Cavalier Tonbridge 2011

Myself and the usual cronies Fran, LINK, Postie and Richard drove down to Tonbridge to spend our hard earned pennies at Cavilier in Tonbridge, we made quite good time arriving in around 35 minutes from sunny Gravesend. There we met up with fellow blogger Big Lee, (who has beat me to the punch with his photo's of the show!) LINK.We all spent far too much money, I picked up a small pre-order of some extra command figures for the 15mm NYW project from Essex miniatures, a few paints, which I could actually see, for some miraculas reason the managment at the Angel Centre turned off the god awful yellow lights that used to blight the show, so for the first time in a couple of years I didn't get a headache after walking around for several hours straining my eyes to see!!   I also bought a copy of  Sharpe Practice, rules for large skimishes games, hopefully to use with my 15mm FIW figures. After the show we all headed for Fran's, for a Zombie game after sampling the delights of his fridge, his good lady indoors had made a large plate of cheese and ham rolls, which didn't last that long, but we forgot to eat the cake she made!! I sure Fran made up for our mistake, stuffing his face while watching the TV last night, although he will no doubt deny all knowledge of the said cake!. Anyway I took a few photo's of the show which are below, I also took some photo's of the Zombie game we played, I'll post them another day.

Sgts' Mess had my first purchase of ther day, a beacon fire, which I'll use to burn alive the redcoated English in the French Indian Wars

The Lance and Longbow Socity

Aaahhh!! BigLee & Fran



Three photo's of the great looking WWII game by Loughton Strike Force, Budapest 1945





The Battle of Grunwald by Crawley Wargames Club



A FIW skirmish game from the jolly good chaps from the Royal American 60th foot reinactment society, who hopefully will be sending me a copy of the rules.



A skirmish at Ngoway's Kraal Anglo-Zulu War 1879



The dreaded Bring and Buy. With each visit I recieved either a smack in the side of my head with a rucksack, the aroma of a smelly armpit or worse! but mainly the view of the back of someones head!! So with a gritting and grinding of my
of the teeth and lots of expletives, I gave up!!

Recently painted No 15 - O'Farrell's Scots Fuzileers NYW

Another recently painted unit, the first of 2011 for my NYW army, once again they're Essex miniatures, bases are from Warbases and they're based up for BLB.

Charles Erskine 5th Earl of Mar was appointed as the regiments first Colonel on 23 September 1678. The regiment first saw action at the Battle of Bothwell Bridge on 22 June 1679. In 1685 it was engaged in suppressing the rebellion of the Earl of Argyle. Then in 1686 Thomas Buchan became colonel of the regiment. In 1688 the regiment left Scotland and marched to England in support of King James, against the Prince of Orange. After the change of power, Thomas Buchan was dismissed and succeeded by Francis Fergus O'Farrell by commission of 1 March 1689.

The regiment was sent overseas almost immediately, sailing from Gravesend, (my hometown), in March 1689 to form part of the allied force defending the Low Countries, opposing Louis XIV of France. The force included (Treasury Books for 25th January 1689/90) the 2nd troop of Guards and Grenadiers; the Royal Regiment of Horse; the Royal Regiment of Scots Footguards; Royal Regiment of Fusiliers; the Regiments of Foot commanded by Col. Charles Churchill, Col. John Hales, Sir David Coliear, Col. Edward FitzPatrick, Col Robert Hodges and Col. Francis D’O’Farrell. The army was under the command of Prince Waldeck, and the regiment served in the division under Earl (as he then was) Marlborough.
 They fought at Walcourt in on 25th August 1689, Shortly afterwards the regiment was issued with the new flintlock muskets (in about 1690), hence being named the Scots Fusiliers by Royal Warrant.
 On 27th July 1691 they were drawn up at Gerpines Camp, where their uniforms were described as “red, lined red”. They next fought at Steenkirk (or Steenkerke) on 3rd August 1692, a hard-fought but indecisive engagement. Some weeks before that battle, O’Farrell was taken prisoner by the French while on his way to a conference with the Duke of Wurtemburg (Duke Eberhard Louis, who served under William in Ireland as well as on the Continent), but was released on payment of the customary ransom. On 29th July 1693 they fought at Landen (Neerwinden), when the French forces under Marshall Luxembourg defeated William’s forces.
 During 1694 O’Farrell was appointed commander of the town of Diense in the Low Countries, one of a chain of fortified towns across the Low Countries which were fought over by the French and English. When the town was besieged on 21st July 1695 by Villeroy’s army O’Farrell surrendered to the French without firing a shot, and he was tried by a court-martial on 19th October . He was perhaps lucky, because the commander of Dixmude (which had been taken by Villeroy on his way to Diense), who surrendered at the same time, was beheaded!
 The 21st Fusiliers, were then bestowed on Col. Robert McKay on 13th November 1695, he died in December 1696. Then in 1697 Archibald Row, formerly Lieutenant-Colonel of Stanley's regiment became the new Colonel. After the peace of Rijswijk the regiment was shipped to Scotland. Row's regiment survived the 1699 disbandings on the Scottish establishment.

Historically Inspiring No 3 DAK motorcycle and sidecar

Motorbike with sidecar (BMW) and mounted MG34 of the
21st Panzer-Division, German Afrika Korps

Many moons ago, as a child my first foray into any type of wargame was the famous box of Airfix soldiers, me and my brother used to set the soldiers up then throw marbles at them, I shudder to think doing the same to my new rather expensive collection today. My favourite troops were the German Africa Corps, I don't know why but they were always the first troops I picked. Then one year as part of my 8th birthday I got a WWII kids colouring book, the black line drawings were all taken from photos of the war, its sad but I can still remember turning to page 16 and finding the picture above, I was in awe and coloured the picture with great care and delight. The picture then found pride of place next to my Leeds United team posters from Shoot magazine. Recently my pal The Angry Lurker bought loads of Flames of War figures, they looked great so I made that fateful decision to halt painting the 15mm FIW figures I had been furiously painting away and get some DAK and 8th army figures, I ploughed into both armies spending far too much money and time on them, near completion I came to my senses and sold the lot on ebay and at Tonbridge wargame show. I had mixed feelings after, Damn I shouldn't have sold them!!! but I needed the dosh to finish the FIW project I started the previous year. Then what did I do,... I talked myself into buying into another period along with my other pal Richard, 15mm NYW. What's it all about???