RP No110 The 95th Rifle Regt of Foot

My first entry into this years Analougue Painting Challenge, earned me 120 points at the time, putting me into 5th place, that was before Christmas, I'm now in 14th!!! Some of the guys'n'gals must have been painting while eating their Christmas dinner!!!! 

At the moment the Challenge is being led by Miles with 475 points, as I said I'm in 14th and poor Fran has yet to put in an entry!!! Lazy Git! Although he's busy painting away down the table from me, of course that means I'm back at work, boo hiss!!!! Only two nights though, so its not that bad, although one of them is of course New Years Eve!!!!

Anyway, the figures are from Front Rank and have been sitting in my "To Paint" pile for far too long, I do have more and will be painting the 60th and maybe a Kings German Legion unit as well.

"In 1800 The Experimental Corps of Riflemen was formed, eventually becoming the 95th (Rifle) Regiment of Foot in 1803.

Riflemen were different, in many ways, to the soldiers that made up the bulk of the British Army. Instead of the classic 'redcoat' and white crossbelts worn by most infantrymen, the Rifles wore a distinctive 'greenjacket' and black leatherwork. This was the first attempt at camouflage by the British Army and was a reflection of the very different role expected of this brand new soldier, who was encouraged to make use of his surroundings.

Of course the other most notable difference between a Rifleman and most of Wellington's Redcoats was the weapon he carried, the Baker Rifle. Redcoats were generally issued with the 'Brown Bess' musket, capable of wavering accuracy at 75 yards. The 'Baker' was able to hit a man-sized target 200 yards away, and there are legendary characters within the regiment such as Tom Plunkett who achieved accuracy at 400 yards using a Patched Ball. This accuracy was down to a combination of the weapon and a revolutionary new training initiative."

Happy Christmas 2012!!!

Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year

From 

Don't throw a 1

Hmmm?

My favourite Elf!

Gentlemen, start your brushes........

And Tamsin!
Well today's the day!!! 

The 3rd Annual Analouge Painting Challenge has begun!

I'm sitting at work, (yes at work!!) busy painting away, Fran's off thank God, that's only another 10 days to go before I see his ugly mug again.
I've been here since 5:30 ish cleaning up my new arrivals
 lots of 15mm Peter Pig WotR pikemen who will become Scots and
join King James' army for the Battle of Flodden.

They're all cleaned, unfortunately not undecorated yet, so I've moved on to
what will be my first painted units for the Challenge.

Two companies of the 95th Rifles

in 28mm not my usual 15's

As some of you may well be aware, (yer right!!) t'was I who won last year's Challenge???

 I'm not expecting to be so successful this year as our venerable Master at Arms Curt has 

changed the points system and downgraded my beloved 15mm figures.

So I'm pushing for a top 5 place and think It'll be tough to reach my 

personal goal of 2800 points, that's a hell of a lot of figures?

Good luck to all my fellow Ronin 

but remember

"In battle, if you you make your opponent flinch, you have already won."

Miyamoto Musashi

Ronin no 34

RP No 109 NYW/Jacobite Raperees

Recently on the League of Augsberg Fighting Talk forum, there has been a lot of talk about the up and coming supplement for Beneath the Lilly Banners, which concentrates on Ireland during 1689-1691. I can't wait for this to be released!!!!  There has also been talk of individually based figures for a new skirmish based set of rules for the period.
With that in mind I painted up 24 Rapereers, Raper what? I hear you ask???

From our good friend Wikipedia:

Rapparees (from the Irish ropairí, plural of ropaire, meaning half-pike or pike-wielding person) were Irish guerilla fighters who operated on the Jacobite side during the 1690's Williamite war in Ireland. Subsequently the name was also given to bandits and highwaymen in Ireland.

I chose not to base my Raperees up singularly, as with 15mm they can be a little fiddly to handle, (check out my FIW battle reports!) So instead,  I based them up on 20mm round bases, three to a base. I think It still gives them a distinctive skirmish look. 

As no manufacture makes specific raperee figures, I trawled through Essex's website and bought a few random looking Irish and Scottish packs from their Medieval and Renaissance ECW ranges and some packs which are meant to be Monmouth's Rebels.

Only two pics I'm afraid, all the other I took didn't come out at all well!

RP No 108 NYW/Jacobite - Lord Louth's Foot

Another unit of Jacobites for the Boyne period, although It's unclear if this regt fought in either of the 2 main action, the Boyne or Aughrim. The figures are once again from Essex minis and the flags were made by your truly. I found little info on the regt apart from the two snippets below.

Though the Plunketts were deeply involved in the uphevals of the 1640s and 1689-91, they survived with their lands intact.  Lord Louth, a royalist supporter, was taken prisoner in 1642 and was outlawed for high treason, later forfeiting his lands under the Cromwellian land settlement.  When Charles II returned to the throne in 1660, most of these lands were restored to Lord Louth and to his son, Matthew.

The accession of James II gave new life to Catholic aspirations in Ireland.  Matthew Plunkett, the 7th Baron Louth, joined the Jacobite cause in 1689 and commanded an infantry regiment at the seige of Derry.  He was outlawed and exiled, and died in September 1689.  The 8th Baron Louth, Oliver Plunkett, was only 21 when he succeeded to the title in 1689.  He joined the Jacobite forces and was outlawed, and was in Limerick at the surrender in 1691.  He was pardoned under the Arcticles of Limerick.  He was made secure in his estates and eventually managed to prove the reversal of his grandfather's outlawry for rebellion in 1641.  In October 1695 Lord Louth took the oath of fidelity, but his refusal to take both the oath of royal supremacy over the church and a declaration against Catholic religious practices and beliefs, prevented him from sitting in the House of Lords.

"English Historical Documents 1660-1714, by Andrew Brown"

There happened no winter action of any note between the Catholics and Protestants troops on the frontier of Ulster, except two or three. On the 24^th November Captain Christopher  Plunkett of Lord Louth’s regt, was sent with his company of Grenadiers,  by Major-General Boissleau from Dundalk  to take Newry, an open town then garrisoned by few of Schomberg’s army. He marched in the night-time and by dawn of the day he made himself master  thereof by the slaughter of a few enemies, and he was going to plunder the place, which was furnished with a good store of money, and had horses and black cattle, the captain received an order from the Major –General to retire immediately to his quarters. What reason there was for  this order we have not been informed, otherwise than that the first design was only but to show the rebels that the King’s frontier garrison was watchful and bold.

A very nice little pressie was poked through the letter box the other day from fellow blogger and good all round chap, Clint from down in the deepest darkest depths of the Medway towns. Myself and Fran received
a little box of chocolate goodness, which I'm afraid didn't last too long. Fran thought he had more chocs than me, but I'd already eaten two by the time the camera came out!!! Cheers Clint!!!!

Finally I've been working like a Trojan all night, cleaning up and gluing together bloody Gripping Beast bloody plastic Vikings, I wanted to make some command stands for my Vikings, so I've been drilling out hands for standards. All I can say is NEVER AGAIN!!!!! I've only made up 14 of the buggers and I've had enough, its taken me hours and I'm not a happy chappie,  its lead all the way from now on. I knew had have a funny turn with them and I was right! Now I need a drink, shame its only tea, now where's that Irish git, its his turn to make the tea, I made the last one and...............

3rd Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challange

Ronin number 34 reports:
Curt, over at Analogue Hobbies is up to his old tricks again. The 3rd Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge will be up and running on the 20th of December. Curt's really got his work cut out this time though, with 47 painters taking up the challenge, I'm not too sure Curt's going to have a lot of time to paint anything this time, with the 47 of us, I think his bum is going to be stuck to his computer desk sorting out all our entries!!
I'll be going a little Scottish for the Challenge this year, but most probably not until the new year. I'll be buying 2 Scottish armies in 15mm. The first will be the rather small Scots army for the Battle of Killikrankie in 1689. The other is the Scots army for the Battle of Flodden in 1513, now I already own a Scots Flodden army, but its really a Scots Common army posing as a Flodden army, so it needs replacing!! I'm not 100% sure of what the figures will be, perhaps a mix of Essex, Peter Pig, Donnington and Frei Corps???

In the meantime I've still got some NYW figures left, so I'll bore Fran to tears again and paint more of those up. And I've been trying to glue the Gripping Beast plastic Vikings together as well, oh the joy of it!!!!! I've also got some 28mm, 95th Rifles to paint up at some time too. These and a few others are for Battleaxe, so will be up for sale at a later date, I know Curt would rather have figures just for our own collections, but he has said its ok to add these figures in (I talking to you Fran!!!)

Some of you may recall (he he) that it was me who had the honour to win last years Challenge and I'll do my damnedest to try and retain my title, but its going to be really hard as Curt's changed the points structure, there are less points for 15mm figures this time around, which truthfully is fairer in the 28mm guys, so its gonna be hard slog.

I racked in a massive 4940 points last time, it would be nice to beat that score, but I can't see it myself, so I'm gonna plump for a figure of 2500-2800 points. With my figures mainly being 15mm, that's a bloody lot of figures!!!
Now all I've got to do is find a 25mm Ronin figure from somewhere????

So good luck to all involved, even that lying manure spreading Oirishman Fran!!!!

Talking of Fran, I've been off work for 10 wonderful Franless days, oh the bliss!!, trouble is I'm back to work tomorrow night with you know who!!!!!

RP No 107 NYW - Nassau Saarbruken Dutch Foot

Well back to my normal non Ebay stuff for a while, I've bored you all enough already!
So its back to the Nine Years War, Regt Nassau Saarbruken-Ottweiler, were raised on 22nd December 1664, they were maintained by the province of Zeeland and were under the command of Walrad, Cout of Nassau-Saarbruken from the 1st December 1680 until 6th Auigust 1701, when Reinier van der Beke became their Colonel.
The regt fought at the Battle of the Boyne in between the Dutch regt Brandenburg and the English regt Hanmar's.
A per usual with this period there's some conjecture on their uniform, some gamers have painted the unit up in grey coats cuffed red, but I've gone for grey, cuffed blue. In the London Gazette of 16th May 1689, a deserter from the regt was described as dressed in a grey coat lined in blue. So the London Gazette gets it!!
There is no available info on their flag, so I made one up, I kept the flag blue and added the coat of arms for Nassau-Saarbruken and also added the coat of arms for Zeeland in the top corner of the flag, which is a common feature in Dutch flags from the period.

And the Donkey's back too!

RP No 106 GZG Stargate Anubis Guard

Following on from yesterdays post here we have SG1's enemy the Jackal headed Anubis Guard, the figures are once again from Ground Zero Games and are sold as Sci-Fi Egyptians with Jackal helmets, here.
They're on sale at the moment on ebay if anyone's interested???
Ebay link

RP No 105 15mm GZG - Stargate SG1

I used to love this show when it was on TV and still watch it now and again when I can. It's on UK TV Channel, Pick TV every morning at 10 at the moment. The figures are from Ground Zero Games who make their own 15mm versions of the Stargate characters Sam Carter, Jack O'Neill, Teal'c and Daniel Jackson as well as all the other poor saps who follow them on their journeys to other worlds and never return.
The are 4 character figures plus the 20 USAF Troops are up for sale on Ebay for £21.99
Here's the link for them, SG1 Ebay Link

Battleaxe Painting Service

Battleaxe Painting Service

Well we're finally up and running, Battleaxe Painting Service are now accepting commissions.

Now don't all rush at once

There'll be time for you all

accept Fran of course!

Seriously, it would be great to see some of my blogger pals over on the new site, 

and even better if you want something painted!

For the time being I'll be posting any figures I paint up for Ebay on the Battleaxe blog 

and keep Don't throw a 1, for my own personal figures, Battle Reports and the usual shenanigans!

Click the link below for

Battleaxe

RP No 104 28mm Gripping Beast Viking & Jomviking Warlords - For sale

Another two items up for sale on ebay at the moment, these figures are from Gripping Beast from their Saga range. Both these figures nearly ended thrown out of the window, in a tantrum  I was not a happy chappie. I'll start he first figure, the Viking Warlord, the base of the figure was quite distorted and the figure wouldn't stand up, so out came the knife and the pliers. As a very carefully started to bend the base straight, plop! the figure broke off at the ankle! Queue lots of swearing and ranting and lots of superglue.
So I moved onto the next figure the Jomviking Warlord, I took it out of the box and started to clean the tiny bits of flash off the base....hang on a minute? where's his sword? The quick answer was still in the damned blister pack, well half of it anyway!!! Queue more ranting and raving and laughter from the Irish git in the corner.
So the next day I shoved the figure on figure fixer extraordinaire  Posties lap with an in-ordable grunt, the next day he gave the figure back the broken sword had been replaced with a fine looking axe, very nice!
So you'd think that was the end of the story but no! I'd just finished painting the Jomviking up. all he needed was a couple of coats of varnish, I picked him up to varnish him and he fell out of my hand and landed on the other axe bending it right over, I cannot repeat what I said, but I bet you can guess? I gingerly bent the axe back over, the paint cracked all over the handle then snapped off...........
Anyway, he's all fixed now.
They're both up for sale on ebay,  superglue and new weapons an' all!!!
Here's the links.

Viking Warlord link
Jomviking Warlord link

Viking Warlord

Jomviking Warlord

RP No 103 28mm Warfare Minis Generals - For Sale

General No 1

At SELWG back in September I picked up a few packs of Barry Hilton's new-ish range of League of Augsberg 28mm figures. I must say they are very nice sculpts and were very nice to paint. They are painted up as English, but could be used as Generals for any of the sides that fought during the war of the Grand Alliance.
Both figures are up for sale on Ebay at the moment, for the princely sum of 7.99 each, so if you fancy a bargain,  here are the lists for the 2 figures.
General No 1 Ebay link
General No2 Ebay link

You may have noticed the new look colour to my blog? There's been a discussion over on the TMP forum about how useless black backgrounded blogs are? Most people think they're hard on the eyes? Now I quite like my old black blog, but I thought I'd give it a little makeover.
So what do you think? Is it easier to read?

General No 2

The Battle of Hal 1815 - A Fictional Napoleonic Batrep

The Rejects got together last Sunday, well 6 of us anyway to play possibly our last weekend game of the year, boo, hiss I here you cry!!!

Warning!
This is a long post, so you may need to go and make yourself a cup'o'tea and a sandwich before you start!

Postie the evil GM had been planning this "What If" scenario for ages and a mighty fine fight it was too. Pop over to Fran's and BigLee's blogs for the French side of the story, for the Brit, Dutch-Belgian and Hanoverian side of the story keep reading...........

The Battle of Hal 19th June 1815

Yesterday Blucher's Prussian army failed to turn up at The Battle of Waterloo, thus giving Napoleon a very quick victory. But Wellington had already planned for this failure, he retreated North-West between the town of Hal and Brussels. Wellington had left an army postioned as a rearguard,  full of mainly conscript Dutch-Belgian's and German's commanded by the Prince of Orange's younger brother Prince Frederick. This morning Napoleon sent out his scouts who informed him of the army waiting at Hal, he then ordered part of Reilles corps to attack Prince Frederick's intact army which had been covering the British retreat.

A word of warning, Posties collection is massive but he doesn't own every regiment, so some units are being subbed by others.

The Dutch Division commanded by myself Lt Gen J Steadman, with the 

CnC Prince Frederick of the Netherlands in the centre.

The 4th British Division under Lt Gen Sir Charles Colville. Commanded by Reject John

The French opposite me, Commanded by Smiffy, the CnC Comte Honore Charles Reille, 

I was a little perturbed to find that the first 7 units were all Leger regts and all were Elite!!!

The French, opposite Hal commanded by Fran, the Comte Maximilien Sebadtien Foy, 

while BigLee, Comte Hippolyte Marie Guillame Pire, commanded the Cavalry.

Prince Frederick of the Netherlands.

 In the first turn I pushed my 2 units of skirmishers out on my flanks to harass the French while Smiffy, changed into skirmish formation with all 7 Legere units.

Bloody hell!! Hanoverian reserves arrive on the first turn behind Hal,  the Prince Regent's Hussars 

and  the Breman and Verdun Hussars, move around the town of Hal to hopefully put a stop

 to the advancing French Cavalry

In the background you can see the advancing French while in the foreground the British 

allies are trying to get into a better position. All the units with red flags are 

Hanoverian Landwehr, not really what you want in the front line of defence!!

 OMG!!!

Fran squashes his left testicle again, laying on the table trying to reach his troops!

Note the empty crisp packet behind him??

Smiffy started to make pretty patterns with his troops, instead of charging forward,

 my force consisted of 2 Jager units, 3 Line units and a whooping 6, yes 6 bloody Militia!!!

 John had to move a unit into Hal, but this left us with no reserve.

And moved a Hanoverian line unit up to the hedge to plug the gap.

The positions at the End of turn 2

 The French keep winning the first move, that also gives them the first fire, not we you need!!

First contact, 4 charges, but who would be the victor?

Postie came and whispered to myself and John, that our re-enforcements have 

been spotted, we looked at him blankly, the FOG of War had struck, we both 

wrongly read a note he gave us previously and thought our reserve force was 

behind the main Dutch-Belgian army, so it was as much of a shock to us as it 

was to the French!

The units with the Orange/white and blue flag are the Dutch/Belgian Militia.

 BigLee moved his 2 Lancers regts up behind his 2 charging Chasseurs. And also gets his Cavalry reinforcments on the table, Baron Nicolas Francois Roussel d'Hurbal commanding the 12th Cavalry Division, consisting of 2 Carabiniers and 2 Cuirassiers!!! They move straight on heading for the centre of the battle.

 As Smiffy advanced I pulled back my Jagers.

It's not looking good for John's troops?!?

The Prince keeping his fingers firmly crossed.

If only Smiffy hadn't advanced to the hill, the whole French flank would be open.

2-0 to the Hanoverian's, they thrash both French Chasseurs who both flee. Big-Lee caused 

No casualties at all!

 One units flees through a unit of Lancers (on the right)

Both Hanoverian's follow up and carry on their charge straight into both Lancer regt's

 Polly want a cracker!

 Un-bloody-believable!!!

John throws great once more and beats both units again, losing only 2 figures for his trouble, both Hanovarian Hussars capture the colours of the French Lancers, the 5th Lancers rout straight though the flanks of both the 1st Carabiniers and the 2nd Cuirassiers, disordering them, while the 6th Lancers rout through the already fleeing Chasseurs.

What a mess!!!!

Lee wasn't happy, he he!

So what looked like a devastating Cavalry advantage, was quickly becoming 

more even, but could or would  John carry on his magnificent assault on the French??

 Meanwhile down the other end of the field, I charged the French gun with a small unit of Combined Grenadiers  unfortunately they managed to evade me just in the nick of time, I was 2mm out!

The men and units of the Indian Brigade under Col de Jong, consisting of East and West Indian regts!

As Smiffy had moved a major part of his force to contain the Dutch Indain Brigade, I advance

 my best troops forward leaving the Militia where they were, if I moved them at all, I'd have 

to throw a D6, on a roile of 1 the unit would be disordered. Its bad enough having an army 

of mainly Militia and you certainly don't want then disordered!!

Fran moved up to close range and gave a devastating volley, aiming at the Hanoverian

Landwher, to try and make them fail their morale.

Oh Sh!t said Lee, as John carried on with the charges the next turn, hitting the disordered Carbiniers in the flank and the chasseurs in the rear. The yellow markers are disordered markers while the blue mean the unit has captured a colour, this gives points at the end of the game. You can just see the black marker on th Chasseurs at the bottom left unit, that means they've lost a colour, obviously that's not good!

John moved forward his best units the Brits to fire on the flank of Fran's stationary infantry.

Oh dear, we can't believe it???

John won both melees again, the Chasseurs were destroyed by the Breman and Verdun Hussars, while the Prince Regent Hussars made the Carabiners rout?!?

By this stage we were all in a state of shock. Poor Lee's dice were absolutely appalling!

And it got even better for us as Big Lee then failed  2 Brigade checks forcing all the 

French Cavalry to retreat a full move back. 

You should have seen Fran and BigLee's faces!

 Look at that hole??

I moved my skirmishers up to fire at the French gun, but we lost the first move/fire again!!!

Smiffy continued to make pretty patterns, what a nice curve.......

Both sides continued to whittle away at each other.

Our first real disaster a fluke shot onto the 18th Dutch Militia, hit and killed the 

Major-Gen de Eerens, this could be trouble as it could cause a brigade morale check.

Which it did, the now leaderless 2nd Brigade withdrew 12 inches back!

Not good news for us.

The Hoya Landwher were pushed back away from the front line due to a failed morale check.

On the otherside of the field, Smiffy attacked and fired with gusto, knocking back both Jager units.

Guess what? 

Yep! John charged once more, the Breman &Verdun Hussars hit the French Lancers in the rear AGAIN, 

wiping them out. The B& V Hussars fought 9 melees, they won 7 and drew 2, only losing 6 casualties, while the Prince Regent Hussars fought 3 melees and won 3 melees also at the cost of 6 casualties. 

Smiffy then destroyed my combined Grenadiers with musket fire, which caused a

 brigade check, which I only just passed.

But it was all too late for the French, as it was getting dark. The points were added up giving a massive victory of 20-10 to John and myself. 

A dejected Fran huddles in the corner trying not to be noticed.

John receiving his very well deserved  MVP award!

I did feel sorry for BigLee and his bad die rolls.........but not for long!

What a game!!!!