BLB - NYW Scots Brigade Barthold Balfour's regt

The second newly painted unit for Beneath the Lily Banners "War of Three Kings" and the second regt form the Scots Brigade.
Barthold Balfours regt were raised in  1603 by the Duke of Buccleugh for Dutch service.
Jumping forward to 1672, they were commanded by John Kirckpatrick, At the start of the Franco-Dutch War they were garrisoned in Maastricht, defending the siege lines there in 1673. Also fighting at Grave 1674, Maastricht again in 1676, Cassel 1677 ans St Denis in 1678.

In 1684 Barthold Balfour became the Colonel. James II ordered them home on account of the Monmouth rebellion, they along with Mackay's and Ramsay's arriving in Gravesend (my hometown) on 30th June 1685. They arrived too late for the Battle of Sedgemoor, so were sent back to the United Provinces unbloodied.
They crossed the channel once again in 1688, were they were transferred form the Dutch establishment to the English.

The next year they fought on the left of the English lines at the Battle of Killicrankie. Their Lt-Col George Lauder was sent off to command a Fuzileer/Grenadier detachment on the extreme flank of their lines. Its not actually known what went wrong at Killicrankie with Balfour's regt. its written that they didn't even fire a shot at the Highlanders before all turning tail and running. In the turmoil of their retreat Balfour was cornered by the Highlanders and skewered to a tree!

With the death of Balfour, the Colonelcy was given to George Lauder who only just escaped death himself at Killicrankie. In 1692 they fought at Steenkirke, 1693 at Neerwinden and finally covered the Siege of Namur in 1695.

In October 1696 the ' Lawder' regiment is still on the list of troops to be maintained by William III. Somewhere in late 1697 or in 1698 the regiment was then returned to the United Provinces. In 1699 it was designated to garrison Bergen op Zoom.

BLB - NYW Scots Brigade Ramsey's regt

Posties Rejects will be putting a game on at Milton Hundred's wargame show "Broadside" in Sittingborne on 9th June. Its my turn again to host the game, I was going to do a Donnybrook extravaganza, with loads of the figures I painted up during the Challenge.  But there's not enough room to do the battle I wanted to do on a 6x4 table.
So I switched scales back down to 15mm and I will be using Beneath the Lily Banners "The War of the Three Kings" rules. We've had a few practice games and ironed out a few bits, now I've just got to try and learn them off by heart, trouble is, I'm 51 and already have a mind full of mostly useless info. Trying to pack in all the changes to BLB is proving rather difficult!!
I needs some oily fish me thinks!!!
Anyway, I needed a few units for this said 15mm battle, I did consider just painting up the command stands and using other already painted units, But I knew in my heart that this would bug the crap out of me. So I've painted them up, the figures from Essex were destined to be French re-inforcements, but instead of the grey they now wear red.

These fine looking fellows are Ramsay's regiment, who were raised in 1675 by Alexander Colyear and were one of the three Scottish regiments who were in Dutch service. They defended the lines at the Siege of  Maastrich in 1676. Colyear died in 1680 and commanded was handed over to James Douglas the then Lieutenant -Colonel. John Wauchope then became Colonel in 1685. He obeyed King James VII's summons to return to Scotland in 1688 as the country moved into the Glorious Revolution. King William removed Wauchope from command which passed onto George Ramsay.

On 27th July 1689, Ramsay's regt fought in the English loss at the Battle of Killicrankie, half the regiment held fast against the Highlander charge, while the other half fled before the Highlanders made contact. In 1691 Ramsay was promoted to Colonel of the Scots Guards, so commanded was given to Sir Charles Graham. In August 1692 they fought at the Battle of  Steenkirke, where Graham was wounded.

In 1694 Graham's regt and another 8 regiments were ordered to hold Dixmude, while other allies besiged Namur. Dixmude was under the command of Major-General Ellenberg and were expected to hold out for at least 8 days. But they surrendered after onlt 2 days, with 4,046 soldiers being taken prisoner. This raised suspicions of bribery and mental weakness.
At Gent a Court Martial was held, both Ellenberg and Graham were found guilty. Graham was dissmissed from service while Ellenberg was executed!!

The regiment then went full circle in 1695 with the son of their founder Alexander Colyear, Walter Philip Colyear taking over command

The flags are mine, made many moons ago, there are now several versions of Ramsay's available to buy, most, including those by Warfare Miniatures don't look like my versions at all, but hey ho they'll do for me.!

More from the Scots Brigade in the next post.

AHPC9 - The end of the Challenge

This post has been sitting waiting for me to get my finger out and press that publish button for a few weeks now, so I thought I better press it!!

Sadly that's another Challenge all over and I was just getting on a roll. I hope I can keep up at least half of the effort I put in, for the rest of the year........can't see it happening though???
I've gotta admit I feel pretty pleased with myself, I've earned 2274 points placing me 8th in the Challenge, which is my third highest placing and third highest points total.

Here's my performance so far in all the Challenges
Challenge II  4940 points 1st
Challenge III 2586 points 4th
Challenge IV 1227 points 17th
Challenge V    691 points 37th
Challenge VI  681 points 36th
Challenge VII 1093 points 24th
Challenge VIII 662 points 40th
Challenge VIIII 2274 points 8th
Challenge X ????

So to the points......

I don't know if anyone noticed but the majority of my figures painted were for one set of rules

Donnybrook??? 

I painted :

1147 points of Donnybrook figures

587 points of other 25mm figures.

368 points of 15mm Beneath the Lily Banners figures (same period as Donnybrook!)
172 points of other 15mm figures

And I managed 2nd place in the Sport Bonus Round for my Lacrosse figures!!!

So a good Challenge for me all round!

AHPC - 25mm Boris & Nigel

My last post of this years Challenge...

And hear we have couple of Ass's

You may or may not know the names, If you're from the UK you certainly will.

I'm not sure what make they are, but Boris & Nigel are a right pair of  useless donkeys!

Napoleonic batrep - The Battle of Budweis 1809

Four Rejects got together for a Napoleonic bash last Sunday. Postie reffed the game

while Lee, Surj and myself picked out side out of the hat.

I picked out Marchal Bernadotte  (Overall commander) commanding the Saxon army

Surj picked out General Count Wrede commanding the Bavarian army

and Lee picked out Archduke Charles commanding the Austrian forces

Lee's report can be found here.

Order of Battle
Saxonn /Bavarian Army - IX Corps C/O Marshal Bernadotte (Ray)
1st (Saxonn) Division  c/o GL von ZezSchwitz 
  1st Brigade c/o Gm Von Hartitzsch
    Liebgrenadier Garde (1) (Guard)
    Combined Grenadiers Radeloff (1) (Elite) 
    Combined Grenadiers von Bose (1) (Elite) 
    Combined Grenadiers Winkelmann (1) (Elite) 
    Combined Grenadiers Hacke (1) (Elite)
    1st Schurzen Light Infantry (1) (Line)
    Medium Gun Battery
  2nd Brigade c/o Gm von Zeschow
    Konig (1) (Line)
    Niesemeuschel (1) (Line)
    Von Obschelwitz (1) (Line)
    Von Dyherrn (1) (Line)
    Light Gun Battery
  Cavalry Brigade c/o Gm Freiherr von Gutschmid
    Garde du Corps (Guard)
    Karbineer Rgt (Elite)
    Prinz Clemens Cheval-Legars (Line)
    Hussar Regt (Line)
2nd (Bavarian)  c/o Gl Count Wrede (Surjit)
  1st Brigade c/o Gm Minucci
    No6 Laroche Light Infantry (1) (Line)
    No3 Prinz Karl (2) (Line)
    No12 Line (2) (Line)
    Medium Gun Battery
  2nd Brigade c/o Gm Beckers
    No6 Herzog Wilhelm (2) (Line)
    No7 Lowenstein (2) (Line)
    Medium Gun Battery
  Cavalry Brigade c/o Gm Preysing
    No2 Konig Cheval-Legars (Line)
    No3 Leinngen Cheval-Legars (Line)
  Reserve
    Heavy Gun Battery

Austrian Army c/o Archduke Charles (Lee)
Avantgarde c/o FML Nordmann
  1st Brigade c/o GM Peter Vecsey
    No12 Primatial Hussars (Elite)
    No58 Beaulie (2) (Line)
    Lower Manhartsberg Landwehr (1) (Militia)
    1st Jagers (Rifle) (1) (Elite)
    Light Gun Battery
  2nd Brigade c/o Gm Mayer
    No4 Deutschmeister (3) (Line)
    No49 Kerpen (3)  (Line)
    Untere Wiener Wold 5thB Landwehr (1) (Militia)
    Untere Wiener Wold 6thB Landwehr (1) (Militia)
Reserve Corp c/o FML Prochaska
  3rd Brigade c/o GM Steyner
    1st Combined Grenadiers Hahn (1) (Elite)
    2nd Combined Grenadiers Hromode (1) (Elite)
    3rd Combined Grenadiers Legrand (1) (Elite)
    1st Combined Grenadiers Demontant (1) (Elite)
    1st Combined Grenadiers Berger (1) (Elite)
    Heavy Gun Battery
Cavalry Reserve c/o FML Hessen-Homburg
  5th Brigade c/o Roussel
    No2 EH Franz Curassiers (Elite)
    No3 Herzog Albert Curassiers  (Elite)
  6th Brigade c/o GM Rothkirch
    No1 EH Johann 3rd Dragoons  (Elite)
    No6 Riesch 4th Dragoons  (Elite)
    Horse Artillery Battery
  7th Brigade c/o GM Wartensleben
    No6 Blankenstein Hussars  (Elite)
    No3 O'Reilly Cheval-Legers (Elite)
    Horse Artillery Battery

The set up. 

This is the view from behind the Austrian Cavalry. Postie set up the game which was a meeting engagement between two river crossings in Moravia. The Saxon/Bavarian forces outnumber the Austrians, but there army is made up of predominantly Elite units. 

So its the old adage quantity over quality???? 

The Austrians infantry are set up on a ridge, while their horse sweep round in a curve to the Allies side of the table.

The Saxon and Bavarian infantry

Marshal Bernadotte

It doesn't look good for the Austrians from the start, Can they use their Elite troops 

to hold the onslaught?

The majority of the Austrians on the ridge and between the ridge and wood are line class and

Landwher.

Our plan was simple.

The Bavarians would be the main attack force, My infantry would support the attack on the ridge

but I would hold my second line back, which included Grenadiers and Leibguard, incase Lee

came sweeping through the gap with his Horse. There was no way my horse could move past the wood and hedge into the open ground to face all 6 of Lee's Elite Horse regts. So the plan was to goad Lee forward and attack us where nobody would have an advantage.

We were unsure what to do with the Bavarian Horse (centre right)

So kept them in the rear as support. Our only Heavy artillery piece can be seen trundling down the road, miles behind all the action.

Forward!!!!

Lee made a boo boo, forgetting to unlimber his artillery on the hill.

I edged forward with my horse, mainly to fit in another unit in the frontline, which just so happened to be the Guard du Corps!!!!

Lee's not very confident with Nappies and this didn't help his cause.

He made a big boo boo, unlimbering his horse artillery so far away. He should have pushed them 

way forward and pounded my Horse to force me out.

At the start of Turn 3 the Austrians had some reinforcements arrive, way out on Surj's right flank.

They're a bit of a mish mash of troops, so hopefully won't hinder our plans.

Lee finally moves his artillery up supported by the Horse.

The Austrians reinforce the ridge with some Grenadiers

Lee moves 3 Horse regt to match mine and fit through the gap.

We're in charge range for next turn.

Lee's glasses kept falling off, so Postie gave him a helping hand!!

Lucky we left the Bavarian Horse on the flank, the Austrians have an 

Elite Hussar regt prowling about. Surj counters it by deploying our heavy gun in its direction.

And we're in!!!

And we're in here as well!!!

Both my and Surj's charges are successful, knocking back our opponents.

Surj's columns carry their charges forward into 2 fresh units, my two do the same one slamming into Lee's artillery routing it.

I came off worse in the Cavalry bash, only winning 1 melee, (the one on the left). 

My Guard du Corps get absolutely smashed by Lee's best dice roll ever.

Nine dice were thrown needing 5's and 6's

8 figures were lost leaving only 4 figures of the Guard left!!

WTF!

In the follow up charges Lee's unit is wiped out by my Hussars (top left)

My Guard are wiped out Boooo!!!! But I manage to save my flag, thank gawd! (in the centre)

And my Cheval Leger route, but stay on the table

BUT whilst destroying Lee's unit I killed his attached commander, which forced a brigade

morale check, which Lee disastrously failed throwing the dreaded snake eyes.

This meant the whole brigade dispersed!!!

Leaving Lee's attack in tatters!

Next turn I charged Lee's Guard killers with my last remaining regt of Horse the Karabineers

I also moved up my Hussars to attack Lee's two fresh units, moving two units of Grenadiers up to help.

Surj fired his heavy artillery and routed the Austrian Hussars

Lee tried to reform his lines, but had effectively lost control of his left flank.

In fact the whole front line had turned round

Surj moved around the flank while I moved up the hill.

Lee lost the last of his original Horse regts in this melee, I luckily only lost 2 figures.

So they were now free to move onto my left flank.

Moving the Grenadiers up I shot at the static Austrian Horse, I had hoped for more

 than 2 casualties?

Poor Lee gave up the ghost at this point.....poor chap, It just wasn't his day at all!!!

Even though Lee hand thrown in the towl, Postie added up the points just to rud salt into his wounds.

It was a 30-4 victory for the Saxons and Bavarians, or as Postie put it An absolute thrashing!!!

Conclusion
Well what can I say, It really wasn't Lee's day, he did have a few good dice rolls, including destroying my Guard du Corps, but I'm afraid that was his only high point.
He should have been more aggressive with the Horse and the Grenadiers, with his passive play he let me and Surj dictate the run of the entire game......silly boy!!
Gotta admit though I did feel sorry for the poor chap, as we soundly thrashed him!!