The Gang Part 2

Part 2 of the Profile of the me and my Wargame pals.

Smiffy

Marcus Sarscruficus, as I used to call him when we were at school is my longest serving chum, we’ve been mates for over 35 years, poor Smiffy! Not only does Smiffy play wargames, he also enjoys dressing up and playing wargames. He’s a member of a WWII re-enactment group, specialising in the elite followers of an Austrian pensioner, with a very distinctive tash.

Battlefield Tactics
Unfortunately poor Smiffy is not famous for his tactical genius, although he more than makes up for it in the dice throwing ability, in this ability there is NO other.

Armies
20mm Vietnam, best not mention how this game went……………….

Ian

Ian or Napoleon as he likes to call himself, is known for one thing in our little group, In 1991, “The Shamen”, got to No4 in the UK music chart with Ian’s theme tune, the tune went like this-

With delivery smooth like water from a fountain

that’s why I can move any mountain

I can move, move, move any mountain

I can move, move, move any mountain

Move any mountain

Move any mountain

And he does. Yes I’m afraid he is known as a cheatin’ bugger.

Battlefield Tactics
When not doing his Shamen dance, Ian is like Richard a good all round player, sometimes thinking too much. I’m afraid Ian has only a militia/raw morale rating, as soon as he starts to lose, he goes downhill fast rants and raves that the rules are crap, then goes home to the watch the cricket.

Armies
25mm Napoleonic’s and 25mm Indian Mutiny and 15mm WWII skirmish.

 
John


Otherwise known as the Newbie, is another member of the teaching fraternity. John’s not been playing for long and is very quiet. I think he’s been trying to suss us all out. He finally let his inhabitations go during our last game shouting and swearing when the dice weren’t going his way.

Battlefield Tactics
I’ve not worked the newbie out yet, but after his performance in the last couple of games he’s defiantly trying to knock Smiffy off of the jammy git dice throwing champion top spot.

Armies
WWI Battleships, not sure of exact scale, but there tiddlers

 
Surjit


I’m sorry to say Surj is not the man he used to be, once upon a time he was the human encyclopaedia, remembering all the rules like a very annoying robot. During a Age of Reason campaign, Surj memorised the rules literally and actually tried to gain an advantage defending the bottom of a hill, “Well the rules don’t say I can’t and it gives me a double rank bonus”, he tried to explain. He was right about the rules, but sooooo wrong to even try it. Only Surj would have tried this move. The umpire boldly told him, don’t be so bloody stupid.

Battlefield tactics
His computer like brain has moved out recently, a messy teenager brain has moved in instead, Surj likes to concentrate his troops in one place and always seems to get a little muddled, with units in each other’s way all the time. Surj has no morale at all, he will fight to the bitter end or the other side gives up due to exhaustion or a near death experiance.

Armies
NONE!!!
Now this is a sore subject, Once upon a time around 15 years ago Surj had the Swedish army for the 7YW, that his wife painted, I might add. They are long gone and nothing has replaced them. Bad Boy Surjit!!

 
 
Lee


Probie BigLee, Link, is taking John’s newbie mantle, having only played one game so far. Big Lee comes from the Dark Side of Wargames, Dungeons and Dragons and Warhammer Fantasy. Lee, step into the light, step into the light, come away from the dark side and join us in the light.

Battle Tactics
Hard to say as he’s only attended one game, but in his own words, “I have the tactical instinct of a peanut”. Well you should fit in quite well with us then!!

Armies
15mm Flames of War Germans and Americans and some Fantasy stuff, sorry I cannot write them down as it may make my eyes bleed.

 
 
Ray (me)

The King!
Well, its my blog!!

Battle Tactics
A Genius!
I'm sure I may have a few silly comments that contridict this statement.

Armies
25mm Norman’s, Saxon’s, Vikings, El Cid and the Moors. 15mm Rep Romans, Carthaginians. Renaissance, Swiss, Landsknechts, English and Scots. 15mm FIW. 15mm NYW are in production

 

The Gang Part 1

I thought I'd write a profile about our little band of merrymen, Postie's Regects, TGWNN or whatever were called knowadays. We just can't seem to decide what we want to be called. All arguing like a bunch of 3 year olds, so I'm just going to call us The Gang for now. There are 10 of us who meet whenever possible at Postie's house, playing whatever game he wants to put on, ranging from 15mm Napoleonics to 15mm Sudan, from 25mm Ancient Greeks to 25mm AWI. So we'll start with the Games Master Extraordinaire.

Stu

Better known as Postie. Postie is the owner of, “The Shed”, where we play most of our games. The shed is situated in his garden and takes up most it, it being 19’x10’. He is small, but makes a mean corned beef and pickle sandwich.

Battlefield Tactics
Postie prefers to umpire and host games, rather than play in them, but when he does only one word describes him, patient. He will wait and wait then dig his nails in your head, ask Fran & Ian!

Armies
The man is a megalomaniac!! You name it; he’s got it, from figures to terrain. My blog is not big enough to list the periods he has. Think of a period in history, he’s got it, think of another period, he’s got that too, I think you’ve got the picture?. His library of books is vast; I’d hate to think how much his entire collection is worth.

Fran

Or The Angry Lurker, Blog site, his favourite quotation just about sums him up, “Bitter, Twisted and Resentful”. 6 Foot 3 and full of Oirish gingerness. Fran has his own, “Man Cave”, were anyone of us would quite happily live for the rest of our lives. It's got figures, a table, a TV, a PS3, a stereo and a fridge. The only 2 problems are the walk down to the shed dodging the 2 dogs, chickens and ducks and then the walk back up to visit the little boy’s room.

Battlefield Tactics
Known in our group as the bushhugger, If there’s any bushes, trees, fences or walls Fran will hide behind them and wait in defence, recently though he has changed his tune and been advancing forward, but usually its toward the pot of Pringles.

Armies
25mm Samurai, Moderns & Zombies, (nuff said)

Richard

Bit of a strange one, but Richard is my ex father-in-law. Rich is a History teacher and has mellowed with the years, not a lot phases him except dodgy teachers, (remember Rich?). Rich is our number 2 umpire, if Postie’s not putting a game on then Richard is. (But not for a while, eh Ricardo?)

Battlefield Tactics
Good all round player. A thinker. Morale does not have an effect on Monsieur Elders unless it involves another trip to IKEA, or not attacking merchants and sinking the French fleet.

Armies
25mm French Revolution, 15mm and 6mm Franco-Prussain and 15mm  NYW French.

Professor Dave

An officer and a gentleman, No he’s not in the forces, that’s the outfit he used to where in a previous occupation. Let’s just say I saw Dave in a WHOLE different light!! (cough!, cough!)

Battlefield Tactics
ATTACK!, ATTACK!, ATTACK!, AND ATTACK! SOME MORE!!!

Dave’s not not known for his defencesive tactics.
He also has a low morale rating, when things go wrong for Dave, they go wrong in a big way and he sinks into depression. I shouldn’t mention our last game, but I will, he lost 13 out of 14 cavalry melees, in the end he refused to throw anymore dice, poor Dave!

Armies
25mm and 15mm Medieval and some Fantasy

ACW - A few photos

Postie our Gamesmaster General put on an 15mm ACW game for our little group over the weekend. We used Fire and Fury rules, which should really be called Frustration and Fury. I've never known a set of rules that you can enjoy one minute and hate the next, hence the title of my blog, "Don't throw a 1", which we all did, too many times, especially my side as we lost the game.

On my side were, Smiffy, Fran, theangrylurker, and Surj. On the winning side were Richard, John, Ian and the newbie Lee, bigleesminipaintingblog.

I left my camera at home and used Posties to take a few photos, I'm not entirly happy with the photos as they didn't come out very clear, but I've included a few of the better ones, goto the links above as both Fran and Lee, took photos, hopefully a lot better than mine!!

First Empire Magazine - Napoleonic

After writing my battle report for the fictional Napoleonic, Battle of Zakharina, in September, Link, I received an email from David Watkins, who is the editor of First Empire Magazine,"The International Magazine for the Napoleonic Enthusiast, Historian and Gamer", he suggested that I might like to have my article printed in his shiny  magazine. It took me quite a while to agree to his incessant demands for my excellent piece of literature, (well ok about 2.2 seconds really). I sheepishly asked about payment for my article and was told as I was not a previous subscriber to the magazine, David could offer me a free 6 issue sub to the magazine and  4 copies of the relevant issue by way of payment. So I jumped at the chance, its not everyday you get an offer for your name and work to be in a well respected magazine.
I sent off the article to David and then told all the lads in our group of sad wargaming patsys, about my impending fame, they were all pleased and were chuffed that they'd all get their photo in the mag as well, except for Postie, " Well that's not fare", he groaned, "You didn't put a photo of me in it did you, and they're all my figures and I was the umpire.........blah, blah, blah, moan, moan, moan", I'd  kind of phased out by then, but I'm sure there was quite a lot more whinging and whining, but I finally shut him up when said I'd send David another photo, just of him, to add to the article.
Anyway the mag arrived today, issue No 115, with the man of the period Mr Bonaparte himself on the front cover. So if your interested in buying the mag or would like a subscription, follow this link First Empire
Also if you want me to sign your copy, just drop me a line, I'm not being too big headed or am I????

Nine Years War Paintings

While seaching the web for info on the uniforms of officers during the Nine Years War, I found several paintings, so I thought I'd share them.


Siege of Namur 1692 by Martin Jean-Baptiste le Viex



Siege of Namur 1695 Jan van Huctenburg



Combat de Leuze by Joseph Parrocel

William III Landing at Brixham, Torbay 1688, unknown artist

 The arrival of King-Stadholder Willem III in the Oranjepolder, 31 January 1691 by Ludolf Bakhiizen 

 

SELWG 2010

I was the designated driver for our annual trip up the A2 to the SELWG show on Sunday. On the trip this year were the usual suspects Postie, Richard, Fran http://theangrylurker.blogspot.com/ and me. Me and Fran had decided to both bring our cameras and try and outdo each other with tantalising, imaginative photos for our blogs, unfortunately in the rush to get out of the door, I left my camera at home, sitting on top of the list it had taken me several months of hard slog to put together. So Fran kindly said he would take some extra photos, which he would then email to me, so I could put them onto the blog, how stupid of me to trust this man! Within a couple of hours after the show, all the photos turned up on HIS blog, there aren't many but due to Fran being such a lovely chap I've pinched some of them from his site. But what fantastic photos they are, he couldn't have taken a worse picture, please tell me I don't really look like that?

What can I say? Fran asked me to pose for a photo, I suggested getting my nipple out and giving it a tweak, a fellow standing just to the left of me nearly choked on his sausage roll... and the rest is history.

Again another fantastic photo of me, at least Fran, whose on the right looks equally as dashing!! Lee, the chap on the left hopefully will be a new recruit to our small group of sad patsys.
Here's a link to his blog, http://bigleesminipaintingblog.blogspot.com/
While surfing the web last night I found another blog with photos of SELWG ,http://johnstoysoldiers.blogspot.com/2010/10/selwg-2010.html#comments

I thought I wonder if I'm on any photos, then I found us all the last photo, just left of centre, look out for me in the t-shirt above, you can't miss me as I'm scratchin' my butt. Ah! the wonders of the web!!

Gardes Te Paard, Portland's Horse Flag

I'm in the middle of painting up two squadrons of the Dutch Gardes Te Paard for my 15mm Nine Years War army. I couldn't find any commercially available so I made my own, sourced from, "The Dutch Army of William III", by C.A Sapherson.
Portland's Horse as they were otherwise known, after their Colonel Hans Willem Bentinck, the Earl of Portland, fought in the following battles, Seneffe 1674, Montcassel 1677, Saint Denis 1678, The Battle of the Boyne 1690, Steenkirke 1692, Ramillies 1706, Oudenaarden 1708 and Malplaquet in 1709.
I've made a guidon for the second squadron, I'm not 100% sure if this would have been carried but it looks good and you can tell the differance between the two squadrons.
I've made two different sets of flags for the regiment, the first is up to the death of Queen Mary on 28 December 1694, with the monogram, "RWMR", the second is after Mary's death with the monogram, "RWWR".
Please feel free to use the flags for your own armies, comments welcome good or bad!

WD3

I joined the forum WD3 the day before yesterday and it seems to be full of good people, good banter and interesting debate, well worth a look but watch out for, The Angry Lurker, he is a compulsive liar.Yes a compulsive liar.!

Watch out for the Hobbits & Llamas!

Here's a Link: http://wdlovesme.19.forumer.com/

New painted units for NYW

Prince George of Hessan-Darmstadt Regt

In between painting my megalomaniac mate Postie's Napoleonic figures, I managed to squeeze in a few units of my own figures for my new NYW army . I don't get a great deal of time to paint my own figures, money talks!, so its taken me a couple of months to get some units done.

The first new unit painted is Charles Churchill's regiment circa 1688, also known as The Holland Regiment or the Buffs. Later in its history it was numbered the 3rd Foot in the British establishment.

The second painted unit was commanded by Prince George of Hessen-Darmstadt, who took over the regiment from Philip Babbington in 1691. The unit later became the 6th foot.

The third unit is Mackay's, commanded by Hugh Mackay, which was part of the Scots Brigade and was in Dutch service. Also I painted up 4 artillery pieces, 2 Heavies and 2 Mediums, the battalion guns are to come later , when I but them.

The flags in the photos for Prince George's and Mackay's can be found in previous postings on my Blog.

Hope you like the figures, comments welcome!

Mackay's Regt

Churchills Regt

Heavy Artillery

Medium Artillery

Dicepool quiz - A little bit of fun...I think?

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

You are a d20: You are a ruthless warrior. Thinking is for idiots and nerds. Doing things is what gets things done. You are the type who stabs now, and then asks questions later. Much later. And it usually involves a priest. For you, the best defense is a good offense, and the best offense usually involves burning the whole place to the ground -- at least twice. You are a whirlwind of destruction, composed of rash decisions and reckless actions. Put briefly, you are a danger to yourself and others. Good thing nobody ever listens to you.

Eppingers Dragoons Flag

Another new flag, I made this flag a couple of months ago, you can see it in action on one of my previous posts attached to the 2 squadrons of Eppingers Dragoons that I've painted.
I got the idea for this flag from an article in Wargames Illustrated, (sorry I can't remember which one), although they do point out that some sources say they carried plain black standards, I think it looks a little more colourful having the crown and monogram. I've included the regimental standard which may have been carried by the first company with the others carrying guidons.
The Regiment Garde Dragonders, to give them their full and proper name were raised in 1672.  It was in English pay between 1 January 1689 and 11 October 1698. During the Nine Years War, the colonel of the regiment was William III, Prince of Orange, but he was somewhat busy during the period to command them on the field, so that honour went to Colonel-Commandant Abraham van Eppinger.