Return to Picardie - and belated D-Day

A bit of a miscellany this time, as hobby time has been rather short, alas. I'm afraid it's been almost a year since Rob of Eastern Garrison fame was so kind as to sell me some rather nice 7YW period 25mm Garrison French, and to my shame I have done nothing with them,  Well, having completed enough WW2 figures to be going on with for the moment, I wanted to keep up the (tiny amount of ) painting momentum. My acquisitions of books at Broadsde the other week pointed me back to the 18th Century, so what better than to get some of these French painted? 

So, I have made a tentative start on the Regiment of Picardie - sixteen figures, which will make two units for The Portable Wargame. After a rather miserable and wet spring, the Longest Day has brought summer, and I was able to have my first outdoor painting session of the year, sat in the garden late  this afternoon. Progress was not exactly rapid, but I did slap some paint on to the general area of their coats! But what colour to use?  There does seem to be a slight dilemma - many sources suggest a plain white coat, but others posit the famous  Gris-blanc  or 'Grey White', carried over from the earlier armies of Louis XIV.  I decided on my own version of the Gris-blanc,  at least partly just to differentiate my French from my other white-clad figures, both Austrian and Saxon. Rather like an interior decorator, I've ended up with a sort of 'white with a hint of grey' produced by mixing Army Painter Uniform Grey with Titanium White. I was tempted at first to just leave the grey spray primer exposed for the coats, but that seemed a bit too strong - more 'Gris' than 'Blanc'. 

 

Not much to look at as yet, perhaps, but it's a start, and the figures are rather charming, with simple detail (not excessive) and better proportioned than the rather podgy  Minifigs that have made up most of my collection so far.  I think these will look rather elegantly chic, very French.. We'll see how I do with them. 

I can also report a slightly belated addition to the 'D-Day 80'  anniversary. My WW2 'D-Day Dodgers' project is by definition not about Normandy, of course, but I thought it would be nice to pay my wargaming respects of a sort to the event being commemorated  the other week. I have a copy of the boardgame Memoir 44 , so I thought I'd get that out, and why not use my figures and vehicles in place of those from the game?  Ideally  I would have set it up as a full-scale figures game, but alas I don't currently have enough hex terrain to replicate the full  Memoir 44 board, so I came up with a sort of boardgame/figures game mash-up, which didn't look too bad, I thought.  The model tanks only just about fitted into the hexes on the game board, but they were (just) OK.  

This is the 'Sword Beach' scenario, which was the obvious one to try given that I have British and German WW2 forces but no Americans so far! For infantry units I simply swapped my painted figures for the unpainted models in the game, for armoured units and artillery then one model gun or tank sufficed per unit, with artillery unit strength represented by the number of crew figures, and hits taken by tank units marked by simple tokens (pennies, in fact). And so to the game - the British pushed their 3 'DD' tank units up the beach promptly, using them to clear barbed-wire obstacles as they  went, but they took hits from the defending artillery ( in a protective bunker ) and the lone German armoured unit, and two of the three Sherman units were destroyed. However, weight of numbers ( and a few lucky hits on that artillery unit and other bunker-bound defending infantry ) told, especially in the central  sector.  After about a dozen turns a successful  British 'Close Assault' on the central village objective gave  the British their 5th and 6th 'Victory Medals' and finished the game in their favour - which was only right, I felt.  Here is the final situation, with the British looking very sparse on the left, but having pretty much cleaned up on the centre and right. I was glad to see a historically appropriate result,  and Memoir 44 proved to be simple, but challenging and fun.

Must get more Hexon terrain, and go for a 'proper' figures game version!

Finally for today, more D-Day - the ladies of the village handicraft group produced their most spectacular 'Pillar Box Topper' yet, in honour of the anniversary. Complete with landing-craft! 

That's all for now - as I said, this is a bit of an odds and ends post. I hope you'll forgive that, and I promise to keep on with painting those French! Meanwhile, keep well, everyone.

Broadside Show, and Churchills in the Car Park

On Saturday I was able to get to Medway Park Sports Centre, Gillingham, for Broadside 2024, organised excellently as ever by Milton Hundred Wargames Club  ( a fine bunch of guys clearly, and they hail from my childhood home town ). It's always a good show, not one of the larger events but in a good spacious venue, which means it's always easy to see the games, and there are not too many games,  so you are not rushing around to catch them all, can take your time with each one.  A decent selection of traders,  and a nice feature is that a number of tables are available for a sort of wargaming 'flea market', of which more later.

Admittedly several of the games had been at SELWG, Cavalier or Salute so I had seen them before, but they were all good so worth seeing again! I took a few pictures, so here are some of them: 

Postie's Rejects: Ray's Haiti 1792 game

 

Postie's Rejects were there, of course - this is their local show - with a game organised by Ray Roussell,  The Battle of Croix-du-Bouquets 1792, from the Haitian slave revolution against the French (who of course were themselves 'Revolutionaries' - something of an irony there! ). A great-looking game, see Ray's Don't Throw a One blog for much more on this. 

Ray directing operations -  note 'pencil behind the ear' symbol of office 

 

Shepway wargamers' brought their 'Dornier Down'  game, set in a thankfully imaginary Nazi invasion of UK, 1940, and I think it won best in show. 

Shepway - 'Dornier Down'

 Medway Wargames Club put on a Mythical Greek period game, I think the rules were Dragon Rampant. A nice idea - use your Greek hoplite armies wih just a few additions of various gods, heroes and mythical beasts. Very colourful!

Medway - Greek Myths

South East Essex (SEEMS) always do a good setup, this was the  imaginary ACW Action at Bryson’s Crossroad - I think the location might have been inspired by the 1965 James Stewart film Shenandoah. Rules were Rebels and Patriots, I think.  Some really nicely-painted figures, as you can see in the second picture.

SEEMS : ACW 'Bryson's Crossroad'

 

Central London Wargames promoted the Emperor of the Battlefield Napoleonic rules produced by their member Ian Godwin :

Central London Wargamers: Emperor of the Battlefield

These chaps are always very friendly and happy to talk you through the rules, but I always have to admit that I don't do Napoleonics! However,  I gather the rules were developed from an earlier set for the Seven Years War, and those are hopefully going to be re-issued soon in an updated edition. I shall be interested to see them! 
 

Skirmish Wargames group brought their Boxer Rebellion game - complete with gunboat! the game used 54mm figures, beautifully and colorfully painted. 

 

Maidstone Wargames Society showed their 'Summer of 77'  Battle of Britain game, which I had seen at the Cavalier show - based on a free boardgame published in a Warlord comic in 1977.  

Hailsham Wargames club brought their '(Evading) The Devil’s Paintbrush' WW1game - and appropriate headwear. Sadly I didn't get a picture of the players in 'Picklehaube' helmets! 

Hailsham club: WW1

A nice 'Cold War Gone Hot'  (1980s) game - not in the program, but I think it was by the Milton Hundred club? 

 

Deal Wargamers showed their 1936 Palestine rebellion game : sadly, somewhat topical,  of course, But nice to see  'early war' British kit, including Gloster Gladiatiors

 

I liked this Peninsular War village setting for a skirmish participation game by  Big on Strategy - 'A Whiff of Grape'

 

And finally I spent some time with Retired Wargamers Reloaded and their splendid 'Hold Until Relieved' D-Day Pegasus Bridge game

 I had a good chat over coffee with my old buddy Tony who is a member of the 'RWR' group, and with luck some face-to-face gaming may result, in the near future! Great to meet Tony again and have a good talk, and of course get a close look at this amazing layout  ( I also thought it especially realistic as, look where you might, Prime Minister Sunak was nowhere to be seen...must have gone home early).

 

**UPDATE**: for even more, and  better, pictures, and of more games than I captured, see Ray's 'Don't Throw a 1' blog for his report on the show.   

There was a little shopping done, naturally - the 'flea market' stalls had lots of interesting stuff. I bought some books from one, which turned out to be run by the Whitehall Warlords Group, of which I was  once a member, for a few months in about 1988. I thought  those chaps looked familiar..

Issue 19, from 1966

The copy of 'Tradition' includes part of a series on 18th Century wargaming by Charles Grant, which five years later would be published in book form as - of course - 'The War Game'.  
 

I've been interested to see these rules in use recently by Postie's Rejects for FPW games - I have a bit of a yen for the '19th Century Europe' period, so these may be interesting.  

A couple of slim volumes of Colonel Horace St Paul's journals of life in the 7YW Austrian army - good to be able to try them before possibly buying the big, glossy (and expensive) recent Helion editions...  

And finally this vintage 1970s  'Knights Battles for Wargamers' book on Dettingen. This has some heritage, as it has an inscription inside from its previous owner  Seamus Bradley,  who was  chair of the Whitehall Warlords when I was a member. I remember him as a really nice, friendly and enocouraging chap;  sadly it seems he is in a care home now, suffering from dementia. I think more than one of the above came from his collection. I am quite pleased to become a custodian of them, and hopefully get some enjoyment and use out of them, in a sort of small tribute - thanks, Seamus.

One slight 'downside' of the venue is that parking there was  a nightmare - especially as there was also a large athletics event going on there!  But I had realised that just over the road is the Royal Engineers Museum,  where the car park was (a) nice and quiet and (b)  contained quite a few vintage armoured vehicles! In the week of D-Day, it was interesting to park next to a couple of Churchills: 

Churchill AVRE (post-war Mk VIII version)

  

.. and AVLB Bridge-Layer

I had time enough to spend an hour or so in the museum - luckily the ticket lasts a year, and I hope to be able to return for the 'Replay' gaming show there in October, at least.  One notable treasure they have is the 'Waterloo Map' , which it seems was used by Wellington during the 1815 campaign, and bears pencil marks made by the Duke when planning to take up his position at Mont St Jean. Quite a piece of history! 

Wellington's Waterloo Map

..with positions marked by himself !

So all in all, a pretty good day - I enjoyed it very much, and I hope you have enjoyed seeing my impressions of  it. Many thanks, of course, to all who organised the show, put on games etc. 

This week I have been painting - but mainly '1:1 scale', interior and exterior of my house! But I hope to get some more hobby time soon, time for my 'D-Day Dodgers' to test out the  Rapid Fire Reloaded rules, so hopeully that will be the subject of my next post. Until then  keep well, everyone.