Maurice continues...

A quick shot of our second (or third?) Maurice game, last week.  Our British forces, on the defensive (at bottom of photo), are partially encircled by a converging French (top) attack.  We Brits didn't deploy terribly well, but we did successfully march all of our right flank cavalry behind our lines to strenghten the left, which was cool and did surprise out opponents.  However, the game was clearly going the French way when we ran out of time.

I'm still very much enjoying Maurice; I do wish I had a 28mm army to game it with.

Pictures of Matchstick Men

Tonight my friend Ian brought his new 6mm armies around; these are almost entirely assembled from matchsticks!  Below are 8 battalions of British line.  The minis are simply lengths of matchstick cut to 6mm (7mm for guards) and painted in appropriate uniforms.  The horses and riders are each assembled from 3 or 4 lengths of matches.  A labour of love!

Below, a shot of a brigade of French guard cavalry drawn up in support of a French line battalion:-

We played a very pleasant battle with the new Maurice rules from Sam Mustafa, which I'll write about tomorrow.  But tonight I did want to show the miniatures, which are extremely effective, en-masse.  The final shot, below, is of most of the French battle line (Anglo-Hanoverians in the distance):-

I was very impressed with the minis that Ian has produced, which gave a very good impression of large armies at a negligible cost.  Next week, I must take a pic of the artillery, which was splendidly scratch built.

Flogging Frogs (Sold, Thanks)

I've finally got around to listing some of the 1805ish French I retouched before Salute, they aren't too shabby and currently on at a low, low price of only 99p a unit... 

20 Line

6 Lights


Cheers, Simon

The Other Napoleonic Games at Salute

I'm afraid these photos are nowhere near as nice as the ones of the 54mm game.

The Corunna "game" was a terrific spectacle with a lot of story going on in it.  I say "game" because it was effectively a diorama, and on the BRB scoring system, non-wargames only score half points.  However there was an awful lot of fantastic modelling there, and even on half points it would score very high!   I estimated 3 French Divisions at 1:20 scale, perhaps 2000 French miniatures, alone, and a total 4000 minis on the table?

Rubbish photos.

Looks like I had the shakes.

As it happens, I had been out drinking the night before with the French Provisional wing of Muswell Militia.

But the blurry shots have more to do with me having lost a critical part of my tripod.

The ships were bloody amazing! 

I'm not a huge fan of 15mm, but the Aspern-Essling game was excellent.  The number of minis was astonishing, the villages looked like villages and the game like a proper battle.  What is more, they  were actually playing it which is hugely brave at a show like Salute!  Alas my photo fails to do it justice.  That is a game I'd really love to play, and it has made me very curious to read up about the battle.

My Favourite Game at Salute

I thought the 54mm Napoleonic game laid on by Victrix, looked absolutely stunning (all pictures clickable).

It was clearly set somewhere in Spain, with a stream running down the centre of the table, and some stunning  scratch-build buildings.

There were a couple of hundred figures a side, mostly from the Victrix ranges, but also a few that I think are Italieri.  They used a simple set of Victrix rules.

The figures were organised into battalions, each 20 or so strong, each figure mounted on a 40mm base (I'd have been tempted to use 30mm frontage, but that's just me).

Above, there was a pretty Portuguese battalion on the British left.

The French, below, looked splendid.  That's a converged Grenadier battalion in the foreground.  THe second photo has a converged battalion of Voltiguers,

The French columns were screened by Voltiguers.  The column on the right was Italian.

Shown below, there was a pretty column of red-coated Swiss, marching though a village.

Finally, below is a very striking unit of Italieri Malmelukes.

I didn't hear about prizes, but if this participation game didn't win anything, I'd be very disappointed!  Much kudos to Victrix.  

Grognards

I really wasn’t going to do the Garde Grenadiers, honest, until I spotted 24 superbly painted Victrix minis on eBay, superbly painted by Philip Hatton, going for a relatively modest price in relation to the excellent quality of the painting.  Can't resist a bargain...

The only change I made to Philip’s figures was to muddy them up a little to match my Chasseurs and Tirailleurs, and rebase to my denser basing standard.  I’ve added a mounted officer and 10 more grognards, and managed to match Philip’s greatcoat colour pretty well, I reckon.  

The officer is General de Brigade Baron Christiani from the Perry Garde officers set.  Christiani led the 2eme Régiment de Grenadiers at Waterloo. 

Now I’m fretting that there is only a single battalion of them.  There really should be at least two...  Mustn't... go... there...

Jeune Garde Tirailleurs (1er Bn., 2eme Regiment)

This is my first Young Guard regiment, the 1^er Bn. of the 2eme Regiment de Tirailleurs.  The uniforms are based on a plate in the Hortoulle "Soldiers and Uniforms of the Napoleonic Wars", showing Tirailleurs and Voltiguers on campaign in Spain in 1809/10, based on period drawings.  I particularly like the greatcoats in brown Spanish cloth, trimmed with red piping.  Do have a click!

All the minis are plastic Perrys, except for the metal standard bearer.  I suspect that the mounted officer is converted from a Dragoon officer; he’s lovely!  The fanion is GMB.

All the minis were painted for me by Dave Davies, who did such a splendid job that I’ve barely touched them (I just muddied the hems of the greatcoats up a little, to match the rest of my Garde), and based them.  I have a couple more battalions to base, and I’m trying to coax one more battalion out of Dave to make a brigade... his painting is exceptional!