Roman Light Infantry Velites and Warmachines

Finally got round to adding 3 more units to my Roman Army fir command and colours ancients first up is a unit of light infantry.

Velites from the HAT Republican Romans Hastati and Velites set with the command figures from the Roman command set also from HAT and the standard bearer from the HAT roman catapults set.

The Roman catapults set also comes with  Hastati and Velites however these are bigger figures than the standard set and bigger than the new figures in the set which is a problem for mixed units maybe they can be used for units made of just figure from that set

Below are 2 units of Roman war machines each crew figure representing 1 block 

Roman Cavalry and more auxiliaries

I had the time over the mid term break to add more units to my Roman army the first was another unit of auxiliaries the same sets as used in the previous unit this time using a different standard the eagle not the flag and given the centurion  a spear instead of the sword. These can be seen below

2nd unit of auxiliaries 

The second unit added was a unit of medium roman cavalry using HAT set 8031 roman cavalry and the mounted figures from the HAT roman command set. The fully painted figures can be seen below.

Roman cavalry command figures in front row

The two figures from the command set are in the front row with the 6 from the cavalry set in the back row. A cavalry unit  in cc ancients has 3 blocks the command figure will be removed for blocks1 and 2 and the 6 figures represent the third block.

These are based of 1.5cm x 3cm bases but the command figure over hang the front of the base by a few mms.

I also got the chance to play gmt games 1805 sea of glory as the British and hope to post a review soon. set up below

Unit of Roman Auxiliary Infantry

Hasn't been much going on of late but I have managed to finish another unit of roman infantry hat set 8018 republican roman infantry hastati. This will be used as auxiliaries in command and colour ancients from gmt games

painted and in formation 6x3 command figures on left(right of the unit)

After the basic painting flock is added to the base which is shown below

same figures based

The final step is a black wash and matt spray varnish shown below

The finished unit

Battle of Ligny

I had a chance to play this a few weeks ago as the Prussians

map

On first glance this one looks though for the Prussians with the 2 medals for holding the towns being vital for success. The main strength of the Prussian army is the iron will counters which where used to keep units in the towns and gain the vital battle back rolls.

The only advantage I could see for the Prussians in this one was the cavalry reserve in the center and I settled on a defensive plan but even this could come unstuck pretty fast due to being out numbered 5-2 by the French in guns

set up

The initial set up above and the French batteries below which i was worried would blast the Prussian lines before any infantry attack and given the Prussians are a defensive army attacking would be difficult 

French Guns

The French infantry attacked the church on the Prussian left was beaten back with heavy loseses on both sides with an additional Prussian line battalion (1806 uniforms my Prussian army is in the 1806 uniform bar the reserve British painted blue and the landwher) ordered up to the bridge. Meanwhile the French light Infantry and Young Guard represented here by the marines of the guard prepare to assault La-Haye on the Prussian right.

The Prussians still hold the church

French light and marines

The French attack at La-Haye while suffering heavy losses was getting close to breaking through and capturing the town and then pushing on and rolling up the Prussian militia. The Prussian heavy cavalry were sent forward to relieve the pressure.

Prussian Dragoons charge the Swiss at La-Haye

The cavalry succeeded in stabilizing the exploiting the situation on the Prussian left with a second charge pushing the French guns back and smashing into the Hussars

The Swiss came out of square and joined with fresh infantry made a push against Staint Amand in the center to relieve the pressure on their left this attack was again beaten off with high French casualties

French attack on St Amand fails

Prussian light Infantry move into the foreset

The prussian light infantry move forward and stabilize the center mean while on the left the Prussian heavy cavalry take some losses and the militia move forward keeping La-Haye in Prussian hands

Prussian Dragoons suffer some loses

The situation the Prussian left was quite after the initial assault on the church but the final medal was picked up by the Prussian line picking of the French light infantry

Prussian line skirmish with French light

In the end this was a total 11-2 victory for the Prussians. I think this was due to heavy losses suffered attacking the towns and under use of the French guns

Commands and Colours generals marshallstacticians expansion

https://www.gmtgames.com/p-535-commands-colors-napoleonics-expansion-5-generals-marshalls-tacticians.aspx

gmt games have just announced the above expansion. I'm looking forward to this new battles new units and a tactics deck that will be usable with previous battles.

Of the new units I have British rocket troops and French horse guard artillery already painted.

Ive always liked the battle of the nations and was disappointed by it being dropped so I'm happy to see its returns as well as the inclusion of the French and allies as the french side while they were mentioned in the descriptions in previous expansions it would be nice to see the minor german states italian neoplitains and poles included with there own rules and maybe some swedes on the allied side

FutureLearn

Hi all I just finished an online course at futurelearn.com  on the British Empire and its controversies run over 6 weeks by the University of Exeter in the UK. This is the second course I have completed on this site with the previous on being on Hadrian s Wall run by the University of Newcastle. Both very enjoyable and 100% free Id recommend checking out the site as they have alot of free courses on a wide range of subjects

Battle of Waterloo June 18th 1815

I managed to get in a game over the weekend this time following on from Quatre Bras was Waterloo again from the base game of command and colours Napoleonic's

Again I played the allied side a quick glance of the battle maps sees a number of strong points in the allied position in the centre the the British guns and if the rifles can be moved forward into La Haye Sainte they would have range on the French units moved up onto the ridge added with the British heavy and guard cavalry behind the centre can be defended.

On the allied right we have the light infantry forward at Hougoumont with cannons and the foot guards behind which can be moved forward in support and maybe counter attack.

On the left the Belgian light infantry forward at Plancenoit are vulnerable and might need to be withdrawn abandoning the position as they are easy picking for the French young  guard.

On the French side the lack of light infantry 2 units 1 on each flank will reduce their mobility and make it harder to bring force quickly on  Hougoumont

Starting Positions

The battle opened with the French moving forward in the centre and coming under fire from the British guns and the 95th which had moved forward into La Haye Sainte which inflicted murderous casualties on the French Infantry and Guns (3 bombard guards blunted many french attacks)

Death of  General d'Erlon

The 95th at La Haye Sainte where causing alot of casualties resulting in the old guard being ordered to advance with the support of the cuirassiers and old guard cavalry forming square would leave the infantry exposed to the French infantry

The 95th at La Haye Sainte The old guard have moved forward

French push in the centre

The Farmhouse has fallen

The French Infantry pushed the Rifles from the farmhouse who by this stage had already earned their pay. The attack in the center had sucked in alot of troops from the French left allowing the lights and guard battalions to move forward and over run the opposing French troops but the cavalry failed to take the guns a close run thing but thankfully the battery kept firing

Swiss infantry are all that's left to stop the french flank being rolled

The advance on the right continued with the guards moving in on the french center and the lights hunting down the swiss regiment

Advance of the guards

The final shot at the depleted guard cavalry old guard and Marshal Ney still hold the Farmhouse

On the allied left you guard took Plancenoit from the Belgian light infantry but didn't advance further being checked by British guns.

In the end this one was 8-5 in favor of the allies with the French holding Plancenoit and La Haye Sainte the score line makes it look more one sided than it was.
The heroic defense of Hougoumont and the advance on the right combined with very effective counter battery fire from the British guns inflicting early causalities including a lucky hit on a general gave the allies a health early lead and forced the french to attack early as their own guns where knocked out (both the guard and the horse guns falling.)

The charge of the guard cavalry was close to breaking through the the allied centre if that had of worked it might have turned the tide for the French and trying to get the old guard with marshal Ney from the farmhouse would have resulted in high loses

Finished First unit

Some pics of the first unit for cc ancients roman republican medium infantry since last time the base has been flocked and the figures given a black wash and then sprayed on matt varnish below are the infantry poses the command figures and the group shot with command figures on the right of the unit left in photo still not sure what the final arrangement will be

Basing and closer order drill

With some free time again this evening I decided to base my almost finished Roman infantry

First step was to cut the plastic card into the base shapes and glue the figures on

Careful use of a ruler to mark out the 1.5cmx1.5cm squares followed by use of a stanley blade to cut along the lines and a little force to snap the card along the cut resulted in hopefully uniform sized bases.

The next step was the super glue the figures to the bases and stack them in a close order formation the results of various different formations can be seen below with command figures/ blocks 4-2 on the left/back/right

Republican Roman Medium Infantry

Having got some free time on Saturday morning I decided to finish off painting my Roman infantry.
These guys still need to be based washed with a black wash and varnished. I'm thinking of basing them on 1.5cm² plastic  modeling card and using magnetic signage material fixed to the bottom side of the plastic card to fix them to a steel base (low carbon not stainless as alot of stainless is austentite and non magnetic).

I'm not sure if to do them 5x3 with the 3 command figures at the back behind the block or 5x3 with the command figures at the side making it 6x3

The first pic is of the group as a whole 18 figures and all from the Italeri Republican Roman infantry set

Below is a close up of the 3 different infantry poses and then one of the 3 command figures

Battle of Quatre Bras June 16th 1815

Played a game of CC Naploeonics last night the battle of  Quatre Bras from the base edition of the game.

I played the allied side on this one. From my initial reading of the battle map there are three clear problems that the allied army faces one is the forward and well deployed positions of the French guns which makes the Dutch/Belgian units under the Prince of Orange positioned on the central ridge before the town very vulnerable. The second weakness of the allied position is the forward troops on the allied right including militia and a 3 strength light unit would be easy pickings for the mobile French light units who can move into the forest and battle. The third problem would be dealing with the superior French cavalry of  general Kellermann's cuirassier brigade more than a match for the Dutch light cav.

To counter this the allies have 2 units of grenadier guards who if I could get forward intact and on time might save the day.

The Battle opened with the above pictured French guns opening up and punishing the Dutch and Belgian infantry across the river followed by an advance on the French left which drove the Dutch from the forest.

Things where looking grim for the allied cause as the French push on the left had accounted for the Dutch Guns and light infantry for relatively light causalities the last Dutch unit above was later picked off again for poor return giving the French a 5-0 lead.

On the other flank not much was happening just the odd exchange of cannon fire and the Rifle regiment had move forward into the forest on the extreme left of the allied line keeping the French pinned on their side of the river.

At this stage my plan was starting to come un-stuck but the Grenadier Guards had made some progress forward just not quick enough to prevent the Dutch line for collapsing.

Next the French Cavalry went forward with La Grande Maneuver which was countered by an allied Cavalry change and then a French Cavalry charge  leaving the French very close to victory but almost spent with a lot of below strength units in forward positions.

The battle then developed into a race could the French cavalry pick of the  last allied units before the guards completed rolling up the French line.

Unfortunately it was not to be as the remaining French Cuirassier squadron launched a do or die assault on a British battery

The end result was a 9-8 victory to the French but with the cross-roads still in allied hands and British Infantry treating the French left but there was French heavy cavalry in the British rear.

I think what cost me this one was the poor return early on of the Dutch units in resisting the opening French attacks but it was close and a late rally card which got the guards back to full strength from 4 failed to rally the guns but all in all a fun game and a well deserved and hard fought victory for my opponent

Command and Colours The Great War

I have just backed command and colours the great war which is currently on Kickstarter more information available @https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1992455033/the-great-war-0.

This looks like an interesting project and one I was surprised wasn't announced in August last year.
So far the basic game will focus on the the 15-17 period of static trench warfare with expansion to cover the earlier and later periods including tanks and aircraft and other fronts. These seems like a project which will end up as vast as memoir 44 a game which I'm still enjoying and playing over 10 years sine the original box was released and I'm still hoping for more such as an Italian and French army packs.

I've been looking for a ww1 game for quite some time and have high hopes for this one based on how much I've enjoyed memoir 44 cc ancients and cc Napoleonics while also having a copy of 150th anniversary edition of battle cry and the base set of Samurai Battles both fun games but my own interest in history focuses more on European events.

What has impressed me with the different command and colours games is how with some tweaks the different periods feel very different and am excepting the great war to have a much slower pace than memoir 44 and with no artillery models but reserve counters for artillery maybe having to plot out the creeping bombardments pre battle  and trying then to keep the infantry attacks on timetable

First Of the Romans

Having being a long time fan of Richard Borg's command and colours ancients my current ambition is to play it on a 6ft by 4ft hex map Hotz mat found at http://www.hotzmats.com/ and 20mm figures similar to what Conrad Kinch of http://joyandforgetfulness.blogspot.ie/ has done with command and colours Napoleonic's. (Starting with the punic wars from the base game)

I have just finished the last of my Napoleonic's figures which I use to replace the blocks from command and colours Napoleonic's a much less ambitions undertaken as each block was replaced with a single figure.

With the Napoleonic figures completed for now I had time to get the first set of ancients figures on the work table for assembly and undercoating. These where Italeri set 6021 Roman Infantry more information on the figures can be found at the very useful plasticsoldierreview.com here http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=205.

The figures are quite nice looking although 1 of the 2 poses has the sword on the left hand side assembly was almost straight forward but the odd pilum was damaged  trying to force it through the hand grips and the set contains no spares which required the use of some metal replacements constructed from bits of paper clips.

The 3 figure above will be used to represent the strength of  the unit as in CC ancients each Infantry unit  has 4 blocks the musician standard bearer and centurion will be removed for the 1st 2nd and 3rd hits with the full block of figures  being removed when the unit is destroyed.

The current plan is that the final block will consist of 15 figures deployed in 5x3 ranks made up of the above figure front left has a paper clip pilum as do 1 or 2 of the back ranks with the shields raised over their heads.

Current progress is 18 figures undercoated

These will eventually become Medium (blue) Infantry when painted