Macedon wasn't built in a day

Finally, after far too long getting round to the required painting,  I have a more or less complete Alexandrian Macedonian army for DBA rules.  This has taken months - I really don't know where the time goes, but clearly not on painting.  I do have a hunch that for me, painting small numbers of figures is slower than large batches - when you have a 'regiment' of 20-odd it's far easier to do a production line approach and do all the white, then the brown, flesh etc, but with only two or three of each variety of figure there's too much time spent switching between colours, washing brushes etc. That's my excuse, anyway! I noticed that doing the 16 Phalangites did seem quicker and easier than the 2, 3 or 4-strong other elements. Anyway, here they are in all their ( not very much ) glory:

As you can see they are pretty simply ( roughly!) painted; just block painting with a quick wash of 'light tone' for a little bit of shading, and finally matt varnished.  I did the cavalry first which may have been a mistake, I think I was getting a bit better when I did the infantry and I was quite pleased with the Phalanx! I think the bases may need an extra coat of green, some of them look a bit wishy-washy.

The full order of battle is as follows: 

Front Row ( l to r ) :     1 x  2LC Prodromoi  

                                  1 x 2 Ps Agrianians 

                                  1 x 2 Ps Archers

                                  1 x 3 Kn Companions

Back Row ( l to r ) :     1 x 3 Cv Greek Allied Cavalry

                                  1 x 4 Sp Mercenary Hoplites

                                  4 x 4 Pk Phalangites 

                                  1 x 4 Ax Thracian Peltasts ( standing in for Hypaspists )

                                  1 x 3 Cv Thessalian Cavalry

 

One further thing has occurred to me, which is that my Alexandrian Macedonian army is missing an Alexander.. I need to do something about that.  

 

So now, onwards and upwards -  I have a Persian army waiting to be painted. Here they are, in their prime(r) so to speak, after getting sprayed on a sunny day last April. Oh dear, it really has been months:

 

 

I am going to have a hard think about these and try to do more 'batch painting' if I can, as mentioned above - I'll try to do each colour on all figures that need it, rather than just doing 3 or 4 figures at a time. Keeping a very basic simple palette will probably help - although the Persians may not quite lend themselves to that!  we'll see how it goes.   It has occurred that I might commit heresy by playing a game of DBA with the (completed) Macedonians against the (only primed) Persians - though that is perhaps a bit unfair on Darius' chaps, denied their proper warlike finery.  

 

Mention of Darius reminds me that there is another thing missing - The Great King himself.  So we have Alexander vs. Darius, but no Alexander or Darius..  If only there was a large wargames show this weekend,  with loads of tradestands selling nice figures that might include a 20mm scale Alexander the Great and Darius of Persia... oh, hang on a minute, I remember now:

Yes, the aim is to go along to The Other Partizan on Sunday,  I suspect several readers of this blog will also be there.  If so, I'd be happy to chat, do feel free to say hello and slag off my rubbish painting..

 

So obviously if all goes OK,  the next post here  will be a report from The Other Partizan.. Until then keep well, everyone.

In the lap of the Dice Gods

The other week I had the good fortune and great pleasure to take part in another of Jon Freitag's excellent on-line games, being a second go at Ilipa 206BC - as reported brilliantly by Jon on his Palouse Wargaming Journal blog.   It was a thoroughly enjoyable game, of course, but it will stay in my memory particularly, becuase I contrived to have pretty much the most successful winning streak I've ever experienced in a wargame! 

I was commanding the Roman left wing, with Tony 'MS Foy' as C-in-C ( Scipio ) against the Carthaginians Chris 'Nundanket' and Dave 'St Cyr', and the Roman deployment (which reflected historical reality )  was unusual in that the heavy Legionary  infantry was deployed on the wings, leaving the centre deliberately weak - which centre faced the scary-looking Carthaginian heavy spearmen.  Scipio's tactic had been to overwhelm the Carthaginian flanks and thus surround and crush their centre, while his own centre held  their opposite numbers' attention. But we were not convinced that the thin Roman centre was up to the job, and we had good evidence for that, since in  our previous essay at the same game, playing the Carthaginians, we had won by smashing the Roman centre! It looked a bit of tough scenario for the Romans, and Tony and I had been uncertain how to proceed. We had come up with a  compromise 'half and half' plan whereby his right wing would swing in towards the centre, while I tried to push forward on the left wing. It was working, in a way, as Chris' centre was being drawn towards Tony's men on our right - I think partly because my wing was a bit slow to get moving forward! At which point  Chris tried a charge at my Legions with his Celtic warbands and Spanish Scutarii  in the centre, only for a poor die roll to leave the charge stalled and one of the Spanish units  too close to my Legionaries. Only one thing for it - Legionaries, charge!  What happened next is aptly described by Jon Freitag as follows :

The force of the legion bearing down upon the light infantry is too much.  They turn and flee.  Marcius (David B) orders his legion to pursue.  They oblige.  The legionaries plow into the adjacent warband.  They, too, are overpowered and retire.  Bloodlusted by their success, David's Romans press on, catching the retiring warband.  The warband turns and flees.  Still the Romans advance.  Is there no stopping them?  Not yet!  Next victim is a hapless unit of skirmishers.  They are easily overpowered and scatter.  With the Carthaginian Center hollowing out, David's Ever Victorious Legionaries turn to strike the elephant from the rear.  With escape route blocked, the rampaging elephant is dispatched. 

As you see, the Legionaries managed to break no less than four enemy units - and then my second Legionary unit chipped in and scattered a further unit, completing the destruction of the Carthaginian right wing. At the end of the turn, our opponents conceded defeat, judging that although  their heavy forces in the centre were still intact, they  were now vulnerable to a flank attack from my triumphant Legions while pinned by Tony's Legions  to their front. Victory completed in a single move - amazing stuff! I was roundly congratulated, and very pleased with myself. But of course, it wasn't my skill as a commander 'wot won it' - it was all down to the dice.  

Jon's adapted version of 'Basic Impetus' rules has a 'pursuit after combat' mechanism whereby the victor of a melee decides whether they want to pursue, and rolls a die to test whether the troops will actually pursue,  and how far they will move.  If they are able to contact the retreating enemy, or another enemy unit, then a further combat occurs, and if the pursuers win that combat and the enemy retreat again, then they have the option to pursue again, and so on. Obviously all this is decided by the dice, and my die-rolling was good -  Jon tells me that the chance of that sequence of events was 6.25%, or one in 16. So indeed, quite a lucky streak!

Just for local colour, here are the dice I was using : 

Nothing very special - the blue dice came from a 'Pocket Battles' game, appropriately enough Romans vs. Barbarians ( the lid of which makes a handy dice-rolling area) , the red die is of unknown provenance. We've all got a random collection  of dice we have picked-up over the years, I'm, sure. I am the very opposite of a 'must have all the latest kit' guy..

It has set me thinking though, are we representing reality here? Or just pure random chance? Well, I would like to suggest  that the dice were representing not my tactical/leadership genius, but the grit and determination of the little metal ( or plastic? )  legionaries on the table, who in turn represent a historical  'Legion' of flesh-and-blood warriors. In this case, they saw the enemy unit pull up in some confusion a little to close to them, and were 'raring in to go' after them.  I happily ordered them to charge, and they did so with gusto and a shower of Pila, and promptly routed the Scutarii, who fled - but not fast enough. Their blood up, the legionaries pursued and did further slaughter among the unfortunate Iberians. The Spanish unit disintegrated, and the legionaries saw further easy targets, and kept on charging, fighting - and winning. As a commander my only input was to allow them their head,  and not try to reign them in - in other words, keep rolling the dice.  My thought was, let's see how much chaos these guys can cause! And the fighting, winning and pursuing were decided (of course) not by my intelligence and decisiveness, but purely by the fall of the dice.    

So in a way, what happened was simply a result of purely random die rolls, just pure chance. But I do like to think that the randomness does represent something, and I think that 'something' is pretty much all the stuff that is beyond the control of the commander.  The general can give orders, but he can't determine how those orders will be executed ( or even 'if' they will ), and how the enemy will respond, and how his troops will respond to the enemy response,  and that is where the dice come in. And somehow, on occasions the dice just seem to take charge, and deliver a result that no-one expected, but seems to have a sort of poetry of its own.  I'm sure that on this occasion, the dice were telling us how the rank and file of that legion said to themselves 'let's go get 'em!', having decided that their commanders were being a bit too indecisive for their own good.  I'm no expert on Roman military history, but I seem to remember that at this stage of the Republic, generals were in effect elected by the political leadership of Rome, and I  tend to assume that as a result, those generals were not always necessarily the best soldiers. The guys in the ranks of the Legions presumably knew that, and sometimes maybe they would have thought 'this guy will get us all killed, unless we take things into our own hands,,,'  So the result seems like it could be quite appropriate. Alternatively of course, and much more charitably for me, perhaps they thought 'that Marcius is a great guy, we'll go the extra mile for him!' But I think I know which of those two options it  would have been...  

I must of course add one more thing - the randomness comes from the dice, but the outcomes are decided by the rules, and they need to translate the dice scores into plausible effects. So I should give a lot of credit to Jon and the original 'BI'  authors for their rules, which played a big part - not every pursuit goes on through four units, not every purusing unit has the stamina to keep going, and the probability of those outcomes  depends on the rule-writers. I think they got it pretty much right in this case - but I would say that, wouldn't I?   Not sure if  Chris and Dave  would agree! 

Am I ovethinking? Probably! But all part of the fun. We are just playing a game, but I do always like to think, what's the story here, how does this line up with what might have happened in a real battle? That's what we wargamers are all about, isn't it?  

And to finish,  some more of the dice in my life. First is a pair of battered cheap plastic examples, which are all that remains of my copy of Waddingtons' board game 'Campaign' which would have been a birthday/Xmas gift c. 1974,  I would guess. The game is long gone, but I have somehow hung on to these two little chaps ever since - pure sentimental value. I bet you've all got something similar..   

And last but not least, these 'Percentage Dice' we would have called them, though now perhaps 'D10'. Acquired in the late 1970s when swept up in a craze, along with school/club friends, for WW2 aerial combat using Mike Spick's fantastic 'Air Battles in Miniature' book and rules. These have seen some action - massed dogfights of 'cut in half down the middle' 1/72 plastic models, with no historical accuracy whatsoever,  quite possibly a Gloster Gladiator in the same mass brawl as a Messerschmidt Me 262! But oh dear, was it fun, spread over the floor of Rainham village hall.. I still have some of the aircraft, maybe they need to be given a go sometime - I have kept the book, too  More recently, these dice have been used in Jon's on-line ACW games, so they are still coming in handy and adding new chapters to their story, after more than 40 years. 

That's enough cod philosphy for now - but I think it is probably worthwhile thinking about this sort of stuff. 'What are we representing, here?'  always seems a useful question. I'll leave you to ponder, or dismiss, that idea. Until next time, keep well, everyone.

Fnurban #26 : Keeping Up the Tradition

Yesterday was the last day of a (rather damp)  holiday in Shropshire. On the way home we stopped in to have a look around Leominster, Herefordshire, which turned out to have quite a concentration of antiques and bric-a-brac shops. You never know what you might find - and I struck fairly lucky, I think. One of the shops included a bookstall, with a decent 'military' section, and amongst the contents I found four issues of 'Tradition' magazine.  I've never seen this publication 'in real life', and they were not expensive, so I bought them. They are as follows: 

Issue No. 10

Number 47

Number 63

and number 72

They are ( slightly frustratingly ) not dated, but from a little research it seems that publication began in 1964, and 6 issues per year were produced.  Number 10 has an article by veteran wargamer Philip O. Stearns, reporting on the ( clearly recent ) Waterloo Convention, London 1965, so that seems to tie in OK.  Number 47 has an article on an auction of Lead Toy Soldiers,  which refers to Britain's recent General Election Contest  being on the same day, 18th June, which must be 1970 ( Indeed the article ends by saying the next such auction will be on 10th December 1970, so that nails it down ).  Assuming they kept to six per year, I assume that number 63 appeared  in about  Spring 1973,  and number 72 in late 1974.  

 

example layout - from issue 10

The focus is very much on uniforms - what I tend to call 'button-counting', which I admit I am not deeply interested in, but it's still a pleasure to leaf through these vintage magazines and savour the atmosphere of times long gone. The editor is the splendidly-titled Lt-Col J.B.R. Nicholson, and the general manager John Tunstill  (who also published 'Miniature Warfare', I think, around the same time). Contributors include Brigadier Peter Young ( with a snippets column called 'Random Shots' ), Colonel H.C.B. Rogers (on Mercenary Soldiers )  and Philip Haythornthwaite ( The London and Westminster Light Horse Volunteers 1779-1829 ).  There are lovely full-page colour plates in the centre pages,  a few rather discreet advertisements mostly for stockists of Norman Newton or Stadden fgures, and a nice colour ad on each  back cover for the same figures, including a lovely set of 54mm Stadden medieval knights.

 

All available, of course, from Tradition Ltd at their fabled 188 Piccadilly address. I think I have a dim memory of passing their shop in the 80s/90s, though they may have moved around the corner to Shepherd Market by then, and I was more interested in finding my way to the Curzon Mayfair cinema for the latest Eric Rohmer, so sadly, I did not venture inside.

The earliest issue also has a nice bonus - a sample colour print, advertising a volume of 20 such plates depicting 'Infantry Units of the British Army 1660-1790' by one P.H. Smitherman, available by mail order for the princely sum of 75 shillings ( I make that £3.75 - remember this is in 1965 ). Here he is : 

If this is a sample of the plates listed in the description of the book, then I think he is a Grenadier Officer of 1st Guards, 1688 - the clue being  the 'JR' royal monogram, as this is the only one in the list dating from James II's reign.  It's really pleasing that this loose slip of  heavy-grade  paper  has remained  all these years between the pages of the magazine - I get quite  annoyed at advertising  'inserts' in magazines these days, but this is a cut above. I wonder how the book sold? ( it looks like you can buy second-hand copies on Amazon for £25, and this image is on the front cover )

Note the prices of the magazines  -  Number 10 cost 10 shillings and sixpence ( for younger and non-UK readers, that is  52.5p  or about £0.52 ), but by number 47 the price had risen to a serious 17 and six ( 87.5p ), and following decimalization , the two later editions were offered for 90p.  I am impressed by how 'reassuringly expensive' these were - I looked around the web for 'prices adjusted for inflation' and found  a multiple of about 15.5  from 1973 to now.   So that 90p issue of Tradition 50 years ago  would be the equivalent of about £14 now ( current wargame magazines are priced at around £6 per issue) - quite pricey!. Fairly obviously this was well outside my childhood pocket-money price range, even though  I may have been  aware of  its existence thanks to mentions in books by the likes of Featherstone, Grant and Wise.  My early issues of Miniature Wargames, from about ten years later  (hence after the really  big inflation surges of the late 1970s)  cost only 75p. 

All in all, a nice piece of serendipity,  I am very glad to have come across these and will enjoy browsing through them. I should point out that Tradition of London Limited seems to be still going in online shop form, and will even sell you copies of the magazine - for consderably more than I paid! 

Now back from holiday, time to get on with painting and gaming - next time, a rumination on the role (and the roll) of the dice. And a bunch of shows coming up soon! Meanwhile keep well, everyone.

The 'Mighty' Phalanx, and recruits from the Garrison

Last day of the month and only one blog post so far?  Better remedy that! As a result, this will be what  Stew,  of  A Terrible Loss of Lead and Wealth fame calls a 'PB&J' post - just a summary of the (all too little) recent hobby activity.   Which amounts to a 'mighty'  Macedonian Phalanx - at least in DBA terms - and some new recruits to the 7YW garrison, from, ahem,  the Garrison. Plus a brief mention of a fantastic game I was lucky to take part in only yesterday. 

First, the Macedonians. I finally managed to complete painting Alexander's Macedonian Phalangites for a DBA army, and here they are in their massed ranks - all 16 of them!  They will make 4 elements of 4 Pk   in DBA, which should pack quite a decent punch. 

The ground shakes to the tramp of their feet..

 Painted to my usual very middling standard  of course, though I would claim I am slowly getting  a little better, maybe, and they will do fine for me on the table. Simple block painting with a wash of 'light tone' , which did seem to add a little definition to details of armour etc. Three-inch ( 18 feet, to 1:72 scale ) pikes from household brush bristles look suitably impressive, I think. Colour scheme as simple as possible, with the variation in figure poses and dress making sure they are not entirely identical. I was very lucky that my  entirely randomly selected 16 figures just about made up four groups each with a similar pose with the pike -  I did not give a moment's thought to that potential issue at the start! A little variety is nice, but I suspect that the one formation that really could and should be depicted  with identically-posed figures is a Pike Phalanx, which depends crucially on each man conforming to everyone else! 

and from a Persian perspective

 

Now I just have to finish a couple of Prodromoi light horse, and then get round to  an element  each of Peltasts, Hoplites, Agrinians and Archers ( 12  foot figures in all ), and I will have a DBA army, Then, of course, on to the Persians to fight them..

just need to finish these..

 

Jumping forward a matter of 2,000 years, we have some new recruits for the Seven Years War, and they are rather interesting. At  the Salute show in April I attended the 'blogger meet-up' and was very pleased to meet  Rob Young of The Eastern Garrison blog,  and it transpired that he is able to supply some newly-cast figures from the vintage Garrison ranges. Now that is a magic name to me, going back to the days of Charles Grant, Donald Featherstone etc and seeing Garrison figures in their books - I particularly remembered the Persians depicted in ( and maybe on the cover of ) Grant's The Ancient War Game.  So, who could miss the chance to own some - and nice new castings too?  I do fancy replicating those Ancient Persians and Greeks at some point, but for the moment I thought it would be good to reinforce the 7YW armies,  and start by putting together a contingent of French Infantry, to go with the splendid 'night-cap' wearing French Dragoons which I have already and have been wanting an excuse to paint up.  So recently a deal was struck, money ( a very reasonable amount)  changed hands, and I received a batch of 40+ small metal Frenchmen, pictured here ( straight out of the postal package, hence some bent bayonets and a very small amount of mould flash )

 

Rob has generously 'thrown in' a gun and crew as a bonus, he thinks it's not a very good model, but I think it will do just fine, very nice of him! Many thanks indeed to Rob, I am very pleased with these.

They will be organised in 'units' of 8 figures for the Portable Wargame, which can easily be combined into larger formations ( 16 or 24, say ) for use with other rules. 

who let those pikes in at the back?

 

I have enough figures to make 5 Portable Wargame units, one of which is of grenadiers. With the dragoons ( and maybe that gun ),  this will make a nice little PW force. For a painting scheme, where else to start then the Kronoskaf 7YW website, which has masses of information including uniform and flag details for many, many regiments of all armies. And looking at the French Line Infantry pages  there, what could be better than the oldest regiment?  So, Picardie it will be, with their very simple white coat and red waistcoat. I particularly like the old regime 'white cross'  French infantry standards  (yet again, reminders of vintage Charles Grant , Don Featherstone and Young & Lawford books), and Picardie has a simple white cross, red quarters scheme, which  even I should be able to paint... 

( the above copyright Kronsoskaf - if any objection, I will happily remove )

The chaps will soon be getting a coat of spray primer, and then the painting production line will (slowly) crank up - in parallel with those Greeks and Persians, of course. 

Finally,  back to the ancients. Yesterday I was lucky enough to be invited to partake of another 'remote' game run by Jon Freitag of Palouse Wargaming Journal, this time using his 28mm collection to re-fight the Battle of Ilipa, 206 BCE  between Rome (Scipio) and Carthage (Hasdrubal), using his amended version of Basic Impetus rules.  A great time was had by all, and quite a surprising result ensued. I will leave Jon to describe event in his battle report, which should be well worth a read!  Just as a teaser, Jon has provided me with  a picture he took, of the moment the Roman Legions made contact with (retreating) Carthaginian elephants - with interesting results! 

be careful when approaching the rear of an Elephant...

It was a great game, many thanks to all concerned, and of course mainly to Jon for being such a fine host and umpire!

That's enough from me,  I think those Garrison chaps may need a spray of primer next, and a bit of paint on some Macedonians would be good, too.  I'll keep posting my progress - meanwhile thanks for reading, if you have got this far, and keep well, everyone.

The Fight for Der Sachsenhügel

There's been a distinct lack of actual gaming on this blog in recent weeks ( in fact, probably months), and the newly-painted 1750s Saxons needed some experience, so I thought it was time to get a Seven Years War period game on the table. I had a look through Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargames - always a good source of simple scenarios - and came up with Scenario 4 'Take the High Ground'. The attraction was that it involves one army ( 'Red' )  being split into two contingents, which I could set up as an allied army of Austrian and Saxon troops, facing Prussian  ('Blue') opposition. The scenario specifies six units per side, and  I used the 'OHW' army selection charts - the dice gave an interesting setup, as neither side received any cavalry! 

The selected forces were as follows: 

'Red' ( Allies ) : 4 Infantry, 1 Artillery, 1 'Skirmish' ( which I counted as Light Infantry ). 

'Blue' ( Prussians ):  3 Infantry, 1 Artillery, 2 Skirmish/Light Infantry :

Using my own 18th Century variant of Bob Cordery's Portable Wargame rules, this translated as 

Allies: 

- 1st and 2nd Battalions Saxon Regiment Friedrich August, each  4 Strength Points (SP)

- 1st and 2nd Battalions Austrian Botta d'Adorno Regiment , each 4 SP

- one Battalion Austrian  Grenzer Light Infantry, 3SP 

- one battery of Austrian Guns,  2SP 

- Commander - our old favourite  General Dachs,  6SP

Total 27 SP, Exhaustion Point =  9 SP

Allies..

 

and Prussians :

- 1st and 2nd Battalions 9th Line Infantry 'Jung Kleist'  each 4SP

- 1st Battalion 44th Fusilier regiment, 4SP

- one battalion Jaegers ( Light Infantry ) ,  3SP

- one battalion Von Kleist Frei Korps ( Light Infantry ), 3SP 

-  one battery of Prussian Guns, 2SP 

- Commander  Generalleutnant von Gehirne -  6SP

Total 26SP,  Exhaustion Point = 9SP.  

.. and Prussians

For simplicity, all units and commanders are rated 'Average'.

The scenario specifies that the Allies must place just  two units on the table initially, holding a hill in the middle of the battlefield,  with the rest of the force entering from the North table edge on turn 2, while the Prussians can bring on their entire force from the South table edge on Turn 1. It seemed appropriate  that the two Allied units deployed on the hill should be the two Saxon infantry battalions, hoping to hold the position until their Austrian confederates could reinforce them. And thus we have the fight for Der Sachsenhügel (  'The Saxon Hill', if I can trust Google Translate ),

Here is the initial setup, with North at the top and the novice Saxons in position on a pretty simple terrain. Let the battle commence.. 

 

I used Bob's card-driven activation system, which essentially allowed each side to activate 3, 4 or 5 units each turn, depending on a card draw (I decided that shooting,  or continuing an ongoing  close combat, does not require an activation).  The 'One Hour Wargame' scenario allows all the Prussian   units to enter on Turn 1, but I allowed the activation mechanism to limit that slightly - the Prussians  only scored 3 activations that turn, so only 3 units could enter. Accordingly, they brought on both battalions of 9th Jung Kleist infantry, and the Jaegers. The Allies only had the two Saxon units on the table - they opened musketry fire on the Prussian line infantry, and 1st Friedrich August scored an immediate success, taking 1 SP from 1st Jung Kleist. First blood to the Saxons! 

Opening volley from the Saxons..

In Turn 2,  the Allies only scored 3 activations so only 3 units could enter. For both sides I decided that their units arriving at the table would be in a pre-determined 'marching order', representing a column of march coming up the road - it seemed only sensible, for example,  to put Light Infantry units at the front ( and where available, another as rearguard ). Allied troops could only enter by the road or East of it, while Prussians could enter anywhere along their baseline,  but in reality the advantage of increased  movement tended to dictate that units entered via the road.   Wearing my  'Prussian hat', perhaps I should have considered advancing  several units up the Western side of the table to take the hill in flank, knowing that the Allies would have a long march to counter such a move?  Oh well, maybe next time..

Turn 4: Frei Korps in flanking move?

By Turn 4 both sides had a mix of Line and Light Infantry ( Botta D'Adorno and Grenzers vs. 44th Fusiliers and Jaegers )  disputing possession of the road, while the Prussian gun had opened a bombardment of the Saxons on the hill. Saxon musketry scored more successes, further reducing both battalions of 9th regiment Jung Kliest, but in turn the Prussian volleys had forced  one of the Saxon units to retire  from the crest of the hill.  The Prussians had made a tentative move on their left flank, bringing on the Von Kleist Frei  Korps to threaten  West of the hill, and forcing 1st August Freidrich to re-position to face them. Losses by this point were Prussians 3 SP, Allies 1SP. 

Turn 5 : Prussians in diagonal line from bottom left

 

Perhaps more by accident than design, by Turn 5 the Prussian force was arranged in a nice diagonal line - a sort of 'oblique order' ?  The Austrian artillery had deployed in the wood, aiming to dominate the road and give fire support to their comrades on the hill - but were promptly attacked by Prussian Jaegers sneaking up on them through the trees, and forced to retire. The Austrian guns took little part in events after this. 

Grenzers ( left ) and Jaegers skirmish on the wood

On Turn 6,  Prussian musketry having previously forced both Saxon units to step back, both battalions of  9th Jung Kleist regiment stormed onto the hill (despite the Allies now having 3 battalions there ) , and in the ensuing close combat 2nd  Saxon battalion suffered 2 SP losses - and was now reduced to 1 SP ( the Saxons on the whole seemed to be better at shooting than melee, I wonder if that reputation will stick to them?).  Meanwhile in the Eastern woods Prussian Jaegers and Austrian Grenzers fought it out, and the Grenzers came off worst to start with. By the end of the turn, Losses were Prussians 4 SP, Allies 5SP , which looked like something of a turning point. 

Jung Kleist storms the hill

 

Fighting continued on the hill, with the stronger 1st Saxon battalion being forced to retire, but the Prussians unable to finish off the crippled 2nd battalion - in fact losing 1 SP to the plucky Saxons in close combat. In the East, 1st Botta d'Adorno got the better of a musketry duel with Prussian 44th Fusiliers, and Grenzers and Jaegers still disputed the wood, with Grenzers now  getting the upper hand.  At the end of Turn 8 things had turned around again, and  losses were Allies 6SP, Prussians 7SP. 

Turn 8 : Action all along the line

 

For Turn 9, the Allies won the initiative and moved first, with 1st Botta d'Adorno forcing 44th Fusiliers to retreat, but making no progress in the fight for  the hill - indeed the Saxon 1st battalion took another 1 SP loss. And then the Prussians struck back - in the wood, their Jaegers' musketry took another 1 SP from the Austrian Grenzers, and in close combat on the hill, von Kleist Frei Korps took a further  1 SP from Saxon 1st  Friedrich August battalion. Thus the Allies had suffered the loss of 3SP in a single turn, and this was too much - total losses now stood at  Prussians 7SP, Allies 9SP, which meant that General Dachs' Austrians and Saxons had reached their Exhaustion Point.  Being now unable to take offensive action, the Allies could only try to fend off further Prussian attacks, and they would be unlikely to be able to throw the Prussians off the vital hill - so the chance of an allied victory now looked very slim. I decided to call the game there, with General Dachs conceding defeat.  A hard-fought victory for the Prussians, and a bit of a bruising first combat for my newly-raised Saxons! 

Still, a nice fun game, with a real see-saw, back-and-forth affair, the Prussians suffering more losses early on, getting ahead when they stormed onto the hill, only to suffer reverses in the woods and along the road,  before finally the tide turned decisively on Turn 9.   The rules work pretty well, Bob Cordery's basic Portable Wargame engine is lovely and simple, great for small-ish games like this, and a good base for 'tinkering', of course! I quite like the variable activation card draw, which puts a moderate, not excessive, limit on players actions and forces them to prioritise. I think the close combat system is a bit indecisive and maybe tends to draw out melees for longer than necessary, and  I have seen some suggested amendments which I think I may adopt. Of course, many thanks once again  to Bob for getting me started with this!

And many thanks also to Jon Freitag at Palouse Wargaming Journal who provided my other recent gaming experience, with his fantastic 'Hammering Sickles'  ACW Gettysburg game, which I was privileged to take part in a recent iteration of. Great fun, despite being thoroughly trounced by Johnny (or rather, Mark and Chris) Reb.  I can't possibly better Jon's report of the game, which you may well have already enjoyed. If not, it's thoroughly recommended! 

Sickles getting roundly hammered..

 

Having 'scratched the itch' of gaming a bit, there's plenty of painting to do, and some interesting recent purchases to join the - ahem -  Garrison... about which, more next time. Until then, keep well, everyone.     

A Brush with Macedonians

In the past week or so I have been able to devote a little  time to painting figures, in particular my 1/72 scale Macedonians. These will make up a DBA 'army'  as a try-out for the Alexandrian period. I'm quite cheered by my progress, though I won't win any prizes for either speed or quality! 

I started with the cavalry, and have completed these :

Alexander's strike force ( if he played DBA )

 

In DBA terms, one stand each of Companions ( Kn) , Thessalian (Cv ) and Greek Allied (Cv) Cavalry. My first attempt at painting ancients since Airfix Ancient  Britains and Romans in  the 1970s  ( I think I still have the Brits, based for WRG 6th Edition, lurking in the loft somewhere), it's been an interesting experience. I thought the small numbers of each type would make things easy and quick  - but I have  realised that of course, most of the time is taken up with researching and thinking about how to paint them, and then while actually painting,  it's quite annoying mixing some paint and then only applying it to three figures!   Once you've set up and got a brush loaded, you might as well be doing  a dozen or more.. 

On the upside, I like the colour schemes, though I admit my version of  Macedonian purple may be a little stronger and brighter than Ancient dye-makers could have come up with!  The 'research' side is interesting too, in that there is really quite scarce  information to work with when it comes to 'uniform' details - where would we be without the Alexander Sarcophagus and the Pompeii mosiac? I relied mainly on  Osprey's The Army of Alexander the Great ( MAA 148 ) by Nick Sekunda and Angus McBride, which takes a quite rigourous evidence-based approach, and Peter Connolly's Greece and Rome at War  - but of course everyone is working from pretty limited evidence.  It's not like the 18th Century/Napoleonic period, where detailed descriptions and illustrations are available for any and every uniform, and I rather like that, it means everyone can make their own interpretation and use their own style.  No-one can really tell you how you got a detail wrong - they can't prove it! It reminds me of  ECW/30YW armies, which have a similar feel of non-uniformity and freedom to interpret. So these are my interpretation - let's hope Alexander isn't rotating too fast in his grave, wherever that may be. I've kept it very simple and within my limited skillset - block painting, with  a touch of Army Painter 'Light Tone' ( probably could have been stronger ) and a coat of matt acrylic varnish for protection.  Beginner level I know, but they will be fine on the DBA battlefield, I'm sure.  I did even manage to give a couple of them leopard-skin saddle-cloths, and was quite pleased with the (strictly impressionistic) results.  

Making a start on Phalangites

 

Encouraged by those results,  I've moved on to the Alexandrian 'signature dish' (!) - the Pike Phalanx. In DBA terms this is 4 bases each of 4 Phalangites ( Pk), so at least this time I have a decent batch of 16 figures to work with! On a rare sunny outdoor afternoon I made a start by giving them scarlet tunics - I really like the colour,  not sure why I have been avoiding the British in my Seven Years War armies.. Inspiration for this is a splendid picture in Peter Connolly's book, which highlights the many possible  variations in armour ( both metal and cloth spolas ), helmets etc. The HaT Phalangites are very nicely modelled and easy to paint - and maybe I'm gettimg my eye in a bit.

The Companions and the Thessalians are sporting the rather impressive 12-foot long xyston cavalry spear, and the Phalangites will of course brandish their even longer ( up to 18 feet ) sarissa pikes - HaT quite wisely don't try to model these, so how to proceed?   I remembered an idea which I think came from Graham Evans aka 'Trebian'  on his excellent Wargaming for Grown-Ups blog : so I went to a local hardware store, and equipped myself with this: 

Bristling with ideas..

 

Yep, a good ol' household brush,  with tough plastic bristles - I had to measure it carefully before buying, though, to make sure they were at least 3 inches (  18 feet in 1:72 scale ) long! They have worked admirably, they even fitted perfectly in the pre-moulded holes in the HaT figures' hands. Of course they may suffer from paint-shedding if handled too roughly, but I'm going to try a final coat of  clear PVA glue just on the spears and pikes to stiffen them up a bit. Fingers crossed!

Now I just have to keep up the routine of 'painting hour' to push on with these - after the Phalangites there are bases of Prodromoi Light Cavalry, Thracian Peltasts / Hypaspists , Greek Hoplites, Javelin men and Archers. Maybe I can put them into larger batches when it comes to applying common colours, to speed things up.  And then there's the Persians, which should be really interesting, madly colourful, and are probably even less well-documented! 

More figures next time, I think - I have made an interesting 'old school' purchase, but I've rambled on long enough for now. And I feel a 7YW Portable Wargame battle coming on.. So until then; keep well, everyone.                               

The lure of Malta, and Spencer-Smith Saxons - finally

 I really must get back to a spot of painting, and maybe even gaming..was the sign-off to my last post here. Well, one out of two isn't bad.. I did manage to get behind a paintbrush or two this past week, of which more later. But I also got slightly led astray.. You see, as a child in the grip of an obsession with aeroplanes ( thanks to Capt. W.E, Johns, of course )  I picked up a little paperback book that made a huge impression.- Faith, Hope and Charity by Kenneth Poolman. Here is that very volume, which I have hung on to all these years: 

 

The story of the famous trio ( actually, maybe  there were four of them )  of Gloster Gladiators and the heroic defense of Malta from Italian and German air attacks from 1940 to 1942 ( it was the most heavily-bombed place on earth )  just grabbed my imagination, and I have never really forgotten it.  Several more books on the subject have joined my bookshelves since - I can recommned James Holland's Fortress Malta  as a really good modern telling of the story, with lots of eyewitness accounts. I also made it to Malta once, just on a ordinary package  holiday, but I remember managing to drag my friends to the museum in Valetta to look at the semi-restored airframe of the last survivor of those Gladiators - 'Faith'.  And then last week The Naval and Military Press came up with one of their special offers - 25% off WW2 books, in this case  - and I found something of a bargain. This is Fighters Over Malta: Gladiators and Hurricanes 1940-42  by Brian Cull and Frederick Galea, published in 2018. by Fonthill.  

 Now Mr. Cull has form in this area, with a string of books relating to wartime events on Malta to his name, ( many years ago I picked-up his earlier  'Malta: the Hurricane Years' and was pretty much amazed that someone had researched in such detail )  and Frederick Galea is a Maltese native and aviation writer, who is also hon. secretary of Malta's National War Museum Association, so we are in the hands of experts.  They have produced something of a doorstop of a volume, almost 500 pages ( in a small typeface too!) , covering the operations of Gladiator and Hurricane fighters defending Malta from June 1940 to April 1942. The text includes a very high proportion of extracts from personal diaries and journals written by those taking part, and I think that, combined with Brian Cull's mastery of the detailed history,  will make it especially interesting. You've got to salute a book that includes, among nine appendices, one that simply lists the serial numbers of all the known Hurricanes used on the island - I'm sure that will be extremely useful(!).   I am really very pleased with this book, now the only issue is the small matter of actually  reading it! I am thinking of a  'real-time' approach - given that the story is told strictly chronologically from  June 1940,  I hope to make a start now and read up to mid-July 1940, and then  every few days, read the account of the events of the same few days 83 years earlier. Only a few minutes each day ( or week ) should be  required - though of course I wouldn't then finish the whole book until April 2025!   Anyway, this is going to be something of a feast, I am very pleased to have acquired it. By the time I finish, I suspect there may be a companion volume on the Malta Spitfires..  I haven't really tried gaming this campaign,  though I do have the recent WW2 air combat boardgame Wing Leader, and I am pretty sure that has some Malta scenarios. Tally ho!

And the painting? Well, I am glad to say I finally finished painting a couple of Portable Wargame units of infantry, representing the  Friedrich August Regiment of the army of Saxony. These are the vintage Spencer-Smith figures gifted to me by Neil from the excellent Aufklarungsabteilung blog - I was really pleased to get them, but I will admit I struggled with painting them! A case of  'be careful what you wish for', perhaps?  I thought that their minimal detail would make them easier to paint, but in reality it seemed to be exactly the reverse, and I clearly didn't have the skills, steady hand or eyesight for the job.  I hit something of a 'wall' with these, but eventually managed to press on and finish them. Here they are - just don't look too closely!

                                                                      

I am still really very pleased to have these nice old figures in my armies, their distinctive pose is so evocative of the old-school games pictured in Charles Grant's The War Game .  I think I rather rushed into doing these, and I will need to think and plan a bit before doing the next batch, but I also think I learned some useful lessons which will help me do better in future. I think I need to do at least one, perhaps two  more eight-figure units for regiment Friedrich August, and I then hope to add another infantry regiment from Saxony, plus some cavalry.  In case you are wondering, the slightly wobbly black-lining was done with a fine-tipped pen from an art shop - luckily it proved to be waterproof when I gave them a coat of matt acrylic varnish - and I think the resulting delineation between colours,  especially the white and yellow in the uniforms, helped a bit. I hope  they won't fight any worse than other units when deployed on the table - and one advantage of mostly gaming solo is that no-one else is likely to get a very close look at them! 

Having more or less got back into a painting habit, I have also been picking at the first few of my HaT Alexandrian Macedonian figures - more of those later, if I can keep up the momentum. And surely some gaming must be in order: these Saxons need to take the field.  So,  watch this space, and until next time keep well, everyone.