Old Guard Grenadiers

 

This battalion has been close to being finished for a very long time, today I put the final touches on the last three guys.

Models are plastic Victrix.

Pavlovsk Grenadiers

 

Pavlovsk Grenadier battalion finished. 

I started this battalion with the command last week, I did not expect to have them finished so quickly!

Napoleonic Russian army

 

My Russian army for LaSalle so far. I still have a few pieces to finish, 2 units of Uhlans, 1 horse artillery gun and a battalion of Pavlovsk Grenadiers. After that it will make for 250 points in LaSalle, which is a nice place to call it some kind of done. 

How I Base 2mm units for Blücher

Here is a short tutorial on how I base my 2mm Napoleonic brigades for Blücher. 

I use 60x90mm bases, which is the same size as the unit cards that were available for Blücher. 

This base will become an Austrian brigade with 3 battalions and artillery support. The figures are from Irregular Miniatures, one strip is 3 ranks deep and has a frontage of 17mm. 

I start with fine sand and some touches of Vallejo ground texture.

Base colour of Rhinox Hide.

 

Drybrush with Beige Brown and dapple with Luftwaffe Camo Green.     

Drybrush with Iraqui Sand and Dark Yellow for the green patches.

Now with painted figures.

Flock with patches of green fine turf.

Finally add a few bushes with small pieces of clump foliage, and that's the first Austrian brigade finished. 

The first few finished brigades face of.

Les Avant-Gardes - LaSalle2 battle report

After a few years of not using my 28mm Napoleonics they are finally getting some table time again with LaSalle2. We've been having an absolute blast with these rules ever since we started using them. They are well written, the battles are dynamic, packed with tough decisions and surprising moments.

The scenario we played was the first one from the book, Les Avant-Gardes. Two villages lay opposite of each other across a stream. Both the villages and the stream crossing are scenario objectives. The game can also be won by reducing the enemy by 1/3 of his strength. For this game we doubled the recommended table size, which gives a bit more room for outflanking manoeuvres. 

The Russians enter the battlefield with two infantry brigades, one of which are elite grenadiers. The French start with an infantry brigade and a light cavalry brigade. both armies move up and clash over the stream. The French light cavalry starts to move around the flank of the Russian grenadiers. Tremendously effective fire from the Russian artillery batteries takes out both of their French counterparts in turn one. Given this initial success the Russians press the right flank but are rebuked and eventually repelled by the French heavy cavalry. At this point casualties are starting to mount on both sides and the French light cavalry is posing a serious threat to the Russian rear. Trying to turn the tide of battle, the Russians launch one of their grenadier battalions across the stream against two French battalions. To everyone's surprise both French battalions break under the Russian onslaught and the French army is defeated by a sudden death victory for the Russians. 

Once again a very fun game and a strong motivator to get those last few Russian units painted. 

A return to the blog - Black Powder and Hail Caesar

Greetings reader!

It has been a while since my last post, more than two years actually. Recently I've been picking up some more steam with the hobby, resulting in miniatures painted and battles fought!

Here are some pictures of this weekends wargaming, involving Black Powder and Hail Caesar. 

For my Black Powder armies (got to provide both sides) I'm working on a Russian and a French. I recon I'm about half way collecting and painting, having six infantry units ready for both sides. Also I think I've settled on a basing method, 4 per base on a 1,5cm frontage, with the depth of the base varying between 3 and 4,5cm. All my Russians are now based in that manner, and the French are up next for base-surgery.

The battle involved 6 infantry units a side with a artillery battery and a unit of hussars, two brigades for each player. Because of the small game size in Black Powder terms I decided to double the stamina values for all units. This seemed to work out well, causing some more eb and flow in the development of the battle. Also I decided broken brigades would be allowed to be rallied, but in the end the situation didn't come up. Lastly we used the Hail Caesar rules for disorder, calling for a special break test on the roll of 6 during shooting instead of causing disorder immediately. This caused some harrowing moments when the Russian grenadiers went in for a final push against one of the French brigade and closing fire caused them to fall back disordered. I'm not quite decided on what I think about this effect as in the standard Black Powder rules it would never occur. It does make charging that more dangerous! In the end the Russian main assault on the French center faltered and the French were able to crush the Russian right flank, breaking my last brigade.

Next up some Hail Ceasar game. This is the first time I actually played the game, after having the book for some years now. Inspired by using the break table in Black Powder I did a little test run with some Old Hammer models which turned out quite nicely. I then proposed to give the game another go with my friend and most regular opponent Guy who was happy to comply. Thus we dusted of those veteran soldiers of the Empire and threw in some Bretonnians to make two nice armies of 6 infantry, 3 ranged infantry and 3 heavy cavalry units. Those were quite sufficient to fill a 4*6 table and it was a great game. 

My Knights of the Realm met with initial succes, breaking the enemy left flank infantry brigade, while his knights came crushing down on my left and center. This caused the balance to tip over in favor of my opponent. My general made some heroic charges but went down in the melee. His second in command did the same, and found the same fate. In the end the army was led by the lowliest clown, which caused a general rout.

Great games all in all and I hope to return this blog more often than I've done in the last couple of years. Cheers to you all. Also please leave a comment when you've enjoyed the photo's!