The Festive Haul

As I have been on Santa's "nice list", I have received pretty much exactly what I wrote in my letter to the North Pole.  All books in fact. So, having done the "tell", here is the "show".

First up a couple of hobby reads:

 

Then some to add to the French Revolutionary Wars library. The Blanning book I used for teaching, but I could hardly "borrow" the school copy. It's second hand with humorous cover graffiti.

Plus, the following:

All 5 volumes.

And lastly, a couple to continue my journey through the French Wars of Religion and Renaissance warfare.

Luckily, I read much faster than I paint figures. Now all I have to do is stay on that "nice list" during 2024.

Happy New Year all.

Napoleon the Film - I quite enjoyed it!

I should preface this short post by saying that having taught Napoleon, Napoleonic France and Napoleonic Europe to 18 year old students for over a quarter of a century, I was under no illusion of the impossibility of representing his life and times in two and a half hours.  With that in mind I found the film rather amusing. Any comedy that makes me laugh out loud can't be bad. Who can resist the line, "destiny has brought me this lamb chop," or the great man's comic death slide at the end.

I also enjoyed the relationship with Josephine (played by Vanessa Kirby, who was the stand out actor in the movie), and wished the film was better focused on this. In this respect, the film tried to do too much and ended being neither one thing nor the other.

The chronology was "creative" and provided no real context for anything really. I was quite impressed with the uniforms. Plus, the battles were a bit of a spectacle which I enjoyed for both their historical invention and relative brevity.

Joaquin Phoenix's portrayal was so laughable it became, for me, an unintentional comic masterpiece. His talent was wasted.

Should I have been disappointed by the battles?  No. What mattered was it told who won and lost.  The film was not made for wargamers in mind. It was for a wider, less historically literate audience. If this production makes someone want to find out more, then that's great.  They will realise what a fantastic, wide-ranging, complex and fascinating figure Napoleon was, and what an interesting period this was in European history.

Were my historical sensibilities offended by the film? Yes. Of course.

Did I enjoy it? Yes. It was about a relationship, and was funny... albeit unintentionally.

Will I ever watch it again? Never!

ACW: The Battle of Ned's Farm - AAR

Rejects, old and new, gathered at Stuart's shed for a fictional American Civil War encounter using his amended Fire and Fury rules. The principle change being the use of 2d6 instead of a d10.  Effectively smoothly the results to avoid extremes... mostly!

Make sure you visit Lee at BLMA for his report.

The Union were commanded by Lee and new Reject Dan. The Confederates were led by me, Mark and Steve.

The armies were fairly symmetrical in strength.  The Union started on the left.

I was in charge of the central rebel division.

The Union on the left wisely took up positions on the hills and woods beyond to create something of a blue fortress.  Undeterred, the rebels advance to take the fight to the feds.

At the far end cavalry were seemingly facing each other off.

However, a message delivered to Steve on the Confederate right suggested that there was a double agent in the cabin in the woods, and their capture would be beneficial.

Along the line the Confederates bound forward to press the Union defences.

The Rebel left crash into the Federal right flank...

... and despite best efforts are repelled by devastating fire and fierce hand to hand.

Whilst in the centre, the boys in grey hurled themselves at the defenders.

With two brigades thrown out of their positions, things are looking precarious for the Feds.

However, the Union was bloodied but not bowed.  They sprung straight back and pushed the Rebs back off the high ground.

Meanwhile, the Confederate right presses into the woods....

...  unsuccessfully engages the Union dismounted cavalry, and...

... captured the double agent in the cabin.

Meanwhile, The Union charge off the hill at the Confederate left...

... only to find out quickly that they should've stayed on the hill.  Then...

... the Feds find themselves with a crumbling flank as Mark leads his troops in decimating the defenders.

As the Union right flank was crumbling, their centre was coming under extreme pressure as multiple brigades assault the central heights.

All this led to one of the moments of the game.  When both sides rolled snake eyes at the same time and to equal stunned horror and relief.

This melee ended in a draw which meant an immediate reroll.  So, from the ridiculous to the sublime.

This helped in ejecting the Union from the central hill and leaving many units worn. These victories and the hours marching by brought as to the end of the game.

After an really fun, hard fought and close game it came to Stuart to total the victory points.

It was a Confederate win... by one point! (I'm ignoring the points from capturing the double agent)

A really good, fun game with plenty of banter and generous, gentleman-like gaming.

Missing In Action...

 ... one wargames table and space for painting!

Oh the pressures of DIY and decorating. Everything gets moved quickly, but seldom returns to its place as fast.

As can you see my table is currently an avalanche waiting to happen.  

Trust me, there is a wargames table there somewhere.

At least with Christmas on its way the crackers will disappear.

As for painting... I usually paint at the dining room table. Well, there isn't one at the moment!  Plus, my mobile "painting desk" is residing in an 18 inch square of the cellar.

Oh well, time will restore normal hobby activities.  Plenty of reading planning and podcasts for now.

For your Perusal: Rules for the French Wars of Religion in 2mm

Having embarked on the period of the French Wars of Religion in 2mm I was faced with the pleasant job of coming up with some rules to reflect my research and understanding.

Swiss Pike.

I began by establishing some principles that I felt were important.  These were:

1. Victory and defeat was often determined by the cohesion of the units and armies, not by the number of casualties.

2.  Quality matters.

3. Manoeuvring was difficult.

4. No casualty removal.

I quickly realised that what I was writing was quite generic in itself.  So, I decided that the way to add the period specific flavour for the French Wars of Religion was through the use of the Commander Cards and Action/Event Cards.  The latter being drawn from and based on events that actually occurred during conflicts in the 16th century.

With the help of the Rejects, we played some games to test what had been produced to hone the rules further.  See the following reports:

The Battle of Le Truc

The Battle of Le Truc (Ray's report)

The Battle of Coutras

The Battle of Coutras (Ray's report)

French Wars of Religion Play Test

Whilst far from perfect, and under constant review, improvement and development, please find the rules here, or go the tab above, and feel free to have a look and comment on them.

A Painted Mixed Bag

First up some FPW Prussian. These were an opportunity buy at a bring and buy at a show earlier this year. I have rebased them to match my collection I must confess that the only paint I applied was the spike to the helmets and the odd cross belt, plus adding standards.

Not sure who the figure manufacturer.

Left to right: IR11 2nd Silesian Grenadiers; IR36 Magdeburg Fusiliers

Left to right: IR85; IR84

However, for good or ill the FPW Bavarian unit is entirely my brushwork. This is the 11th Regiment.

Now for a change from metal to MDF. 6mm Commission Figurines in fact.  These have been painted to represent Carlstadter Grenzers during the French Revolutionary Wars. One stand to represent a regiment, the smaller ones as skirmishing detachments. They are in white coats as they are representing regularized grenzers.

Hopefully they will all soon see action on the tabletop.

Basic Impetus Novice Meets Chariot Wars

Jonathan of Palouse Wargaming Journal invited the Rejects to an online game to dip our toes into the waters of Basic Impetus.  The outing was to be an Egyptian/Hittite clash.

The Hittites are closest on the photos (screenshots), with me and Steve commanding.  At the other end are the Pharaoh's boys led by Lee, Ray and Surjit.

As a complete novice, I have to confess to paying more attention to the rules than the action.  So, what follows is a brief resumé.

Both sides rubble towards each other.  The dust clouds representing the moving chariots.

The Pharaoh's chariots smash into the Hittite chariots on the left.

Ray, the Pharaoh, rolled beyond the laws of probability all evening and pushed the Hittite left back.

... and back

... and back. 

... and back.
The only consolation was that the Pharaoh was now isolated and damaged.

The chariots on the Hittite right now sought to clear the Egyptian skirmishers and push at their chariots.

But found themselves thrown back instead.
Meanwhile, Steve on the Hittite left turned his spears and dispatched the Pharaoh.

The centre seemed to be settling into a jockey for position with archery fire being utilised to damage the opponent.

The Hittite commander trundled forward in the centre and got pulses racing with his ten dice in combat.

The Egyptians set forth to break the Hittite right with a chariot charge which pushed back skirmishers, but then found itself at the sharp end of Hittite long spears...

... before being impaled and destroyed.  We were all learning that chariots are good but quickly exhausted without support.
On the Hittite left, Steve's Pharaoh killing spearmen now cast their eyes on Rays last chariot unit.

... and made it disappear!

With that final murderous blow, the Hittites gained a victory.

What the novice learned.

After Ray's incredible and dramatic action in breaking the Hittite chariots on the left, I thought the game was up. However, there were some further lessons to learn.

• Keeping control, especially of chariots, is difficult but is the key.  Pursuit can be very fruitful, but will leave those units damaged and vulnerable if isolated.
• Skirmishers are actually very useful if handled well to absorb shooting, or to evade and draw enemy onto better troops behind where supported lines may hold an advantage.
• It never occurred to me that infantry could charge chariots.  This just adds to the need for care and judicious use of these expensive units.
• Despite Ray's extraordinary dice rolling throughout, once isolated the Pharaoh was in danger, and average rolls were sufficient.
• Basic Impetus games can turn quickly.
• Basic Impetus seems to provide fast and entertaining games.

I am sure there is more to learn, but this is a start.

Thank you to Jonathan, who will no doubt produce his usual exemplary narrative on this clash, for an excellent and informative evening.