XLIII on foot

One of the best experiences in my life occurred while I was living in Pennsylvania. I met a gentleman who invited me to his reenactent group, The 43rd on foot and I took part in the Battle of Germantown 2010 refight. I'm not new in reenactment. I take the role of a roman soldier every year in Tarragona but being in a line formation with more people firing blackpowder volleys was amazing!. You can feel the adrenaline rush inside your body and start guessing how could be in a real battle. I felt biting the cartridge, reloading and firing at the NCO orders as an automat. Trully it was awesome.

I post some pictures of the event. By the way, the redcoat with Union Jack of 43rd regiment at his back its me.


As a bonus, I post the painted 1/72 regiment prepared to assault Bunker Hill. Miniatures from ACTA (one of the best sets ever), painting with Vallejo and army painter and based to play "British Grenadier". Flags from "Flags for the Lads".

WSS French Dragoons

Following with the Barcelona 1714 project, I've converted some miniatures to create an unit of french dragoons. It seems that there where a Dragoon regiment in the Bourbon Left wing under the command of De Cilly. It comprised 300 troopers and took part in the last assault to the city forming in the third wave.
Little is known about this unit. It was called dragoons de Rochefort but not the uniform nor the flag are known so following the help of my catalan wargame fellows: I painted them red and blue and gave them the flag that can be downloaded from this site.

http://desperta-ferro-ed.blogspot.com/

The conversion is an easy one using green stuff to model the hat. Nevertheless is may firts conversion and I'm quite happy with them. The original miniatures are GNW Russian Dragoons from Zvezda. Being a dragoon unit, it can fight both mounted or dismounted.

Marquis de Cilly

The Marquis de Cilly was the commander of the left wing in front of Barcelona in 1714. It has a powerfull corps with 9 french bons and a regiment of dragoons.
Here is depicted with the colonel of La Marine regiment that formed at full strength with its three bons at Cilly's orders. An ADC dragoon is holding his horse at the rear.

The miniatures are Zvezda from three different sets: Artillery of Peter the Great (Cilly), Swedish infantry (the colonel) and dragoons of Peter the Great (ADC and horses), The dragoon have been converted by removing the tricorne and modelling a dragoon hat with green stuff.

Looking to the future

With november finished, its time to look at what I have done this month. There have been no painting but a lot of scenenry construction.
I have created a group of hills, some fencing for ACW/AWI games and a complete zulu village. I will post pictures of all of themm soon. I'm realy happy with the results.

As new things, my mate Francesc and myself are starting a new project of 28mm Terrible Sharp Sword (Yes the ACW game from too fat lardies). We are going to order a complete infntry brigade from the Perry's and divide the miniatures and the cost. For only 45pounds we can start playing the game because we are going to get 3 boxes of infantry: 108 miniatures to make a small company of union troops (my troops) and another small company of rebels plus two guns and a mounted officer (maybe the price for th winner of the first game).

On the other side, I'm slowlly building a Isabelino brigade for the First Carlist War.

In the following posts, pictures of the painted miniatures and the progress of my company during the war will appear.

Results and painting of October

I van say that DBArcelona was great. And my catalans finished in a 9th position (of 18 players) which is not bad. First a victory against Chinese Ch'in in the open, second I lost against achaemenid persians but I won an Early Lybian army (wow! someone playing with early lybians). I also against a Granadine army and I lost with the muslim conquest.

At the end, not bad two victrories in the open and one against lybians and a really enjoyable convention. I came back home full handed with 4 packs of Perry isabelinos that I will start painting shortly.

For the painting totals of the month:

- 1 british foot regiment for the Bunker Hill project from IMEX/ACTA: 16 figures in 1/72.
- 1 unit of natal mounted natives from Hat: 6 foot figures + 6 mounted and one horse in 1/72.
- 1 unit of french dragons for Barcelona 2014 project converted from Zvezda russian GNW dragons: 6 mounted + 6 foot + 2 horses in 1/72
- Lieutenant General Cilly, commander of the french left wing at Barcelona: 3 foot figures and 3 horses.

Total: 31 foot, 12 mounted and 3 horses all in 1/72.

Not bad for this month

Maurice. The new game from Sam Mustafa

Today I cheecked my email and I found a flyer from Sam Mustafa announcing his new game, Maurice (named after Maréchal de Saxe) a COMPLETE game for 1690-1790 period. When I say complete I mean: rules for tabletop battles + campaign game mechanics + some RPG rules to move the internal affairs of the realm that can directly affect on your command. Things of the style of: The King's nephew in 4th grade has received a command in your army and you MUST accept him and give a commanda according to his rank...Absolutelly awesome.

I'm really amazed with the idea of running a campaign in this period and I'm preparing armies in 1/72. Sam says that a table of 6'x 4' its enough and that about 50 bases/army its ok to play the campaign.

But please, check yourself the website and download the flyer.

http://www.sammustafa.com/honour/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2011/10/Maurice-Flyer.pdf

Wargaming Campaigns

I'm living a kind of "vintage wargaming nostalgia" so I started searching and I found the web site of John Curry, a Gentleman and editor who is building the history of wargame project. A place were you can find a lot of wargaming classics of Fathers of Wargaming like Charles Grant, Tony Bath, Paddy Griffith or Donald Featherstone. I purchased this book because I allways have been fixed with the desire of wargaming a true campaign with lines of comunication, attrition, flank marches... all the things you don't have in a "common" wargame.

The book has all this things and much more. It comes from an era where wargamers were WWII veterans (Featherstone fought in the Cassino campaign), teachers or historians: experienced wargamers that played with tie and suits! Awesome! Those gentlemen only had Airfix plastics as a cheap source of miniatures. In some cases they even cast their own miniatures.

Reading the book convinces you that everything is possible and accurate trully simulated with a little of imagination. Really, a good wargame doesn't need to be eyecandy or have a perfect layout. The thing is simulation. Obviouslly is better to have a model road than a chalk road but the budget doesn't have to limit you.

The book was written in 1970 and while some ideas are really repeated or updated in rules, magazines or websites, there are ideas that really thrilled me, like the "Matchbox method" to play a campaign without an umpire or the way in which lines of communication are simulated.

The book is a collection of ideas (and some of them really usefull) to convert a map campaign into a tabletop game. But it doesn't stop here, it also has a collection of 16 example campaigns ranging from a Viking raid to WWII. Especially interesting for me were the Agincourt Campaign (Chapter 15) and the Napoleonic Corps Campaign (chapter 18).

Well, to sum up: 227 black and white pages with few pictures and a lot of good ideas and suggestions for only 12.95 pounds. It's a really good volume for people who don't like to be held by blockbuster rules that "gives all you need" but feel like designed for championship.

Take a look at John Curry website to know more about the History of Wargaming project and to purchase some classics:

http://www.wargaming.co/books/homepage.htm