3rd Line Battalion, King's German Legion

Last week Victoria and I took a short vacation, glamping in Shropshire just outside Shrewsbury. I had prepared another batch of Perry Miniatures Plastic Napoleonic British Line Infantry beforehand to work on while we were away.

I had made good progress on them before we even set off and eight were painted before we left. Over the course of ours days away I managed to sit in the sun drinking a selection of fine beers and ciders and get the other sixteen finished, doing the bases and varnishing over the weekend when we got back.

The standards are from Flags of War and are very nicely done. 

I did a pair of bases of skirmishers, I probably have plenty enough, but they may come in useful.

Some shots of the individual bases.

While on our holidays I also started another battalion of Hanoverian Landwehr that this week I've made further good progress on, hoping to get those finished and blogged shortly. 

Lieutenant General the Earl of Uxbridge

Another British commander from the Wargames Foundry "The Duke of Wellington and Staff" set joins the Anglo-allied forces for my Hundred Days collection.

Lieutenant General the Earl of Uxbridge, Henry Paget, commanded the Anglo-allied cavalry during the campaign and famously lost a leg to one of the last cannon shots at Waterloo.

The model is lovely, with a really detailed leopard skin that allowed me to go to town a little.

The Earl of Uxbridge is accompanied on his stand by an officer from the Royal Dragoon Guards.

"By God, sir, I've lost my leg!", "By God, sir, so you have!"

Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Picton and Major-General Sir Dennis Pack

Another command base for the Anglo-allies.

Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Picton and Major-General Sir Dennis Pack and are from the Wargames Foundry "The Duke of Wellington and Staff" set.

Sir Thomas does not appear to sit on his horse too well, maybe it's the injuries sustained a couple of days earlier at Quatre Bras. 

Both however were delightful figures to paint up.

I had painted this pair back in March for the AHPC and they have already been used in many games, but today realised that I'd not shared them on the blog!

Lieutenant General Sir Rowland Hill and Major General Sir James Kempt

Our last game of General d'Armee showed that I needed more commanders for the Anglo-allies do I dug into the Wargames Foundry "The Duke of Wellington and Staff" set and painted up Lieutenant General Sir Rowland Hill and Major General Sir James Kempt from the pack. 

Lieutenant General Sir Rowland Hill is the mounted figure and Major General Sir James Kempt is the one on foot.

The model of Kempt is tiny, I initially put a Perry Miniatures Sergeant on the base too, but as Kempt is only 23mm foot too eye it looked very unbalanced.

I've also been working on another pair from this set and will get those posted over the next few days.

Hanoverian Skirmishers

I've managed to add a few more Hanoverian skirmishers to the collection to supplement the four bases I added a couple of weeks ago.

I can currently field four battalions of Hanoverians, currently using the Warlord Games models, but, I'm so taken with these figures from Front Rank that I've ordered enough from them to field another three battalions.

They'll work out a little more expensive than a battalion made up of Warlord Games figures, but the variety that they add to the collection will be good.

I'm off on my vacation this coming week so hopefully a lot more figures will be painted to add to the collection. The target is another battalion of Anglo-allied foot and some general officers.

Cleeves' Battery KGL Foot Artillery

I picked up a pack of Victrix British Foot artillery while I was still living in Wisconsin, so these figures have sat in the backlog for quite some time.

I assembled everything months ago when I first got back to the UK, but was very disappointed with the quality of these models, the sculpts are poor and little thought seems to be given to the molding process so there are terrible join lines were there really should not be.

The recent game against Steve revealed that the Anglo-allies could really use another battery of artillery, so, I gritted my teeth and set to. The result is Cleeves' Battery of the Kings German Legion Foot Artillery that was attached to Altens 3rd Division of I Corps.

Not only are the figures very poorly designed, they are also extremely fragile, of the three examples of the chap in the photo below, two of the shafts broke during assembly, they refuse to stick back together so were foreshortened and drilled as seen on the other guns. The third one seen here broke once and was stuck back together, had a final shatter while being put away in their boxes. A scabbard and a ramrod has suffered similar damage.

I don't think these models will survive many battles before they become a pile of bits.

In, probably unlikely event, that these are used for a Sharp Practice game I painted up some spare gunners.

 I think I'll stick to Perry in the future.

El Cid-gard

I had written up a more complete battle report, but some vagary of using Blogger on the phone while it was still open on the laptop meant I lost everything I'd added on the phone.

On Saturday James and I played a rather splendid game of Midgard using my El Cid collection in preparation for our game at Partizan next month.

James used the Almoravids while I played the Spaniards. It was also a first outing for my Geek Villain "El Alemain" mat.

I've added a few comments to the pictures, but have lost the will to do a complete re-write.

The Spaniards

The Almoravids

The Caballeros get stuck in

El Cid leads the charge on the Spanish right

On the Spanish left they don't fare so well, against the odds the Africans prevail

El Cid and his Caballeros strike hard

In the first of many challenges of the game, Christian swordsmanship prevails

It does not go all the way of the Africans on my left, my Ballesteros, against the odd, beat up the camel riders

Despite their successes on their right, the Almoravid left and centre crumbles.

Almoravid horse are free on my left, but it's too late

King Pedro leads another successful charge deep into the Almoravid lines

A great game with lots of action and plenty of  heroic combat that the Spanish seemed to get ahead on this time.

James did not delete all his text and has a much more complete report over on his blog.