Wargaming Battle Notebook

Over the years, I've played many many wargames. Of some of these games, pictures were taken. Others are only remembered. Probably many are just forgotten by all players involved.

When I moved to a new house about 4 years ago, I decided I wanted to keep a journal, making an entry for every wargame played in the wargaming facilities. As I already was a fan of Moleskine  notebooks, I bought myself a new one, and started to make battle reports.

The reports are interspersed with photographs, briefing sheets, some memorabilia from times long gone. In essence, it is becoming a bit of a wargaming scrapbook. Just the way I like it.

Cossacks

Continuing my tradition of only showing newly painted figures after they have been used in anger at least once (in this case in the first game or our version of the Raid on St. Michel mini-campaign):



These are Cossacks from The Assault Group and were painted to fulfill the role of light cavalry for either side in my Great Northern War armies. More are to follow. This particular lot I named the Siniĭ Cossacks. If you know Russian and Google Translate was correct, you'll see why :).

The basing might seem a bit funny - they're on 60x20mm bases which look a bit too long and narrow. But that's intentional, as the unit of 6 figures will have the same footprint as a regular cavalry unit (which I base on two 60x60 stands) when closed up.

Engineers / pontooneers / bargemen

Here are some more figures I painted quite a while ago (they have featured in more than one game since) but only got round to photographing now: a number of pontooneers / bargemen / pioneers for a vagueish horse'n'musket era:



They are all Redoubt ACW engineers, but with a number of the heads replaced by Victrix French Napoleonic heads. They were painted up as 9 generic pontooneers or engineers and three barge- / boatmen. Useful figures!

Some more Swedish Great Northern War fellows

We played a game with my Great Northern War collection yesterday and I've gotten into the habit of painting up something new for each game. In this case, it was a squadron of Swedish cavalry and a 6Pdr gun, also Swedish.

Nyland Horse:





Figures are from Reiver, with the squadron leader's horse (the falling one) from Front Rank.

And the 6 pounder battery:



The gun and bucket man figures are from Foundry, the other two figures are Reiver.

Bavarian 1st Chevaulegers, 2 more squadrons

These have been painted a while ago, but I only got round to basing and photographing them just now. Here are the final two squadrons (the first two are here):



The flag is of course totally ahistorical (I don't think the cavalry units tended to take their standards along on campaign and this flag is obviously seriously over dimensioned), but that's a bit of wargamer's license I'm totally comfortable with :).

Figures are Wargames Foundry, painted in two layers.

Horses, carts etc: update

The great equipment drive is continuing apace -- here's the current status:



Since last post, I've constructed two extra powder carts and an extra one horse cart. Some have been primed (I'm using black gesso these days -- I've given up on finding a good matt black spray paint at the local DIY shop), and painting is underway on two of them. I've decided to use a full two-layer paint job on them (which is as high as I go these days, painting quality wise) instead of a quick dry brush job which I usually do for equipment and scenery. So all this will take me a bit longer to paint up :)

Horses, carts and wheels

So I've been steadily working on some horse and musket armies, notably Great Northern War Swedes and Russians and Napoleonic Bavarians. The past few days, I've turned my attention to what might be termed their _support infrastructure_:



That's only just the start. So far, there's a Hovels Dutch wagon with two possible loads (I'll make a third out of coffee stirrers), a Foundry cart and powder cart and two Old Glory _wurstwagen_. The latter have either Foundry crew (for the one without horses) or Old Glory crew with Foundry Bavarian heads transplanted (ouch). Still to come are another cart and powder cart, some caissons (they'll be French crewed) and limbers and horse teams. Obviously, some of these will be more suitable for the Napoleonic than the GNW collection, but there will be a fair bit of overlap.

These bases can be used as baggage train, to generally doll up the battlefield or to provide some 'meat' behind a deployed artillery battery.

Engagement at Arnhofen: scenario

You've seen the models, you've read the battle report, now you can read and play the game. Here's the scenario for the Engagement at Arnhofen game:

Engagement at Arnhofen (1Mb)

Enjoy responsibly!

_Update 20/11/2011_: changed wording of Bavarian orders (thanks Phil) and increased picture resolution.

The defense of Bricqueville: a photo report

Last Tuesday, we had a full house to play another WWII battle using my 20mm collection (recently augmented by Crisis purchases). The scenario involved a follow up to the fictional battle of Saint Clair radar station: the British paratroopers, having destroyed the radar station and retreated across the Dives now have to defend against the inevitable counterattack:




Any hopes of the British that their blowing up of the bridges would slow the Germans down were quickly dashed when the first thing to crest the bridge ramp was this bridging unit:



British artillery strikes notwithstanding, the bridge was quickly repaired and the German players busied themselves pushing their armor across:



This seemed to cause some disquiet among the British players:



The following three pictures show the German advance, as yet strangely unopposed by British troops:





Until finally the first British paratroopers are spotted defending a detached villa:



Much to the delight of the British players, it seems:



While a certain _gravitas_ seemed to descend upon the German players:



Especially when a British 6Pdr AT gun revealed itself behind a hedge:



However, the AT gun only managed to lightly damage a Wirbelwind which promptly retaliated and wiped out the gun crew. The way was now open for the Germans to steamroller on into Bricqueville:



However, as seen on this picture, nighttime was quickly approaching, and as the Germans were still fighting for Bricqueville, a hard fought draw was declared:



It was judged that the British paras would extricate themselves and evacuate during the night, moving further west towards the British beachheads. Will be continued!

Some more 20mm WWII things

Some time ago, I painted some British paratroopers for a game following shortly thereafter. This Tuesday, we played another game with my WWII figures (the Defense of Bricqueville) and, true to form, I painted up some stuff for that as well.

First up, two Airborne jeeps and crew, from Brittania miniatures:



And, to drive their opposition around in, a Steyr personnel car from the RTR (Raventhorpe Ready to Roll) range:



That last model was bought at this year's Crisis and featured in the game three days later, painted and all :)