League Of Augsburg and Mini Campaign

 After painting my League Of Augsburg armies earlier this year I received countless demands (actually 2) that I play a game soon with them. Therefore, bowing to the peer group pressure I have devised a small mini campaign for the armies.

The Battle Rules

All games will be played using the One Hour Wargame (OHW) Napoleonic Rules. I am using these rules instead of Pike and Shot because I want to use my artillery and skirmishers. For each battle the two sides will roll on the OHW tables for their army composition.

To make it a little more accurate for the period infantry can't form squares and artillery can't move. Also units with 9 or more hits must roll a D6 to activate. If the total of the die roll and their hits exceed 15 they cannot move forwards, they can run away.

The Campaign Rules

Premise behind the battles. The first battle must be fought to a conclusion, that is, a definite winner.  The attacker in the second battle is the winner of the first battle as they have the initiative. This battle must also be fought to a conclusion as who wins the battle determines the subsequent and final battle.

To win the campaign one side must win all three battles for a decisive victory and end the war. Otherwise with only two wins you have the advantage in the war in the following year, that is, just bragging rights.

Losses are not carried over from battle to battle. Each side starts with a full army for each battle based on the random OHW army tables.

Battle One OHW Scenario One  Pitched Battle   This battle sets the scene of the campaign with the winner having the initiative as the attacker in the following battle. 

Battle Two OHW Scenario 11  Surprise attack

The winner of Battle One becomes the attacker here

If attacker wins go to Battle Three B

If defender wins go to Battle Three A

Battle Three A Scenario 18 Counter attack

If the defender wins Battle Two they counter attack.

Battle Three B Scenario 15  Fortified Defence

If the defender loses Battle two they are on the ropes and make a final stand. The attacker needs to win this battle to win the campaign.

The Battle

Note that only the hills are the only terrain that impacts the game. The rest is just decoration to make the battlefield a little less sterile. The edges of the battlefield are the woods on the left and the river on the right.

The Alliance forces are in the foreground and the French are in the distance.

The Alliance rolled up 3 infantry units, 2 skirmishers and 1 artillery.

The French rolled up 4 infantry, 1 cavalry and 1 artillery giving them a more powerful force.

I have made a short video (not using AI so pretty rubbish 😂) that shows the battle with all its glory and includes sound effects so make sure to turn your sound on and up to 11  😁

Hopefully it works but I wont be surprised if it doesn't  😂

Here are some close ups of the action as the video is pretty ordinary.

Setup with the Alliance in the foreground and the French in the distance.

End of turn 1. Both sides advance and French artillery gets first blood on some skirmishers

End of turn 2. Both sides' left wings move to contact. The Alliance artillery gets some hits on some French infantry

End of turn 3. Fire fights erupt across the battlefield. The French cavalry attack but are repulsed.

End of turn 4. More firefights across the battlefield.

End of turn 5. On the alliance right after taking a beating the Alliance skirmishers retreat  from contact. Only one French unit follows up as the other fails its activation roll. On the alliance left one alliance infantry unit is destroyed but casualties are mounting in the French units.

End of turn 6. From the Alliance left, another alliance infantry unit is destroyed but so is the French cavalry. On the right one skirmisher is destroyed and the French infantry successfully move forward.

End of turn 7. More firefights with units on both sides getting close to destruction.

End of turn 8. One French and one Alliance infantry unit are destroyed. The Alliance skirmishers run behind the hill to avoid near certain destruction. With only two units left the Alliance must vacate the field to the French who claim victory of King Louie the X. 

So fun to play with the newishly painted figures and on to the next battle.

Thanks for reading.

Perfect Painting Procrastination Plan

 Per my last post, I have 450 or so Napoleonic French figures to paint. So obviously I need to get straight on to that and start painting. But just as obviously as this is too big a job to do and so I must find something easier to do to put it off for a little while but still feel productive.

My purchases earlier in the year included some eight different Sci Fi infantry packs that I was going to test paint and this is the perfect excuse to do something without actually being very productive. So here they are with their Pendraken name and imagined paint scheme. All painted with contrast paints.

Each has been painted with an idea of a different force in mind, taken from various movies or genres.

Probably not that interesting to anyone but a useful resource for me 😁

Theocracy Regular Infantry .... Painted as dystopian soldiers somewhere in the wastes. The lighter brown scheme is good the darker one not so much.

Collective Power Infantry... Painted as a regular force for a dystopian nightmare. Both the grey and green look OK, although the grey is probably a better fit for the theme.

Collective Regular Infantry... More dystopian forces. Both come up OK with the brown for the waste lands and the grey for the cities.

Free States Regular Infantry... Finally something different. Movie themes. Aliens and Starship Soldiers, In green they look good for the marines in Aliens and in grey OK for the marines in Starship Troopers

Emperical Regular Infantry .... Tried to paint them for advanced Prussian and British VSF, but not a good result and better just using my existing forces.

Corporate Regular Infantry.... a bit of a China theme here. In grey it looks ok but the red is not great.

Emperical Power Infantry.... painted for star wars proxies, the black is not good as any detail is lost,  but the white comes off ok.

Griffon Regular Infantry... more potential star wars infantry in white are good, not so sure about the grey for starship troopers although some detail comes out clearer.

Matching the cards to the Pendraken names.

Anyway a useful bit of time spent and gives me something to think about as I work through the French Napoleonic hordes 😂

What have I done!

 As usual, an epic plan finally comes to realisation, and I have to confront the enormity of my decision. 

I decided that I needed to build armies for the  Napoleonic period. The small Dutch army has already been completed and obviously I need a much larger French army to beat them plus the purchased British army.

You plan an army or a new period and it is all fun and games until you have the figures ready for painting and you realise the job you have ahead of you.

So here it is:

300 Line Infantry        10 units of 30

55 Skirmishers              5 units of 11

60 Cavalry                    4 units of 15

9 Guns with 36 crew.

5 Command stands.

Optimistically, based on my speedy painting of the League of Augsburg armies, this should only take three months, give or take a year 🤣

One day I will think about it before I place the order, but not yet!

It is a bit like having children. "We are going to have so much fun playing with them." 

Somewhere and sometime there must be someone who knows what they are doing, it is NOT me. 😂

Expect to see a whole lot of poorly painted French Napoleonic's on the blog for the next six months.

Nemo and the Nautilus

 Another random army to add to the completed projects list. Nemo and the Nautilus and his soldiers.

Inspired by the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen's depiction of Nemo I decided to add Nemo and his force to my VSF collection.

As detailed in my post on the "Anti-Colonial Camel Corp or Sudan Dervish Army" I received a double delivery of a Pendraken order that Leon of Pendraken kindly suggested I keep. This doubled my Nemo inspired army, which is a good thing I thought but maybe not on reflection.

Here is the inspiration for the army.

Nemo and crew

Nautilus and equipment

 I have created the following army from my purchase.

Five line infantry units supported by five skirmisher units. All based as my other VSF armies.
Four armoured cars, two command units and the Nautilus.

Nemo command unit

Skirmisher support unit

Out of focus line units - not much better in focus I am afraid.

Armoured cars and slightly better shot of the line units

Nautilus - protected cruiser

Close up with Nemo on the bridge

Well, not particularly interesting. I used contrast paints for the army and the deck of the Nautilus.

I have to admit that my purchase of these was not well considered. The army is quite boring only having three elements as I did not buy any artillery or cavalry. A defect partially corrected by the armoured cars. I think it will be playable  but I really have to think more carefully in future about my purchases. Having retired I do have more time to plan my army purchases and hopefully I will not make the same error again. Although I am still considering the wisdom of the Chinese VSF army I purchased earlier this year and thinking I need some troops more recognizably Chinese than the 1905 Japanese army I purchased as proxies. 

I am also annoyed with my purchase of the ship. I have to stop buying these types of models as they are rarely, if ever, used, and cost me money and time assembling and then painting them.

Figures from Pendraken.

237 figures or vehicles painted

1 Large model completed. This is actually a Protected Cruiser built by the Chinese after the first Sino-Japanese war. It is 1/144th scale so perfect for 10mm figures and a lot cheaper than the Nautilus submarine that is available in the same scale. Also probably slightly more useful.

A good reduction in the unpainted lead mountain but a somewhat unsatisfying result. I do hope I get some use out of them.

Next up, I am not sure. I may return to posting once every two weeks.

Copenhagen Denmark

  In early May I went on an adventure to Stockholm and Copenhagen. Below are a very abbreviated selection of the photos I took in Copenhagen that I thought maybe of interest to my readers.

Copenhagen is a lovely city and very easy to walk around. Lots of wonderful buildings and streets and different from my native Sydney. I stayed in a 100 year old hotel near the main railway with lots if period touches including a rotary hotel phone.

So, what do you think this is? I saw it an immediately thought the "best civil war everrrr.... ACW". But no, it is Generallieutenant Krogh in 1850 fighting the Prussians (I think)

The following photos are from the Danish War Museum located in an old arsenal building.

Cannon from the middle ages. From the following photos I think it is apparent that the Danish military are hoarders. Which is great for us 😂

They would make small models of ships in scale and these would be used by the dockyard builders to make the ships as many could not read.

In 1658 Denmark-Norway was once again (their words)attacked by Swedish king Karl X Gustav who brought an army of 10,000 men and besieged Copenhagen. After six months with supplies running low the Danish sent a fleet of 35 ships to break the blockade and siege and deliver supplies and reinforcements. The Danish broke through and delivered the supplies and four months later, after a failed assault the Swedes withdrew. 

The Swedes seemed to get all their anger out during the 17th Century   😂

Diorama of the battle 

Close up. 

A model of the ship "Dronning Julianne Maria" to assist its construction in 1752 but unusually it can be disassembled to show the various decks.

After being bombed by the British in 1801 and 1809 (I think) the Danes created these bombard ships that would be able to operate in the calm waters around Copenhagen. Here is one British ship fighting them off. Not sure how it would have worked if there was a fleet of British ships.

And now for something completely unexpected.

The Danes would request example uniforms from different militaries to help them design their own. The above one is from the USA and according to the note is the only existing complete set of USA Infantry and Cavalry uniforms from 1860.

Close up with my usual abysmal photo skills

In addition to the ship models they also kept models of guns and artillery.

Losing your standard is the worst thing that could occur to any Regiment. Losing it on the battlefield was dreadful, your line was crushed, your square was broken. But the most embarrassing way to lose your standard was to leave it behind in the hotel when you leave the country.  The Eagle of the Franco-Spanish Auxiliary Corp left behind when they departed Copenhagen in 1806.

How the Vikings kept their shields on the sides of their ships. A thin strip of wood creating a slot to hold the shield. From the Viking ships recovered at Roskilde, the early capital of the Vikings, which is a bugger to get to from the sea, so they were nice and safe from any raiding parties... hypocrites!

Random display of ceramic toy British soldiers in India.

Copenhagen is generally low rise but has a couple of very high church towers, all requiring lots of walking up.

This one is the Rundetaarn.... aka The Round Tower.

View from the top. You can see the bridge to Sweden and also another very tall church tower, no not that one with the clock, the one with the ball on top.

So I went up this one too. 400 steps, about 100 on the outside. It was cold, very narrow staircase, wobbled a little in the wind, but the view was great.

In the never ending discussion of whether or not unpainted miniatures are allowed I have never heard of what should happen if your opponent is the Prince and his mini's are made out of gold with the occasional gem stone for highlights.

Prince Frederik V's mini collection of Africans and Romans. 

African camels

Spears?

Archers and Romans

Command group with baby elephants

Just when you thought you had the perfect model ship someone comes along with their model Frigate "Norske Love" that fought for Christian IV in the Torstensson war of 1643-1645 made out of ivory with cannons and details in silver. Pity they didn't paint it though 🤣

Well a trip to Copenhagen is not done until you visit the little mermaid. Unfortunately the little mermaid is a little disappointing. Fortunately, close by is the Kastellet which is a well preserved Vauban fortress, still a military base but you can wander around the walls. First one I had seen in the flesh.

Another view. Great to walk around, certainly got the step count up.

Well I hope it was all mildly interesting. I had a great time there and can definitely recommend it as a destination. Expensive to go out for dinner or drinks but otherwise no different to what I would pay in Sydney. Plenty of options if you don't want to pay too much.