Allied army additions

Here are the latest additions to the Waterloo project, at long last.

First is Pack's brigade, containing some fine highlanders of the Black Watch, supported by the Royal Scots.
Here is a closer shot, showing my attempts to paint tartan on the kilts.

Second base is one of Hanoverian Landwehr. The flags are somewhat conjectural and/or simplified. The figures are british in stovepipe for the rank-and-file, with british in belgic shako for the officer and standard bearer

here is a shot of the massed ranks from the rear:

The British have been strengthened by adding the Scots Greys. I have attempted to capture the essence of Lady Butler's painting, so they are not as closely ranked as I normally base cavalry. They should stand out on the battlefield.

Here is the player's eye view (i.e.the rear of the unit)

I have also finished off the Dutch Belgian Heavy Cavalry Division with the additon of the Dutch Carabiniers (using SYW Prussian figures):

and from the side to show some extra detail:

Lastly, the Brunswick cavalry brigade - hussars and uhlans. The former are british hussar figures in shako and the latter are austrian uhlan figures:

I'll start the next batch tomorrow!

cheers

Basing up

Hurrah! My Baccus order arrived the other day so I was able to complete my first Hanoverian landwehr.

Tonight I have based up the following:
Halkett's Hanoverian brigade
Pack's British brigade
The Scots Greys
The Dutch carabiniers
The Brunswich Cavalry brigade

Tomorrow I'll begin basing Phil's Russians (batch 2) and start painting the basework on today's stuff.

Next for the big black undercoat brush are some British commanders...

cheers

Progress report

No photos yet as I'm holding back on basing until I have enough stuff for a little production line (including some more Russians for Phil). So far I have finished the figures for Pack's brigade, the Brunswick cavalry brigade and the 1st & 3rd DB Carabiniers.

Next up is a brigade of hanoverian landwehr, for these I am using British infantry in stovepipe shako, but British in belgic shako for command figures (if the post office ever deliver them!).

No painting tommorrow though, I'm off to Cadburyworld

cheers

Painting re-starts

Hurrah. I actually managed to get an hours painting done last night. I returned to the 6mm napoleonic British and got a battalion half-painted. Might get them finished tonight before turning to the Black Watch.

At some point soon I'll do a step-by-step on the waterloo british for Pete Berry's Baccus site. This will slow the painting a bit, but should be worth doing in the end.

I'm also keen to paint up some Dutch Belgians soon too.

Should get in a game at the club last night to test those early C20th rules I'm working on.

cheers

Still here!!

Progress has been slow!

Work has be a bit intense since August and I have been battling an eye infection that would not go away.

My eye now feels a lot better and a couple of work things have been resolved. I also passed my Psychiatric Pharmacy Diploma so I can havea short breather from studying too.

Hopefully I'll get a bit of painting done this weekend and I can get back to all that re-basing I had planned too.

I have been working on my interwar rules in the last few weeks and am more convinced that I have the basis of a good infantry game, that now needs some vehicle rules adding on.

cheers all!

Frontier Scouts

As part of my research into the 3rd Afghan War and the Waziristan campaign, I tracked down this book via Amazon. First impressions are good, it covers the various scout forces formed from local tribes in the first half of the C20th and it includes a number of photographs of scout units. They are surprisingly uniform in appearance and so I have ordered some Copplestone Muslim infantry to put together a couple of companies to support by Back of Beyond British. I'm still debating the figures to use for the afghan army. The tribal irregulars I can do from a variety of Foundry packs (Hill tribesmen, Baluchis etc) but the afghan regulars were a mixed bag, many in native dress but with centrally issued equipment (webbing, etc) and small fur hats; and there isn't anything that looks spot on for these. I'll get away with some regular units being better uniformed - probably using Ottoman figures as proxies (GB make Ottomans in fezzes, that I may be able to convert to fur hats with some greenstuff and a pin.

Where did September go?

Crikey, this has been a busy month. Work has been hectic, but I have managed to tinker away on a few wargaming projects.

My main interest has been knocking together a set of quick-play rules for the early C20th, to cover WW1, Back of Beyond, Very British Civil War (VBCW)RCW, SCW and the Italo-Abyssinian war (among others). To this end I have been reading through a lot of published stuff, including some older gems such as Charles Grant's "Battle!" to garner ideas. I have ended up with a game that looks a bit like "Rapid Fire!" but plays more like the board game "Squad Leader" (but fast). First playtest was last night at the club. I had my battalion of the Borsetshire regiment (4 companies + command unit) supported by a couple of platoons of Vickers MGs and two companies of Turkoman levies. On the other side was a mixed SCW/VBCW force of approximately the same size (about 60 figures for each side) supported by a HMG. The game played well and even with the unfamiliar rules we were finished well inside 3 hours and the time flew by. The rules were deadly enough to fee "in-period" but not so deadly that using tactics became irrelevant. The game lasted around 12 turns and it felt "right" or close to it.

Next I have to think about rules for armoured cars. We'll get to artillery later :-)

On the painting front I have been dealing with some British Lewis Gunners (Copplestone) to beef-up the Borsetshires. Other projects are ticking over and I will get back to them very soon.

Oh, and Partizan was good, but I was knackered...

cheers!