Here’s the second unit of Highlanders for my English Civil War project:
These are 15mm Khurasan figures from their ECW Scots & Irish range: full Highlanders at the front, Humblies at the back.
One more Highander unit to go and then it’s on to the Scottish horse.
Time for another go at For King & Parliament, and the fifth scenario in my North Wessex campaign: Bisham Abbey.
After the last clash at Burchett’s Green, both sides have withdrawn to regroup and reform.
With “Little John” Boulters remaining in command whilst his father still recovers from wounds received at Widbrooke Common, the Royalists are bolstered by the return of the troops from Maidenhythe, hitherto sequestered by the King in Oxford. The Roundheads also receive reinforcements in the shape of a brigade of mercenary Scots troops under Colonel Macintosh MacLeod, and Sir Christopher (overall commander) is finally persuaded to lead from the back rather than the front!
The Royalists are ready to move first: marching north towards Marlowe. The Parliamentarians are ready for them, however, blocking their path just north of Bisham Abbey, a monastery-turned-manor-house that sits on the banks of the Thames.
The table from the Parliamentarian side
The Royalist army, ably commanded by my friend John, consisted of four brigades. On the right was Col. Stafferton’s brigade of horse (two units of Swedish horse); to their left was Col. Spencer’s brigade of foot (the Cookham Militia, three battalia); to their left was Col. Sir William Ray’s brigade of foot (two standard battalia - the Maidenhythe Foot - and the Oxford Musketeers, a commanded shot battalia); and finally, on the far left, was Gen. Derrick’s brigade of horse (three units of Swedish horse).
The Royalist commander ponders his plans
The Parliamentarians, with Yours Truly in command, consisted of only three brigades. The Cavalerie, on the right, were led by Col. Hurst, and consisted of three squadrons of Dutch horse. Next to them, in the centre, were Gen. Nelson’s three battalia of infantry supported by the guns of Littler’s Battery. Finally, on the left, were the three battalia of mercenary pike under Col. MacLeod. A Forlorn Hope was positioned in the small hamlet of Bisham, mid-way between the battle lines.
MacLeod’s Scots in the dawn light. Well, we started at 9am, which is pretty dawn-like for a Sunday!
My plan was to pivot on the mercenary Scots, sending my horse forward as quickly as possible to smash through his lighter Swedish-types and then curl around the rear of the Royalist army. I would give up the distant hedge on the left, but take the nearer hedge in the centre.
As this was only John’s second game of FK&P, his plan was to advance generally across his entire front and see what happened when the enemy was encountered!
The red Meeples indicate veteran units.
The Parliamentarian coup de grace was administered by Sunnybank’s commanded shot and the Scottish mercenaries. Between them they utterly destroyed the Royalist 2nd Foot Brigade (the Maidenhythe Foot and Oxford Musketeers) which, added to the coins lost when the Royalist horse and artillery evaporated under the tender ministrations of Grey’s Cavalerie, finally emptied the King’s coffers!
In the end, my plan had worked, albeit with several road bumps on the way. I lost three of my command stands, and would have been gradually overwhelmed if it hadn’t been for the extraordinary fight shown by the 3rd Grey’s Cavalerie (the only non-veteran unit in the brigade, obviously). They turned the tide of the battle, with the Scots then digging in their heels and refusing to be broken.
All in all, another great game of FK&P!
Here’s another great little battle report from Chris Lane, taken from the IABSM Facebook Group, and featuring more action in Malaya.
Here a British probing attack gets tangled with Japanese pickets. Click on the picture below to see what happens…
Now that the three battalia of Scottish pikemen are done, it’s time to start adding the Highlanders
These are, again, 15mm Khurasan Miniatures mostly painted with GW Contrast paints and mounted on my chosen element bases from Warbases.
I used 16 figures to represent the Highlander unit equivalent of a pike ‘n’ shot battalia. That might be a little light, but with the dynamic poses you can see in the pic above, any more would have had them on top of each other. It looks about right on the tabletop though.
Note that the chaps with the polearms and yellow shirts are “humblies”: called that because they are the poorer sort of Highlander!
Here’s another battalia of lowland Scottish pikemen for my English Civil War collection:
The figures are from Khurasan’s Irish/Scottish ECW range. They are 15mm and size nicely with the Peter Pig and Hallmark (from Magister Militum) ranges that I am already using. They are very cleanly sculpted and an absolute pleasure to paint. Those of you in the UK might be interested to note that they arrived with me only five days after ordering them from the US: the GZG teleport device is obviously now working in both directions!
They are painted mainly with GW Contrast paints and are mounted on a Warbases vehicle base, giving a very nicely sized element for use with the For King & Parliament ruleset. The flowers/heather is from Boontown.
I’ve taken a pragmatic approach to painting tartan. Rather than spend hours and hours trying to actually reproduce a genuine tartan pattern, I’ve made do with something that doesn’t take too long and looks good at a wargames distance of three feet or so. In effect, all I did was add stripes of a different colour to a heavily shaded sash. This worked for these guys, but the highlanders that I’m currently painting need a little more work as they have a lot more tartan, but more on that in a later post.
A little bit slower this week, probably because the summer holidays have ended and it’s back to work time!
It’s still, however, an impressive collection of entries this week. Visit the galleries to see all, but here’s a snapshot of what’s been sent in:
With the varnish on the first two cohorts of blue-shield legionaries literally still drying, it was time to take the Marian Romans out for their first game of To The Strongest.
Looking at their list, the Romans have three basic options dependent on their commander: Caesar (Spain and Gaul); Pompeii (the East) and Sulla. My choice was to field a Caesarian army, mainly because I already have Gauls so wouldn’t need to paint any of them. My list was therefore as follows:
Proconsul
Two units of legionaries (one veteran)
Legate
Two units of legionaries (one veteran)
One unit of Cretan Archers
Legate
Two units of legionaries (one veteran)
One unit of legionary artillery
Allied Cavalry Leader
Two units of veteran Gallic cavalry
One unit of horse archers
I’m thinking that perhaps the Gallic cavalry should, if veteran, more properly be Germanic cavalry, as the Gauls fighting for Caesar didn’t seem to be very good whereas the Germans were very effective, but that’s something I can rectify in due course: for this battle they were hyped up on Getafix’s potion!
Kavan, my opponent, chose to field a Syracusan army. Not strictly speaking contemporary, but very much the sort of army the Romans had faced in the years leading up to the Marian period. His force consisted of:
Commander-in-Chief
One unit of Bodyguard Hoplites
One unit of Light Infantry
Commander
Two units of Gallic mercenaries
One unit of mercenary Greek cavalry
Commander
Two units of Syracusan Hoplites
Two units of light infantry
Commander
One unit of Syracusan Hoplites
One unit of Syracusan cavalry
One unit of light infantry
I deployed the Romans in a long line of Legionary bases, with the Gauls on the left wing.
The Roman Battle Line
A friend had warned me that being very much an infantry army, my flanks were very vulnerable, so although I felt my left was covered by the Gallic cavalry, I was very much aware that my right was somewhat ‘floating’, so just after the picture above was taken, I moved the legionary artillery onto the small hill behind the 9th/10th Cohorts.
Kavan also deployed in a long line but, obviously reading my mind, heavily weighted each flank i.e. his Gallic mercenaries were in the centre along with the bodyguard hoplites, but he had two hoplite units on his far right and one on his far left.
That’s an awful lot of syracusans
I opened proceedings by advancing slowly forward, holding my line. The Syracusan centre, on the other hand positively leapt forward. My Gallic cavalry annoyingly hung back, but this was countered by the fact thatb his right-flank hoplites were also slow to get going.
syracusan centre advances forward speedily
As the two centres approached each other, the action actually began on my right wing where, as predicted, the Syracusan cavalry attempted an outflanking manouevre, backed up by a unit of hoplites and some light infantry. The 9th/10th Cohorts turned to face them and the artillery opened fire.
The Syracusan cavalry were disposed of by the artillery (superb shooting!) and, for the rest of the game, the 9th/10th Cohorts would hold off the hoplites despite being attacked in their rear by more Syracusan light infantry. At one stage, the legionaries survived four consecutive rear attacks whilst disordering the hoplites in front of them. Plaudits and rewards all round!
cohorts IX and X hold the right flank against all comers
On the left wing, my Gallic cavalry were keeping the two enemy Hoplite units occupied, using their superior mobility to avoid a head-on clash and occasionally managing to threaten their flanks even if contact couldn’t be made. Two veteran cavalry units for two Hoplite units seemed a fair exchange to me, so it looked as if the action was going to be decided in the centre.
the two centres are about to clash
The legionaries and enemy Gallic mercenaries clashed first. I was expecting my pila to make a difference, but they didn’t really have much effect at all. The clash became a grinding melee where the quality of my legionaries was perfectly balanced by the size (and therefore extra hits) of the Gauls.
Slightly to the left of the above, my 1st/2nd and 3rd/4th Cohort unit were faced by two units of Syracusan light infantry. I just couldn’t get rid of these: every time I charged forward, they evaded, and I soon found my troops well in front of the rest of the centre. Kavan had done to me what I had done to his two Hoplite units on the far left!
cohorts I to IV distracted by light infantry
Eventually, however, one of his light units were caught and disposed of, leaving my legionary unit to turn either for the enemy camp or back towards the centre to drive into the back of the enemy who were, bu now, hard pressing my men there.
the centres have now clashed!
I decided that the Roman thing to do was to go to the aid of the legion, so two cohorts of fresh Roman infantry drove into the back of the Celtic mercenaries, smashing them from the table.
This proved too much for the Syracusans, who had by now lost enough troops to force a retreat. It had been a narrow victory for the Marian Romans.
Lots of lessons learnt about the capabilities of the Marians. I was very pleasantly surprised by the effectiveness of the Roman artillery, although I do feel that that was down to the cards they turned rather than any innate ability. On the other hand, I was disappointed with the Roman pila: the extra attack card was useful, but not decisive.
What was without doubt the key to victory, however, was the manouevrability of the Roman cohorts along with their staying power, particularly the three veteran units. I foresee interesting times ahead, particularly as the next fight will be with the Sassanids.
It’s taken me about three months, but I now finally have enough Marian Roman figures painted to get the army onto the tabletop.
My target was achieved with the painting of a second Legatus (commander of a legion) and the first two Cohorts of my second legion.
Those of you who visit this site regularly will see that I have differentiated between the legions by giving this second set blue-painted shields instead of the red ones used for the first legion. I was tempted to use black helmet crests as well but, in the end, decided that different shields were enough.
The figures are 15mm Baueda Marian Romans painted mainly with GW Contrast Paints. Shield transfers are from Little Big Man Studios, bases from Warbases.
This now means that I have 130 points of Romans to field using the To The Strongest rules: four commanders, six units of legionaries (three veteran), two units of veteran Gallic cavalry, and then a unit each of horse archers, Cretan archers and legionary artillery.
The Marian Romans laid out and ready to go!
Also good news is that daughter #1’s boyfriend is back staying with us for another week…which means the chance to take the Romans for a spin. Obviously I’m a little concerned with fielding a brand new army, as wargaming tradition has it that newly painted figures always perform really, really badly (especially if they are the best painted figures that you have ever done!), but I think I shall just have to bite the pila as it were and get on with it!
Two of my regular wargaming opponents, Bevan and Dave, turned their guns on each other: playing a game based on the famous British counter-attack near Arras on 21st May 1940.
The British attack had already broken through the main road west from Arras – the N25 - and this was an attempt to close the other viable road west that Rommel would have to use to supply his over stretched tanks. This road (the D3) runs through the village of Wailley just west of Arras, so the British mission was to take the village and block the road. The German brief was to keep the road open at all costs.
Unfortunately, Dave’s photographs of the game disappeared into the technological ether, so here’s a shot from one of Michael Curtis’ excellent Arras games. Click on it to read Dave’s report on his battle…
Over the years, various people have adapted the TooFatLardies' company-level rules I Ain't Been Shot, Mum (WW2) and Charlie Don't Surf (Vietnam) for other, more modern periods.
One such adaptation, never officially published, was I Ain’t Been Nuked Mum. Here’s a battle report from 2015 taken from the now unfortunately moribund Maxim to Milan blog imagining action from the Cold War of the 1970’s.
The scenario sees a hastily assembled US force of a mechanised platoon, an anti-tank section and an armored cavalry section on a mission to stop a breakthrough by a Soviet company of T62s with a motor rifle platoon in BMPs attached.
Click on the pic below to see all.
Enthused by how the first Scots battalia came out, I leapt into painting the second one and polished it off in no time at all.
As a reminder, these are Khurasan Miniatures’ 15mm English Civil War Scots infantry: a mixture of their pikemen, musketeers and infantry command packs. They were painted using GW Contrast Paints, and mounted on a Warbases Vehicle base. The purple heather is from Boontown.
When I first started the Scots, I was a bit worried about painting tartan, but I seem to have found a way of getting the various sashes looking at least tartan-esque, certainly from usual wargaming distance. To be honest, all I did was paint each sash a basecoat red, then drew lines of various different colours (mainly green) against the grain of the sash. I think they have come out quite well, but the real test will be when I move on to the Highlanders!
There will now be a short interval whilst I paint the one remaining legionary unit I need to actually field the Marian Romans…
It’s time for another Painting Challenge update, and today we have some really lovely entries coming in.
Make sure you look at the individual galleries (accessed via the nav bar, above) but here’s a selection…
Another great I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum battle report from the keyboard of Chris Lane, and taken from the IABSM Facebook Group.
Their game this time saw part two of what has now become their fall of Singapore campaign. In this battle, a full strength British company was tasked of taking two strategic hills while the Japanese (briefly) rested. The Japanese commander was tasked with holding the hills but with the option of taking a junction for a major victory.
Click on the picture below to see all…
I’m just finishing off a few more bits and pieces for my 15mm Marian Roman army before starting on the second legion (another 120 legionaries!). One of the units I need is the legionary ballistae or bolt-throwers.
Those of you who have been following this site will know that I am using Baueda figures for my Marian Romans, but Baueda don’t do any artillery yet, so it was back to the ever-reliable Peter Pig to pick up a couple of packets. That’s one of the things I like about the Pig: you can buy a big army, or you can buy a small packet or two to fill a gap.
The Pig don’t do Marian Romans, but they do have a very nice range of Early Imperial types. Yes these chaps would therefore be in lorica segmentia rather than mail, but maybe they were testing the prototypes of the new armour being introduced. As I understand it, the ballistae were manned by odds and sods from the 10th Cohort, so why shouldn’t they be dressed slightly differently!
The packs duly arrived and, on first glance, looked a bit small compared to the Baueda figures. This was, however, an illusion caused by pose and lack of helmet crest. They go together pretty well: certainly not badly enough to make a difference on the tabletop. I’ve just double checked the case I store them in, where they are next to Baueda figures: no real difference except, as mentioned, the helmet crest effect.
The figures are very nice: well up to Peter Pig’s usual high standards. I liked the ballistae themselves as well: simple, but with enough detail to make them look like what they are.
In fact, the only problem is that they now make me wish I’d gone a different route and gone for an Early Imperial army instead of the Marians, but then there’s always time to rectify that in the future…!
I still needed some more foot for my ECW armies, but was a little bored of painting up another straight pike and shot battalia (I have seven units of about 26 figures each, or 182 foot figures) so decided I’d add a Scots element.
Most of my ECW figures so far have been Peter Pig or Hallmark (via Magister Militum), so I decided to look elsewhere for the Scots: two changes presumably being as good as two rests!
The figures I settled on in the end were Khurasan’s fairly new range of ECW Scots and Irish. I must admit I was strongly influenced by how good the painted up examples on the website looked (other manufacturers take note!) and the fact that I could send a message via FB to check if the pikemen were open handed (they are) and get a response within a couple of hours.
Even more impressive was that after I’d ordered my usual fairly large amount (three foot battalia, three horse units, two units of Highlanders, and a couple of artillery pieces) the figures arrived from the US only five days later. Five days!
This meant they headed straight to the front of the painting queue, so here’s the first battalia finished:
What I like about these figures is the obvious contrast with the English battalia: all dressed very plainly as compared to the bright colours down South…but with several of the figures having tartan sashes just to liven things up a little.
These paint up very easily (as usual, I mostly used Contrast Paints) and are highly recommended.
Here’s a quick AAR taken from the I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum Facebook Page: Chris Lane and Simon Godly-Kelly fight it out in Malaya.
Click on the picture below to see all:
Very busy at work this last week, so only time to complete a few odds and ends for the two projects I’m currently working on: English Civil War and Marian Romans.
I always find that having two projects on the go at any one time is better than having just one. If, like I do, you only collect in one scale (15mm for me) I also find that it’s best to use different manufacturers as well: alleviates the boredom factor.
First up, a couple of command stands for my English Civil War armies. Here I’ve used a couple of gentleman officers from Hallmark (via Magister Militum) as a random Colonel-type, and then a couple of spare figures from Peter Pig - one command, one artilleryman - as a Colonel of artillery. The mini-gabions are Hama beads filled with basing material!
The Hallmark figures are really exquisite and, if you use Contrast Paints like I do, really easy to paint.
On top of the above, I’ve now painted up the five Hero figures I need for my Marian Roman army. Representing Heroes is always difficult, as you need a figure that stands out a bit and yet is not being used for the rest of the army.
What I chose to do was to add a set of Peter Pig Centurion figures to my Baueda Marian Roman army.
One of the great things about Peter Pig (in addition to the huge range and lovely, very paintable sculpts that they do) is that you can ask them to give you a custom built pack of just one sculpt. So here I looked at one of their mixed command packs, chose one figure, and had a pack of eight of just that figure sent to me. Very handy indeed.
I had a chance to get my new English Civil War siege gun bases onto the tabletop as I played out the latest scenario in my North Wessex campaign using the For King & Parliament campaign.
Both sides have withdrawn from the field of their last encounter at Pinkney’s Court, with the Royalists now looping round to try and outflank the Parliamentarians. As a desperate excuse to justify the use of siege artillery, the Royalists receive a couple of huge cannon as a gift from the King. Keen to try them out, they set them up across open fields and prepare to fire off a coupe of shots. As they do so, the Roundheads appear on the other side of the field and battle is joined.
Here’s what happened:
Royalists on the far side, Parliamentarians nearest to us.
With siege guns in position for testing!
Parliamentarian horse moves forward rapidly to assay an assault on the Cavalier right flank. The lead battalia in the Royalist column on the road would move quickly over the hedge to block them.
Lots of cannon fire at them, but very few hits.
The 1st Cavalerie, led by Sir Christopher himself, would smash through the Royalist line, but then disappear off over the horizon in pursuit of the routers before them.
Blocked by the single Royalist infantry battalia in front of them, the surviving Roundhead Cavalerie turn to face an enemy infantry column coming in from the right. Dragoons assist.
As the Roundheads in the centre have cleared it of Royalist cavalry
The game ends as one of the siege guns is overrun
This was a tricky battle for the Royalists as they start the game in a very awkward position. In addition, their siege guns just couldn’t hit anything and, when they did, my units saved time and time again.
A workmanlike Parliamentarian victory.
Just a couple of pieces today. First up is the Legatus Legionis or commander of the Legion: just a simple command base for my TTS Marian Romans. Figures are Baueda 15mm sourced from Magister Militum.
What is slightly odd is that with the Baueda Marian Roman cohort command, the chap holding the standard (the Aquilifer) is dressed in a lion skin and the signaller (the cornicen) is wearing a wolf skin, whereas here, for the legion command, it’s the other way around.
Next up is a Baueda Semi-Permanent Legionary Marching Fort that I will use as a TTS camp. Now this model was quite complicated to put together well, and I have a horrible feeling that the Primus Pilus would take one look and order the thing taken down and put up again.
The gates are particularly wonky, mainly because after I’d built it I realised that I had stuck the gates on upside down! This gave me a huge gap at the bottom of the gates (plenty of room for a barbarian to crawl through) which I then had to fill with Hama Beads!
But it is a lovely model, and I’m going to get the somewhat smaller Marching Camp as well.
Lovely little battle report from Dan Albrecht and buddies, taken from the I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum Facebook page.
They used Scenario #14 from the Anzio: Wildcat to Whale scenario pack, North of Carroceto. The scenario focuses on the German attack on the Right Flank Company of the Scots Guards holding the area of Carroceto railway station during the late evening and night of 9th/10th February 1944.
What is particularly interesting about this game is that it features the use of a sand table, something that you rarely see these days. Click on the picture below to see all.
Vis Lardica is a website devoted to wargaming and military history, with a special emphasis on the company-sized rulesets produced by the TooFatLardies: I Ain't Been Shot Mum (WW2); Charlie Don't Surf (Vietnam); and Quadrant 13 (science fiction)
Welcome to Vis Lardica, a not-for-profit website mostly dedicated to the company-sized wargaming rules produced by the TooFatLardies, but encompassing my other gaming interests as well.
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