War of Spanish Succession French (2)

This week I finished the bases on another regiment of French infantry for the War of the Spanish Succession collection, this time three battalions for the Saintonge Regiment.

I've pretty much run out of Baccus figures to paint, but a much delayed order is on its way from the UK.

El Cid Reinforcements

It's been January since I painted any new troops for the El Cid collection, but over the past few weeks I've been steadily adding a few new troops to the collection. I had planned to run a To the Strongest game on Saturday evening at Dane Con next weekend and wanted to increase the size of the Andalusian contingent. But with one thing and the other Victoria and I shall be having a weekend away together instead.

But, it does mean that the collection grows a little larger, even if it is not getting gamed with.

First of all I wanted to round out my Almoravid Black Guard at 28 models so did another three of them, all from the Gripping Beast range.

Next three more Gripping Beast Al Andalus horsemen, two armed with spears and a third with bow. There are another four nearly done on the painting table that should be finished in the next few weeks.

I painted the two foot figures on the Al Andalus command base back in January but finally got around to painting up the mounted drummer in this batch, I think it finishes it of quite well.

Five more Andalusian spearmen join the rank and file, these are mainly the armoured models and are accompanied by a Qadi to inspire the faithful.

Lastly a couple more Andalusian archers on foot to provide some ranged support. I must admit that although selecting the palette can be rather a chore I'm liking the variety and lack of uniformity in the Andalusians.

Wars of the Sun King in the Sun

It's been a couple of weeks since we played this game, but what with being away on business for one week and a crushing schedule of work the next it's took me a wile to finish this report.

Having played our first game of Chosen Men Well Disposed at the beginning of the month we decided to have another go. In the previous game I had boosted the French army by photographing some units then printing them out. We probably had too much stuff on the table that time, so this time we played with smaller forces just using the stuff that we had painted. It would only be myself and Drew today, Bruce and Sasha were unable to make this one.

I got the table set up in the den, but when Drew arrived the weather was glorious so we carried everything out onto the patio so that we could play there.

As you can see from the shadow the sun was super bright so the first phase of the game was the mandatory application of some sun cream :) 

Drew, as usual, opted for the French and I would be the Dutch, last time we played we counted everything as normal regular troops, this time we rolled a die for each Brigade, on a 1 it was raw, for the infantry or dragoon on a 5 or 6 for the Dutch or a 6 for the French it was veteran, for the horse on a 6 for the Dutch or a 5 or 6 for the French it was veteran. Units marked with green stickers are raw while those marked with red are veterans.

As I would be away on business in Mexico City the following day I though it only right that I should prepare for a trip by cracking open a case of Corona and chopping up some limes. Rather a lot of beer was drunk during the course of this game, so some details may be a bit sketchy....

Both of us had a large cavalry division and a smaller one and both of us managed to pit our bigger one against the smaller one, this would have quite an effect on the battle as it unfolded.

The two infantry divisions closed on each other, the Dutch were almost all veterans while a good half of the Frenchmen were raw, as you may imagine the French held back rather to see if their superior horsemen could gather an advantage first.

On my right I had six units of horse against eight French, four of which were veteran, so I would have to play a cagey game here, as it was once we got stuck in, the French had the initial success

As was alluded to earlier, much Corona was consumed during this exercise.

The hard pressed cavalry fight on the right continued, but I was able to balance that out as the game developed and even broke one of the French Brigades and caused the French Division to retire, although it only cost the French a single Critical Morale point.

In the centre the Dutch and French infantry closed to combat, as was to be expected the superior Dutchmen rolled over their French counterparts, who despite showing great resolve were soon overwhelmed. I was struggling to capitalise on this though as Drew was rolling much better than me for Tempo and the French maintained the initiative throughout the battle.

Eventually the French had lost a division each of horse and foot, while the Dutch has lost a division of horse, the 'broke boxes for each army are shown in the next two images, first the Dutch.

Now the French!

We declared a minor victory to the Dutch again and retired to the patio sofa to drink more Coronas and to enjoy some lovely sushi that Victoria had prepared for us.

Fall Blau Painting Update - 14th May 2017

Just a small update this week with a Rubicon Models T-34 added to the collection.

A really nice kit, easy to put together and I reckon took lees than an hour to paint in my 'dirty, streaky, tank style.' A base-coat of Russian Green with the tracks and exhausts painted in a mix of Saddle Brown and Gunmetal Grey. A coat of Sepia Wash was applied and allowed to dry then the Russian Green was reapplied as a very thin wash with a little Dark Sand added for subsequent highlights. The tracks and exhausts we re-applied and the machine-gun picked out with a wash of Gunmetal Grey. The grills were given a thin wash of Black Grey and decals applied.

After the decals had set I applied a coat of Testors Dull-coat and set about with Tamiya Model Master, the lower hull in Mud and upper hull in Sand.  The end of the gun barrel and the hull around the exhausts we given a dirtying with Black and then an all-over light dusting of Light Sand.

I've painted quite a bit of other stuff this week for the War of the Spanish Succession and El Cid collections but it all needs basing. Not sure if there will be an update next week as I shall be in Mexico City all week on business.

Fall Blau Painting Update - 7th May 2017

This week I've been adding to the Fall Blau collection, after adding the Soviet T-34 it was only fair that the Germans also got some armoured support.

Firstly a Panzer II, I think it's an old BAM model and I acquired it in a trade. Unfortunately it was missing the gun barrels and hatches, the 20mm cannon is from an old Perry Miniatures spear while the MG is brass rod, the hatches were fabricated from card.

A nice little model easy to clean up and probably only took about an hour to paint using my base-coat and wash followed by two or three of highlights method.

Last week at Little Wars I picked up a Rubicon Panzer III model, it's described as a PzIIIJ, M, or N and I planned to make it as an early model J with the 5cm KwK 38, but it only comes with the 5cm KwK 39 and I thought about cutting that down, but in the end relented and left as it. I'm pretty sure that the model is may be a IIIL anyway as there is additional armour on the glasis and mantlet. As with a lot of stuff on this project I'm being moved slightly later in the war.

A lovely kit to put together and again a really easy paint job.

I need to pick up a tank commander and get him painted. Searching through the collection I have about six of the Perry British ones but no Germans.

I have another T-34 to paint, this time a Rubicon model done in the 1940 configuration, hopefully that shall be ready for next weeks post along with more German armour.