More 28mm Napoleonics for Sharp Practice

I've finished the next batch of troops for my Peninsular War project, and they are going to be part of a small but pretty elite skirmishing force. Like the 95th Rifles, these are all from Front Rank and they represent three groups of Atiradores (sharpshooters) from the 3rd Battalion of Caçadores, with three leaders. One leader is not a Caçadore, he will represent a Portuguese officer from the Light Division staff who has been seconded to lead the force for special missions, rather like what happens in some of the plots of the well-known Sharpe novels. Of course, my 95th officer isn't Richard Sharpe, I've already decided that his name is Lt. Barnaby Thorne, a former volunteer Gentleman Ranker who gained his commission because of battlefield losses.

I've chosen to use figures with the British-style stovepipe shako rather than the earlier Barretina model, but I've also represented the 3rd battalion with their older colours of yellow cuffs and brown collars rather than the black collars and cuffs that were adopted after 1811. I'm justifying this on the basis that troops might have continued wearing older uniforms while they were in the field, not being issued new ones until they were back at their depots. Also, the yellow cuffs look nicer, to my eyes. As these figures are from the sharpshooter company they have black plumes on their shakoes and green wings on the shoulders of their tunics. I've also given them a mixture of different coloured trousers, on the basis that uniforms wear out and soldiers on campaign had to improvise.

First, here are the leaders;

Because of the shortage of NCO figures in the Front Rank range, I've decided that the Status I leader is the bugler. The officer in blue is Status III and the Caçadore officer Status II.

Here are the three groups of Atiradores;

And finally, here they all are together;

So, these troops have finished off my initial force for 28mm Peninsular Sharp Practice, with a total value of 81pts, but I do have some further figures to paint up once I am back home after after my summer holiday.

Oh no! Is it Napoleonic Sharp Practice in 28mm?

Well, yes, I'm afraid that it is. I have been seduced by playing 28mm Napoleonic Sharp Practice at Bristol Independent Gaming back in January into creating my own small force to use at a forthcoming repeat event in September.

The original event was called All Enlisted For Drink and I played using other players' figures. However enjoyable that event was, and it really was a lot of fun, afterwards I decided that I'd like to bring along some troops of my own to the next event, which is in September and will be called Hard Pounding.

Now, first a confession. I've never really enjoyed painting Napoleonic figures. They are far too fussy with all those facings, turnbacks, plumes, belts etc and I have awful memories of painting up loads of Aifix 1/72 scale plastics back in the 1970s, and what a terrible job I made of them. Still, if I am going to play, I have to paint up some figures.

So, what to paint? Austrians? Prussians? Well, not really, although they are relatively simple to paint, because the event will be the Peninsular War. It seems to me that in the true Sharp Practice spirit I really ought to do light troops and skirmishers and what could be more appropriate than some 95th Rifles and their Portuguese equivalents, the light infantry Caçadores, or, more accurately, the Baker Rifle-equipped Atiradores (sharpshooters) from a regiment of Caçadores. Perfect for a brief encounter somewhere well to the northeast of the Lines of Torres Vedras, or over the border into Spain.

I looked at all the available options and eventually settled on the Front Rank Napoleonic range, mainly because you can buy individual figures to build up a small force. I decided that I would have two groups of 95th with two leaders (L1 and L3) and three groups of Atiradores with three leaders ( one each of L1, L2 and L3). I've calculated this will give me a force worth 81pts, which is close enough to the requirements of the Hard Pounding event.

Anyway, The figures have been sitting waiting for me to get started on them and I've now completed the contingent from the 95th. Here they are. First, this is the complete unit, two leaders and a dozen riflemen;

Here is a group of six, led by a dashing lieutenant;

And here is the second group, led by a dependable and unflappable sergeant;

Despite my early fears, they have turned out pretty well, looking suitably battered and dusty, as befits skirmishing troops in the field.

Now, onto the Portuguese. Who knows, but if they turn out OK, I might even think about some Redcoats for use in the future, or maybe some Portuguese line musketeers.

Undead army for Warband Fantasy

OMG! The figures are getting smaller!

My latest completed project is something I started planning last year, but it got sidelined by other things, mainly my Saga 2 Late Romans. Still, I managed to get the delayed project completed in a couple of days recently while waiting for a parcel delivery that eventually turned up a day late.

Last year, some of us at the club got talking about Warband, the fantasy ruleset published by Pendraken, which uses 10mm figures, also produced by Pendraken. I thought that I'd get a project going to produce a single army that I could play a few games with. It seemed to me that the quickest one to paint would be the Undead, and this turned out to be the case. I bought the basic army deal, plus some extra packs of figures to allow me some variations in my army, and also to add extra figures to the various stands of units.

In Warband, units are mounted on 10 cm x 5 cm bases, and damage is recorded on a D6, which should ideally be included on the base, so I bought some suitable dice and little dice holder squares at the same time as the minis. You can see these in the pictures. First, a command stand (with the banners), plus three stands of Skeleton Warriors;

Next two stands of Skeleton Riders;

Here are the ranged units, Skeleton Archers and stone-throwing catapults, plus a unit of Zombies with a purple-robed necromancer using dark powers to send them shambling into battle;

And finally, the magical attack force, comprising a stand of Wraiths and Spirits, being conjured from the Beyond by another Necromancer, plus a stand of Necromatic Wizards with their defensive entourage of Warriors and a couple of magical altars;

These were all remarkably easy to paint and, for their size, rather nicely detailed figures. Everything was glued to the MDF bases (dice holders having already been glued on) and then sprayed with Army Painter Skeleton Bone primer. Then, the parts that needed to be coloured, weapons, shields, robes etc were painted, everything was dry-brushed and then inked using W&N ink. I used green and yellow inks on the Wraiths to give them a ghostly tinge (influenced by Ghostbusters, obviously) and a brown ink to bring out the details on everything else.

I'm not sure that I would want to paint up figures as small as this with a colour scheme that required a lot of detail, hums for example, but I suppose that it is a challenge I might rise to at some point in the future.

Trouble in the bocage - a Chain of Command AAR

This was a recent game of Chain of Command at the club. I commanded the Germans, and Brian was in charge of the Americans. The scenario was Attack and Defend, with a Zug of Heer regulars defending a hamlet against a US Armoured Rifle platoon. The Amis had 6 points of support, which was spent on a pre-game barrage and a FOO with a battery of 81mm mortars. I had seven points of support, which I used to get a tripod-mounted MG42, two lengths of barbed wire and a minefield. I did contemplate blowing the lot on a StuG IIIG but I was worried that it might get taken out by US bazookas. As things turned out, there weren't any.

Here are two views of the table before we deployed. I saw this as being somewhere in the more rolling bocage country south of the Cotentin peninsula, between Saint-Lô and Mortain.

The Americans would mainly arrive from a JoP towards the top left in the second photo and a second JoP in the woods in the centre, while the German JoPs were all concentrated around the houses and cornfields.

I have to say that I was rather worried about the massive firepower (a squad of two tripod-mounted MGs) available to the Americans, as well as the sheer number of senior and junior leaders they had.

The pre-game barrage didn't disrupt my deployment too much and soon one of my squads was tactically deployed in a coppice on a low hill, firing and causing casualties and shock on one of the US rifle sections trying to work its way around my right flank.

Effectively, early on I'd neutralised this threat, which included pinning them and wounding an attached SL.

However, elsewhere, the Americans swiftly moved to occupy the lane lined on one side with bocage.

I deployed a section in a cornfield on the outskirts of the hamlet and placed them on overwatch. I also deployed my tripod MG42 team upstairs in the larger house.

The Americans began to reinforce their central position and got their MG squad into action quickly. These pesky MGs made short work of my third section, causing so many casualties and shock that before long the survivors broke and ran off. Oops. 

The section that cut and ran was the one on the left of the above photo. However, the section in the coppice continued to rain fire down on the pinned US rifles, slowly whittling the squad down. Despite my losses, I was hopeful of holding my position.

My MG42 in the house began to hit the US MG squad. slowly causing casualties and shock.

Below you can see the big gap caused by the demise of my central rifle section. Only the minefield, and the threat of my tripod MG42 was keeping the Americans behind the line of bocage.

At this point, the US FOO called in a mortar barrage. This was off-target but he managed to correct this and the German SL and MG team in the house made a rapid exit and headed away from the zone of the mortar barrage.

The US MG squad suffered a major setback when my lefthand section emerged from the cornfield and its MG42 team opened fire, before long blowing the Amis away, including a JL. The rifle squad also came under fire and made a hasty withdrawal. Without any MG support and no BARs available to the Armoured Rifle platoon, the position became untenable. US morale was now plummeting and Brian was rolling fewer command dice. At this point he was down to two or three.

Once the bocage-lined lane was free from Americans, my Germans were able to start targeting the US HQ squad and the attached FOO. Things had really turned around for me. US morale was hovering precariously at One.

I turned my attention back to my right flank now that my centre was safe and finally caused the US squad there to rout, following the elimination of the attached SL. At this point US morale hit a big fat Zero.

So, a decent win for the Heer. It was touch-and-go for a while, but as long as I could keep the Americans stuck behind the bocage in the lane, I felt confident that I'd be able to keep on inflicting casualties. Eliminating the MG squad was always my main aim and luckily, it worked out for me. Also, the firepower of the section MG42s was crucial, especially when it was being directed by the JL. It really shows the importance of the MG42 team in each German rifle section. It is a real killer weapon and it pays to keep the JL with the MG team.

Gripping Beast slingers for my Late Romans

I didn't get these finished in time for my photos of my Romans, but I don't think that matters too much. They are Gripping Beast 28mm plastics again, from the Dark Age Warriors box set. I got them finished off yesterday while waiting for a parcel to be delivered, which didn't actually turn up. Annoyed was a mild word for my mood, but at least the day wasn't completely wasted.

The GB Dark Age Warriors box is a pretty useful set. You can make them up as spearmen, swordsmen or axemen, or arm them with javelins straight out of the box, but you also have the option of turning some of them into slingers. You do this by cutting off right hands that are holding other weapons and glueing on hands with slings, of which there are a huge number (32) on the sprues. This isn't exactly difficult and there is plenty of variety possible when it comes to poses. Because they aren't supposed to get into hand-to-hand combat, they don't really need shields, but I suppose you could stick some on if you wanted to. I think that they look better without, personally.

These slingers would do for pretty much any army from Late Antiquity and the Early Mediaeval, but for me, they are going to be levies for Saga and skirmishing light infantry for my Late Roman Sword and Spear project.

I decided to paint them with a fairly muted colour palette, after all these aren't elite troops, they are peasant levies, foederati or limitanei (i.e. defensive garrison troops, literally "the men on the limes" that is, the borders). There has been much discussion over the years about the difference between the limitanei and the comitatenses or field units, who are often referred to as being "mobile", which is a bit misleading because all armies were limited to movement at the speed of the slowest components, which were the foot troops and the baggage train. It is often also suggested that the limitanei were somehow inferior troops, less well trained or poorly equipped and somehow lacking in fighting spirit, but this is also misleading, certainly during the early Dominate period. At first, the only real difference between the two types was their role. The limitanei were there to defend the limes (borders) against incursions and were locally recruited (and therefore likely to fight doggedly to protect their homes and communities) whereas the comitatenses were units held centrally and used to create field armies designed to fight larger battles and act as a reserve. It is certainly the case that among the comitatenses there were more "elite" units, the scholae and auxilia palatina for example, but limitanei units could also be attached to field armies and these were then referred to as pseudocomitatenses. The Notitia Dignitatum lists out the names of many comitatensis units, as well as a huge number and range of imperial administrative offices from those associated with the imperial court to provincial ones.

However, the limitanei were apparently paid less than comitatenses and scholae units and their status certainly declined over time until they were pretty much just local militia by the 6th century, by which time the western provinces of the empire were gone, replaced by Romano-Germanic successor "kingdoms" across western mainland Europe and by a patchwork of competing small British and Germanic ones across the former Roman Britannia. When we look at post-Roman Britain we should consider that most, if not all units would have been classed as limitanei or, in the case of Germanic troops recruited to fight against Pictish and other incursions as foederati.

The Romans Are Coming

After playing a couple of games of Saga yesterday, I took the opportunity to use some of the club scenery to act as a backdrop for some photos of all my Gripping Beast plastic Romans, well all the finished ones anyway because I have a lot more in the pipeline to stick together, as well as a load that are made up but need to be undercoated. These are unarmoured Roman spearmen and archers, plus some Dark Age infantry with spears and slingers.

I also have another box of Roman armoured cavalry to do and a box of Dark Ages cavalry who I will make up as light cavalry with javelins (to be skirmishers). I also have more Dark Age infantry, who I will probably make up as spearmen and a box of Saxon Thegns. Both of these who will be deployed as Germanic foederati heavy and medium infantry, and I will also be using a few of the Saxons as Roman armoured infantry with head and shield swaps. By the time I've finished, I think that I'll have a pretty large army to field in games of Sword and Spear. I am also thinking about using a set of the newly announced Gripping Beast metal Roman Cataphracts as elite cavalry.

Even without all the extra figures, what I have at the moment looks pretty impressive en masse and they will only look better when there are even more of them.

Hyborian cavalry reinforcements

I think (hope?) that I've finally finished my 15mm Hyborian Barbarian horde for Sword and Spear Fantasy games. The final additions are the rest of the cavalry. Here they are en masse, charging against some hapless enemy foot.

The front unit is one of Cavalry, as defined in the S&SF rules. They are a single unit, sized 8 cm x 3 cm. They will join my existing two units of Cavalry. They are supported by two units of Light Horse.

The next two units are the Light Horse, based on 4 cm square bases to give them a looser formation. Each unit is therefore 8 cm x 4 cm.

Obviously, they are all just the same excellent Copplestone figures, so the only way to distinguish between them is the base sizes.

I think that the last thing I need to do is photograph the entire horde, which should look pretty impressive.

Then, all that is left is to actually get them onto the table for a few games.