Ober Emmels

This picture shows the completed village of Ober Emmels which is held by American  engineers. This is the view of the village that the Germans will have as they arrive on table and begin their advance. To the left of the road are destroyed American vehicles, already largely covered in snow.

The Game is based on German attempts to envelop and capture the important town of St Vith, early in the Ardennes operation. In reality there had been little in the way of snowfall at this time, but I really did want to make this a "snow terrain" game. I also wanted to represent the Fuhrer Begleit Brigade (FBB); a curious formation, based on one of the units responsible for guarding Hitler and repeatedly expanded to a powerful brigade sized armoured formation. One of its main weapons was the Jagdpanzer IV L70(a), a high-sided and relatively rare variant (only 278 were produced) of the Jagdpanzer IV L70 tank destroyer. This "Alkett" version mainly saw service on the Eastern front, but a battalion of them formed part of the FBB's panzer regiment in the Ardennes campaign. Raventhorpe's Ready to Roll range had recently released a lovely model and I fancied painting up a few!

The buildings are made from 2mm plasticard with internal floors and removable roofs. The construction style owes almost everything to that doyen of scratch building, Mick Sewell. The terrain boards are constructed from some old TSS modules that I had from years back (I normally use the much denser blueboard, but it seemed a shame to waste them). These are based on 3mm mdf, with card strips to protect the vulnerable edges, before covering with several coats of textured paint and a layer of artificial snow, which gives a nice "glistening" effect. The roads are powdered Tetrion, suitably weathered and painted.

The next few posts will show some of the figures and vehicles, with more shots of the battlefield as it develops.

Ardennes 1944 display game

 At last, I finally have something to post concerning the Ardennes demo game I am putting together for PARTIZAN on September 4. Although things have been very quiet so far as posts are concerned, I haven't been idle. The terrain boards are finally complete and the photo above gives a general idea of the terrain layout. The table is 8' x 5' with a railway embankment running down the right hand side. The German attackers, comprising elements of the Fuhrer Begleit Brigade and 18th Volksgrenadier Division are approaching down the two roads at the top of the picture against a scratch force of American recce and engineer detachments. As the game opens, a hastily assembled Task Force from the 7th Armoured Division is arriving along the road at the bottom of the picture to stem the German advance.

As well as completing the terrain boards, many of the figures and vehicles are also finished, as are some of the drop on terrain pieces, such as buildings and areas of woodland. With only three and a half weeks to go however, there is still a long way to go before the game is ready for its first public outing.

To the left of the road junction, lies the small village of  Ober Emmels; the foremost outpost of the American defences. South of the junction is the more substantial town of Rodt. The area is further broken up by expanses of dense fir woods. Over the next 3 weeks I will hopefully make regular postings which will show the additional features of the game as they are completed. If you are planning to be at the show, by all means drop by and say hello. To be continued....

The Army's Baggage

As Ray seemed interested in the contents of the box (what sharp eyes you have!) in my last post, here is the first of my completed baggage train pieces. What it contains - who can say, but such items do add a touch of colour to any table top scene. The excellent scenario in BLB 1, features a baggage train attempting to escape from a mass of marauding French cavalry, so such pieces can be more than eye candy.

If memory serves, the waggon is from the Perry AWI range, whilst the driver is a Dixon unarmoured pikemen from their Grand Alliance range.

Which way to victory?

Due to being very busy for our huge re-fight of the Battle of Lutzen (1813), showing this weekend at Sheffield Triples, progress on the terrain making has almost ground to a halt over the last few weeks. Once it is over I am going to take some serious time out to get on with some terrain boards and buildings. One of the projects will be the Ardennes "snow terrain" game, which I am hoping to show at Partizan II in September.

In the meantime, here is my most recent League of Augsburg command base, showing a senior French officer, perhaps even Luxembourg himself, asking directions for Neerwinden. The figures are all Foundry, except the mutt, which is of dubious provenance!

As the release of Beneath the Lily Banners 2 draws closer, I am gaining renewed enthusiasm for the period and hope to get a few more units done in the near future. Alas, there is never enough time to do everything that one would like, and whilst the shotgun approach to painting is enjoyable - I have just completed a Sikh Wars command base of all things! - it makes it harder to finish anything off and get it on the table.

More French Light Infantry

It has been longer than I would have hoped since my last post. The delay is mainly due to being very busy indeed on the buildings front. So far, I have completed a nice 25mm farm and some 20mm WWII buildings. Hopefully I can finish off a few odds and ends and get some pictures posted in the next couple of weeks. The results are quite promising.

In the meantime, I have also managed to get a few figures done: Swiss pikemen, Napoleonic Russians and, as the picture shows, the last two battalions of my French 10th Light Infantry Regiment. Hopefully 2011 will see this collection mature quite quickly.

I have also been planning my 20mm WWII project and have settled on an early action from the Ardennes campaign, involving elements of the Fuhrer Begleit Brigade and the U.S. 7th Armoured Division north of St Vith. As I mentioned in my last post, this will involve creating the whole thing from scratch, including terrain boards, drop on terrain such as buildings, woods etc, figures and vehicles. I will post details of this as the project develops.

French Light Infantry

Napoleonic wargaming is probably my first love, having collected and painted the things for more years than I care to count. Strangely enough, in all these years I have never managed to systematically build a collection of my own. I have started many times and with the best of intentions, but they have usually ended up being sold to finance other projects.

The group I wargame with has, for many years used Peter Gilder's rules "In the Grand Manner", but the games have started to become rather predictable, as anything does when you have done it regularly for 25 years. One of our number, Chris Flowers, who has over 16,000 25mm Napoleonic figures and a table to match, persuaded me to get on with a job I have been promising for years; to write a set of fast play Napoleonic rules that would allow games of 2-3,000 figures per side to be played in a reasonable time frame. The first draft is well on the way and should be ready for playtesting in the New Year. One of the reasons for this change of rules is that we are intending to stage a re-fight of Borodino in 2012 at Sheffield Triples and we need to be able to complete the game (around 6,000 figures) in a weekend - a tall order.

Because I still love the period, I decided to make a start on building (and this time keeping) a collection of my own. As I am also eye deep in other periods - of which more anon, this is very much a long term project, but this time I am determined to persevere. Rather than the Gilder style units favoured by Chris - 1:20 figure scale and large battalions of 32-48 figures each, I am making the first and necessary compromise of a 1:25 figure scale and "campaign strength" units of 24 figures for infantry and 16 for cavalry, representing 600 man infantry battalions and 400 man cavalry regiments. Some units will vary from this norm - most Austrian line battalions will be 50% bigger, as will Austrian and Russian light cavalry regiments and French Guard cavalry units. Artillery batteries will be represented on the basis of 1 gunner per actual piece; so a typical 8 gun battery will have 2 guns each with 4 crew, a 6 gun horse battery 2 guns, each with 3 crew on a proportionally narrow frontage.

The unit illustrated above is the 1st battalion of the 10eme legere; the 2nd and 3rd battalions are hot on their heels. The figures are Perry Miniatures (metal) with a GMB flag.

The coming year promises to be a busy one, with over 1,200 figures still to do for Borodino and others for a re-fight of Lutzen that we are planning for next year. I am also hoping to press on with my Grand Alliance, Italian Wars, Carlist Wars and other things. I am also planning a WWII project, from scratch. This will involve making everything from the terrain boards, drop on pieces such as buildings, woods etc, the figures and vehicles. The subject will either be the Ardennes in 1944, or East Prussia in 1945, as I fancy doing a special snow terrain theme.

This is the last post of 2010, but hopefully there will be lots more to come in the New Year. So can I take this opportunity to wish everyone an enjoyable and restful Christmas.

Dragoon Regiment Wartigny

The third and final regiment in my French Dragoon brigade, Regiment Wartigny seems to have served in Flanders before transfering to the Spanish front and later to Italy. Mainly dressed in red like the Regiment La Reine, the yellow facings and trim on the stocking caps offer a nice contrast. As the release of Lily Banners 2 grows ever closer, I have increased the painting tempo considerably, with several new regiments aiming to take the field in the near future.

I have also been busy with other periods, which I hope to include on the blog shortly. These will include The Italians Wars, Arthurian, Late Roman and Napoleonic. I have also got caught up in a plan amongst a couple of mates to start a Carlist Wars collection. Variety is, after all, the spice of life.!! Oh yes, and I also need to dust off and add to my 20mm WW2 collection and sort out my terrain boards and other drop on pieces. 2011 is going to be a very busy year I think.

The main effort however has been directed towards my forthcoming venture into scratchbuilt terrain, particularly buildings. Hopefully there should be a few pictures of completed items before too long. I will be concentrating initially on buildings suitable for 20mm World War 2 and 28mm "horse and musket".