Project Waterloo More Board Work & Updating the OOB

What better way than spending the Bank Holiday weekend working on the boards for Waterloo? OK significant others may have had other ideas but were kind enough to let us play.

Since the last update Lee had painted in most of the roads and sealed the last of the hills. Now it was ready for adding the texture which is just like the work we do on our bases but, er..... bigger.

Each 6x4 foot panel was done at a time. Lots of Sandtex a bucket of sand and lots of tipping it over to get rid of the excess sand. Quick sweep up then onto another section of the board. We mostly used the road net as boarders between sanding batches as it would take too long to Sandtex the whole board as it would be drying in patches before we could get the sand on it. 

Lee had the experience to know the roads would get some drops of paint on them (actually only the once, yes me). As such he glossed them allowing for easy wiping off of the splodge and will matt them down when we are finished.

Next stage will be the painting of the grass area's with a mix of greens and the odd browned patch and then finishing off of the roads. The original plan was to sink in the building bases but as we want to use the boards for other actions we will try and place them on the top.  Lee is fairly confident he can have two of the boards finished for Friday so we can have a try out of part of the battle. 

So if that works out the boards can be finished quite quickly making them one less thing to worry about. To replace the worry Lee has updated the OOB and we need to make sure we have the right/enough troops for the game. I spent last night and this morning going through my units and now need to start labelling the units.

I should have had excess of Line Infantry but turns out I have just enough. I have loads of extra units that were painted up originally for Spain (Hussars and Dragoons) but I am short one Cuirassier regiment (I have the figures) and a Limber for the French. The Prussians I have rather more than will be needed so all is covered at my end. I even have the last farm on the table and should have it finished for this week.

Lee is well on track for Joy of Six as well. One long session of finishing basing of his French (mostly Guard) and a nasty flagging session for almost all his French! to go. His Allied troops are all done and dusted. It's not that far away now though, the labelling will be the biggest job time wise and I plan to pick up the card this week and start mine, I will also slip into the queue those two bases I need to get going on too.

Other talk was what next, Lee sneaked me the OOB for Borodino! That's at least two years away but possibly Lee needs a bigger shed if he plans to keep the ground scale. A trip to Spain seems likely for next years Joy of Six whilst long long term (OK three years or so) will see us playing a rather stupidly LARGE ancients bash, I need more pike!

Four Regiments of Foote for Essex

Well for Lee actually but I am building up Essex's army so it's all good. This will double his infantry force so I will be moving onto his cavalry, artillery and command when I do the next lot. All figures are Baccus.

Coat red, standard conjecture. 

Lord Robartes Regiment of Foote.

Lord John Robartes was a Cornish Member of Parliament and was one of the few gentry to take up arms against the King as most of Cornwall was to be held for the King. They fought at Edgehill numbering around 500 men and survived as a Regiment until absorbed into the New Model Army in 1644. Today it exists as a Regiment of the Sealed Knot. Frustratingly the re-enactors web page which bangs on about wanting to educate us also informs that 

Edgehill marks the start of a journey that would see them fight in many major engagements across the country until being absorbed into Parliament’s New Model Army under Oliver Cromwell on its formation in 1644.

If your going to make such an elementary mistake your bound to do more harm than good. For God's sake it's Sir Thomas Fairfax you idiots! Sorry it really gets my blood up when the basics are not got right, and yes Sealed Knot that is why the English Civil War Society continues to look down it's nose at you.

Coat Tawny (orange) standard conjecture.

Charles Essex Regiment of Foote.

The regiment was actually raised in June 1642 for service in Ireland but was absorbed into Parliaments army commanded by Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex. Again the regiment took part in the battle of Edgehill it's Colonel being the commander of the left hand brigade so was probably commanded by Lt-Colonel Adam Cunningham on the day. The only other action I could find of it was as part of the force facing the King at Turnham Green the battle that never was and could have ended the Civil War in it's first year.

Of the four regiments I painted just this one with back and breast.

It is possible that the regiment took high losses at Edgehill or more likely suffered from desertion pre and post Edgehill as it is possible that many of the rank and file was OK with service in Ireland but not fighting the King. I think it's probable that it would have been melded with one of the other Tawny coated regiments very probably the Earl of Essex as his regiment would not be allowed to shrink to nothing. As to when, or indeed if I am not able to guess.

Coat blue, standard conjecture.

Sir William Constables Regiment of Foote.

Issued with blue coats on forming they annoyingly replaced them the following year with new ones, probably red or grey. Much of Essex's army did this so I decided just to stick with the Edgehill coats. As per the other three regiments the colour of the standards were not known. Overall I am picking standards that I think will look nice with the unit. Only the odd colour will be the same as the coat colour.

The regiment was at Edgehill and Turnham Green and had quite an active war taking part in the Siege of Reading, campaigning in the North then back south for the relief of Gloucester which lead to the First Battle of Newbury all in 1643.

1644, between 1st of March and 18th April they are supposed to have served as Dragoons, if this is so then it's probable that by this point the regiment was much reduced in size. During it's Dragoon role it was involved in the battle of Cheriton and was reduced less than a month later. 

It's a safe bet that whilst in the North it would have had a steady loss of troops through battle, disease and desertion. Being away from it's home area it would have been even more difficult to replace the loss. 

Blue coats, standard conjecture.

Sir Henry Cholmly Regiment of Foote.

I can find less detail regarding this regiment. It was possibly originally part of the London Trained Bands under the command of Cholmly's brother Hugh with Henry as the Lt-Colonel but through the disruption caused by the ship money tax Hugh fell foul of Strafford and was removed from command though he was offered it back later but refused, requesting instead it would be commanded by his brother.

It's also possible that it was either a separate regiment or was partially recruited from within the Trained Bands. Either way it's safe to assume that Henry has had some level of military command and had been involved in the Bishop Wars so was aware of the difficulty of campaigning.

The only battle I have been able to track down was Edgehill and again part of Charles Essex Brigade.

So Lee now has eight foot regiments putting him a little ahead of me, though I have cavalry, artillery and dragoons painted up. I did find it difficult going painting up these units as I also had a load of other bits on the go as well, though I did sneak in a couple of mine, more on those later.

Gig Time Tonight - Shake Shake Go

I don't normally write off subject posts but I am very happy with this exception. We bumped into the band a couple of years ago whilst shopping in Nottingham. They were touring the country doing gigs at night and busking in the day. Their music is kind of Folk Pop, and very catchy. Their big break was supporting James Blunt on his UK tour last year. They remain fairly underground though have had some airplay on Radio Two and are doing well in Europe, especially France where some of the band comes from.

Tonight they are playing at Rough Trade in Nottingham and it's a free gig. Doors open at six so they will be on stage early enough that we can take the kids who really love the band.

They are releasing their first album early next year but have released two excellent four track CD's so far. Check out some of their U-Tube videos and the Facebook page is here.

Here is one of the new ones, England Skies, enjoy.

Armless or Harmless Pack Finally Finished

I originally painted just the one figure from the pack, Gary A gave the figures to me and my son along with a mini mountain of Gripping Beast Vikings. I can't remember the details and I am hoping the supplier will get in touch again so I can post his details if any one want's to get some of these novel figures. I plan to use mine as villages in Saga and roleplaying.

For the most part I have gone for a fairly plain earthy look as it suits my campaign rather well and the not warrior Dark Age villager would have been rather more drab than the wealthier warrior. I really like the poses of these two, the one on the left should be looking at the other whilst that one says "What?"

The only exception to the drab rule is the guy drinking out of a flagon, something makes me think he is the gaffer of the poor bloke on the right, he is lugging a couple of bags of merchandise.

Mr Peter Pointer is rather down on his luck since he bought his clothes and is no stranger to dirty work, but is to a bath and the idea that clothes get washed before they drop off. The fellow having a wizz was painted up during the challenge so has been seen before.

The house in the background is a Loki creation he gave to my son at Christmas and was the perfect background for these shots. The castings were not as crisp as some but much better than the last Gripping Beast figures I cleaned up but have a lot of charm and great facial expressions, hopefully I will have the details so you can get some if you wish.

Solo Hail Caesar Campaign Turn 4 Big Bad Battle

My worst fears were realised when the two Chios armies converging on my most southern army looked to join up. I would be facing two 300 point armies with one a little over 400. I had used some of the spare points I was carrying to buy another Companion Cavalry unit which proved a wise choice. 

It was also a great opportunity to try the rules with my 6mm figures. No photo's as most of the troops were plain MDF bases but I can tell you that once the figures are painted then it's going to look fantastic. You really get a feel of a big battle and the simple act of turning inches to cm worked really well.

After throwing a few dice about I ended up facing one of the two armies coming from one table corner whilst the other would arrive on the turn after rolling 10 on a D10 with a +1 per turn past.

The Persians command roll is just 7 so it's a real difficult army to drive forwards and whilst the Macedonian armies command is 8 it does make a difference. The Persians made for a small hill with the idea of standing their Hoplites and Levies on the top and holding off the stronger and more numerous Macedonian's until support arrived whilst the cavalry tried to do as much damage to my cavalry as possible. 

My plan was to hit fast and hard against the first army and then take up defensive positions against the second army and try and get as many units back to near full strength as possible before fighting the second army. The last thing I wanted was to be caught between the two though this strategy was actually putting me right there if I did not break the first army.

It started really well with my breaking one cavalry unit quite quickly, this was followed by a second soon after but the light horse was much harder to bring to heal and had a nasty habit of disordering or forcing them to retire. If that was not bad enough the second Persian army turned up on turn three. 

I needed the foot battle to end quickly so I could reposition but whilst I managed to beat the Persians to the top of the hill (thank you 7 command rating) the clash was not immediately in my favour. The cavalry battle  still was not any closer to completion and my units got closer and closer to shaken. I managed to finally get the advantage on the hill and defeated half the original infantry but the rump was trying to fall back on the slowly advancing friends. I had a lonely heavy stone thrower on a hill and that was able to cause more than a little trouble for the marching army. Their peltasts took a bad test and disordered three other units forcing a turns delay on their advance. It also saw a couple of skirmish units break off and move towards the stone thrower and these were able to take it out later in the game.

I had a great command roll catching up with the withdrawing infantry and broke the division and with it the army. Now I needed to swing around to fight the fresh army approaching my flank. My cavalry by this point was not in great shape and would no way be in good order for when the second clash came. My infantry however were mostly in reasonable order but some units would benefit from a few turns rest but this was not to be. The second lot of levies had more about them and the light cavalry were not being harried by my cavalry so were able to keep adding to my stamina loss right up to the clash of units. It was at this point the battle really started to break down, I would win one combat only to have a unit pushed back adjacent to it. Both sides kept throwing one more unit into the fight to prop up a unit approaching shaken and it finally started to tell on my units as one phalanx was broken. I even threw in Companions on stamina loss of 4 into one combat just to pin them in position so another fresher unit could charge another unsupported unit. Another unit of mine gone but at least the Persians no longer had any reserves fit for throwing in again.

It was a close ran thing with my army having three broken units and three shaken and just about all other units close to shaken. The second Chios army was badly beaten up and it's units still able to attack were being surrounded and the only option was to fall back out of the trap and give up the field.

It was great fun and after feeling really confident post wrecking the first force was really getting worried regards losing the battle. As it was it was rather a Pyrrhic victory as the cost in points to get this army back in order has drained my reserves and as such I will start the next battle with one unit shaken and still one more turn away from getting any more revenue and guaranteed one more battle to fight.

Situation at the end of turn four. Both defeated armies forced back to cities they are masking and now fortunately separated, neither army will be able to support the other in the next round of battles and I will have the advantage.

Post turn 4 movement

The only event saw good fortune for me. Persia who had declared war on me was invaded by barbarians which will keep one of their two armies occupied whilst the other is heading for one of my cities and will be adjacent next turn. I am just able to also contact my city so will fight the invader but even if I win the proximity to my city will reduce my revenue.

I do have another army threatening Chios to the south, a victory will mean I am just one more battle away from taking a second city and thus limiting Chios to the two armies it has in the field. That fourth city they founded has stopped them needing to disband an army on the loss of a second city, the war is going to be more drawn out than I had expected.

Events are really dictating my strategy. Chios gaining a fourth city is good news for me in the long run but will extend the war by quite a few turns. Worse still was the joining of alliance with Persia, now I have war on two fronts and if not for the barbarians would be facing two armies with just the one.

If I was to be invaded by barbarians or Asia Minor was to attack me I just don't have the spare troops to fight them. Rather than throwing more points into my existing armies I will have to spend most of my points on building yet another army so I have a reserve. Yep, this is sure turning out to be fun.

Triples The Buys and Bye-bye?

I hark back to when Triples was the show that kicked off the show season and it did it in style. Like many I have fond memories of Triples, we used to go on a Sunday as it was easier to park. First one I went to was at a Hotel before the move to the Octagon so I have a long association to the show. Whilst many really liked the old venue I was not 100% in favour of it and certainly was not sold on keeping the show where it was. I have now been to the new site for the last four years and the numbers seem to have been dropping steadily. We could not make it yesterday so expected a low turn out, especially with the weather. However the Saturday was just as slack as the Sunday and feedback at the show and afterwards on Facebook it's not been the show it needs to be.

Talk was that it costs the same to rent the Institute for two days as it does for one, that may be but having such a thin run of punters means it feels empty and the traders look bored, very bored. The only reason I can say for keeping it as a two day show is the competition games, if they can be condensed to a one day competition I think they should consider it.

I was also told they plan to move the show back to March which moves it from between Salute and Partisan but it does move it close to York's show so it's still not the best solution but one I feel is not a bad move. Triples clashed with a Si-Fi show so maybe lost some visitors to that but I think given the number of shows we now have in the calendar it's just becoming too crowded. The question may be which shows shrink or disappear? The answer could be quite shocking as staple shows may loose out to the odd new kid on the block. One thing is for sure and that is that many of the traders who have to travel long distances are going to find it harder and harder to justify the trip. Watch out for the traders who start to offer a on line discount for purchases made the weekend of shows they no longer attend. THAT could be a very interesting development that could see them make far more money by not attending than if they did.

Most of the money I spent at the show was spent as soon as I walked through the door at the Baccus stand. I picked up the pre-ordered four packs of pike and added to these two packs of companion cavalry, this will make my 6mm Hail Caesar army a viable concern. I also bought NFR35 Animated French infantry and NFR37 the excellent Imperial HQ aka My Little Ogre. So my Napoleonic French finally get a Napoleon for my complex. The only new Baccus French I don't have is the casualty pack which I plan to pick up at Partisan. Last off was a pack of British Light Dragoons that my son needs for his Peninsular army.

Next stop was Magister Militum where I broke the bank on one pack of Persian Command allowing me to have four Hail Caesar divisions. This may be short sided and I should have bought another command pack due to my buying yet more Persian cavalry in the coming month. Last up was one more Kontos armed cavalry (this time Seleucid) for my Macedonian army/s as I am a bit short on cavalry units. I still think I need more but can pick more up at a later date along with yet more pike as I rate their pike above all others. I have the figures for two more pike blocks that are not MM but will do as I already have them.

The Hail Caesar vibe continued with a trip to Warbases to buy a couple of packs of bases. Pill shaped for 20mm skirmishers and 60x40 bases for my 6mm army. It's always good to have a chat with Martin, I have watched his company grow from a small stand at Partisan (first time I came across them) to what they are today and look to expand to. It's a nice guy business but my dealings with all concerned makes me think they are stand outs amongst a crowd of nice guys.

I also bought 60 7mm dice 40 in ivory and 20 in red, again surprise surprise for Hail Caesar, the ivory to show points of damage and the red to show they are shattered. This is going to be especially useful when playing with the 6mm armies as they will really stand out and help keep tabs on divisions that are close to being broken. They will also get use in our Napoleonic's instead of beads for cohesion loss and for trying out the Naps with Command & Color combat system. Only issue is that I need more :-)

I also bought two paints, Crimson and Silver but have managed to loose these somewhere along the way, never mind. My son had a great time, bought a lot of various figures but only got the one game in, the storming of Sword Beach in which they won the day but he returned home tired but happy. That makes two of us :-)

Seleucid V Carthaginian Bash Hail Caesar AAR

Only two days after the Hail Caesar game with Matt I was back over at Kev's for another HC game. The feel is quite different as the figure size is 1/72 and two very nice armies they are and Kev and Andy have converted HC to conform to hex movement which works quite well overall.

Being as nothing is scared the UgoIgo system has been replaced with a card activation system where each brigade has two activation cards plus a Joker that allows you to choose one brigade to move again. So one turn through the deck can allow you to try to activate one brigade three times and the rest two. This can lead to some tense moments as the run of the cards can add a fair bit of drama as when one division gets activated three times out of say five cards or all your cards come out early and then you have to hold on till the deck gets a shuffle. Last night they played out well creating many a worrying moment though the last two run through's Kev's cards came out in a bunch at the start much to his discomfort.

I forgot the at start pis and after failing to activate a couple of times my Carthaginian cavalry (Numidian light horse and Gaul medium cavalry) finally got going. I was facing superior cavalry so was not planning on leaving the hill with my mediums but threw my lights into javelin range to start peppering my opposing cavalry.

Glenn our commander and owner of our troops plan was to move as far forward and as quickly as possible our light troops and start to pepper the opposing skirmishing and open order troops. Meanwhile our main troops were to remain at the halt. 

I had the first success and this was to have a huge impact on my flank as Kev's Gaul cavalry was hit with two rounds of missile fire sending them shaken and retreated disordered. They went back through two other cavalry units disordering both of them. This was to slow Kev down and the Gaul's never got back in the game making the contest that bit more favourable. 

View down the table, it's still early with both sides still moving towards each other. Kev was mostly moving one sometimes two moves forward with his infantry which actually played into our plan of keeping our infantry from the pitched battle till as late in the game as possible.

Revenge for Kev, I should have evaded from the charge but not wanting to go off the table I stood. I rolled poor and Kev rolled well (one of the few good rolls for Kev who really did suffer from bad dice all game). The end result was one of my light units broken.

Our skirmishers make contact and start to win the skirmish battle. Aided by my ability to roll 6 on most save throws.

 Glenn broke one skirmish element and started to pick on the light infantry covering the pike facing our right hand division.

I kept moving my light cavalry back into javelin range, Kev would charge them and remove them from the front but I kept bringing them straight back and whilst Kev was rallying off some of the pips from his Kontos armed heavies I was always able to keep some hits on them. Whilst my cavalry remained on the hill they would be difficult to shift but Kev was not able to do enough damage on my lights and Gaul's to get a better chance of winning the melee. 

My biggest set back was one light infantry unit becoming shaken and disordered but overall our light infantry and skirmishes were getting the best of the early battle and driving the Seleucid skirmish line away from the troops allowing us to start working on the main battle line,

Glenn had a couple of great results and Kev had no luck that saw his pike blocks becoming disordered which set them in place for awhile and of course the casualties were starting to creep up. However our decision to remain near our starting locations meant that Kev would be able to get his house in order though by this point he only had his bow skirmishers left to mask his pike and they were unable to hold back our missile troops.

Kev's view was somewhat different to ours. The cavalry choke point does look tougher for him with a long trip behind the woods to get at our rear. Success would have meant I would be forced to move two to three units to block a route into my rear which may have weakened me enough for a drive on my infantry division. Failure would have really stretched his defence as I would have more space to exploit the victory.

In the centre evidence of the skirmish battle with most of his missile troops pushed back and disordered. The scythed chariot waiting for a chance to be unmasked and charge hard into my Gaul infantry but the battle lines were remaining tight.

Not many casualties but the disorder was stopping forward movement which in turn slowed down his advance in the centre. This of course gives us yet more time to keep up the missile fire.

I finally lose a second light cavalry unit which in turn allows Kev to start hammering my left hand medium cavalry unit though I was able to rally some off whilst keeping the Kontos armed cavalry under a similar number of casualties so that Kev was not confident of winning the combat.

Finally the pike close on my 2nd division but Kev's own skirmishers left in forward positions were now in his way. More time, more missile fire and just past my division the fire from Glenn finally separated a medium infantry unit from it's supports.

Just to the right of the round commander base is the rear support of Glenn's first charge, the target has not a single support whilst Glenn got rear and one flank support but his other flank being disordered are unable to help. Not that he needed it as he smashed the unit again aided by our run of good dice whilst Kev remained staunch despite terrible dice, not managing to do more than dint the attacking unit slightly.

The Iberian Celt's remain fast on the hill but once they started to move they would surge over the empty space to confront the now thinning battle line.

Energised by his previous success Glenn threw in a heavy punch in the centre with both flanks and rear support against a unit that had taken just two pips of damage. This time he would have help, a unit of Celt's and two elephants. The bad news is that all three of these supports only give two dice each whilst Glenn not only had more dice in the attack but also was one pip better on his to hits and saves. To add insult to injury he threw his general in as well (my suggestion). The loss was bad, real bad with a difference of 6 casualties the only way the loser could save themselves from breaking was boxcars! The result of course WAS double six and their reward was to be pushed back disordered with his supports. Happy for us it was the expected result that of Kev being pushed back as failed to get even one hit!

Before Kev could do anything to try and rescue the situation, Glenn gets another activation and not even double six could save him as the unit was shattered and then all three supports failed their tests to leave a big hole and broken division. Worse still his follow up was to turn to his flank and smash into the nearest pike phalanx flank.

Whilst he was not able to get my light infantry in to support his charge he still had rear and one flank support. This was a repeat of what happened to me a couple of weeks before so I knew exactly what was to follow. The only consolation for Kev was that it was not supported by any other unit and sure enough it was broken leaving a second division close to being broken and facing attacks on both flanks.

Positions at the end of the game down the line. It looks like their is still two lines facing off against each other but just past the pikes in the centre is a gap in the Seleucid line filled by our troops ready to turn towards the flanks and drive along the lines as well as burst into the rear.

Hats off to Kev has he did take a pounding that was made possible by lousy missile shots on his part that when they did get through were past far more often than deserved and then the mother of bad rolls in close combat but took it on the chin and battled on.

Not that is was all down to Kev's dice, that just made it a sure thing. Glenn had a good opening plan and despite a slight wobble early when he wanted to move forward stuck to it. All that said it was Glenn's taking advantage of that isolated units position with a quick and nasty attack that then allowed the follow on attack and the sudden collapse.