Monday 30 January 2023

AHPC 13 - Almansa 1707 - French Sillery's Brigade



I didn't get to post anything last week, up on the Painting Challenge blog as I just didn't find the time to take any photos, so I bombardeed my poor minion Stuart with 6 posts, that will hopefully all get on here asap.


First off is my first French brigade for my Almansa project.
Sillery's brigade fought in the front ranks of the centre left under Major General Vicentelo.


Only one close up, don't look to hard, they're tiny!
I do like the flag on regt Bigorre, once again all the flags are from my NYW collection, some made by me, others from online sites.


Regiments in this brigade were, Bigorre, Isle de France, La Sarre and 2 Battalions of Sillery.

Nice and easy with the points.
5 bases @5pts each = 25pts
1 Brigadeir base = 1/2 point

So a total of 25.5 points

Wednesday 25 January 2023

The Battle of Abensberg: 23rd April 1809 - A Napoleonic batrep

 


Last Sunday the Rejects got together in the Shed of War, for our first face to face game of the year.

Postie put on a French v Austrian fictional battle set in 1809.

OOB (Stolen from Lee's blog!) And here's a link to Richard's blog post

French - C/O Ovdinart - Part of 2nd Corp (c/o Surjit, 2iC Mark, 3iC Lee)
One infantry division consisting of three Brigades
One heavy cavalry division (c/o Nansouty) also of three Brigades of Cuirassiers & Carabiniers)
And one light cavalry division (c/o Lasalle) of two Brigades of Chasseurs a cheval & Hussars)


Austrians - C/O Kallowrath - Part of 3rd Corp (c/o Richard, 2iC Ray, 3iC David)
One infantry division consisting of three Brigades
One heavy cavalry division consisting of three Brigades of Elite Cuirassiers
One light cavalry division consisting of two Brigades of Dragoons, Chevaualeger & Hussars

It was a very strange game, as nothing much happened until the last few turns of the game? We think it was because both sides were very similar in size and quality, apart from the Elite Austrian Cuirassiers and the Elite Leger brigade. This kind of nullified both sides as w e were too cautious in moving forward.


The start of the game, our plan was for Dave to hold the flank on our left and let Lee squish himself forward to us. I'd attack with my cavaly on our right and Richard would set up to receive the French onslaught.

None of this happend!


My command
6 units of Elite Austrian Cuirassiers


'Orrible Frenchies
Lee. Surj and Smiffy


First blood went to Dave, who's Horse artillery knocked down a few French horsemen.
Postie wouldn't let Lee fire at Dave's artillery, as the shot would have passed through the edge of the woods. I wish I'd taken a pic of Lee's face.
He was NOT a happy bunny, the dummy was definitely spat out!!!


Dave moved around the flank


Mainly due to Surj's Legere, who were up against 1 Jager and a Lancer unit.
We knew we'd lose both woods and have them in our flank, so Dave had to go forward.


Smiffy took us all, even himself by surprise, in getting all his cavalry into a decent position, very quickly.


Not a lot going on here.


Hmmmm?


Dave charged his Lancers at a French Leger regt. He didn't reach, you can see how far he was away!


The French start to move forward, it was oh so sweet to see these two bickering like an old married couple. Surj wanted Smiffy to move his Cavalry up further to cover his infantry. Smiffy was having none of it!


We're close!


We're in! It didn't go my way, as the French won the first turn and charged half move before I could and made contact.


It was quite obvious Surj was going to try and charge 2 columns of Elite French up the hill at one unit. He'd only have to throw average dice to be successful.


Dave & Lee square up.


Alert Alert, Blog tart at work!


A view down the table.


Going into column, kind of buggered up Surj's plan.
Hehe!


What a mess!
Smiffy won some and I won some.


And they're in on our left too!


Again it was tit for tat.


Richard had a funny turn and charged down the hill at the French.


And was very succesful, knocking back several French units.


That's somthing you don't often see, 2 Austrian columns charging a French column!


Another French unit was routed.
Could Richard have turned the tide of the battle?


Uh oh
Smiffy's free Cuirassiers crashed into the flank of my Cuirassier, as well as hitting it from the front.


What a bloody mess!


And there the game ended, we were all knackered!
We all thought it was a close game and couldn't really call a winner, both sides lost many units, leaders and flags. But in the end it was a big victory for the French 15-27
Oh well!


And here they are, the victorious French!
Boooo Hisss!


But on the plus side Richard was awarded the Man of the Match, for his sterling efforts in the centre of the table routing loads of French infantry.


Tuesday 24 January 2023

AHPC 13 - Almansa 1707 - English - MacCartney's & Breton's Brigde's 2mm

 



Back to the  2mm WSS Battle of Almansa project


Here we have 2 Brigades of English foot, MacCartney's and Breton's
Each unit consists of  240 2mm figures


In a previous post I hand wrote the names of each unit on the bottom of the base. Unfortunately my handwriting is like a 5 year old's. So after a quick experiment on MSPaint, I came up with these, the brown colour is a close match to the brown on the bases and they don't catch your eye too much. Which is what I wanted.
I did add a coloured block on the left of the label, to denote the country of the unit. Red being English.


McCartney's Brigade - Gorge's, Breton's, MacCartney's & Portmore's
Breton's Brigade - Mourdant's, Foot Guards, Lord Nassau's & Bowles'


Don't look too close, 2mm are hard to see let alone paint!
All the flags come from my NYW collection and were shrunken down to fit 2mm. Now they are larger than they should be, but in my opinion need to be.

So for the points
8 bases @5 pts each = 40 pts
2 bases @1/2 pts = 1 point
For a total of 41 points!!!


Friday 20 January 2023

AHPC13 - The Artillery - 2mm Almansa 1707

 


I was waiting for some figures to dry, so I could base them, so I thought I'd give some of the artillery needed for the battle a quick lick of paint.Somehow I ended up painting it all!
So here we have 10 bases, giving me 20 pieces of Portuguese artillery.


I looked high and low for what colour the guns should be, but couldn't find anything, so I went with natural wood.


With grey artillerymen


Next up we have the Spanish. 6 bases giving me 12 artillery


Blue guns and a dark blue uniform, can you see the red cuffs?
Me neither, coz I didn't paint them!!



Not sure why the French artillery look brown in this pic, they are red.
5 bases, giving me 10 artillery


Can you spot the deliberate mistake?


You might see it here better?
Answers on a postcard to..........


Lastly 3 bases of 6 English guns. 


So that my friends, is both sides artillery for the Battle of Almansa


24 bases @ 2.5 points each
Total 60 pts