On The Workbench - 05 July 2009

Finally I managed to break through the choke point that a 15mm 'Flames Of War' late war British infantry platoon had become and completed them. In truth these shouldn't have been difficult miniatures to complete and I certainly didn't attempt to wash or high them, this was a basic get the colours in the right place, over a black undercoat and varnish to finish. They sat on my bench for some months now defying all attempts at completion and no matter how I attempted to motivate myself I found my attention wandering to other distractions.

But now they are finished and I've already almost completed the next project, a mortar platoon to accompany the recalcitrant infantry.

1970s Vintage Napoleonic Images

Something else from my recent trip to Townsville, these images are a collection of slides I discovered amongst my Dad's wargaming collection. I borrowed them and had them scanned and copied to a CD. I believe that the original photographs were taken about June 1974 and shows French and British armies facing each other across the tabletop during a display at a school fete. The display was made up from the collections of my Dad and the wargaming group he was part of at the time. The miniatures are 25mm Miniature Figurines (minifigs) and some Hinchliffe brand miniatures as well.

'Stand To' - The joys of trying to base your miniatures for multiple rulesets.

I've been busy trying to work out how to base and re base our 'new' and existing 15mm scale Napoleonic miniatures. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending your point of view we have a number of rule sets we are interested in playing. All are, not surprisingly Piquet supplements. The first two 'Les Grognards' and 'Grand Piquet, 2nd Edition' use the same basing system but the third, CdePk (Chef de Piquet) a tactical level game requires a different basing scheme.

So for the infantry I have decided to put two miniatures on a 0.75" x 0.5" base, you can put two bases side by side and you have to right frontage (1.5") for a single base in Les Grognards and Grand Piquet. Put three bases directly behind each other and that's a 3 rank element in CdePK, of course you can do the same with only two bases and have a 2 rank element as well. Which also happens to match the basing for infantry in Napoleon's Battles (1st Edition).

To reduce the hassle of moving around a large number of small 0.75" x 0.5" bases I plan on basing all the miniatures on magnetic strip (the 15mm British are already based in this manner) and then place those bases on metal bases cut to size. For example a 3 rank element for CdePk would be 0.75" x 1.5" and would have 3 of the smaller magnetic bases on it.

Another 'new' project?!

Recently during my trip to Townsville I finally managed to convince Dad to sell me his 15mm Napoleonic British. Needless to say this has certainly renewed my interest in the Napoleonic era so now I have dug out Beth's Saxon Troops and my megre collection of Spanish and French and a copy of 'Scenarios For Wargamers' by Charles Grant

Hopefully I should get one game with Beth before my jetset wife once more sallies forth on a work trip (this time she heads to Canada). We'll use the Piquet 'Les Grognards' rules and stoke the fire up because it's going to be cold in the wargaming annex of the shed.

Dad's 2mm Napoleonic Miniatures and Terrain

I'm currently back in Townsville for my Dad's 70th birthday and I thought I might share this photo of his 2mm Napoleonic miniatures and terrain. The troops at the bottom of the photo are Austrians and those at the top are Prussians. Dad likes to use CdePK, a piquet derivative of Chef de Battalion, each base of 2mm miniatures represents a single company. The photo shows approximately a brigade of infantry on each side supported by cavalry and cannon.

The terrain is made up of boards 45cm square boards with hills carved and shaped from polystyrene foam. The farms are irregular miniatures 2mm terrain and the hedges are bits of pipe cleaner and foam (and anything else he could lay his hands on) and roads are painted on.

Full Thrust, new style ESU against Phalons

I played a game of Full Thrust against Ben today at Area52, his new style ESU fleet sporting it's new improved colour scheme delivered a solid victory against my Phalons. Here a two phone camera images of our fleets on the table.

Skirmish - Bug Run

We managed to play another 'FMA Skirmish' game last Saturday afternoon. This time we tried what we call a 'bug run', a simple scenario where a defending force holds a position against a larger attacking force. The attacking force predominately made up melee troops attacks in waves down the length table toward the defender's position. The defending troops while small in number are equipped longer ranged weaponry and must use their range advantage to whittle down the attacking hordes to prevent their position being over run. In this game the defending force was a small squad of Mobile Infantry and their attackers not surprisingly were a horde of Arachnid bugs, made mostly of warrior bugs, some hoppers and a single tanker bug. The mobile infantry survived the day managing to keep the Arachnid menace at bay with well aimed rifle and grenade fire, although a few troopers did scatter to avoid some caustic tanker bug spit.

The Arachnid's begin their charge down the table.

The hopper bugs lead the way.


Another day on the range. The MI man their conveniently placed earthen ramparts to squeeze a few rounds off the bugs.