Up, up and away. 28mm French Rev balloon.

 This French Revolutionary collection has been ongoing for twenty five years or so, no Eureka, Warlord or as they are now Skytrex figures when I began, only 1800 -1807 bicorn Old Glory and some Foundry. Not perfect but you had to make do. As you can see from the link to the other posts of the French Revolutionary collection Here it consists of many figures from different manufacturers but from day one I wanted a balloon. The paintings of these battles sometimes showed these fantastic, colourful observation platforms lording it over the battlefield and I wanted one. Twenty five years later I got my act together and scratch built the thing.

At first I thought there must be someone out there who produces and sells a balloon from this period but nothing seemed to match what I wanted. Given that most people who peruse this blog know fine well that I ain't no great shakes at modelling it wasn't looking good but I am I have to say quite pleased with the result.

The balloon itself is a polystyrene craft ball sealed and painted, my wife suggested the black hair net! The basket is made from card with garden string weaved in between the upright struts and the various ropes are wires for support. Figures and flags added and there you go.

It's going to take some very careful packing to allow me to transport it to the club when I get round to putting a game on though!

Dave.

Wagons ho!

 Quite a few of the current rulesets require wagons etc to be represented on the table top to show encampment areas, ammunition markers etc so I thought that I'd better paint a few up for my 10mm Napoleonic armies. I already have a number of ammunition wagons from Majister Militon and iI figured just get some more but as I'm sure the reader is aware they are no longer trading. Such a shame as they produced a large range of figures in small bags, I love Pendraken but if I need ten Mamalukes or whatever I don't want to purchase a hundred of the bloody things and that's where MM came in. I do hope some other company purchases the molds and they get out there again.

I digress, no limbers from MM so I tried online resin castings. Found just what I wanted, an ammunition limber, a supply wagon and an ambulance in Epic scale. fantastice casting, the bits fit together perfectly to build brilliant models but as I'm sure you have guessed Epic does not fit in with either 10mm or 15mm figures, there're 12mm and it just didn't look right. No complaints from me it said Epic and that's what I got, I still enjoyed making and painting them but it's onto EBay they have gone.

As always keep them or not I do like to record what I have painted so here's the pictures.

Lets see how much I get.

Dave.

15mm Bloody Big Battles, Solferino 1859.

 I could have done this AAR in two or three posts but if I'm reading something I prefer to read it sequentially, so if this is a bit long then sorry but here goes.

Solferino was fought in what is now northern Italy between the forces of Austria on one side and France/Sardinians on the other in 1859. Have a look on the wikipedia page Here for a detailed read of the battle itself. Neal and I refought the encounter over a number of evenings using the Bloody Big Battles rules set, the only one which could possibly allow the battle to be refought on my 7' x 4' table. A great set of rules for this period my only issue is that for a historical encounter it is very difficult to recreate the battle field accurately and still have the aesthetics  looking good so one must compromise somewhat unless a bespoke table is made to show every fold of ground and every village etc. It looks ok though and does the job.

A note on the photographs, the house models represent larger villages with a +2 modifier for the defender, the ones with brighter red roofs are objectives. The rectangular 'fields' are smaller villages and their surrounding fields which offer a +1 to the defence. The hills around S. Martino and Pozzolengo are 'steep', while the river Redone is impassable other than at the bridges. Red card represents the various roads in the area.

Red counters on units show veteran status while yellow and green show that a unit is classed as raw and fragile (having been mauled at the battle of Magenta previously). A slightly larger dk blue counter denotes that the unit is musket armed. Most others were armed with muzzle loading rifles, the Austrian and Sardinians had smoothbore artillery while the French were equipped with rifled artillery.

The battle would be eight turns long at which point a die roll of 1-3 ends the game because of a thunderstorm, a 4-6 extends it for one more turn. Both sides must capture/hold the red village roofed objectives.

On the Austrian right Benedek's VIII corp occupying Pozzolengo village and steep hill with the Sardinians about to occupy San Martino.

The center of the Austrian position with V corps occupying Castello and I corps about to move up in support.

The vast bulk of the Austrian army moves forward to occupy the villages and surrounding flat plain on the left.

The French 1st and 2nd corps move along the high ground in the center with the aim of taking Castello, Solferino and splitting the Austrians in two.

Sardinian infantry, the white die denotes which turn the division will arrive on the table edge.

The French Imperial Guard in reserve in the the French center.

An overall view as the first troops come into contact.

As the French commander I was very wary of the Austrian massed batteries supporting their center/left!

A first assault by the Guard infantry was thrown back from Castello, tell the truth the Guard did not perform particularly well today.

The Sardinian troops occupied the objective of S. Martino unchallenged, Benedeck seemed content to cover the Austrian right.

Three corps of Austrians and those bloody guns.

Massed Austrian batteries.

The French Guard repulsed but two Austrian batteries forced to withdraw with one damaged

The stand off on the Austrian right continues while the other Sardinian divisions arrive.

Two Sardinian divisions occupy the 'V' of the river Redone to prevent the Austrians from reinforcing their hard pressed center.

The remains of the Austrian V corps has been thrown out of Castello but one division of the I corps grimley hangs on in Solferino, the Guard again failing to dislodge them.

The French are being hammered by those damned guns!

Another view of the field, the French left holding, the center maybe about to break through while their right is taking a pasting.

Grim fighting in the center, will there be time for that breakthrough?

Not much left of the French 4th corps.

Remains of the Austrian I corps cannot withdraw as that will allow the Sardinian division to march over the bridge.

An advance by the Sardinians at the very end?

The heroic I corp division finally thrown out of Solferino.

Austrian I corp threatened on their left and right.

The Austrians were still very strong on their left.

The Austrian center is disintegrating, one more turn to achieve that breakthrough but thunder clouds are gathering.

View at the end of the game.

All wide open for the French to break through and exploit splitting the Austrian army in two but rolling a 3 on a die means no extra turn so the game ends in a draw with both sides holding two red roofed villages each. Foiled again by the weather! 

A cracking game, Neal and I thoroughly enjoyed it so much we're moving BBB into the Napoleonic period.

10mm Ancient Germans

 I generally find painting any non-uniformed troops a struggle so wading my way through these lads did take a bit of time. There are enough to constitute a allied force within the Roman armies but I think I will have to paint up the same number again to fight them as a stand alone army. I have a few archer and cavalry units to add but they will  to wait a bit for my eyesight to recover!

All figures Steve Barber

Something less taxing next time.

Dave.

Terrain - Grrrr

 I may just have mentioned this before but I hate doing terrain, I'm not particularly good at it and find it all a bit of a chore. However that said these hills were necessary and turned out not too bad, learning on the job as I was. The hills I had were too small, light and each one was just placed on top of the other so any bumping would knock the figures over so I was forced into it.

I'm not going into detail as to how they were constructed as everyone has their own methods and there are plenty of videos out there but here's the pictures with 28mm figures for scale:

Back to figure painting thank goodness!

Dave.