Planet Ancients

Dale Hurtt (Dale's Wargames) : Baccus 6mm Napoleonic Brunswickers

2012-02-10T02:25:00+00:00

Welcome to new reader 'baxterilius' (Craig Baxter). Hope you enjoy the blog. Not "all Flames of War, all the time", but it stays in my rotation. (To be honest, I sometimes envy those that stick with only one or two periods.)

So Baccus Miniatures has started shipping their new Brunswick line of Napoleonic figures! When I played Column, Line, and Square as a kid, one of my friends had all of the Brunswick troops painted up. It was a nice, compact Division and made for a nice separate command. Seeing as these figures look just great, I decided it was time to get my own Brunswick command for Drums and Shakos Large Battles (DSLB).

I started by looking up their order of battle for Waterloo and found that I would need the following.

Brunswick Division at Waterloo
Command	Unit	Men	Figures	Packs
Advance Guard	Jager Battalion	690	96 + 16	RSA12¹ x 1, NBU5 x 1
Light Brigade	Leib Light Battalion	565	96 + 4	NBU1 x 2
	1^st Light Battalion	688	96 + 4	NBU3 x 1, NBU4 x 1
	2^nd Light Battalion	621	96 + 4	NBU3 x 1
	3^rd Light Battalion	691	96 + 4	NBU3 x 1
Line Brigade	1^st Line Battalion	586	96	NBU3 x 1
	2^nd Line Battalion	500	96	NBU3 x 1
	3^rd Line Battalion	667	96	NBU3 x 1
Artillery Brigade	Foot Battery	205 and 8 guns	8 and 2	NBU6 x ½
Artillery Brigade	Foot Battery	167 and 8 guns	8 and 2	NBU6 x ½
Cavalry Brigade	2^nd Hussars	727	16 (32²)	NBU5 x 1
Cavalry Brigade	Uhlans	246	16	NBU9 x 1

¹ I want the battalion in both formed and skirmish order, so I am going to use the 1866 Austrian Jagers for the formed unit.
² As this is such a large cavalry regiment, I am considering running it as two separate units in DSLB.

For DSLB that will probably make the stats:

Unit	Q	C	Sk	Special	Notes
Jager Battalion	4+	4	2	Light	The Jager Battalion can break down into 6 Sk to be distributed amongst the other battalions in the Division.
Leib Light Battalion	5+	2	2	Conscript, Light	Granted a marginal Sk value to represent being better.
1^st Light Battalion	5+	3	1	Conscript, Light	None
2^nd Light Battalion	5+	2	1	Conscript, Light	None
3^rd Light Battalion	5+	3	1	Conscript, Light	None
1^st Line Battalion	5+	2	0	Conscript	None
2^nd Line Battalion	5+	2	0	Conscript	None
3^rd Line Battalion	5+	3	0	Conscript	None
Foot Artillery Battery	4+	-	-	Medium Artillery, +1 CD	Battery has 8 guns
Foot Artillery Battery	4+	-	-	Medium Artillery, +1 CD	Battery has 8 guns
2^nd Hussars	4+	6	-	None	Large unit
2^nd Hussars (½ Regiment)	4+	4	-	None	Two units
Uhlans	4+	3	-	Lancers	Small unit

As you can see, the troops are actually not all that good. They were conscripted and had little experience. Only the Jagers, cavalry, and artillery had any real experience. Nonetheless they will be easy to paint, have a bit of color (sky blue and yellow looks nice on black) and is a historical Division.

The infantry units will be six bases (even though DSLB only uses four) each of 16 figures (four strips). That makes each battalion 96 figures – an impressive amount of "mass" – which is exactly one Baccus pack. That makes each battalion about $11 (counting shipping). Carrying that forward, that means that a Division of about eight battalions, two cavalry regiments, and a battery of artillery will cost about $100. Although that may sound like a lot, understand that I am using big battalion sizes. In Polemos, Baccus' rules for 6mm, each battalion is one-quarter the size of this, so a Division would be somewhere around $25.

Well, I now all I need to do is pre-order them from Scale Creep Miniatures.

Craig Davey (Watch That Flank!) : Hellenistic Command Stand - Updated

2012-02-09T19:07:00+00:00

I wasn't entirely happy with one of the officer's shields; the transfer was just too small. A quick email to LBMS (thanks Steve!) and two days later the problem was solved; the old transfer painted over and a new, larger version in place. A bit of tidying up with blue paint and.....

Before....

David Knight (Lead Warrior) : TV programme tonight on BBC 4

2012-02-09T17:51:00+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16929522

Looks interesting - it's the middle one of three programmes which look as if they focus on the importance of logistics in warfare. If it's any good I should be able to catch the first one on I-player

Apologies to my non UK readers

Phil Hendry (new blog) : The Walls of Dura Europos

2012-02-09T13:39:29+00:00

Here are the walls, so far. I've built the 'skeletons' of them all now. Basically, there are enough straight pieces that, with the tower and gate, it's 5' (1.5 m) long, or, using the corner piece, it can cover a chunk of table about 4'6" x 18" (1.4 x 0.45 m). I'll need some buildings to go 'inside' the city, once I've done texturing and detailing the walls.

Michael Peck (Satrap Miniatures) : Photos of Sumerian objects at the British Museum

2012-02-09T08:55:00+00:00

Here are some photos of various Sumerian objects at the British Museum which I found interesting and inspiring on our visit there. The most famous of these objects are from the 'royal tombs' of Ur excavated by Leonard Woolley in 1927-32 and dating around c.2800-2370 BC. Apologies for the reflections in some of the photos!

Diorite statue of Gudea, ruler of Lagash c.2120 - 2100 BC

The Standard of Ur c.2600 BC - 'Peace and prosperity' panel

The Standard of Ur c.2600 BC - War panel

The 'Ram in the thicket' c.2600 BC

Sumerian boardgame from the Royal Cemetry at Ur c.2600 BC - looks a bit like a Saga battle board!

'The Queen of the Night' - Babylonian Goddess of the Underworld 1800-1750 BC

Dale Hurtt (Wooden Warriors) : 28mm Roman - Painted

2012-02-08T05:12:00+00:00

As I was painting my test 28mm Imperial Roman soldier, it dawned on me that the helmet did not look right. I knew it was not going to be perfect in shape, but it was missing ... something. I went back to my reference books and it leapt out at me: the very distinctive neck guard.

I grabbed some of the thinner craft sheet foam and, using the button plug acting as the head, pressed the base of it into the foam to get an indentations. (See earlier experiments with craft sheet foam and how to make templates.) I then glued it underneath my previous foam piece, trimmed carefully, and now it looks right.

And a real one:

With that, it was time to finish painting him, including a look of grim determination on his face.

These figures are very simple to make and I think they look good, certainly identifiable as a Imperial Roman Legionnaire. Time to work on that army again...

Dale Hurtt (Wooden Warriors) : On the Workbench

2012-02-08T03:45:00+00:00

I have been working diligently on some new figures for Bob to paint, seeing as he thought the last batch were agreeable to paint. As I am using the figures for both Song of Drums and Shakos skirmishes and Drums and Shakos Large Battles, I have decided to make units of 14 infantry and four cavalry figures each.

This first picture is of eight horses, for two cavalry units. A few changes from previous horses in this scale. First, I added necks between the head of the horse and the chest. Previously I just filled the gap with modeling material, but I liked how the 28mm Armenian cavalry looked, so I have switched. I use a small spool for the neck, which makes it easy to use a dowel to fix the head to the spool and the spool to the split egg acting as the horse's chest and forelegs. I will use modeling material to fill in the gaps between the spool and the split eggs. Otherwise, the figures are the same.

Next up is infantry in shako. I still have not determined which nationality this will be (I just know it is not British, as I use a dowel for their shako). I think it will be French as I am still trying to figure out how to simulate the oilskin cover over a Prussian shako. I will probably use a dowel for that, and not a spool, which creates a noticeable trim around the top of the shako. Nothing new here other than I am using the 'defending' pose that I used with my Prussian Landwehr, rather than the older 'march attack' pose.

I would like a little more color in my army, so maybe I will make them something from the Confederation of the Rhine, or Italian troops (white with green and red!).

The last batch are the riders of the two cavalry units. They use the same pawn figure as the infantry above, but I have shortened them by about a 1/4". The bottoms are then sanded so they fit the curve of the spool used as the back of the horse. I've temporarily mounted them on toothpicks for each of painting. The one thing I have learned is to paint the riders before putting them on the horses, especially for Napoleonics, where there might be quite a bit of detail that would be hard to get if it were glued to the horse, yet is visible so needs to be painted.

On the left are four French Carabineers, in the early uniform. as shown below. These figures have a simple dowel for the bearskin, but at a straight angle on the bottom and a 15º angle on the top. I then take a coarse carbide bit and 'comb' the dowel from top to bottom, giving it a 'fur' look. (I will provide better photos when it is complete and painted.) Flat toothpick parts for the plume and the scabbard.

On the right are four French Hussars. I am looking forward to experimenting with craft foamsheet and making the pelisse (the jacket draped over the left shoulder that so defines the hussar). For these the plume was a round dowel thinned at the bottom. Once it is firmly glued to the spool I will also 'comb' the plume, only horizontally, to represent the feathers.

Three units on the bench, working all at the same time. Again, this is a way to produce more, quickly, by reducing the amount of time spent switching tools. Further, while one item is being glued and drying on one set of figures, you can work on another. By the time you rotate through all three units, the first one it usually ready for the next step.

I am actually hoping to get five or six units to Bob, so I can increase my armies quicker, but we will see.

Andy McMaster (Another Slight Diversion) : RIP Shoebe…

2012-02-07T21:03:24+00:00

Surveying the battlefield

Today we had to have our cat put to sleep. She’d been off colour for a couple of weeks but the last week saw her go downhill quite a lot and the vets (expensive) investigations turned up the inevitable growth that was the cause of all the problems and the best course of action was to not bring her round from the sedation. She would have been 12 in April. We had her from a kitten along with her brother Max (Maximus). He took umbrage one day a few years ago and moved out! She was originally called Phoebe but never really responded to the name but when my wife’s little nephew came to visit he couldn’t say Phoebe and it came out as She-bee. And she seemed to like that, so it stuck. We never really knew how to spell it so just changed the first letter!

We told the kids earlier. My 3 year old Zach said, “Has Shoebe died?”. Yes. “Was it with a gun?” No…

My daughter Hannah (6) paused for ten seconds before saying, “Can we have a dog now?”. She then went to bed quite happy only to then spend half an hour sobbing and wanting Shoebe back…

We’ll all miss her…

Paul Innes (Caliban Somewhen) : Congratulations to The Angry Lurker

2012-02-07T20:44:00+00:00

...for winning the Figoblogotheque award for best English language blog. See here for the glorious winner!

Graham Evans (Wargaming for Grown-ups) : Ridge and Furrowed Brow

2012-02-07T20:10:00+00:00

As far as I can see pretty much the entire English Civil War was fought across ridge lines. Living, as I do, quite close to Naseby you can see this really clearly. The English countryside is one long procession of ridge lines.

This is no more true than for the Battle of Cheriton, which was fought between two armies (Hopton v Waller again) across a shallow valley from ridge top to ridge top. Alas the area of the battle has three and a half ridges running in parallel to each other and no one can agree which two ridges it was fought across. So, a fine choice for my next refight using the previously published “Victory Without Squares” rules.

I don’t possess John Adair’s monograph on Cherition, written in the Peter Young style. This may be a blessing because, as far as I can make out, no one else agrees with where he sites the battle. My sources for this refight then were Richard Brooks', “Battlefields of Britain & Ireland” (which I have recommended before), William Seymour's “Battles in Britain” and Wanklyn’s “Decisive battles”. All three have a slightly different interpretation and in the end I went with Wanklyn as the most convincing. This was partly based on physically trying to get the figures on the battlefields suggested. Using Seymour’s suggestion the armies simply don’t fit (the ground scale for my rules is 4” = 250yards, with the frontage of a 1,000 man foot regiment/tercio being about 200 yards, with the same for a 600 man cavalry brigade).

Royalists to the left, Parliament to the right

Setting the battlefield up using all three ridge lines is a bit of a challenge and I had to use all of my polystyrene & polytex ridge blocks to get a fair approximation. It does mean it's awkward getting all the figures to stand up on it as well. So, lots of thinking to be done. It is made harder as unless you know where the battle was fought then contemporary references to bits of the landscape that are no longer there (eg 17^th century enclosures) are difficult to fit into the game. One of the key issues is the size of Cheriton wood and if it is bigger now than then. The evidence would seem to suggest it is, but how big we can’t say.

Due to the snow and ice I only had one player, but that did mean I got to play the game (regular readers may be confused here: the Monday Night Group no longer meets on Thursday, it now meets on Monday. How crazy is that?). Phil took the Royalists with an instruction to be aggressive and I took the forces of Parliament with the intention of being Waller-ish.

I started the game a bit further back than you might expect, with the Royalists on the Sutton Sand ridge and the Parliamentarians on the Hinton Ampner ridge. This enables me to put Lisle’s forward outpost of the Royalist army on the Cheriton ridge where some writers put Waller and means that the forces in Cheriton wood are flanking the Royalist advance. As described there is some dead ground in the lee of the hill on which Cheriton wood stands, and this should enable the Royalist foot to engage with the forces in the wood without getting too shot up first.

Royalists watch Cheriton wood whilst they force the lane.

In practice I got this bit of the layout wrong. I allowed Phil to hide too much in the dead ground and so the harassing of the Royalist left flank didn’t occur. That meant that Phil could effectively screen off the wood, rather than being forced to drive out the musketeers, horse and guns holding it. That worked to his advantage as it effectively pinned a cavalry unit I could really have done with in the wood.

He then pushed forwards to support Lisle on the ridge line, and sent his cavalry round the end of the ridge to flank my line which was holding steady. This struck me as a smart move, the only downside being that I was now aware of his advance earlier than I might have otherwise been. In the actual battle this didn’t happen, and both sides just kept sending cavalry into the valley between them. There’s no real suggestion that the ground by the river is particularly difficult and in the end historically Waller used his infantry to turn the Royalist flank by advancing through this area.

Under VWS artillery isn’t really a battle winning weapon and it can be a struggle to hit anything. This was certainly the case in the first few turns then my lads in the middle of my line finally got the range of Lisle’s cavalry and forced them off the ridge line in disorder. Phil was a bit miffed by this as he was still struggling to get his guns into position and in any event couldn’t hit anything with them.

The first serious combat was on my left flank as Phil tried to turn me with his aforementioned cavalry. We had two evenly matched lines and attacked each other in waves. The combat ebbed and flowed a bit, but I eventually lost out with both of my units fleeing. My Lord Balfour also came unstuck, being unhorsed and overrun. He was spirited off before I was able to recapture him. I also realised at this point that it was a long time since we last played the game and, simple though they are, I couldn’t remember the rules properly. So things might have turned out differently.

Phil pushed bravely on and got his infantry mostly in the valley for an attack on my position. He also committed to clearing Cheriton wood at last, having brought up an infantry regiment in support. The cavalry on this flank finally lined up and got stuck in to each other in a rather messy melee.

More worryingly for me Phil had now got his horse up on the ridge line on my left forcing me into hedgehog as my lobsters fled the field. If it hadn’t been for a really lucky shot I fear it might have been all up for the forces of Parliament.

However his persistence paid off as he finally hit my flank-holding hedgehog with artillery and disrupted it enough for the cavalry to put in a successful charge, leading to more of my brave fellows running off the edge of the board.

Fortune was favouring me elsewhere as I mauled Phil's infantry in the middle of the board (no photo, alas) and at last got properly stuck into his left wing cavalry. After some too-ing and froing I soon had them all streaming to the rear and was set up to give his remaining infantry a good hiding. This tipped the Royalists over into more units disordered or running away than not which meant the army was broken and Parliament had just won the day. It was close as I was wavering a bit as well.

The actual final act of the game pretty much was the Royalist attack on Cherition wood, which finally succeeded in breaking in after an initial repulse. So our final act was history's first. A fitting place to end the game.

So what did we learn? Well, I think I got the set up right, otherwise the players don't get a lot of choices. I need to think about the dead ground near the wood some more and also the enclosures at the end of the ridges. If I was to run it again.

Which, with so many other battles still to fight, is unlikely.