in the packs what the heck!

If at first you don't succeed

Here is an example of a redo. I originally painted the BTR 152 in a tan color that I never really liked. You can see a picture of this in an earlier post.

The squad was also repainted for 2 reasons. I didn't care for the first paint job and second the auxiliaries seem to have been deployed in a squad/section basis as opposed to a sticks.