State of the Artillery

The French with their 155s.

Four 155mm Creusots, manufactured by Schneider in le Creusot, France, probably designed by Charles Ragon de Bange, and infamously used by the Boers in at the siege of Mafeking (the "Long Toms"), are all done (although three need more gloss varnish for extra shine). Also completed are additional converted crew figures, for both French and British.

British crew with their 155s

Although I am a big fan of using old Britians spring-loaded guns, crewed by any spare infantry available (or even by cavalry as in Little Wars), steady home-casting has slowly but steadily changed my toy soldier armies from Army Red/Army Blue+Green alliances of convenience to something more in line with the forces from The Great War in England in 1897.  When I started to drift in this direction, I initially considered securing nationally-appropriate artillery for both sides (so 75mms for the French, etc.), but sadly this involved investing in 1/35th scale kits, mostly, so I decided both sides could simply use the excellent Krupp guns by Armies Plastic for field artillery, with gussied-up limbers from BMC.  When I wanted to add heavier guns as well, the decision was more about choosing a single gun for all nations that was in character with the period rather than specific to each nation.  The Long Tom 155mm is pretty emblematic of Wells' pre-Great War era, and sadly there is not a 3d print readily available of the 4.7" naval gun (that I could find).  Because they add so much more character to their armies, here's both the British and French artillery parks together...

I would love to make more of the chap with the shell in his hand, but I could only find the smallest piece of the wooden dowel that the shell is made of (it might actually be a bamboo skewer). Its an easy conversion compared to the prybar guys, but no point in moving forward without the wood for the shells.

Sadly I realize I need to roughly double the number of crew, so that each side could man both the two Krupps and two Creusots at the same time.  Currently, they would have to choose two of the four guns and deal with it.

The Defense of Lisette en Croute

The British in their initial deployments.

I have been aware of the rules A Gentleman's War for many years now, but had not really thought about trying them until recently.  I think this is because my 54mm armies simply were not at the necessary critical mass, and it so turns out that A Gentleman's War is very much written for a Belle Epoque army in a larger scale.  So I grabbed a copy form Wargames Vault for $10.  I will admit that on initial flipthrough I was not impressed - there were many charts for resolving shooting and close combat, which appears needlessly complicated at first glimpse.  But while on Spring Break vacation I read the book cover to cover and came away much more impressed.

British starting positions, on the right.

Once back, I roped old opponent Jamie into a game. We used my random terrain tiles to set up the game and deployed a generic scenario. Jamie played the French, and I the British.  Jamie arranged two units of French infantry into an oversized attack column, with two half-units of tirailleurs to each side of the column. He also placed all his artillery on his right flank. I piled a lot of infantry into the walled village, but indecisively spread everything else out across the table.

French starting positions, on the left.

The game was perhaps overlong, as we spent a lot of time trying to get the rules right.

British light infantry - the Kings Royal Rifles.

The general flow was that some tirailleurs were able to chase off the crew of the British field artillery on the far British right, although these were subsequently over powered by a flank charge from British regulars. 

The French attack column was able to use Aces to good effect and closed with British regulars quickly and overpowered them.  It then wheeled to its right and closed with another British regular unit.

By this time, though, the British had organized themselves a bit and finally brought a lot of fire to bear on the column, sending it running back towards its own center. Also around this time, the "What Luck, Chaps!" cards dropped a rainstorm on the battle - half movement and all ranges counting as two bands further!

On the opposite flank, the French artillery had been faring poorly trying to chase off the British light infantry.  They fared even worse when rain ruined the visibility!

These Worchestershires drove off the tirailleurs who had driven off the field artillery, but then spent several card turns moving an inch or two in the mud at a time.

Eventually the rain subsided (back to regular ranges but still half movement), but before anything else could happen, we drew the Fog event card, which again halved movement!  It was already almost 10:00 pm, but we agreed to call the game on account of bad weather (!).

These are the remnants of the French attack column.

French fire trying to chase of pesky light infantry.

A lot of carnage in the British center...

We then spent some time counting total figures lost to determine an actual percentage of starting forces lost for each side.  Turned out the French fared a little worse, but their situation was clearly more favorable. If I have one complaint its that a more concrete end game mechanic would be nice. The old "first side to lose half breaks and runs away" is not a favorite.  Still, its an easy fix and I have no complaints about the rest of the rule, which are an excellent fit for the Belle Epoque period.  

The name Lisette en Croute was issued by Jamie.  He tells me its a sort of French equivalent to a British village being named Samdgley-On-Broclishfire.

15th Century Rumanian Archers and Light Cavalry

I've had a Vlad Tepes figure by Old Glory kicking around in my unpainted bin for many years now, and it occurred to me that it would be fun to paint him, along with a pack of Rumanian archers and Rumanian light cavalry, and call them "Balkan mercenaries" in Italian Wars games.  The archers are chunky scuplts and quite tall for Old Glory.  I could not find a plate online that matched their clothing style (a knee length baggy tunic with an open jacket on top of that and a cloak on top of that), but the distinctive fur hats were the main feature I was after and every figure in this pack has one.

I based these so they can be in units of ten figures on three 40mm square bases (three figs on two bases, and four crammed on the third base). This isn't for any particular game system, it just maximizes the number of units I can field from one bag of 30 figures.

I had similar bad luck finding reference images for the light cavalry.  They all wear a peculiar disc on their chests. I painted this metallic. I knew I wanted them in red jackets to match Vlad so wasn't too worried about other accuracy.  I still need to add a banner to one of the riders.

These could moonlight as stradiots in Italian Wars games, although both these and the archers are a bit old fashioned looking (1470s-ish) for the Italian Wars (1495-1515) period.

Its a bit of a fool's errand, but I've also been upgrading the basing on a lot of my Italian Wars units.  Or at least changing the base decoration to match my current preferences.  Up until 3 or 4 years ago I would use Oregon beach sand for grit and just apply some flock to the base and call it good.

Left to right: Milan, France, Venice, Este, Florence.

My current preference is to use (clean!) cat litter as a base, let it dry, paint it with cheap "fawn" colored acrylic paint to get a dry/dirty/arid look, then add flock, then tufts.  I mainly like the lighter surface tone which makes the minis stand out a bit more.  I've also taken to rebasing my command stands from round bases to square MDF, which is what this group is.

Artillery Progress

Added a bunch of rivets, and used balsa wood to make the pins to hold the barrel in the frame. Built the little platform for the gunners to load and aim from out of card and balsa (its good at first glance, but don't look to closely!) Used a paint+primer spray to get a base paint color.

 Up next will be painting the barrel black and some gloss varnish.