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.