Battle Report: Black Powder - Coa 1810

On the 24 of june 1810 General Crauford got caught with a light division between a river and Marshals Ney's corps, he had to find a way to cross the river before Ney's forces got to him and destroyed his forces.

Crauford had found a old bridge, but would he have time to check the condition of the bridge and get over before the French could destroy all his forces, he needed time to check the bridge, and get his forces over.

I commanded the French forces, and my clubmate would take on the British hat.

The forces this time around was a small light division for the British with 2 line battalions, 2 small battalions of 95th rifles, 2 Concadores, a light dragoon squadron and a horse artillery battery.

The French forces was quite a bit larger consisting of a total of 9 regular line battalions, 1 elite line battalion and 2 light battalions and finally a elite dragoon squadron.

For the scenario the British would have to send the cavalry to the bridge, spend a move there to check the bridge and report back to Crauford before any unit under his command could move from the deployment zone. After this the British would get a point for each unit that left over the bridge, and the French would loose one. The French started the game with 5 points.

The British deployment

The French deployment (half the force is of board)

The first turn saw the first French division line up facing of the British line, firing all that they could to get them to break.

The second division moved up to flank the line.

A hard shoot out in the middle

The britts sends the cavalry to check the bridge as fast as possible

After the first turn

The second turn saw the return of the cavalry to the British lines, and a continued fire fight between the two forces

After this the lines stood still for a few turns, pouring fire into each other, both sides taking some casualties but generally the French started to take the britts down, so Crauford signalled for a general retreat, staying back with the last line battalion to hold the line, but got himself cut down by French bayonets as the line started to charge.

The British line is being beaten back in disorder, but still getting to the bridge

The line battalion along with Crauford is destroyed

In the end enough units from the British side got over to give them a draw, but only the lightest units got over, so the French could claim a minor win.

The game was really close in the end, quite a lot of more or less failed orders got the French second division of to a slow and in the end - bad pursuit, I should have concentrated them to take the bridge and not tried to push them towards it. Also my cavalry didn't do much, they charged in once, got a unit quite beaten up, but as they got into square I could not destroy them and they themselves got quite beaten up by it and stood around doing next to nothing for the rest of the game.

But it was an excellent game, and I really like Black Powder, even though we forget half of the rules ;)

British Napoleonic Hussars

I've finally completed a unit of British hussars that I have had in the works for a long time. The back bases was actually completed a few months ago. But the front rank has been almost done for weeks now, only missing that little last thing, and then basing.

Well the struggle is finally over and they can now ride into battle at the head of my British columns.

After this I have another line regiment to do, but somehow I've lost the heads and backpacks for about half the miniatures in that unit, I have to find them... wherever they might be.

Ah well I also have some commanders to and some cannons, so I'll keep busy =)

The miniatures then, they are from the Perrys and their British hussars set, mighty fine miniature they are, you get the choice of either arms at rest as the back line, or charging as the front and a whole lot of different heads as well. The information leaflet they send with you in the box is very nice as well and gives you the uniform of a lot of different regiments.
Can't recommend them enough.

But here are some pictures of them as they line up to take to the field.

Lion Rampant - Part II - Starting force complete

I've now completed painting on my starting force for our Swedish campaign. Since this is in reality only half of a standard army for Lion Rampant, I plan to eventually expand this to a complete 24 point force. But I think I'm going to hold this off until I can get at least a few games in.

The newly painted units then is first my foot knights with Torgils Knutsson himself leading them. I gave each knight his own design on his shield (if they have one) to mark them out a bit extra on the field. I used quite simple designs as I'm not that good at making this kind of free hand.

Second I have my skirmishers, 6 men with crossbows. I painted them the same as my previous men at arms, so they came together quickly.

And lastly we have my full force, ready for the battlefield.

Battle Report: Black Powder - Rollica 1808

This week I got to use my Napoleonic miniatures for the second time!

At our club we played a smallish battle from the Albion Triumphant supplement to Black Powder. The game was Rollica August 1808, Sir Arthur Wellesley has just landed his troops in Portugal, and is travelling to Lisbon, standing in his way is a French army, looking down on his troops from a hill.

The British mission was to get their troops up onto the hill, and the French was to prevent them.

The British boasted 4 battalions of troops, 3 with infantry and one with some skirmishing troops and some cavalry, the French on the other hand only had 2 battalions of infantry, supported by a single squadron of old guard cavalry.

I took command of the French troops, mostly since most of them was my miniatures, and the game was off.

It started with a whole bunch of nothing, as every single command check we tried failed on both sides, but Wellesley soon got his generals going and it wasn't long until a heavy shooting match started at the foot of the hill. The French hiding among the rocks and the numerical British throwing large amount of firepower at them.

The British was gaining the upper hand, but time was running out, so the cavalry that had made a large flanking manoeuvre started to close in on the French lines from behind.
A squadron of royal dragoons hit one of the French line units in the back, at the same time as a unit of rifles hit them in the side and another line unit hit them in the front. It only took them moments to annihilate the poor frenchies and the dragoons sought another target...
The Old guard cavalry stood more or less motionless in the front ranks of the french force, since a failed attempt at breaking the British line earlier in the game, how they got charged by not only the royal dragoons but also a line regiment.

But the Old guard is old for a reason, and they hacked and slashed their way out of this attack, destroying both attacking units and breaking the back of the British attack. The rest of the British force had to retreat, leaving the French in command of the field.

Wellesley would have to find another way into Spain.

French Deployment

British deployment

The battlefield and deployments

British advance

French dragoons

British army after a turn of confusion

The French smash into the British lines, only to be repulsed without inflicting any real damage

The fire fight breaks out for real

Halfway into the battle

French lines are suffering under the fire

Here stood the French, and here they fell

The battlefield just as the game draws to a close

Lion Rampant - Part I - Intro

A little while ago a game called Lion Rampant was released from Osprey Publishing, and a few of my club mates have been deeply involved in play-testing of this game, and one even has some of his pictures featured in the finished product.


So we had to play it in some way, and since we are in Sweden and there has been a lot of different Swedish history gaming in the last few years this would continue in this game.

The period that was decided upon was something called "Håtunaleken", and that's Sweden during the very early 14th century.

The character I chose to represent during all this is Torgils Knutsson, the new kings guardian, and marshal under the previous king.

For the first part in this we are to create a 12 point army, or more correctly, patrol. I got myself a box of Teutonic Infantry from Fire Forge games to create my starting force and since 12 points only amounts to three quite small units, that was enough.

My force will be
6 foot knights including Torgils himself
12 men at arms with assorted close combat weapons and shields
6 skirmishing crossbowmen

And that's it, quick, small and easy.

My force assembled looks like this

In the centre front you can see Torgils himself, to the left of him is his knights, to his right his skirmishers and behind his men at arms.

And now I have painted my men at arms and they look spiffy in their new colours.

I'm using a very quick and dirty method here, only applying a base colour, washing it and then a single "highlight" with the base colour again. This gets my minis completed, even if they wont win any painting competitions.

It's ALIVE!

So it's been almost two years since I last posted something here, a lot has happened in this time, I've gotten married, we had a kid, I've painted a few armies, started playing some new games, gotten out of a few others and so on.

But I'm not going to go over too much what has happened and more concentrate on whats going on, and in that have a few looks back at what has happened in that context.

So for starters I picked up my Napoleonic miniatures this spring, I found a gaming group in the same town as I live in and even though the mostly play 40k at least two was interested in some historical wargaming. So I got my more or less forgotten miniatures out of storage, looked thought what I got, what was painted and what I needed to do and get to get both my british and my french forces up to the level of playable.

Since none of the others had any experience in any historical game at all, I got hold of my copy of the Waterloo game from Warhammer Historical, as this has some resemblance to Warhammer Fantasy and that was a game they knew of.
So to get this going I had to supplement my british forces quite a bit, as it was then I only had a few units, and most of them was only four bases each, and Waterloo uses up to eight for the british (and six for most of the others). So i got going and painted a few extra miniatures, and got some of the left overs I had organized for more units, I also got hold of one of the splendid plastic boxes from Perry Miniatures, and together with a few metal miniatures I had, I got a total of four regular units done and two more units of Riflemen, so I have a small unit (four bases) of 60th Rifles, and a slightly larger one (six bases) of the 95th.

I also got a cannon done and a artillery officer that would be my commander for the first battle.

I also supplemented the French side by completing a unit of light infantry that I think I started painting way back in 2011, here I also had to enlarge the units up from four bases to six. and I ended up with five units of regulars, the light and a smaller unit of Old Guard Grenadiers, and I also got a unit of Dragoons done.

With this I got the armies completed for the first game.

As this was our first game with new rules we did a ton of mistakes, but we was kind of consistent with them so they didn't affect the outcome too much (I think at least =)

I took control of the British forces and my opponent the French, we had most of our armies arrayed across from each other, but I thought I could be clever and sent one unit to flank around a small town, this did not go quite as I had intended and they spent almost all game walking and arriving when it was all to late. At the same time on the other side our infantry pummeled each other but the battle took a turn for the worse for the British when the French Dragoons appeared and charged into the lines.
The result was that most British units broke or was cut down and the battle was over.

All in all it was a great game, and I've since then started painting a unit of Hussars for the British so they also have some cavalry to challenge the frogs.

Here is some pictures from the game, enjoy =)

French deployment

British deployment

Overview of table

French light troops

Guards and line troops

Initial movement of frensh right flank

First fire contact

Lines intermingle and units start deteriorating

Despite the markers the British forces are staring to get the upper hand

French guard breaks and flees!

And then the cavalry arrived....