Germantown 1777 and 2025 at Partizan

 

A few pics and a bit of chat from the Germantown game at Partizan yesterday, I haven't done a proper blog post for a while so here goes.

Firstly thanks very much to Andy, Steve, Steve and Geoff from Leeds Wargames Club  for running the game and keeping the figures moving whilst I did my usual front of house. Above is a pic of the table at the start of the show.

I ended up feeling a bit ropey first thing and spent most of the day sat down, I still managed to speak to loads of people however and had a great time. It was lovely to see loads of friends and have people come up and say how much they enjoy the Podcast, I even had a donation of "snow" to the Narvik Project, thank you very much for that.

I can't mention or even remember everyone but I want to say it was wonderful to see brother Ken Hanning and Charlie Walker looking well. I had a lovely chat with Dave Tuck planning a Podcast, the Brews boys Iain McDonald and Alex Sotheran came over. Henry Hyde stopped by a couple of times and it was wonderful to see him looking happy and enjoying the day.

We raised a bit of awareness for Dogs Trust the chosen charity of my friend Dave Parrott, and it was lovely to have his figures (all the Americans) out on the table again. Dogs Trust supplied us with some bunting and flyers for the table.

The game looked great, my Chew House really stood out as a centre piece, even if you couldn't see all the subtle plank shading, I'd picked up quite a few Charlie Foxtrot Models from their New World Range a couple of weeks before the game and managed to get them all finished in time. i'd been down the DIY Store as well and as only wargamers can do I saw an Arris Rail, and rather than thinking "that's a good addition to my fence" I though that would make a good Game Title Board added something and the bunting from Dogs Trust looked good.

I used the plans from the British Grenadier 2nd Scenario Book with a few minor alterations, mostly to get more figures on the table and we used the British Grenadier rules which we are familiar with. Lots of people commented at the table that the rules are 'a bitbslow" but we absolutely cracked through the game even with public engagement.

The figures where all sculpted by the Perrys. Most of the British had been painted by me and were from the Perry Miniatures Range, mostly metal (these were started before the plastics came out) although there are a few plastic units.

The Americans are from the Collection of Dave who left them to me when he passed away. I've done the odd bit of rebating and adding flags but they are all painted by him. The collection is entirely metal and mostly the Perry Wargames Foundry sculpts, Dave was a huge fan of that company.

As for the game itself, the lads really cracked on even with the "slow" British Grenadier rules and the Americans were really Agressive pushing the British back from Chew House towards Germantown but the Firepower of the Brits told and Greenes column broke at the end of the day.

Pendants Corner - in the excitement of the game some of the British flags have ended up their ongoing way round, I shall chastise those who are responsible in due course.

Regards Ken

28mm Papal Zouaves for the Risorgimento

I've been neglecting the blog recently, with so many other things competing for time with Podcasts, Videos and Paint Challenge, there just haven't been enough hours in the day.

I have been talking about my Risorgimento Project or more specifically my attempt to recreate the Battle of Mentana in 28mm for a while in other places but I haven't really covered it here yet.

There are quite a few Garibaldi units already finished and I'll get round to doing a post on those soon. First up from this project though is my Papal Zouaves, something I did a test base for back in the summer, which I posted up in various places.

I've been looking forward to doing this unit for some time and I'm glad to say I'm really happy with the result. So here is my representation of one of the two Battalions of Papal Zouaves which fought at the Battle of Mentana. These formations were 750 men strong so I've made them 36 figure units as opposed to the earlier Garibaldi Infantry which are 24 figures representing  350 to 400 men.

The unit was truly international and was made up of volunteers from all over the world. Large contingents came from Holland, France and Belgium but most European countries had some representation in the unit along with smaller groups from the Americas, Africa, India and China. Initially a single Battalion in 1861, it increased in strength to 4 Battalions in 1867-8.

The figures are 28mm (of course, I have a reputation to keep 😁). The bodies are from the plastic Perrys ACW Zouave box set, which I had lying around from a previous projects whilst the heads were bought separately from Steve Barber Models. There are some minor variations in the sources I have about the uniform so I picked a version and went for it. The flags are a research project in themselves and for the moment I've just used a generic Papal States flag,

As is pretty much the norm with all my stuff now I've extended the depth if the bases, I love the sculpting of the weapons on the Perry Plastics and its to perfect scale, it is however a touch fragile and as these figures will be gamed with and most likely go to a few shows as a display game I want to protect them.

Simply by extending the depth so the whole of the weapon stays within the boundary of the base gives a much greater level of protection, its something I've been doing for a pretty long time now, harping back to my first plastic AWI figures.

I don't have a plan for rules yet, I have had a look around but nothing has grabbed my fancy yet. There are some Italian Language rules specifically for the period (and I love that in a rule set) however I've not been able to get hold of a copy.

So I've done my usual thing of basing before deciding on rules and gone for 60 x 60 bases six figures to a base. I've also used my staggered ranks technique to make the unit look "fuller".

Most of the photos have been done with the white background I've been practicing with, it definitely gives a very different look to my usual "terrain" background and is particularly hard to light but it's growing on me.

Next up I will be back with another episode of the Podcast (number 20 !)

Troops on Parade - 28mm British AWI

Following a bit of a lull in the gaming here at YG I thought it was time to put together one of my Troops on Parade features which is essentially an excuse to drag out one of my lesser used collections, blow the dust off them and present them to the outside world.

Agnews Brigade

The bulk of the army was put together 5 to 6 years ago and was mostly a result of me falling in love with the Perrys 28mm range rather than a deep desire to game the period. The troops are based for British Grenadier rules which are part of the GdeB stable.

The flags are from GMB, some of them have had quite a bit of over painting, for some reason I found that the first batch of flags faded quite badly with the white turning a shade of light pink ! (which you can still see in certain angles / light). A bit annoying to say the least, the gold and silver cords where purchased from a local Harberdashery store.

That dog looks familiar !

Agnews Brigade of 4 British Battalions, 6 Skirmishers and a Commander was the first group of figures I put together, all of them are from the Metal Perrys range. Most of the units have between 16 and 24 figures which are the standard size for the rule set.

Grey's Brigade

The next group completed was Greys Brigade, again 4 British units but this time including a rather large Highlander unit with 6 Skirmishers and a Commander.

I chose to have a recognisable feature for each of the brigades to help with on table recognition, Greys troops all have red plumes whilst Agnews have white plumes. The biggest (36 figures and pain !) was the Highlanders.

Anyone who has painted a Highland unit and given the tartan a good go will have vowed not to paint another one, this is probably my forth or fifth "not doing that again" promise, so for I've gone 5 years without (but those Crimean War Highlanders look soooo nice).

Tartan Detail

Photographing these reminded me they need a coat of Matt Varnish, they are finished in my old Humbrol Satin Cote style, great tough varnish but too shiny got photos.

My favourite units in the Army are these, Grants Brigade, made from the Perry Miniatures plastic box set, there is really some great feeling of movement in these units.

The unique feature for this brigade was the dark blue grey campaign trousers but I also changed the basing to give some extra depth to the Unit. This was initially purely to protect the perfectly proportioned and therefore pretty weak, plastic muskets on the figures.

But as I put the units together I found it was easier to slightly stagger the figures both forwards / backwards and sideways to get the "movement" I spoke of above, the addition of some casualty figures from the box set added to the scene and each unit has it's own diorama feel.

Which just leaves the unbrigaded Infantry. First up is a unit of Converged Grenadiers, using the great range of figures in the Perry range I was able to put a "rolling fire" layout together, with seperate bases firing, at ready, loading etc.

If you look really closely each base has different facing colours in line with the brigades of Agnew and Greg.

Which just leaves the Skirmishers and formed unit of the Queens Rangers.

Next up are the Cavalry, pretty rare in the AWI and something I neglected for quite a while. I managed to build up 2 x 6 figure units of British Light Dragoons and a unit of Queens Rangers Horse.

And finally we have the big guns, well the Artillery at least. 4 guns and 2 Howitzers of His Majesties Artillery.

So there we have another Army out in daylight for a few hours ! They are back in the cupboard now as we are back in the Desert tonight for a spot of Op Compass.

Italian Wars Project : "Light Cavalry"

Having run out of fancy Dan Gendarme in all their feathers and livery it's time to go "smart but casual" with these chaps, 6 figures from the 28mm Perry Miniatures plastic Light Cavalry box set.

I think this box set is turning into one of the most versatile avaliable, not only have I used it for these lance armed troops but you get the sword armed chap for an officer and there is a musician arm in there as well. The box is also my "go to" for Standard Bearers and that's before you add in the Crossbow (next unit) and Bow options. I don't know how they got so much on each sprue.

I'm sure you will all know the score on the painting by now, oil wipe method horses (this is the last six of the batch of 80 plus horses I painted back in December), riders done in acrylic paint (mostly Vallejo) with the odd subtle wash and a Pete's Flag stuck on a pole and hoisted above said unit for effect.

This will be half of a 12 man unit however I plan for these to be multi-functional in my army. They can be used as a Light Cavalry unit on its own or they can be split up and mixed with the Gendarme to increase their unit size, maybe 6 Gendarme in the front rank with 6 of these behind? It's a work in progress.

The traditional 3 man "Lance" consisted of the main man (the Gendarme), the lesser armed Squire (these guys) and a non-combatant or general dogsbody back at camp to polish the armour and make the tea.

The big drive on the Italian Wars Project has come as a result of the Annual Analogue Hobbies Winter Paint Challenge which is nearing it's end (20th March) so I will do a Troops on Parade feature on the Army at that stage. Next up will be some Mounted Crossbow from the same box set along with another 6 lance armed figures to up this unit to 12.

28mm Italian Wars Pike, Gendarme and more

I've not been posting much on the Italian Wars Project as it grows and with a few units added to the ranks it was time to reveal them to the world.

TAG Pike Block 

Where as all of the foot figures I have used so far are from the Perry's these are from a Company called The Assault Group or TAG as they are more commonly known. Still 28mm and similar in proportion to the Perry figures they are slightly smaller and a lot "cleaner" (there is a comparison at the end of the post).

I have to be honest and say that while I was painting these I really wasn't very sure how they would come out, no criticism of the figures but the flatter less contoured sculpts of the TAG line don't really fit well with my painting style and I wasn't sure on the faces either. However when I came to photograph them I was more than pleasantly surprised by the outcome.

The pike on the rear ranks are quite upright and the figures have a bit more armour on than I would like for this far back in the Block but I'm nit picking. 8 figures per base on 60mm x 50mm mdf. Flags are Petes a Borgia Crest in white and the Papal Cross Keys in Red.

Middle ranks have a slightly lowered poke and we have another Borgia Papal flag this time in Red and then a Family Flag. The eagle eyed will notice I have placed the flags in the rear at the top of pike and then reduced the size of the flag pole in the middle ranks so that all four flags are visible from the front.

Front ranks on the extended bases I used on the other block although TAG don't do levelled pike figures these are around 45 degrees. I have been quite loose with the clothing in the Block using mostly Red, Blue, Green, Yellow and White as per the flags.

So that's 3 pike blocks of 48 figures so far, obvious a group shot required.

The Perry and TAG figures look fine side by side, I wouldn't mix them in the same unit but as part of the same Army no problem.

Gendarme

I've added a couple of 6 figure Gendarme units since the last YG blog post, both 28mm Foundry Figures with Petes Flags. The above photo includes my first Command Stand, two figures on an 80mm round base. The officer figure is metal Perrys whilst the Standard Bearer is from the plastic Light Cavalry box set. It was a bit of a light bulb moment realising that the plastic set included 12 perfect mounted flag carriers !

The second unit uses the same figures, this time with some Papal Flags, these Foundry Figures have been around for years but still cut the mustard. Good excuse to put all 6 units in the same shot.

Artillery 

Just the one Artillery piece to date, this one from Foundry.

Sword and Shield 

These figures are from the metal Perrys Range, described as Light Italian Infantry, they are armed with a sword and a oval shield. I have painted them up in a the red and white theme I have used earlier in the project.

I also kept up with the Command Stand push adding a Papal themed base with two figures from the metal Perrys Range and another plastic flag bearer.

Stradiots 

I also revisited my Stradiots adding another 6 figures to the 6 I already had making a 12 figure unit.

It was also a good excuse to get a Command Stand done for my light Cavalry, this time both figures are from the plastic Light Cavalry box set.

So there we have the latest Italian Wars Project updates, the first phase of building the army is nearly done, I have a couple of Infantry units left along with 1 more Gendarme and a couple of light Cavalry units to go before the initial metal pile is spent. Just waiting to get them on the table now.