From My Side of the Table… Lion Rampant War of the Roses.

Or…. The Perils of Beryl and her Bucket of Message… 😳

Greetings…

The youngsters and I recently played another game of War of the Roses using Lion Rampant…

The scenario we chose was the Fugitive…. Who remembers the 1963 T.V. series.?

Israel and I were the ‘Rescuers’… While Matt and Alessandro were the all out villains.

My brave boys prepare themselves for battle… Looking glorious.

The opposing forces face each other off…. Our Fugitive was hidden in one of the terrain pieces set up across the middle-ish of the table…

A nice view of our men arrayed along the battlefield… Very pretty… Wouldn’t you say. 😀

I make a dash towards the Manor House… This was probably the fastest I moved all game… And of course there was no one there… I mean why would the be… It was me rolling the dice 🤣.

I also sent some archers over to dissuade Alessandro from coming any closer… Of course it didn’t work…  My men just wandered at a leisurely pace picking flowers and taking in the fine weather… Veteran Archers… I think not Me’Lord.😡

Israel skipped forward into the woods in front of him and scooped up the Fugitive…

She was carrying a bucket with something ‘Important’ in it… It smelt funny… So I didn’t ask.

While my men were in a good position in the Manor House I thought they could take advantage of their tactically superior position and shoot some arrows at Matt’s men as they crossed the river… They didn’t!

I think they got distracted by the wine cellar… Well not the cellar… Which is well known in the area for being very clean and dry… Just the contents 🍷🍷🍷

Before… 

Glory awaits me…

After…

Waiting for a bus…🤣

I’m still alive… Myself and the Standard Bearer were removed as they were the ‘two’ figure stand… Shame and fear of being laughed at may also have been a factor….

Matt’s men cross the river and start to chase down Israel and the Fugitive…I think we christened her Beryl 

My men?….. Still trying to string their bows/stand up/get out the well… Who knows.

Oh!…Look!… It’s my other ‘Veteran’ Archers…

“ Turn around you idiots… They are behind you!… And you missed the party in the Manor… Not that it’s done me any good.🙄

The party animals actually shot at something… Not sure what it was though…

My Billmen are waiting to get stabby…

That’s me in that field… A man of reduced circumstances one might say… And that yellow dot isn’t Wee… 

It’s a Battered Marker….. 

Okay….It’s Wee 😳.

Israel’s men surround Beryl and her ‘message’ in a bucket… Protecting her from the unwarranted advances of Matt’s archers…

Sigh!…

No they are not hitting anyone/thing…

My men hold on bravely to the Wine Cellar/Manor House buying time for me to… Head off to an important Blue Sky Thinking Conference in London…

We still have London?

I wasn’t bribed…

Honest….

Israel, Beryl and her Bucket of Message… Leave the field of battle.

A Victory… Hurrah!…

Of course if I hadn’t had the raw courage to put myself forwards as a massive speed bump for the Matt and Alessandro’s villainous men we may not have gained this glorious victory and who knows what might have happened to poor old Beryl and her Bucket of Message.. Blah! Blah! Blah!

What a top game … We had so much fun and laughed a lot… 

Just what you need at the end of a busy day/week…

Here’s to the next one…

All the best.  Aly

Seven Years Old…

Seven years old… 

It still seems like yesterday that I decided to start Blogging…

This year seems to have flown past…

I reckon that probably has to do with the constant upheaval of life and building work… As I type this I am waiting for someone to come and look at my drains ( Rock and Roll or what) and then organise getting a door fitted before the decorators come in for three days…

This has certainly affected my painting… pretty much everything is now in boxes so they can be moved easily when I get the wargames room fixed up… this will be mostly cosmetic unlike the cellar which was completely ‘tanked’ out.

Next door are having a big extension added to their house… so I am now getting their dust as well as my own 🙄.

I have had a reasonable number of games… not as many as I would have liked… but all were jolly good fun…

The youngsters at work have organised a monthly wargames evening… at the moment we are playing Lion Rampant War of the Roses but there are plans afoot to do other things.

So far I have been to Hammerhead, Partizan and the Wild Geese Weekend all good fun…

BritCon is coming up soon and I have the Other Partizan to look forward to…

Did I complete/start any of the projects my butterfly was fluttering over?… Sort of. 😁

The Crimean Russians are all rebased…

I will make a start on the British later in the year…

That little 1836 project is still ticking away in the background…

I’ve actually made some new torsos and heads for my Shiny Toy Soldier range… hopefully I will get some stuff in a mould sooner rather than later.

The ‘ yes I know I’m mad’ 54mm project has moved forward a bit… I have some more figures cleaned up and primed.

Shiny Napoleonics continue to move steadily on… I have enough for a game but not all the terrain… there are trees and buildings but no hills, rivers or roads.

Everything else is keeping its head down and avoiding the dust…

So what new trouble has my butterfly got me into?

Remember this picture…

It may have lead to something Pyrrhic…

I really couldn’t resist these lovely Aventine Miniatures…

This will be a slow one for the moment… 

My sarcoidosis related eye problems have meant that while I’ve been cleaning up and priming figures…and buildings… I have not been doing a huge amount of painting…but things are improving so hopefully the output will start to increase…

So… What else for the future?

Once the cellar is finished it will become my work room… I shall do most of my painting and terrain making down there…

The Wargames room will be next… As soon as that is finished the toys will all be put back on the shelves and hopefully a lot more gaming will happen. 

I also have a hankering to do something from the Waterloo/100days campaign… I’m not sure what yet but something is taking shape in the back of my butterfly brain…🦋🦋🦋

Hopefully when I post on my next Blog Birthday I will be on the verge of retiring… my plans are to reduce my working hours slowly then take the plunge in 12 months or so.

After that… Sitting in my renovated house, painting toy soldiers, reading books, playing games, making miniatures for myself and doing the odd bit of freelance….

Thank you to everyone who has followed me and given me encouragement and support in all my butterfly madness…

All the best.   Aly

From My Side of the Table… 1672.

Greetings…

After work last Thursday I popped round to Alan Perry’s house for another game using our friend Nick’s 1672 Franco Dutch collection….

I took the French right…

Nick had the centre…

And Michael the left…

Opposing use were the Dutch and their Mercenaries/Allies…

Rick opposite me…

Alan opposite Nick…

And Epp opposite Michael…

My glorious men make their way onto the Fields of Mars…

As do Nick’s fine men…

Here we see my stunningly slow… but glorious… manoeuvring off the road… That roll of a ‘9’ is not a good thing…

Here we can see Alan’s  troops scurrying into the buildings in front of them as Nick advances gloriously forward…

We re-christened his men ‘House’ Dragoons and ‘House Pike’ because… Let’s be honest… That is where they stayed for the whole battle.

Michael showed everyone how to give the enemy… Epp’s Spanish… A full on volley.

Unfortunately it was just this once… For the rest of the battle I believe he couldn’t have hit a barn door … Even if it fell on him… Sigh!

A flank attack?…

Yes…

But a very slow one…

Nick’s men brace themselves to attack Alan’s now well prepared force…

I told you it was a slow flank attack… So slow that Rick has plenty time to move his cavalry to meet it… and Alan has time to send over some of his ‘spare’ cavalry… I believe there was no room for them in the buildings 🙄

Nick’s Swiss start to take devastating fire from Alan’s dug in troops… So much so that many of them fall to the ground and start to turn into AWI British… We always know when casualties are bad… They change periods….😱

My flank attack developed into a toe to toe cavalry action…But sadly even with assistance from my gun and infantry adding firepower against the flanks of Rick and Alan’s cavalry 

I just didn’t have enough men, horses or good dice to make a difference.

Looking across the field of battle… I could see that Nick had beaten himself to a standstill trying to dislodge Alan from his position and… Well let’s be honest… Michael had run away 🤣.

We called it a day…

What an excellent game … Good company… Pretty Toys and a very nice Pizza ( Which was being delivered just as I arrived… Hurrah!) What more could you ask for.

I didn’t pick up some North Star 1672 figures from Nick and I haven’t cleaned them up and primed them… Honest.

They eye continues to improve… So hopefully some of the various primed figures will now start to get some paint on them…

All the best.  Aly

Shiny Napoleonics… The Thuringian Battalion… Part 1

Greetings…

As a way of avoiding strain on my eye … Which is getting better… I Decided to paint a unit that I can do in easy stages…

So …. The Thuringian Battalion….

This battalion was made up from …

The Gotha Contingent…

The Weimar Contingent…

And The Coburg Contingent…

Each contingent had their own uniforms until 1813 when they all received a simple dark blue uniform with sky blue facings from August to November of that year.

My information came from the very splendid Brigade Uniform Plates…

https://www.brigade-uniform-tafeln.de/en/

I can not begin to recommend these enough they are worth every penny you choose to spend on them…

I must add here… That I do not get royalties 🤣.

I decided to model each continent as a separate six figure stand and then paint the command in the colours of the 1813 uniform…

The first up are The Gotha Continent…

I gave my men uncovered Shakos… I feel I have made the cockade a bit on the large side… But it works okay…

The figures I have used are the current Minifigs NN7 Nassau Infantry Advancing with slightly altered Shakos,Cuffs and the addition of a bayonet scabbard…

I will probably use the same figure for the Weimar and Coburg contingents as it is a simple figure which lends itself to conversion potential…

The tunics are a mix of… Citadel… Kantor Blue and Caledor Sky… 60%-40% approximately.

The Red bits are of course… Citadel… Evil Sunz Scarlet 

Everything was given a wash of Aly’s Brown Liquid then highlighted with the original colours… The lighter colours were then given an extra highlight to pick them out a bit more.

The paints are from…

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Painting-Modelling

The bases are as always…

https://warbases.co.uk/product-category/bases/round-cornered-bases/mdf-rc/

Always a pleasure to paint…

Hopefully the next stand will be sooner rather than later…

All the best   Aly