Back from our hol's and some data

We have just returned from our holiday which explains the gap between this and the previous post.

Thanks to all those who viewed the story of our refight especially those who left comments, this post will hopefully answer some of the questions raised.

The figures are organised into companies, squadrons and batteries as follows:

Infantry - A company comprises an officer, NCO, musician and 20 men. A regiment (I have one French Line) has 6 companies, a colour party and two mounted officers.
Cavalry - 16 men, an officer and a musician make up a squadron. A regiment (I have one each of French Dragoons and Hussars) has two squadrons, a standard bearer and escort, and a mounted colonel with trumpeter.
Artillery - A battery is three guns with a total of 12 gunners and an officer.

All the figures are painted in good old, actually some of them are not so good anymore, Humbrol enamels. There's no real trick to the way I paint, I usually go from dark to light, so a face would be painted brown first, then a flesh tone, leaving some brown around the nose, mouth and eye sockets with a final highlight in the nose, chin and cheeks. Practically everything has this three colour treatment. And yes black horses are highlighted in blue!

Rules.
Given the number of figures involved (around 1300) I wanted something simple and easy to operate. Given my usual consummate planning skills I finally "wrote" the rules the night before the battle.
All distances, movement, weapon ranges etc. were in "feet" that is our feet heel to toe, large boots might lead to an advantage or two?
For each unit I devised a rating score based on ten factors:
1. Elite - Guards, Rifles etc.
2. Status - Veteran etc.
3. Morale level
4. Resilience
5.Competence - Drill, weapons handling etc.
6. Physical condition
7. Specialist weapons - Lance, rifles etc.
8. Specialist equipment - Cuirass for example.
9. Level of training.
10. Reputation

So we then scored each factor out of 10, giving a possible maximum of 100. Through out the day each unit had its' factor rating adjusted depending on what was occurring, so heavy casualties for example would reduce the overall score. Once a unit reached half its' starting total it had to withdraw two whole moves.
Firing was decided by simple dice throws, so we threw lots of dice.....

Lessons learned.
We needed two players a side to help with moving the troops, despite the large number of figures on each base, time started to run away from us. Any volunteers out there????
I need to devise another way of sticking figures to card bases. we used PVA and it really stuck, it really stuck.

We had a lot of fun and laughed at some of the strange events, what next? well perhaps a bigger version in 2019?

Thanks, hope this helped.

Eric
 

....the battle ended

                              The British artillery kept up a constant fire throughout the battle

                                            The only means of rapid movement on the field

                         The musketry duel on the Allied right forced the French to withdraw

                       On the left the Allied foot witnessed the defeat of the French cavalry

                                   On the right the French line infantry were in full retreat

So with the rain starting to fall and the distant rumbling of stomachs the Emperor conceded defeat, without the need of Prussian involvement the Iron Duke still couldn't believe how his normal pathetic dice rolls had changed to winning almost everything!

A good time was had by all.

Next time I will detail how the armies were organised and briefly describe the rules we used.

If you have stayed with us so far, thanks for your interest and stamina!

Eric




   

...................and as the rain started to fall...........

                                       Mounted grenadiers threaten the Household Cavalry....

                          

....who have support from rifles in the newly reinforced sandpit, while the Allied infantry remain unmoved - in both senses of the word.

                             The French prepare to exchange volleys with the Allied line

                                               The matter will shortly be decided

The last episode will be published tomorrow.

Thanks for looking,

Eric

..........the sky darkened.............

                              The Union Brigade moves up in support of the light cavalry

                     
                         French lancers bear down on the doomed riflemen left as rearguard

                                Riflemen re-establish themselves in and around the sandpit

                                            Guard cavalry starts to threaten the Allied left.

Crunch time! The Allied light brigade crashes into the French cavalry, both sides have more horsemen in support.

The feeling is that the last act is about to begin.

More soon, thanks for looking.

Eric

 

................but in the afternnon the clouds rolled in............

                         French light infantry prepare to assault the under-manned orchard

Bur their line colleagues at the barricade are repulsed after bitter hand-to-hand fighting. The fire of the 95th and KGL in the farm was relatively ineffective, but somewhat surprisingly the 95th proved unbeatable with rifle butts and bayonets!

However, brushing aside the light resistance the French light troops fight their way into the courtyard.

 The mass of French cavalry on the right begin to move forward, dragoons cuirassiers and hussars head for the Allied ridge while lancers and guard heavy horsemen manoeuvre towards the road.

                     Riflemen spill out of La Haye and head in the direction of the sandpit.

I'm finding the tension almost unbearable and I was there. See how the drama continues tomorrow.

Thanks for looking.

Eric

......Including lunch.....

This is the main Allied light cavalry force on the extreme left of the line, British light dragoons and hussars and Kings German Legion light dragoons.

The French infantry have reached the barricade, having taken rifle and roundshot fire on the way in.

Meanwhile more French foot have deployed to the rear of the farm preparatory to an assault. Behind them hussars and dragoons are preparing to charge a squadron of Allied light cavalry. The two objects in the far background are the legs of a curious neighbour who dropped in to see what on earth was happening in his street. He stayed for over an hour, and seems OK!

A weak squadron has moved next to the sandpit hopefully able to catch French infantry in column. In the background the French and Allied cavalry have engaged.

More soon.

Eric
  

....That lasted all day.......

Here it La Haye It'aint with a garrison from the Kings German Legion, to the right is one of two barricades and the sandpit all manned by elements of the 95th Rifles. Beyond is the Elm Tree Crossroads and the Allied lines.

A shot taken behind the Union Brigade on the left of the ridge. The three guns positioned here managed fire effectively most of the day, steadily inflicting casualties on the advancing French infantry columns. Allied infantry remained stationary for most of the day. General Ponsonby and his ADC is seen in front of the Greys.

 

French infantry press forward along and beside the road while another column begins a manoeuvre intended to encircle the farm. Hussars and dragoons are in support. The KGL and 95th respond with particularly ineffective long range rifle fire.

Vanity Fare here, The Corsican Ogre takes a break while the Iron Duke remains aloof.

Taking fire from the orchard, the buildings and the barricade the French column will shortly be in contact......................

More later...
Thanks

Eric



....We managed a Wargame

Firstly many thanks to those who commented so positively to the previous blog. Now we can move on and start to show the action as it unfolded on the day.

This is the French left, artillery, with hussars and dragoons in the middle distance and large infantry columns advancing in the background. True to form the French tactics pretty much reflected what happened in 1815.

Here is the rear of the Old Guard column which had line infantry to the left and a Young Guard unit to the right.

Here is another shot of the French left with the infantry marching past La Dell Appliance supported by elements of the Cavalry of the Guard.

Meanwhile on the Allied "ridge" the infantry had deployed in traditional line formation. Here is General Picton and his ADC, Scots infantry to the fore with the Union Brigade waiting in reserve.

Just for information the Allies were outnumbered in both infantry and cavalry although there was parity in artillery. The gap numbers was not hug but significant enough to dictate the tactics used on the day, so as per the film "Wellington has nailed himself to his ridge"

More soon, that means tomorrow.

Thanks for dropping by.

Eric 
 

And finally.....................

Well it happened, yesterday we fought the Battle of Waterloo, our somewhat truncated version anyway. The previous day brought rain in a serendipitous authentic manner, so we spent the afternoon gluing the models to their movement bases and other preparation activities. Yesterday dawned bright and clear, although the clouds did threaten from time to time, more of that later.

A view of the field with the Elm Tree Crossroads, sandpit, La Haye It'aint and La Dell Appliance nearest the camera mysteriously appearing having travelled through time and space from Getttysburg.

An early view of French infantry advancing, we were sort of fortunate that the parched nature of what was once a lawn (now mostly moss) and the fallen pine needles from a neighbours' tree combined to look a bit like cereal crops as per the actual field.

This is the French right wing masses of cavalry with infantry columns in the background.

A close-up of the cuirassiers forever charging at full pelt, dragoons following with light cavalry, hussars and lancers further along the line.

More pictures and a description of how the action panned out, followed by a brief overview of the rules we used and lessons learned later.

Comments, criticisms or anything else, welcomed. Thanks for looking.

Eric  

 

Some Allied Cavalry

                                         15th Hussar squadron completed -at last!

                                         Brunswick hussars well underway - 4 men needed

A long gap since the last post, and have managed to make some progress, as shown in the pictures above. The game will probably take place about two weeks from now, however the hot weather has disrupted my plans insofar as some hoped for units will either not be present, or be understrength. Having said that, there should be around 1300 figures available.

I can only paint in 15 minute slots at present due to the temperature 32 c, and the two angle poise lamps adding to the heat, last week the paint was literally drying on the brushes as I worked. Apparently the weather is due to cool down by the end of the week, so I should be able to catch up a bit.

As ever, comments criticism and encouragement welcome.

Thanks

Eric 

First Outing for La Haye It'aint! Number 2

I guess the tension is by now unbearable..........

The French try to batter down the gates, "Did anyone think to bring the key?"

                                                  "Are you busy later?"

                                                Some of the brave defenders

All in all a splendid day in Woking's Christchurch, hopefully this is the start of an annual event, which next time will be something different from Napoleonics.

Comments and questions gladly accepted, thanks fro now.

Eric

First Outing for La Haye It'aint! Number 1

Our son and I went to the Little Wars Revisited Games Day in Woking, hosted and arranged mainly by Mike Lewis, thanks Mike, and had a grand day out! Six other 54mm enthusiasts were there and a number of games were played, only this morning I realised that we only took pictures of our efforts, but others will appear on other blogs and sites and I'll try to post links to those later.

The date gave me a deadline by which to get the building and garrison done, somewhat ahead of the planned schedule, but that's no bad thing I guess. The roof sections contain over 20,000 individual tiles, cut from my accumulated business cards - friends and foes - a time consuming but cathartic experience, see previous post "A place in the Country".

We used a set of rules we wrote nearly 10 years ago, which worked fairly well, although a few issues need to be thought through. The allies were controlled by Jonny Kemp and while being outnumbered more than 4 to 1, and having limited rifle ammunition, held out remarkably well. The French were handicapped by my now traditional terrible dice throwing and suffered terribly eventually taking the building when the Allied ammunition ran out, so a reasonably accurate reflection of history?

So, a few pictures:

                  The farm with Kings German Legion inside and 95th Rifles on the road

                 Close-up of some of the 95th, some of whom ran away later, Ha ha ha!

 
 Magnificent columns of French with voltigeurs in open order; bravely advance little suspecting the carnage that awaits due to my appalling dice throwing.

                                                           Vive L'Empereur!

More news on next blog