French Napoleonic Conscripts from Airfix French Foreign Legion

I did these a long time ago.  The inspiration came from the wonderful Armies of the Peninsular Wars book (which can be found in my bookshelf that should be at the bottom of the page - although I've reproduced the relevant plate and text as part of this post).  From memory the conversion was just trimming the peak off the cap, adding a cartridge pouch and leaving the rest up to paint.

These are the original Airfix French Foreign Legion – a great robust set. 

A 24 figure strong brigade for Napoleon's Battles, but painted as a standard six company battalion.

The other brigade, deployed in line, but again with one grenadier and one voltigeur stand.

And finally the inspiration.

50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division – Part 2

I was going along fine until I had a disaster with the 6pdr.  I stupidly thought I could soften the plastic and straighten it out.  Duh!  All I achieved was to shrivel it up.  Grrrr

I have a spare, but no, I now have a mini project to scratch build a replacement leg (?) for it.  I had thought of cheating and hiding it under some camouflage netting or something, but I failed to find any inspiring pictures.

One of the Infantry brigades has progressed well and is now ready for flocking.

As is the Machine Gun Battalion.

I also have most of the bits for the rest of the Division.  Tim made a comment in his introduction to his creation of the 50^th: “This is the best of the Matadors in the division - the only one I didn't have to rebuild from near-scrap.”  As you can see scrap has been the main source for my 50^th.

There are at least two RA Field Regiments in there, plus something for the Royal Engineers and part of the LAA Regiment.  I can mash-up a third artillery regiment; it is just the bofors and recon elements I am short of (at the moment).

Eastern part of the Battle of Ligny

This was a hypothetical scenario based on the battle of Ligny 1815.

First up a confession.  I have been pronouncing this name of the battle as “Lig-knee” when, after a comment by Richard, I think it should be “Le-nee”.  A quick attempt with Google provided me with this: http://www.forvo.com/search/ligny

It has an audio of the pronunciation of a person’s name: Jean-Marc Ligny. 

Also via Google was this from www.infoplease.com: “Ligny (lēnyē') village, Namur prov., central Belgium, near Namur. At Ligny, on June 16, 1815, Napoleon I of France defeated the Prussians under Blücher early in the Waterloo campaign.”

Anyway, on with the battle.

The set up was a mix of the Napoleon’s Battles scenario for Ligny and the SPI board game (part of the Napoleon’s Last Battles set).  The SPI set up took preference, but the OB came from the scenario.

The hypothesis was that Napoleon had brought up the 1^st and 6^th Corps which allowed the 4^th Corps to more fully engage the Prussian III Corps.

The objective of the game was to use the town fighting rules in Napoleon’s Battles to hopefully generating some interesting see-saw fighting, which, having just read The Eagles Last Triumph, seemed to be characteristic of the Battle of Ligny.

This first picture shows the initial deployment, the scattered Prussians facing a mass attack from the French.  What enabled the Prussians to concentrate was the presence of Blucher whose command radius critically supplemented that of his Corps commander and meant that within the first hour the Prussians had been able to respond to the French advance.

Blucher had been added to the Prussian forces to balance the points.  In retrospect it might have been more interesting to assume that both forces lacked a top commander (i.e. one with a response rating of 10), or to have upgraded Thielmann to a wing commander (improving his radius).

The second picture is the French assault on the bridge.  This is when things got difficult as the marshy stream proved very difficult to cross in the face of a formed and determined enemy.  The obstacle was 2 inches in width and trying to cross in column by infantry or cavalry (with depths of 2 inches and 4 inches respectively) took multiple turns to get across.  The calculation of the distance to cover was the width of the obstacle plus the depth of the unit with the rough terrain modifier applied.  I must confirm that is how the effect is meant to be determined.

So, after a French initial attack was repulsed the battle degenerated into an artillery duel.   The Prussians got the better of this.  However the French had been able to work their way around the Prussian right flank, which presented the Prussians with the same dilemma in that in order to attack the French flanking force, they had to ford a river.

And so ended the battle.

It was an interesting game because it was quiet different – a battle of patience.  It failed to generate the village fighting I had hoped for.  The French had ignored the Prussian left and the two occupied villages (Boignee and Balatre).  On the Prussian right the French had skirmished (unsuccessfully) before the occupied village (due north of Tongrinnelle) while swinging their cavalry around behind it.   Some exposed Prussians, after putting up a good fight, had run for the forest and refused to budge.  The town did come under fire, but without effect.

The Prussian forces are from my collection and are mainly Essex, but with at least one infantry brigade and some artillery from AB and the Death’s Heads hussars from Old Glory.  The French are from Richard’s collection and Old Glory.  All 15mm.

This was an important game for me as it was the first time I was able to try out some aspects of Napoleon’s Battles that I hope to use in a campaign based on the Waterloo Campaign and using the afore mentioned SPI board game.

Airfix Confederates

Based for Fire and Fury but I never expect them to be used.  I just did it to get them out of the way.  I showed them off as I was rather pleased with them (the Airfix ACW range along with the Wild West sets were always a good set of figures, nice and consistent)  plus for the oddity factor.  Unfortunately some helpful chap gave me a big bag of Airfix ACW figures thinking I wanted more.  Not fair!  That is someone else's plastic mountain.

French Cavalry General

Ooh it took me a long time to finish this chap, but I'm very happy with the result.

From memory this figure was from an Old Glory French Marshalls set.

ACW Rucker

This came with a job lot of painted 15mm ACW figures.  It was a bit worse for wear so I set myself a goal to restore it.  The canvas was taken apart and reset and the overall paint work tarted up.  A driver was added and the whole lot rebased ready to add some novelty to my next Fire and Fury game.

Thanks to the Internet I was able to work out that this wagon was an ambulance called a "rucker".  Here is a link to more information than you could ever hope for about ACW ambulances: http://www.civilwarhome.com/ambulancewagons.htm. 

It was the "most serviceable ambulance wagon used during the latter part of the war ... designed by Brigadier General D. H. Rucker, and built at the Government repair shops at Washington." 

I don't know the manufacturer of this model (yet).

It is possible that the canvas should be glossy black representing oil cloth or rubberised canvas.  The wood could possibly be a bit more green.  All I know is that it is now a serviceable model for the miniature battlefield rescued from the bits box (as distinct to coming off the lead mountain).

50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division - The Start

This is a project I have now commenced.  It has been an idea for a while, but I’m now taking action.  It is mostly rebasing figures that were set up for Command Decision and turning them into a representation of Tyne and Tees for Megablitz.

Why did I choose the 50^th?  Well, it saw some action, it contained units that my dad had mentioned – The Green Howards (Alexandra, Princess of Wale’s Own Yorkshire Regiment) (and in which his dad had served during WW1) and I was born within a mile or two of the river Tees.

The force is not going to be pure Megablitz as it will easily double up for Crossfire and I have decided to base on 30mm squares and multiples thereof.  This also makes them slightly compatible with FOW (not that that is important to me).

More importantly it will allow me a construct in which to build the rear echelon troops, including theatre units like an airfield and hospital.

The figures are Matchbox British Infantry with some Airfix add-ins from various sets.  I particularly like the Commanding Officer (although he was a bugger to photograph).