The Other Partizan - part the first

 On Sunday just gone, I was fortunate enough to attend The Other Partizan show at Newark. As ever, I didn't get started early enough to get to the show at opening time (10:00 am), and there was quite a lot of mist and fog en route hence a little slower - in the end I think I got there about 11:00. Met my old buddy Dave (who had come from a bit nearer, and arrived earlier )  in the hall and we had a good wander around looking at many and various splendid games - though by no means all of those present, there were so many!  I'll show what we saw and managed to photograph, pretty much in the order we saw them. 

 First up, 'Barely Legal Wargamers' group with Beyond the Ntombi River  Zulu War game in 28mm:

 It is mandatory these days for any UK wargames show to include at least one game representing the 1879 campaign. This one was a sort of 'what-if', I think, and perhaps unusual in giving quite a significant  role to British Cavalry ( I know rhe lancers played a part in the final victory at Ulundi).  

 

'The Bunker' group presented a 28mm ACW game, The Battle of Ellisville 1863 : Jones County, Mississippi locals, runaway slaves and army deserters making up the 'Knights Company' rise up against Confederate authorities. 

  

the town and courthouse scenery were rather nice

Quite a spectacular 'big game' was the Old Pikeys Gaming Group  28mm  WW2  Five Games at Arnhem: was the idea perhaps to represent several different episodes from the battle in the one display? Anyway, it was a serious bit of terrain which I probably haven't done justice to. Nice use of the Dakota, wrecked glider etc.  

  

..and famously, Urquart's HQ

Next 'Morris and Chums'  brought us not one but two games using James Morris'  Midgard Heroic Battles rules. First the Liberation of Pavis, in 6mm I think,  inspired by the Runequest role-playing game: 

  

 

I thought this was a really nice-looking small game, in distinct contrast to some of the huge tables nearby, you could much more easily imagine doing something like this. I thought the armies looked good too, I rather liked the basing.   

On a larger scale, they also showed a 28mm scale Agincourt 1415 

 

the rather effective 'winter ploughed field' terrain was made from corduroy upholstery fabric and sherpa fleece, I thought that worked well.  Midgard seems to be well liked, and these certainly show the versatility of the rules. 

 At a nearby table,  Peter Dennis Paperboys  presented  yet another Midgard game - described as 'Early Medieval' .  

I like the idea of the 'paperboys', one day I might well take the plunge with scissors and glue and this setup looked nice, but the real highlight was the paper motte and bailey style castle!

 

 The Bodkins group presented a very  impressive 28mm Hundred Years War game The Siege of Montargis 1427 .   Really nice-looking terrain ( town walls very evocative ):

 

 

Big battle units fighting it out ...

 

and lovely painting, colourful costume and flags  on the figures.  No way am I ever going to even try to emulate this - if I ever get the urge for the period, I think those 'paperboys' will be the best bet - or go 6mm and major on the flags to make it look colourful!  

Bramley Barn Wargames showed a really nice-looking Russo-Polish War game in 28mm (using Setting The East Ablaze! rules, I think),  including a range of troops and weapons, from Lance-armed cavalry to armoured cars and aircraft. 

 

  

Staying with Russia, 1st Korps presented  Kamenewo 6th October 1941,  a 28mm WW2 Eastern Front game showing a moment in Operation Barbarossa when the German Panzers ran into modern Soviet armour (lots of  T-34s!) and came off second best. 

The Panzer onslaught..

...and the waiting Soviets

 

including this monster KV tank!

 

Another really good-looking game was by The League of Augsburg,  a 28mm War Of Spanish Succession game using their Beneath the Lily Banners rules. Lovely figures, including a nice cameo of Grenadiers fording the river.  And it attracted wargaming celebrities -  isn't that Michael Perry? I didn't ask if they were using Perry figures, but  I wouldn't be surprised! 

 

 

Now back to Russia again, this time 1944 and operation Bagratian - Derby Wargames Society's Defending Maciejow.  Lots more nice-looking T-34s, this time on the attack, made a  nice counterpoint to the earlier Barbarossa game. 

 

North Riding Wargames Club showed Going Up  Country, a 28mm Vietnam game with a US armoured column running into an ambush from the 'VC' , and including air support from a splendid model Skyraider, with spectacular-looking bomb explosion markers ( though I couldn't help thinking  is that a giant caterpiller?') .  The guys running the game explained how they were using 'blind' card markers for potential concealed VC units, giving a nice 'ambush' feel as the Americans don't know what (if anything)  they are going to meet until the card is turned.

    

 A bit of local interest for me - Fieldcraft UK's  28mm WW2 D-Day Assault on Hillman game, 

 

featuring The Suffolk Regiment

and a nice Sherman 'flail' tank

Shrewsbury Wargames Club showed a splendid 'big-battle' Warhammer 40K game, Battle at Glazer's Creek - with a witty reference to 'real' history as red-coated Orks defended an outpost against attacking hordes. The sub-title of the game was, of course, Ork's Drift!   

 

A nice 'clash of civilisations' game from The Iron Brigade group, The Black Ship, with rival late 16th Century Samurai groups meeting a Portugese warship and hoping to capture it and its modern weapons:

 Now just a very quick vignette - couldn't resist photographing these chaps 

 1:32 scale WW2 figures, some of which were immediately recognisable to the 'Airfix' generation, there must be quite a few of these still buried in the flower beds of gardens around the UK! The game was, I think,  Action at Nierstein  staged by John Kersey, who always has an interesting game - but we must have arrived at his lunch break, and didn't get to find out more. Nice to see those models still in use, anyway!

The Very British Civil Forum presented a 28mm VBCW game entitled Stand and Hold - The Somerset Levels Campaign : I admit I can't get too excited about the whole VBCW thing, but it was a nice looking table (that's my buddy Dave getting a picture, on the right). 

Now at this point, we are about half-way through the 30-odd games we saw. We needed a break - and so do I, writing this report!  I hope the story so far has been interesting and enjoyable, whether you were at the show or not - join me again next time for pictures and comments on the rest of the games we saw, and a wash-up and thoughts on the show as a whole ( spoiler alert - surprisingly, I didn't buy anything!).  Until then keep well, everyone.

Reviewing New Recruits (4) : Infantry, part 3

In this post I'll show yet more of my recently acquired vintage Minifigs 25mm 7YW/AWI figures. .I hope regular readers aren't getting too bored with this!  This is almost the last of the infantry, just two boxes to go but quite a few units so I'll just do one of the boxes now! . I'll mention 'bots' and Partizan later, but for now, let's get on with the figures. 

Box no. 8 contains units painted or labelled  as Prussians, Hessians, Brunswickers and other 'Germans', as follows: 

One battalion of  Prussians, labelled 41st Regt Wied Zu NuWied Fusiliers  :

 According to Kronoskaf Seven Years War the standard looks right, and the facings should be 'light carmine red' - these look more purple to me, but perhaps it has faded with the passage of 30 or even 40 years since painting!  The Minifigs code number on the base of the rank and file figures is AWI 53 Hesse-Kassel Regt. Fusilier Advancing  (that's according to the Minifigs 1975 catalogue, available on-line for those who might like a little more nostalgia) .   

This highlights a big feature of the whole collection, in that there are some fairly 'interesting' choices of figures being used!  Why use an AWI Hesse-Kassel figure for Prussian Seven Years War?   I can only assume that a bulk order was placed for AWI, perhaps at the start of a club project, maybe the project perhaps morphed into SYW over time ( 'mission creep' at its best..), and it seemed a shame not to use the figures?   Or perhaps there was some opportunity for discounts on a large order? Or it was just a case of 'keep it simple', ordering as small a range of different figures as possible?  I will never know, but it's ineresting to look into what figures are lurking under the paintwork of the finished units! 

Next up, labelled as Prussian 35th Regiment, Prinz Heinrich von Preußen Fusiliers:

    

These look right according to Kronoskaf , and the rank and file figures are AWI 53 Hesse-Kassell Fusilier, as above. 

Another Prussian unit - 42nd Regt Markgraf von Brandenburg-Schwedt  

  - with orange facings. And again, the basic fusilier figures are serial no. AWI 53. 

 

Now, on to various other Germanic types.  First up,  a unit labelled   Hesse-Kassel : Musketeers Von Trumbach  (8th Regt) 

von Trumbach is the name carried at the time of  the regiment's service in the AWI - in the Seven Years War it was the Mansbach regiment.  I do like the exotic drummer! That might be a specifically 'American' feature, but  with a little wargamer's license I will be happy using these for either AWI or 7YW games - as an aside, it seems that this regiment was also present at Culloden in 1746.   The rank-and-file figures have serial number  AWI 56 : Hesse-Hanau Regt - Musketeer Advancing -  from the catalogue, I can see there was no Musketeer figure for Hesse-Kassell, so I can understand the seeming eccentricity of this choice.

 This next unit are labelled  Hesse-Kassell Grenadiers von Rall  and they boast rather splendid trousers!

 I'm not sure that colourful legwear can be really accurate, but it's certainly distinctive. [Update: many thanks to Neil Patterson and Jon Freitag for confirming that they are indeed authentic. representing  'ticking' material from which new leggings were improvised, which was indeed striped, being intended for mattresses!].

This is clearly an AWI unit,  as shown on a Uniforms of the American Revolution website, but  I have not yet tried to trace whether or not they existed in the 7YW.    The serial number on the grenadier figures is  AWI 55  Hesse-Kassell Regt Grenadiers,  quite sensibly. 

Pressing on, to Brunswick : first up, Regiment Prince Ludwig 

These are unusual - it seems that they were actually a Dragoon regiment, sent to America in British employment in the AWI, but without horses, and thus obliged to serve on foot!  The figures are mostly serial number AWI 87, which the catalogue describes as 'Brunswick Dragoon' , so they are correct, it seems, if pretty unusual.      

Next,  Regiment von Riedesel :   also serial number AWI 87,  I like the colour scheme of these Brunswickers.  [ Update: my US correspondent and AWI expert Jon Freitag suggests that these look like they might actually represent von Retz regiment..]   

 and Royal Deux-Ponts regiment : even more interesting, it seems these were indeed in America, but  were in the service of France, fighting against the British!  Once again, serial no.  AWI 87. 

And finally,  three more small units which were only described to me as 'Germans'. Hmmm.. 

This first unit (above) has blue coats and yellow facings, and a possible clue is the serial number - AWI 56 Hesse Hanau Regt - Musketeer Advancing.  However,   Hesse-Hanau's contribution to the British army in America was its Erbprinz regiment  - who seem to have had red facings and buff or yellow breeches. So for the moment I am indeed chalking these up as generic 'Germans'. With a bit more research, maybe I can assign them a name - suggestions welcome!  I confess I don't have any reference books for British/Hessian units in the AWI - I clearly need to do some reading, and probably should acquire the appropriate Osprey book..    [ Update - Jon Frietag suggests these may be more likely to represent  von Riedesel regiment..many thanks, Jon ] 

Another unit, also  code AWI 56,  but this time with green coats, and clearly the work of a different painter ( and note those rather over-engineered alumium bases, which I've mentioned before). 

 I note that it seems there was a unit of Hesse-Hanau Jagers (Jäger-Corps von Creuzbourg) in Ameirca, but have not yet found any uniform details on-line. Might they have worn green coats? It seems a goodish bet.. 

And finally, yes finally, another small unit which I think are serial no. AWI 57 Hesse-Hanau Regt. Firing :     

Now those, I suspect, might represent the actual Hesse-Hanau Erbprinz regiment - or a small part of it at least.  [ Update - Jon Freitag suggests these may in fact be von Specht regiment - thanks again, Jon!]

I think that will do for now - eleven units of various sizes,  out of just one box, phew! Some of uncertain identity, but all full of period flavour and can be happily used in games, be it AWI or 7YW. There would seem to be scope for a decently sized army made  up of units from various German states (a sort of imaginary Reichsarmee perhaps?)  to oppose or be allied with my French, Prussian and/or  Austrian forces. One more box of infantry  to go, but I'll spare you that ordeal now. I hope this has been a fun,  interesting and possibly quite nostalgic read for you. It has certainly got me trawling the internet for possible IDs! 

That's enough for now except for a couple of quick points : 

(a) The bots have gone, it seems! the crazily high volume of recent pageviews dropped back to 'normal' on about 2nd October, and I see others have reported the same.     They have thoroughly messed up my viewing counts and 'top 10 views' list, but never mind.  Presumably silicon valley's brief obsession with old-school wargaming has passed - maybe they've gone on to model railways. You need to get out more, guys.. 

(b) Partizan! Or to be correct,  The Other Partizan - is on this Sunday at Newark, and I am planning to go along.  I am going with absolutely no plan of games to see or traders to patronise [ though I should clearly be  looking for an Osprey book on AWI British and Hessians!] , just winging it.  But of course it will be good, anyway. Meeting old buddy Dave 'St Cyr' so we can do our usual 'Waldorf and Stadtler' routine around the hall,   and hoping to run into one or two others - a couple of book exhanges on the cards.  Happy to chat to anyone that knows me - and if you don't know what I look like,  I am a late-middle-aged, badly-dressed, bald, white guy, so I'll be easy to tell apart from everyone else there... 

As usual, I will try to take some pictures of the games, and show them in a post on this blog sometime next week, so watch this space.. Until then keep well, eveyone.