1815 Dutch artillery

To accompany my new Dutch Infantry are these gunners. They are actually Armies in Plastic Brits - both the figures and guns. I actually have nine gunners - enough for three guns - but only painted an additional two guns. Once the varnish dries I’ll add them to my Napoleonic boxes - where they’ll soon be joined by some new friends.

Waterloo 2019 - part 2

We return now to Waterloo, and more gratuitous 54mm toy soldier porn.  Beginning with this regiment of French lancers.

You want more lancers?  Happy to oblige...

French infantry getting stuck into - and in some cases breaking - the main Allied line.

But who is this in the distance?  Is it Grouchy?  No, 'tis Blucher.  Suddenly those French lancers look a lot less cocky.

It's all still to play for at this stage though - with the ridge being defended by Allied cavalry charges and plenty of French infantry still present.

North of La Haye Sainte the French are threatening to roll up the Allied line.  The situation - to say nothing of the umpires - was confused!

Further west, French infantry are beating off Allied counter attacks.

The French right (I think) preparing to see off the Prussians....

...of whom there were by now rather a lot.

A splendid sight - the British Union Brigade sweeps down off the ridge.

By now it was 8.30pm (game time, 1515 real time) and we called a halt.  The three leaders were called upon to say why they thought they had won.
Napoleon claimed that as he held LHS and had broken the Allied line, he had won.
Wellington claimed he had won because Blucher had turned up.
Blucher claimed he won by rescuing Wellington.
I'm saying nothing!

All in all, a very successful game.  My thanks again to DWG for making visitors so welcome.

Waterloo 2019 - part 1

On Saturday I was the guest of Durham Wargames Group and umpired their 54mm Waterloo game.  We used a much stripped-down version of Funny Little Wars.
Most of the figures were from the vast collection of Durham club stalwart Conrad, while Mike S brought his recently finished Dutch Brigade. I contributed a relatively trivial 400+ figures, mostly French.
Battle commenced at 1.00pm (1000 real time), ended at 8.30pm (1515 real time).  As to what happened - read on!

The French right - some of Conrad's beautiful figures.  I spotted some of Airfix's finest among the infantry.

The French left.  Some of my line & light infantry (Supreme and ACTA) with Guard (Timpo) beyond.

 The Allied right - with Hougoumont top left.

 Another view of the French right.

 The Allied left - looking rather thin!

 Allied centre - with Conrad's Rocket Troop and some of my dodgy Brits.

 Allied light cavalry.

 British & KGL light troops.

 British infantry - plenty of Airfix and Timpo here!

 2nd KGL Light Btl under pressure from the French at Lay Haye Sainte

 The French surge forward

 British cavalry deploy to shore up the Allied left.

 The Allied red line looking thinner by the minute

 French heavy cavalry advance

 French artillery bombard the Allies, while infantry advance

 La Haye Sainte soon feel to the French.  Despite intense and confused fighting round the farm, their grip on the farm was never seriously threatened.  This put at risk the entire Allied position!

 The Allied right having a relatively quiet time.

 French columns closing on the Allied centre

 Sadly some of the party popper canister misfired - the Brits weren't impressed!

French columns assaulting the Allied position with what appeared to be overwhelming force.

At around this point we paused for lunch.  The Allies were under serious pressure but it was still anyone's game.

Long ago in a wargames club far, far away....*

*OK, it was June 2019 and 14 miles away.

This week Martin ran a sci-fi game using a selection of Star Wars figures he and John had accumulated.  The players represented rebel factions attempting to clear a section of a planet of Imperial forces.  The players were Jerry, Graham, John, Diego and your humble correspondent.

My own faction consisted of a Hans Solo figure (in black above) with a speeder, a bloke in an orange suit (he'd missed the lecture on camouflage) and of course....

 ... a small droid.

 We all entered from different directions and investigated various locations marked with the green chips.  These could be
1. a leader - usually Darth himself hatching some diabolical plot - who would have to be fought
2. cash or other valuables
3. an ambush - usually storm troopers - who would have to be fought
4. a trap - from which the character would need tor try extricating himself or be helped to do so.
Victory would go to the player who ended the game with the most chips.  Martin's briefing mentioned the need to co-operate - which immediately set us against one another...
Above can be seen me (as Hans Solo) speeding up to check out another chip atop a mountain.  Of course it was a trap...

 ...in the shape of this massing dinosaur type thingie.  Luckily my tiny dustbin-like droid was soon on hand to rescue me.

Darth pops up again (his forth appearance in the game) and is assailed by Diego's wookiee.  Never thought I'd ever have to type that.

 Dustbin droid wonders how the hell to get down off the mountain.

 By now the race was on for the last chip. I got there (just) first and of course it was another bloody ambush.  Hans got stunned by the Imperial Gebirgsjager...

 ...but orange suit man zapped them from a distance and grabbed the chip jest before John's Princess Leia lookalike arrived.  This clinched my victory, as I had six such chips to Diego's five, thus making it a good game.

And so ended an action packed film.  Er, I mean game.  In the silence just before the credits rolled there was a crash from off-camera.  Yes, Dustbin Droid had fallen off the mountain...

1815 Dutch & Belgians

I’ve become involved with another 1/32 Waterloo game. Happily, there is no chance of the figure-painting ‘burnout’ I suffered in the run up to the 2015 lawn game (see here and the subsequent four posts) as due to that game I already have a good number of suitable figures ready for action.  However, despite decent quantities of French, Brits, Prussians - and a few KGL, I had no Dutch or Belgian troops. I knew I had several boxes of the relevant Call to Arms figures in stock, and Lloyd owed me some painting...

I took delivery of the chaps on Wednesday and managed to get them based over the weekend. I think they look pretty good. 

There are three Dutch and one Belgian regiments - the contents of four boxes of ACTA and a few old Timpo Brits. 

The three Dutch regiments. The flags are a bit on the small side but I already had them printed. 

 The Belgians. With Timpo standard and drummer.

A closer look at one of the Dutch regiments. 

Japanese anti-tank gun. Or is it?

My latest bit of bodging resulted in this Japanese AT gun. It’s a sort of combination of the 37mm Type 94 and the 47mm Type 1. The crew are again adapted from the Tamiya infantry set while the gun is actually a Hinchliffe metal 1/76 scale German FH le18 105mm. If you stand about 10 feet away from your screen I think you’ll find it looks pretty good. My own standards being very low, I am very pleased with the ghastly monstrosity!

Danish dart

Alongside the F-100 featured earlier, I refurbished this scruffy F-104 Starfighter.  Again I went for the simple but rather appealing all-over green finish.

The Royal Danish Air Force operated Starfighters from the mid-sixties to mid-eighties.  The attrition rate due to accidents was apparently 23.5%! 

As with the Sabre, the roundels began as WW2 Japanese and the tail flashes were hand painted.