Katzbach 20.9.13

My nephew David had last week off and with me still unable to get on my feet properly we organised a game for Friday. If you follow my blog regularly you will know I am working towards the Katzbach 1813 order of battle so we decided to give the scenario a go. Straight up I'll let you know there are a lot of pics and they are not great with only a couple of close ups as I messed up my settings. However hopefully the pics I took will give you an idea of how we got on.

  

The set up: I laid down the terrain the evening before with the actual Katzbach river just off table to the right of the trees (I need a bigger table). My objectives for the day were to either break through to the bridge and hold the area till the end of the game or to break 3 French brigades. David's objective was very simple, just do as much damage to my units as possible and stop me reaching my goals by games end.

David's newly finished French light battalion. That's 2 leger battalions he has now finished, good man!

  

And David also took charge of my newly finished French foot battery. There was a lot of recently finished lead on the table so the finger of fate was pointing all around

   

View down the barrel of the guns at my advancing Prussians. Unfortunately with such a small table it didn't give David much of a chance to knock many casualties off the lead columns before they reached the guns.

     

I very quickly had a large portion of my force on the move.

   

Not to much thinking on my part as I really only had 1 option, 'forward'. I already knew I had more troops coming so I had to make space for them. 

  

David appeared to struggle with his deployment area and actually held up his reinforcements till he had more space to manoeuvre however it didn't help matters that he forgot to move over his CinC to give the new brigade an order. We had a crazy start to the game when David frustrated with his deployment decided in a split second to roll for a brigade initiative and rolled a double 1. This meant that his brigade sitting on a hold order at the tables edge would have retired off the table! We had a good laugh about it and decided to forget about it and move on.

  

I tried to take full advantage of David's early deployment as I knew he would soon have plenty of troops coming into the battle. 

  

With a rush of blood I charged 2 battalions head long into the guns and David again rolled incredibly low, only faltering 1 battalion and the other battalion charged home smashing the gun crews (1st newly painted unit lifted from the table!).

   

With an initial advantage gained I pushed my troops forward with cavalry support. However out of shot David countered my assault and capture of the guns by riding down the unformed victorious battalion cutting and slashing at them as they ran from the field and forcing brigade and morale rolls that I luckily passed. 

     

More cavalry coming over to help getting targeted on the way.
  

Another strange 1, David left his front brigade in line within cavalry range and not enough time/distance to for square and the brigade was broken?!? He now had plenty of room for his reinforcements!

David finally got his cavalry off support orders and onto assault! 

   

By turn 6 my Russian battalions entered the game however being 2nd line I decided to keep them as security on the flank as things were going well over on the left. You can also see my 2 kurassier regiments standing in as Silesian landwehr and East Prussian cavalry regiments (I kept them at a distance holding the flank to). 

You can see things are starting to heat up, the cavalry battle in the centre was great fun push backs and horses blown, returning to own lines and then going back in for more when reformed.
   

David doesn't have any French lancers or chasseurs painted so suitable stand-ins were found.

Yet another newly painted unit about to leave the table, the Brandenburg uhlans having taken a few casualties on the way to the fight eventually routed however the West Prussian dragoons stood their ground all day.

David sent his 2 elite chasseurs regiments (more stand ins), to harass my infantry however he had taken so long to get them into the action that I had set up quite a line of artillery fire. I also had a go at 1 of the advancing cavalry regiments with my Silesian landwehr cavalry who were on engage orders. The chasseurs turned to meet their charge and my cavalry stopped dead in their tracks and were smashed, with the chasseurs having enough distance to catch them in flight . . . they didn't stand a chance!
  

However on the left flank my troops were pressing David's battalions hard with some lucky, lucky dice rolls. There was plenty of opportunities to stop them but still they pushed on. My veteran West Prussians fusiliers standing in as East Prussians 

Everything was on the table now. 

David had his final brigade at the edge of the table and again he had moved his CinC outwith 30 and failed the order change so went for the brigade general order change and rolled double 1 again!!! This time I couldn't let it pass, 2 brigades broken.

And they were dressed as the old guard as well!!!

Eventually I broke through to the bridge

The Brandenburg hussars holding their own on the day.

The bridge was secure but David still had some cavalry of a reasonable quality around if not bloodied.

David's right flank finally gave way.
    

The last fight of the day: We had been fighting for maybe 11 hours with breaks for dinner and snacks, it was decided if David won this cavalry battle, beating the only really useful allied cavalry left on the table we would say that there was a chance of a draw, and if he lost it then it would be a Prussian victory.
 David rolled low, I rolled high and the allies won the day!
   

A brilliant day of gaming and we both learnt loads. We no doubt made loads of mistakes but we both agreed it flowed really well and we worked through any areas we were unsure of. We planned to play FOW the following day but were to knackered so relaxed looking though all our stuff and making plans.
More painting to follow . . .

. . . Super, Fantastic, Napoleonic Fun!!!

Collection So Far (3)

In a few days it will be the anniversary of my 1st post on this blog (19th Sept 2009) and so I thought it would be a good idea to show you what I've done in those 4 years. This is all the Napoleonic figures I've painted save a few battalions my brother has and my Minifigs Prussians that I completely forgot to photograph again. I know it isn't a huge amount of figures compared to what a lot of wargamers can paint each year however I'm happy with them.
  

1st up a long shot across the whole lot
    

This is how my Prussian cavalry are looking at the moment. 6 regiments of cavalry (2 heavy, 2 medium, 2 light). I have 4 more I plan to do as well as some spares I may add to as well as command stands.
   

A wee cut away shot of the kurassiers, dragoons and uhlans.

And another close up (I hope you don't mind as the dragoons are my favourite).
    

Von Blucher leading the troops
  

The foot soldiers: I have 16  battalions in all of different types (plus a jager battalion). I need to work on landwehr and finish off the battalions from Darren.
  

A few commands, I've done pretty well with commands lately but have a couple more for the foot I started this evening. 1 converted Austrian I'm not 100% on yet as the Austrian AB appear a little smaller than the other nations?
  

I also need to do some more volunteer jagers.
  

Artillery, I really like the AB Prussian artillery and have 2 more batteries to do.
  

My Russians, I have been getting an itch to jump back to my Russians lately.
  

I have 12 battalions finished and a good few more to do.
  

My Russian cavalry is really weak. I've a few regiments to paint up but the 30 man regiments take so long.
  

My tiny Austrians, Saxons, French and Bavarians
  

I started the Austrians when our buddy Cameron wanted a hand out but he has since disappeared up north working. I would definitely like an Austrian force but it will be a good bit down the line.
  

The Saxons came to a standstill when I realised how many French my brother and nephew were doing so I needed to get my finger out with the Prussians and Russians. I hope to return to them pretty soon.
  

Plus my Bavarians and French. I would like to add a nice force of each to my collection over the next couple of years. I also would love to do Wurtemburgers and Poles but there just isn't enough hours to paint everything . . .

Thanks to everyone who follows this blog and leaves a comment. I've found sharing our hobby has had a very positive effect on my output and helped with ideas.

My conversations with Von Blucher continue to help me keep on track at times when I become a wee bit lazy and Craig's Prussians have also given me a boost when I needed it. I've picked up AB figures from people at very fair prices that have helped me with my collection (Darren, Neil, Von Blucher and Simon). I very much appreciate that!!!

Anyway I hope you have found some of my posts interesting and fingers crossed that I can continue to add to my collection over the next year or 2. Very happy wargaming.

Best regards
Paul

French Artillery 9.9.13

As you will know if you've been following my blog lately I have been mostly concentrating on late war allied armies as my brother and nephew are meant to be working on the French. Anyway I burned myself out on Prussians this past couple of months so I have been messing around killing time cleaning up the odd unit while waiting for my painting flow to return. 

    

Well a few years back my wife wasn't working and despite myself working horrible, horrible extra hours I didn't have a huge amount of spare cash to buy unpainted armies from Fighting 15's. So I was always on the look out for a bargain (eBay lots with 'out of focus' pics and the odd low priced 'buy it now' item etc). In the end I picked up quite a few batches of heavily painted AB figures. Some I thought I could save but most that I felt were destined for a swim in the green. 

   

In amongst these lots was a number of French artillery figures poorly based with sand up their legs plus the flash left on and very roughly painted with a gloss dark blue finish. Well last week I took the notion to get stuck into them, I pulled them off the bases then cleaned off the flash and sand and tried my best to take the colours to an even base coat before mounting them on bases (I felt if I could get them on the bases there would be a better chance of me finishing them!).

   

Then I planned on what paints to highlight with and really went to town with them. I had no idea how the uniform highlight would look until I matt varnished them. I was amazed how well they came up but I did spend an awful lot of time on them. I have 2 batteries based up but stopped short of doing the 2nd at the moment as the 1st was a killer!

    

So now I have a new French battery to add to my collection and I'm chuffed how they turned out. The crew men may be out of position around the guns as I haven't looked at this for years, I did have a good search online but couldn't find the info I needed so they will just have to do.
   
Out of all the figures I picked up I have 2 foot batteries as well as a 3 gun guard horse battery (that may need to go swimming in simple green?), as well as 2 guard foot batteries. The guns all worked out across the batteries but I'm not sure if some are from the original battle honours guns. I picked up all the howitzers later from Fighting 15's to complete the batteries.

   

This is how far I got with my Silesian landwehr cavalry before I hit the wall.

I'll get to them at some point . . .

I would like to add I am not being critical of whoever painted the figures originally. Everyone does their troops to the standard they are happy with and what they can manage with their budget and time and that's cool with me. I knew what I was getting and was very happy with what I got for the price they sold them to me at as it was below the unpainted cost of AB figures and I very much appreciate that!

Anyways I'm not sure when my next unit will be finished as I will need to learn to walk again now and hopefully soonwill  be back to work.

Happy wargaming!

Prussian Command 5.9.13

Hello just a wee post today, I wanted to express my Sympathy to the family and friends of Don Featherstone who passed away recently. My 1st knowledge of wargaming was from 1 of his books my older brother David owned and so although I never met Mr Featherstone he has had a direct influence on my brother, nephew and myself taking part in our hobby and the many, many hours of enjoyment we have gained from painting and playing with our wee men. He was a real giant of wargaming and it's very sad to hear of his passing. . . 

I hope nobody minded me posting my latest figures in this post as I just read about Mr Featherstones passing on TMP when I was finishing editing my post and felt I should add a note of my thoughts, I really hope it isn't  seen as any disrespect?

 I had a little break from painting and I thought it was painters block but it thankfully turned out to be Prussian painting block! These are the last Prussian figures I managed to finish before I had a nice wee jump over to another nationality. . . to be continued!

  

  These 2 are my latest addition of commanders to my Prussian army and are converted from the AB command figures available. The Landwehr officer is a straight head swap of a command figure with landwehr head pinned in place and cleaned up with some green stuff added. The General has had his right arm raised and eye glass added and has a long coat made from green stuff. He also has had a waterproof cover added over his cap with pro create.

     

As I am concentrating on the Katzbach OOB that has a load of Silesian landwehr in it I thought it only right that at least 1 brigade command had a landwehr officer accompanying a commander. Again it is pretty hard to see my shading on the horses.

  

I'm not sure if you would have a lowly landwehr officer getting instructions from a general direct? However I've thought up a wee back story: Perhaps the officer is well known to the general and has gained his admiration in many a tight situation through 1813-14? There could even be a family link with the generals father once commanding the regiment the old gentleman served in as a young officer? Who knows however there is definitely a good deal of trust between the 2 men!

  

The start of my Silesians!

  

and my Prussian command bases so far . . .

Thanks to everyone who has continued to follow my blog and I hope it brings you some enjoyment, also thanks to the guys who took the time to check out my buddy Jamie's blog!!!

Soon I'll hopefully be back to work as my boot is due off next Wednesday, walking is still difficult but fingers crossed in time I'll be fully active again?

  

Happy wargaming!!!