KGL Skirmishers

 

I've added a couple of bases of Kings German Legion skirmishers for the Anglo-allied forces. 

These are all models from the Perry Miniatures Plastic Napoleonic British Line Infantry set that the majority of my British and KGL units are made from.

While working on these I also added a bugler from the 11ème Régiment de Chasseurs à Cheval who will make a useful spare ADC for our General d'Armee games or maybe serve as a NPC in the Sharp Practice games.

He is a spare figure left over from when I painted the rest of the regiment almost a year ago.

We have a game of General d'Armee planned today, hopefully all of these will see some use.

Mi-24 Hind

 

I picked up a 1/144th scale MI-24 Hind model kit from eBay a few weeks ago to give some airborne support to my Soviets. It was base-coated but sat in the backlog while I completed the Bundeswehr and painted some Napoleonics.

The two main colours used for he basecoats are VMC Green Ochre and MiG Camo Green, while the underside is VMC Pastel Blue. It had a wash of AP Strong Tone and then the base-coats re-applied then highlighted.

After a coat of gloss varnish, I applied the transfers, making a right mess of things with those on the starboard side. The whole thing was finished with a coat of matt varnish.

The Soviets now have some aerial support and the Bundeswehr Gepard and Redeye teams have something to shoot at!

1st Line Battalion, King's German Legion

For the past couple of weeks - since the game with Tom - I've had the itch to paint some Napoleonics again. Luckily in the assembled backlog was a box of  Perry Miniatures Plastic Napoleonic British Line Infantry ready to go, so they were sprayed grey and I started slapping on the base-coats.

I'd also picked up while living in the in the US quite a bit of the Brigade Games stuff including a pack of mounted Colonels and a Pioneer. So one of the colonels was fug out and added to this unit along with the Pioneer.

The pair of flags are from GMB Designs. 

All the figures are painted using my standard base-coat, wash, highlight method and for those interested the infantrymen's red coats are a basecoat of 50:50 Black Red : Flat Red, washed with AP Strong Tone, once dry the basecoat is re-applied then highlighted up with 25:75 Black Red : Flat Red and AP Red Wash painted into the detail.

The officers and sergeants coats are similar but start at Flat Red and the highlights finished with just Flat Red. Their sashes are done the same as the infantrymen's coats.

In the final shot is a close-up of that Pioneer sergeant, he is equipped with a full panoply of tools, surprised he can also manage a musket!

I hope to have another game of General D'Armee next week, hopefully these chaps will not suffer from "Newly Painted Disorder"

The Battle of Graus 1063

 

James is busily working away at his Midgard rules that hopefully will be commercially available very soon and we took the opportunity of breaking out the El Cid collections to play out the Battle of Graus using the Take the High Ground scenario from the rules.

I would use my Christian Spanish and some of my Andalusians to represent the army of Aragon under King Ramiro, while James and Tom used James collection to represent the forces of Castille under Prince Sancho.

I would be the defender, so three units of Caballeros under Sancho Ramirez would be in reserve. Having played the Take the High Ground scenario once before I decided that the best place to start would be on the back slope with my mixed bow and spear units backed up with spearmen, in retrospective this was a mistake that almost cost me dear. The spear armed troops should have been in the front with the mixed units providing overhead fire in support.

James has written a much more thorough report of the battle on his blog. I'll just add few of the pictures I took.

Having almost succumbed to defeat at the end of turn three, my reinforcements arrived on turn four and by the end of the sixth turn with both armies battered and bruised I was on top, although had very few troops left to exploit any gains.

It was a splendid action and the rules do give a great feel for the period with lots of heroic combat taking place. In one rather spectacular clash a unit each of Castilian and Aragonese Caballeros charged across the field at each other and were spectacularly wiped out in a single monumental combat. Plenty of single combats among the chaos added much to the flavour including a young Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar prove his mettle dispatching a Aragonese nobeman.

Tirailleurs Sénégalais into action

 

It's been a long time coming, but the Tirailleurs Sénégal that I painted back in 2019 finally hit the table on Thursday evening when James came around to ours for some dinner and a game of Chain of Command.

I had already set up the table that morning, we just threw a few extra trees on.

While Victoria put the finishing touches to the chili James and I randomised that we would be playing the Hasty Defence scenario. James would be attacking using a platoon from an Army Group A Second Wave division while I would defend with my Tirailleurs Sénégalais.

For my supports I chose a Hotchkiss MMG, an adjutant and some Francs Tireurs. James had much more to spend (14 points to my six) and chose a MG34 MMG, an adjutant, a fifth columnist Shabby Nazi Trick, a pre-game barrage, a section of entrenchments and a Panzer III.

With dinner over we settled into the game.

I got quite far forwards in my Patrol Phase and the Germans ended up with a cluster of three Jump-off points quite close together while I had a couple in the village, one each on the left and right side and another behind a wall on my left flank.

The Germans took the first move and although my Francs Tireur caused some initial disruption they were soon leapfrogging forwards with one unit on overwatch while another advanced and the preliminary bombardment kept my heads down. 

It was then revealed that the helpful garage mechanic was actually a dastardly fifth columnist constantly misdirecting my chaps trying to form a defensive line.

My plans were also rather thwarted by the number of times that Bosche maintained the initiative! 

However, I was able to eventually get some troops into action and they cut up badly a section of Germans caught in the open, leaving only a handful of survivors who dashed to cover behind a high wall - loads of fives and sixes thrown, but bugger all in the way of shock!

Oh merde!, Fritz revealed his hand and a lone Panzer III was pushed up in support, my lightly armed Senegalese would not be able to offer much resistance against this beast.

Those badly cut up Germans were able to link up with the fifth columnist and eliminate the jump-off point before being finished off by my Hotchkiss as they tried to make cover.

In the end although I had wiped out completely one section of Germans and wounded the CO, the combination of a lower starting force moral (9 vs 11) and the loss of the jump off point, a section of Tirailleurs and the V-B section saw my force morale collapse to zero.

I really enjoyed playing Chain of Command again and using the Tirailleurs Sénégalais for the first time.