Percy's First Big One.

Today in the fields of England's green and pleasant land the armies of the one true King Henry VI and those of the Yorkist Usurper - Edward IV, met in battle to debate good and rightful kingship and acts of vile Yorkist treachery.

Today at NWA Tom, Alan and I played another game of Never Mind The Billhooks. It was another game of brutal combat, unexpected surprises and, as previously mentioned, Yorkist treachery! Alan played Edward IV and Tom played Richard Neville: Earl of Warwick & Lord Falkenberg. Once again I played Lancastrians: Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland in command with the Duke of Exeter, Owen Tudor and Lord Roos. This is the first time I've used my Percy in anger.

I deployed Exeter on the left, Tudor in the centre Northumberland on the right behind Roos's Heavy Horse. Queen Mary was picnicking with Buckingham in the forest waiting for the battle to commence.

King Edward placed his cavalry on his left, opposite Roos and took his own position next to them. Warwick took the centre and Falkenberg the Yorkist right beside a stream and behind a small copse of trees.

The armies began to manoeuvre with Tudor advancing in the centre and Exeter lining some hedges. Edward and Warwick both advanced towards Exeter but where was Falkenberg?

Covered by the small woods, Falkenberg forded the stream and advanced towards the bridge. The only Lancastrian troops on that side of the stream were some mercenary crossbowmen.

The Manoeuvre Phase ended when Warwick's archers targeted Exeter's archers and the arrows started to fly from both sides.

"Be bold and advance!" cried Lord Roos. But then he noticed the Yorkist crossbows and advanced with less boldness.

However, as fate would have it the crossbows advanced in an effort to bring down some of the Lancastrian cavalry. This tactic failed and enabled Roos to catch the crossbows flatfooted. The knights ran right through the skirmishers killing all of them and running straight into Edward's block of bill and bow.

The commander of the Yorkist heavy horse saw an opportunity for fame and glory. He charged past the Lancastrian horse and straight at Lord Percy's foot knight.

As the Queen looked on, Percy's knights faced down Edward's mounted knights and cut down horse and man in a brutal, one sided fight which saw the Kings' knights destroyed and the unidentified commander driven from the field to face the wrath of his king.

The battle was looking good on the Lancastrian right wing.

On the left wing, Falkenberg was manoeuvring his troops to try an assault over the bridge. Exeters men-at-arms awaited them.

In the centre Tudor advanced with his Welsh archers to the fore and an intimidating block of French mercenary pike behind. The Welsh were targeted by the archers of both Warwick and Edward as well and a cannon. But they screened the pike and when the time was right Owen Tudor lead the intact French pike into Edward's troops. 

The King's troops were now under pressure from both Tudor's pike and Roos' heavy cavalry.

The remnants of Edward's billmen were driven back through their supporting archers but eh Tudor pressed the attack. Edward, the Yorkist usurper, escaped without injury but stayed with his beleaguered men.

Roos didn't fare well. Behind the archers they initially charged were foot knights. Not the expected billmen. They took hard casualties and Roos was killed but they stayed in the fight and kept up the pressure on the Yorkists.

Thinking that Roos was about to breakthrough Edward's flank and seeing the threat to Exeter, Lord Percy changed the line of his advance and marched straight at Warwick. If Edward could be driven back and Neville with him this day would lead to a grand Lancastrian victory!

On the left flank Exeter expected his men-at-arms to sell their lives dearly for the crossing of the bridge. But they didn't. They took light casualties (3 from 12) and lost the combat by a very small margin (1). They took a Moral Crisis Test... And ran like a pack of whipped curs (rolled a 3 on 2d6). Exeter's archers were also wiped out by Warwick's archers and skirmishers (although they stood until only 1 man remained and he even killed one more of Warwick men with a well placed arrow.).

In the centre Tudor's pike continued to push and destroyed Edward's bill and bow but failed (three times) to get the King who escaped and joined his other block of troops now that the Lancastrian Horse had fled the field. Northumberland's archers poured several arrow storms into Warwick's men and caused plenty of pain until such time as his foot knights could take the lead.

Meanwhile Falkenberg charged into Exeter again. They won the fight but this time, with the Duke leading them directly they stood their ground even though they took heavy casualties. 

Tudor managed to halt his troops and turn them around but a "bonus card" played by Warwick prevented them from being able to charge his flank and he took advantage of this to charge Percy before he could reinforce his knights with his billmen. The Percy's took hard casualties and those remaining fled.

The possibility of victory was slowly turning into the certainly of defeat.

As darkness fell (time to get going) a final melee took place. Warwick's knights charged the Percy bill and bow. The archers took aim and killed 3 foot knight and the ensuing combat saw another two killed. Unfortunately the archers themselves were also wiped out.

Seeing the turn of battle it was time for Queen Margret to vacate the field and seek safe lodgings.

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Once again it was a really entertaining game. This is my fourth game now and I'm really enjoying it. We're getting much more out of the rules and understanding them a whole lot better so that the games are flowing really well. There are always unexpected events and results. Just when you think you've got victory in the bag something comes along to thwart your plans (well at least my plans keep getting thwarted!).

Thanks to Tom and Alan for a really great game. I look forward to the next one. 

P.S. Alan is a man with an uncanny ability to roll more 6's in one game than I have rolled in my entire wargaming life!!!  (Or so it seems to my poor troops).

Lutzow's Freikorps ~ Completed... ?

It's taken me some time but I finally finished my version of Lutzow's Freikorps. I started this project back in March 2018 and it's taken me all this time to get to the end... Or so I thought until I started taking these photo's!

The newest, and what I thought were the final pieces, are a battery of horse guns and some bases of jaegers. Both the guns and the jaegers are Perry figures. The jaegers are the only figures from the Perry's actual Lutzow range that I've used. When I first started this project I had to use their Musketeers in Greatcoats for the battalions because there were no Lutzow's!

These figures are plain old standard Prussian Horse Artillery. They're wearing the long frock coat so they look right for the part. I use a pair of gun bases for my horse batteries and three bases for foot.

These are nice figures. I think they're newer additions to the Perry's Prussian range. One pack of them is enough for a small skirmish screen. I also have three bases of Tyrolean Jaeger to represent the Tyrolean company that was attached to the Freikorps (as well as some volunteer jaeger bases that I can mix in if needed). 

And here are the infantry battalions & the jaegers all together. One base per battalion as per General d'Armee. 

And here is the whole Freikorps. For General d'Armee they make up two brigades where the rules are concerned: one infantry and one cavalry (two small units). And that's where we come to that little missing part... I need to make a cavalry commander or, alternatively, an infantry commander.

I have my little Lutzow, as you can see and I think he would best be used as the infantry commander. But he did end up commanding the cavalry in 1815 when they were remade as the 6th Uhlans (the infantry becoming the 25th Regiment). However, I have some extra hussar figures & I could easily kit-bash a brigadier so I think that's what I'll do.

So there it is. It took 4 years but I finished this little project. The whole freikorps makes up a nice little independent command within the my Prussian force. It has enough presence to stand on it's own and would work great as a flanking force. Both the foot and horse elements can be used for 1815 as the 6th Uhlans and 25th Regiment and I'm sure the gun battery also became a separate unit in itself at that time.

I'm currently looking to create the 5th Infantry Regiment as well as some heavy dragoon cavalry. But I've also been reading about Hellwig's Raiding Corps which looks like an interesting little project for the future.

Centauri

A short diversion from what I've been doing recently. These guys have been sitting on the paint bench, undercoated and half painted, for quite a long while. They keep looking at me and making me feel guilty so I finally made the effort to finish them.

To be honest, I didn't actually do all of these in the past few days: Only the ten in the photo's below.

These figures are from Eureka Miniatures and even though they're pretty basic they do have a certain charm. They have a very 1980's feel about them. They fit very very well with Eureka's satyr/faun figures with many of the faun torsos being repurposed to make these figures.

The Centaur King is a conversion that I did for Eureka on the original "leader" figure. The green thing on his head is a crown of oak leaves (or laurel). I designed it based on the crown of Phillip II of Macedonia (Alexander's father). So I could have painted it gold. I was going to do that but changed my mind at the last minute and opted for green.

Below is the original little band that I did a few years back. You'll note the original leader figure (I actually replaced the spear with one of my own design on this one too which prompted the conversion I did for Eureka). You'll also notice the round bases. I'm not sure what to do about these at this stage: Keep them or rebase onto matching oval bases? Lets see what happens.

This is a little group of Sagittarii. I think I'll up their number to 12 in the near future.

So this is my little force of Centauri as they stand at the moment. I will add a few more to their numbers sometime soon. I have 16 spears which is an odd number when trying to create units for most modern rules. I think 24 would work out better. Another half dozen archers would also round off this little warband.

These figures are really easy to paint and that aspect made me feel even more guilty every time I sat down and saw them looking at me. I just kept putting them off over and over again and they just kept getting in the way of other things. But now it's all done and my army of the forest/faerie folk has grown a little bit stronger.

P.S. I also have a bag full of satyr/faun figures to add to the three dozen that I already have.

Lutzow's Black Uhlans

I've been away from the blog for the past few weeks. I have been busy but I haven't taken any pics to share (but I will soon). During the past week I've also been painting a new unit to add to my Napoleonic Prussians and, in particular, my version of Lutzow's Friekorps.

The Black Uhlans are only two squadrons strong and, I think they may have actually been a single strong squadron but I can't remember off hand. Whatever way it was, I decided to make them as two regular squadrons as they appeared during The Hundred Days. I already did the Black Hussars the last time I was painting Napoleonic's but I included them here to show the unit as a whole.

This is a really nice little unit with a great history. In General d'Armee they are considered a small unit and when brigaded with the Lutzow Hussars make a nice little mobile force. In an 1815 scenario they will combine to make the full 6th Uhlan Regiment.

I don't know what flag they carried and I can't find anything definitive. One picture I have seen claims to depict the infantry carrying a blue flag which is actually the standard of the 2nd Battalion of the 35th Regiment of 1806 whilst the troops depicted are not the Lutzow Friekorps. So I just chose a cool looking flag for the infantry and made a smaller pennant using the same design for the lancers. I'm not sure but I think I might have actually created this flag from various sources. Or maybe I didn't. I can't recall.

As mentioned above, I did these hussars a while ago. I just decided that now is a good excuse to take more photo's of them. They are made from Perry French Hussars with spare heads from the Perry plastic Prussian Infantry box. I recently bought a new box of the French Hussars and with the 4 leftover figures from this set I'll be able to make a full regiment when I get around to painting them... (That's what I said... When!).

These little fellows have already been on the table so they're battle hardened and they can lend their experience to the new uhlans when they take the field.

One great thing about this unit is that I have been listening to an audio book called Waterloo by Tim Clayton and there were a couple of examples of the 6th Black Uhlans in action whilst I was painting them. I told them; "That's you guys he's talking about. I hope you're listening because you have to live up to the real thing!"

New Regiment de Ligne ~ and Re-Basing

Continuing on with my current Napoleonic's binge, I decided I needed more French infantry. So I started painting. Along the way I also decided that, whilst I was at it, I should have a look at how my infantry is based.

My French infantry are currently based on 50mm wide bases, 40mm deep with 6 figures in two ranks. Each battalion has 24 figures on four bases. I don't really like this basing but I did it because it sort of matched my Prussians which are based in a similar fashion. After the exchange of several emails, lots of thinking (whilst painting these recent figures) and a long discussion I decided to re-base. 

Being a wargamer of a certain age and pedigree, I started wargaming Napoleonic's using Bruce Quarries rules and Airfix figures in the late 70's. As a result I have a certain mental image of what Napoleonic Wargames should look like. I also have an affinity to BQ's 1:33 figure/soldier ratio when creating battalions and regiments. so: Single ranks of figures with correct company composition and battalion strengths is what sits right in my mind.

A while back I rebased my Prussians onto double rank bases for use with General d'Armee. These bases look nice, they're easy to manoeuvre on the table and they make transport easy and, as stated above I followed suit with my French. But during my recent games they just don't sit right with my image of how Napoleonic wargames should look. 

So I thunk about it and I thunk some more. Cavalry and guns are okay. It's the infantry that are the problem. I didn't want lots of little bases and I didn't want big bases and I didn't want to use sabot bases. I have a whole lot of green plastic bases from many Perry boxes so my solution was to use those bases and put three figures on each base (45mm width). This means each base is a company. Six of these to a battalion all painted with the correct distinctions. I also added a tête de colonne to give me a battalion of 21 figures: not the 24 figures of a 1:33 ratio, but close enough.

To me these battalions look correct. One of my main reservation was: "Will they work with the General d'Armee rules?" My conclusion is that if proper formations don't work with the rules then the rules are broken. Any historical game system should work with historical troop formations. If they don't the problem sits with the rules and not the formations. Besides that: We'll make the rules work in our favour!

Having said all that: Here's my newest Regiment de Ligne.

Only a dozen or so regiments to go (then it's the Prussians turn!)

19eme Dragoons

I've had a box of Perry plastic French Dragoons sitting on the self for a long while and it was time that I got to them so they could take to the table and do their dragoonish thing.

When I got these I was keen to paint them up and get them into action but then the plague got in the way and my Napoleonic wargaming came to an abrupt halt and so did my desire to construct and paint these chaps. But we're getting back into the Napoleonic swing of things and their time has come at last.

For some reason there are 14 figures in this box. With the previous regiment I made I just did 12 figures and I don't know what ever happened to the other two figures. But with this set I decided to do all 14 and make a separate command base. I think they look better this way.

These figures are a bugger to paint because they have some great detail that I didn't want to miss. As a result they took a while to do but the results are definitely worth the effort. The coat for the bugler is a real challenge but I did my best to get him looking half decent.

So here is the 19th Regiment of Dragoons. I may add another base in the future to make an equal 8 bases. If I do that I will also add another two bases to my other regiment (the 1st Dragoon Regt) at the same time but there's zero level urgency for any such thing.

As it is, I now have a brigade of dragoons (1st and 19th) ready to take to the battlefield. I have a regiment of Warlord Chasseurs (very horrible figures) that did a while back and I have a box of Warlord Lancers (also not great figures) that I assembled a couple of years back but never painted. I'm very tempted to paint them at the moment but I need to do another French Infantry battalion before I do that. I also have some Prussian Dragoons that I'm keen to paint too!