Monday 30 September 2013

The Battle of Woronzov Road 1855 - A Crimean War Batrep



Some of the Rejects got together last Sunday for a 15mm Crimean War battle, the sides were picked out the hat, Dave and Clint got the Russians while John pulled out the Sardinians and I got the Turkish force!!

The Russian army has just been defeated at the Battle of Chernaya (16th August 1855) 2 days earlier, but the Russian Commander Prince Gorchakov has other ideas and has planned a flank attack on the Allies weakly guarded right flank which ia made up of Sardinian and Turkish units.
These troops were in reserve at the Battle of Chernaya and saw no action on the day, but they now find themselves as the only troops available to stop the Russian 4th Infantry Division plus supporting units from taking Balaclava, just a few miles away thus capturing a vital supply port for the Crimea.
The Game
The Russian army starts the game deployed ready to advance, Sardinian and Turkish forces have formed a weak defensive line, can they hold out or will the Russians gain a victory for Mother Russia.


The Battlefield
The Turks are bottom right, further up the road are the Sardinian force.


The Sardinain Lines


The Turkish Lines of defence.


The Sardinian's line the hill, while the Elite Bersaglieri move forward to skirmish
 with the Russian columns.


Dave's Russian column's advance.


The 37th Don Cossacks


The Don Cossacks were split in two, I headed towards the closest unit to try 
and push it away from my flank.


The Turks move up in line with their medium artillery.


While the Sardinian's move back on the hill.


The 1st Turkish Cavalry regt.


The Sardinian medium gun gives fire and misses. Never mind things can only get better?
Or can they??


Here they come....they moving very quickly??


The Bersaglieri can fire 15' while all the other troops on the table can only fire 9'
This proved our downfall, as we couldn't inflict enough casualties on the Russian's
before they got into melee.


The Turks move their hidden troops up the hill.


While the 2nd Turkish Cavalry also come out of hiding, they both move
 towards the enemy Hussars.


God they close and we've only knocked a few figures off some of the 
columns, both my and John's dice have been for want of a better word........ Hadleyish!!


John is taking heavy casualties on his left flank from a small unit of Russian skirmishers
the 8th Ladoga Jager regt.


The 2nd 1st Turkish Infantry.


The 13th Provisional Sardinian regt


The 11th Kiev Hussars.


 The columns look a little menacing??


And they're in


There were 9 Russian charges in all, the Allies were slaughtered.
We only won 2 melee's and drew 2, the rest went the Russian's way. Once again
our dice roll were very Hadleyish, I'm sure we were using the same dice as that git Lee used 
in his last two games!!


Our only two wins, and that was only because I was doing a Fran and hiding behind a bush!


The 1st Turkish Cavalry and the 12th Ingermannland Hussars charged each other.
I thought I stood a good chance here.......I was wrong, very wrong!!
Clint beat me 3-0, killed my attached Divisional leader and captured the Turkish flag!!
OMG!


The 2nd Turk Cavalry and the Kiev Hussars charged each other, and
 also the small little Don Cossack unit, that had earlier retreated came 
back and also charged the Turks in the rear, Oo er Missus!
We lost again Clint inflicted a staggering 8 casualties!!


Meanwhile John was faring a little better, somehow he managed a draw with the charge on his artillery??


But lost both of these melee's


The remnants of the Turkish Cavalry both rout!


I did however manage to capture two Russian standards with 1 unit at the same time!
Well done to the 1st 2nd regt!


I moved forward with my right flank to try a hold up the Russian advance.


John was getting thrashed over on the left flank, he lost a few more melee's and the
 Russian's cut his army in half. in the left on the hill is a victorious Russian infantry regt. 


Me and John then made a fatal schoolboy error, Dave charged the Bersaglieri at the back 
of the hill, we chose to stand and fire , but we both forgot that if skirmishers
 are contacted by any formed unit they disperse.....shit!
They were taken off table much to our disbelief and obvious noisy cheers and 
jeers from the Russians, (well Dave anyway!!)


My heroic and now favourite unit of Turks the 1st 2nd win their and my second melee of the game,
but it was far too late for any cheer. 


The Turkish Commander, looks on in bewilderment as the allied army
begins to disintegrate. 


More Russian charges and more allied loses, Dave's troops smash John's two
 infantry regt, who both rout.


We decided to call an end to the game there and then, admitting defeat. Postie added up the scores.
 It was a massive 23-6 win for the Russians!!
Me and John both blamed PoorLee, even though he wasn't even in the shed,
he must have done something to the dice, or he was high on paint fumes while painting his porch and he had an out of body experience and came down to Gravesend and jinxed the pair of us!! Its bad enough when 1 player is throwing bad, but impossible if both team members are throwing like a pair of
 TWATS!!
Oh well, when's the next game???


Thursday 26 September 2013

My New Project??





After years of as Fran would put it, "Floggin' a Dead Horse". My days of painting NYW English, Dutch and Allies and Jacobites are over, so onto a new venture I go.
My next period is quite similar, I'm now painting up.................. NYW French!!!!!!

My erstwhile chum Reject Richard has decided to throw in the towel with his NYW army, he wants to concentrate on his 25mm French Revolutionary figures and his 15mm Franco-Prussians. So he offered me first refusal, so bang went all my spending money for SELWG in one fell swoop! I did try and talk him out of selling the collection as he was very close to completion but he'd made his mind up.
The French army consisted of
9 Infantry regts
9 Artillery pieces
10 Squadrons of Horse
3 Squadrons of Dragoons
and 7 Leader bases

Of course I shall be adding to the army, I'm looking to add another 7 Infantry regts, making 4 brigades of 4 regst, another 10ish squadrons of Horse and another 6 Squadrons of Dragoons. In the bag of unpainted lead that came along as part of the deal were loads of dismounted Dragoons, so I'll make up some dismounted regts as extra's as well, which was probably what Richard was going to do in the first place.
I have painted up some bits and bobs for the French already, I'll be posting them as well as a more detailed look at Richard's troops soon (sorry Fran!)

Wednesday 25 September 2013

It's Anne & Chris Pimpin' Time



Like…Yo, its that time of year again, two fellow bloggers want us to Pimp their Ride.
First up we have Anne's Giveaway





Now some have you may have noticed that Anne was a little miffed because yours truly
won the recent Giveaway over on Ian's blog?
I've been accused of using all kinds of cunning trickery in winning Ian's brushes including
Voodoo, Devil Worship and Human Sacrifice!!

So to win's Anne's prizes I'll have to use all my wicked powers, but I'm not sure they'll be enough???

Anne's giving away some really great and generous prizes and but you haven't got long because the prize draw is on the 1st October.
Anne's Givaway is part sponsored by Sci-Fi author Patrick Hatt, you can find his Amazon Writers page 



The second Giveaway is over at Chris’s blog Wargamer’s Odds and Ends
He’s recently hit some large Milestones and wanted to share the love!
I’ve got my eye on the 25mm Sharp and Patrick Harper figure and his scenario book!
So get on over to Chris’ blog and sign up
You’ve got until his Birthday the 7th October!!!










Finally like I’ve already mentioned I seem to have won myself some rather delightful
 looking posh paint brushes from that very kind fellow over at A Blog with No Name, Ian.
So on behalf of myself and all the other bloggers who also
took delight in me winning them I’d like to say
Thank You

PS The cheque’s in the post…….




Thursday 19 September 2013

RP No 144 NYW - Jacobite Militia



Possibly and I do mean possibly my last unit ever for the NYW in Ireland. I've pondering the idea of an Irish Militia unit for quite some time now, and with the hopefully soon to be released Irish Campaign book for Beneath the Lily Banners (come on Barry, I'm waiting!!) coming out soon, they should be of use. This unit unusually for my troops has no name, it represents either a very hastily raised body of men or a very poorly equipped Jacobite Irish unit. 
As you can see the unit is entirely made up of hand weapons with no firearms at all. I was going to make them an all pike unit but as I had a few figures left from my Irish Rapparees, I thought I'd add them to the unit just to spice it up a little. For games they will be classed as an all pike unit. 
I'm not too sure if the Jacobite players will like to have this unit in their army, I can see it being used as support, you don't really want to push these chaps out in front! Mind you they may do a lot of damage to a Cavalry unit if they're daft enough to charge them, of course that's if they stand their ground and except the charge!!!
I did make a bit of a boo boo though, I should have made the flag more generic, then I could have used it for both sides. Its supposed to represent a Holy Banner taken from a church, I think its a little more Catholic looking than Protestant, so it'll probably stay a Jacobite unit!! 




Not sure if there's a glitch on blogger at the moment but my hit count has gone mental since my last post. BigLee's die roll challenge has had 2500+ hits since the 16th???? And in the last three days I've had over 5000 hits altogether?? Not that I'm complaining of course. Has anyone else seen a strange increase??
Ray