Competition ideas!

This coming January will mark the 1st anniversary of my taking over the administration of the La Bricole Napoleonic wargaming forum.  

To celebration the occasion of its rebirth- and of its resurrection after it's near-meltdown at the hands of the Forumer techs in October- we will be holding our 1st Painting Competition in the new year.

Before the competition rules and glittering prizes are announced, registered members of La Bricole first get to vote on the suggested topics for the competition.  (New members, of course, are welcome!)

These poll be found here.  Everyone gets two votes, and the poll runs until the end of the month.

Once the theme is chosen, I'll officially launch the competition around the end of December.

Somewhere in Russia, 1812...

And a small force of French, far from home and hearth, find themselves in a life-or-death struggle against the army of... the Duke of Wellington!

Close combat!  (Click on any picture to enlarge and see the gory details.)

Let me explain.  

We had a Black Powder Napoleonics game on Sunday, our first since Achilleas heeded the call of the Hellenic Sirens, and headed back to the tranquility of life in Greece- taking his French army with him.  His departure left only my few units of French with which to stem the scarlet and rifle green horde that is Matt's British army, recently reinforced by Rod's own growing force of redcoats. 

Les Bleus could at least count on Sada's very talented (and speedy!) brush, and he was able to provide a much-needed boost to French arms in the form of a battalion of Perry French.  

Sada has gone in for Napoleonics in a big way now, with a veritable tsunami of metal and plastic goodies from Perry Miniatures having hit Tokyo; about 300 figures worth.  

I have, rest assured, been working on painting more figures, and in fact we had originally thought to delay the next Napoleonic game until December so that we could get more units finished.  In the end, however, we couldn't wait that long- we needed a Black Powder fix, and needed it now.  Junkies all.

So we decided to just grab what we had available and put on a "come as you are" game rather than no game at all, even if it meant unfinished units (but no bare metal/ plastic.  We have standards).

Why Russia? 

My Western European buildings are "off-line" at the moment, as I'm in the middle of giving them all a makeover.  Just as with their 1/1 scale prototypes, wargames buildings get their share of wear and tear.  So I've been putting them on bases, repairing damage and taking the opportunity to repaint them to my more recent standards. 

However, I'd recently finished a bunch of Russian farm buildings- plastic kits by Pegasus Hobbies- for our WW2 Eastern Front games.  While designed for 20mm gaming, these excellent models are on the large end of the scale, and do very nicely for 28mm.  Hence Thomas Lobster's new adventures in the steppes.  Suspend disbelief, and imagine the forested mountains in the Pyrenees may indeed have featured buildings constructed from logs.

Rod also bought along some terrain, some very nice hedges and walls that you can see in many of the photos. 

Given the amount of British in their Peninsula uniforms, I suppose we really should be thinking about getting ourselves some Spanish/Portuguese style buildings as well.  In honesty, I'm a "central Europe" guy so they are not a priority for me.  But if any other member of our group feels so inclined, go for it (hint, hint).

The French Hordette

Another look at Sada's 17e de ligne.  Nice, crisp paintwork, with the promise of more- a LOT more- to come!

Above can be seen the woefully outnumbered French force.  My 28e légère in the centre behind our 6pdr gun, Sada's new 17e de ligne on the left flank, and the (barely presentable) 7e chasseurs a cheval on the right.  Behind them, but ashamed to be seen in public, are the practically naked 69e de ligne. 

GdB Boullion-Cantinat orders his men into the village to forage for food, water, and fine spirits for the officers.

But the Allies have other plans!

For this game the Rod and Matt as the Allies were joined by Derek, who had dropped by the club for the first time.  This was also his first Napoleonics game, and he quickly got into the thick of things.

Rifles and infantry are ordered to advance...

Their brigadier talks the talk, but the men clearly don't want to walk the walk!   This brigade, apart from the 60th Rifles, stayed pretty much immobile the whole day. 

Meanwhile, the French occupy the village.  

Not much else they could do in the face of the Allied onslaught!

British Light Dragoons, and Rod's recent additions, the 44th Foot & 95th Rifles. What's wrong with doing some second-class line troops, guys, huh?

The game's afoot, and Derek orders Matt's Brunswickers forward in an attempt to storm into the village

Such exquisite painting and stirring poses...

...only to be unceremoniously seen off by a brisk fire from one of the village buildings, and from a successful charge by a decidedly under-dressed 69e Regt. de ligne! 

Verdammt! Oh, the ignominy...

As luck would have it, the only unfinished unit of French infantry would be the one that performed the best on both sides throughout the game.  The dice care not for sartorial splendour.  In fact, the battle was notable for there being no real acts of heroism and derring-do on either side!

Meanwhile, the 17e smoke their pipes, play cards, and twiddle their thumbs, all the time waiting for the British to finish their annual brigade picnic on the left flank.

Things are far more active on the French right, where the French artillery shoot up the Light Dragoons despite fierce British counter-battery fire.

The Light Dragoons charge in! Twice they cross swords with the 7e Chasseurs...

But are defeated! The French are so far holding their own.

British guns leapfrog forward.

Over on the French left, the 60th Rifles have finished their cucumber sandwiches and petit-fours.  Having packed away the silverware and linen, they eventually decide to return to the business of waging war.  
But where has Monsieur Crapaud gotten to?

Bored by the inactivity, the 17e had decided to move to where the action is, and made a flanking charge into the British line.

Looks as if the French are going to clean Rosbif clock, right?  Wrong!  The charge was a disappointing failure. 

Now, Sada is a real credit to the club; a very skillful painter and modeller, and the epitome of good sportsmanship in our games.  But dice as a species, apparently, just simply hate his guts.  He consistently rolled high when shooting, and low when break tests were required.

Rod's 44th Essex Regiment prepares to advance against the now veteran 69e de ligne

And are seen off! Cue Gallic taunts of triumph.

Things are getting nasty...

And the 60th Rifles, putting aside all inconvenient notions of chivalry and fair play, climb over the wall and gleefully start taking potshots into the backs of the French.

Things are looking grim for the 1er Empire, while the 88th and 45th British foot finally decide to move forward...

Only to fall back again as the result of a command blunder.  Clearly not in the mood to shed blood today, especially their own!

It was only a matter of time before the French succumbed to the onslaught.  The tenacious 69e were the last to go.  But they retired off the field in good order, taking their general with them ready to fight another day.

Despite the unequal forces involved, it was a fun game.  We played it so that only the Allies are subject to command blunders.  And certainly the French gave as good as they got.

Having said that, having to game on a steady diet of last stands will lose it's lustre fast, so we need to get painting!  As time goes on, we should see a steady increase in the number of Eagles being waved over the tabletop. Sada is proving to be as prolific a painter as Achilleas was, and we reached a consensus on ordering some ready-painted troops from Mabuhay painting service, so I need to get cracking on that this weekend.

*****

During the game, Sada was showing us his newly-acquired copy of the new Waterloo rules from Warhammer Historical.  This is one gorgeously illustrated book- the pictures really took my breath away.   

I'm not ashamed to admit that I am a sucker for excellent eye candy, and I think I've found a good Christmas present for someone I care about very much- me.  

Sound the "All Clear"

I hope!  

It looks like the permissions issue has been cleared up, so La Bricole is functional again.  Just a few minor glitches from an admin side- mostly cosmetic, but nothing significant.

Let me know if there are any issues I may not be aware of.

Now, back to painting!  There are sixteen old Hinchliffe miniatures I'm in the middle of refurbishing, some post-1809 Saxon infantry.  They are looking better than I would originally have thought.

La Bricole est retournée! (sort of...)

Repairs continue, but at least our little forum is back and running. And with all the posts, data and photos intact, from what I've seen so far!

I'm not impressed with Forumer to say the least. four weeks (at least) is a hell of a long time to be down to switch servers, and why they didn't test it ahead of time beats me.   I've been badgering their users forum regularly while it was down, but bar a few posts by admin staff the silence was deafening.   Still, better late than never.

The only casualty has been the appearance, which has reverted to the standard style setting.  But this is no real problem, and I can fix that later this week.

Anyhow, La Bricole is functioning again, so... feel free to contribute!

EDIT: some problems persist with settings, so if you are getting the message "this board has no forums", it's bollocks- they are there!   It's a permissions issue that is proving irritatingly difficult to fix, and I've reported it to Forumer.

If it's not broken...

...please don't try to fix it! 

As those of you who follow the "la Bricole" forum are probably aware, the site has been down for about a week now.

Although the site had been running just fine, Forumer, the people who host La Bricole, decided that they would migrate their forums to a new server, and La Bricole was among the first batch to move.

Well, it appears that those responsible for doing it have had more than their share of problems trying to get it up and going.   

Forumer hasn't been all that communicative about what exactly the problem is, or when we can reasonably expect the site to come up again.  But clearly someone in the tech team must be a descendant of the guy responsible for keeping that bridge up for the French army to cross during their retreat from Leipzig.

Anyway when- indeed if- it is ever up again, I'll post it here.

*****

In other news, for those who haven't noticed yet Sada has posted the first pictures of his Perry plastic French, and very tasty they look too!  What with the new plastics on or coming on the market, and the recent releases in metal by the Perry twins, he also seems set on doing Russians.

We have already been tentatively discussing the possibility of a Borodino scenario for the bicentennial in 2012, and a scaled-down Salamanca re-fight is also a definite possibility.

Battle Report, and Heavy Losses

I've been keeping my hands full over the past month or so with a number of projects on the gaming front.  Since my last post, our club has played both a Napoleonic and a WW2 game.  

Today I'll post a belated report for the the Napoleonic game, a real nail-biter that once again saw us merrily ignore the brigade morale rules and fight bitterly to the last unit.  

This time I was playing with a Russo-Prussian contingent, and along with the British we managed to beat off a superior French force assault on a town.  But only just!

The scenario was forced upon us by the fact that Matt had called that morning to say that he would not be able to make it as he was feeling ill, so that left us without all his British/ Allied forces.  

Fortunately, Rod had shown up with his first painted units for Napoleonics, some very nicely done British infantry along with a company of the 95th Rifles and a single gun.  Achilleas- our brushman extraordinaire- had bought his French horde along with a unit each of Prussians, Russians and British.  I was able to throw in my Russian horse artillery battery, so I took command of the Russians and Prussians defending a village on the right with the British aligned on the left flank.

The French we had available to us would have badly outnumbered the allies, so we decided not to field my 28e Légère (no doubt still smarting from losing their Eagle last game), and not to give the French any artillery.  This was to make their prospects of victory immeasurably more difficult.

The French objective was simple, to take all the buildings.  Pete and Achilleas were the French,  Rod and I the Allies.  Rules were, of course, Black Powder. 

We had Pete's gorgeous buildings to fight over, along with some resin models I had brought back with me from my recent trip home to Vancouver.  I bought these back in about 1985, so it was nice to see them getting some use again.  They are smallish 25mm, so work well both with our Napoleonic games and with our 20mm WW2 games.

One thing I didn't bring was my trusty new camera, so I had to resort to the less-than-ideal camera on my cellphone.  That, plus poor room lighting that day, means the photo quality isn't what it could be.

The French enter the field.  They were to dice to see when they arrived on the battlefield.  To the horror of the allies, both forces came in on turn one!

Frenchies coming out of the mist.

The forces of Liberty and Freedom deploy.  The Prussians on the right were to garrison the buildings, and held out against Pete's assault for far longer than I dared to hope.  The Russians were to prove the battle winner!

"My word, Carstairs, there are rather a lot of those garlic-munching chappies out there, what?"

Pete goes straight for the jugular, and moves quickly up the village (he rolled well and got in an extra move- gulp!)

The French grenadiers try a flanking move...

They are in a position to attack the flanks of Rod's British, or to wheel left and get the Russians.

They go for British, leaving the Russians free to exact dreadful retribution!  First blood to the Czar.

Meanwhile, on the Allied left...

The battle on the left was a real see-saw action, and saw the French thrown back once before bravely giving it a second try...

The immortal 57e de ligne plunge into the attack..

...only to be routed, taking another two battalions with them.  This was the first ray of hope for the otherwise extremely hard pressed Allies!

Back to the village, and la marée française washes up against the stone barn and tower.  

The barn was held by the Prussians, who managed to throw back at least three separate assaults.

The Russians were in reserve, ready and willing to die to the last Pommeranian.

Finally, almost out of ammunition and having had taken heavy casualties, the Prussians break after an epic defence.

Their flight exposes the Russian licorne whose crew is soon shot down.

But the French have been exhausted in the fighting, and the Russians do what they do best- go in with the bayonet!   We play it so the Russians automatically pass their first break test, which makes them an army to be reckoned with.  

The battalion sweeps away the Swiss, and manages to stave off defeat in the village as the supporting units pull back.

"URRAH!!!"

On the left flank, Achilleas found out how useful the "Follow me" rule could be!  
The British lose one battalion but not before destroying the French cavalry. 

At this point, with fewer and fewer manoeuvre units to worry about the game started moving very quickly, so that there was no time to take many pictures!  It ended with the sole surviving British- an artillery piece and the commander- racing towards the right flank where the Russians had holed up in the chateau.  The British gun was great at slowing the French advance due to disorder hits, and without artillery themselves, the French found it hard to deal with infantry in the buildings.  

Steady attrition and failed break rolls saw the French reduced to a single unit, which made two assaults on the chateau.  On a third attempt, they too finally broke!  

For Czar, der König, His Britannic Majesty, and Freedom!

An Allied win, in pure Don Featherstone style with a handful of survivors still standing. "A close run thing" doesn't come anywhere near describing it

*****

Now, I did mention heavy losses.   The biggest loss is that we are losing Achilleas.  After long consideration, he has finally made the decision to move back to Greece.  

Achilleas has been a real prime mover in our group, and has been all you could ask for as a gaming partner.  Of course, he is an amazingly talented painter (as pictures both here and on his own blog have testified), and like the rest of us he really values the aesthetics of  wargaming.  

On the tabletop he always plays for the win (usually at the cost of a legendary wastage of horseflesh!), but above all he is a great sport and a real gentleman who knows what gaming is primarily all about- the enjoyment of shared interests with like-minded people.

Thanks, Achilleas, and best of luck for the future.  You'll be missed, and should you ever decide to return there will always be a place at the gaming table waiting for you.

As can be imagined, this sparked a crisis here with the West Tokyo Wargamers (Napoleonic Branch), as his collection has accounted by far for the largest share of the French army.

However, all is not lost.  At this point it's looking likely that the rest of us are going to chip in for a painted brigade from Mabuhay Painting Service (MMPS), which will give us a decent nucleus of  a French force while we can slowly add extra units at a reasonable pace.  Rumour has it that Matt is even to work on Neapolitans!

Also, it looks as if Sada- he of the exquisite Napoleonic ships posted here a while back-  is about to jump into Napoleonic land warfare too, and he has been working on a box of Perry French.  He already has some amazingly painted 15mm Napoleonic miniatures, and given his superb modelling and painting skills, these will be something to look forward to, I'm sure.  And it will be great to have a Japanese gamer on board.

So rest assured, Napoleonics will continue to flourish here in Tokyo.