Confederation of the Rhine - 20mm

About 40 (!) years ago I painted up the Duchy of Wurzburg's 3 battalions, cavalry regiment and gun battery as part of my Airfix Napoleonic wargames army. When I got back into wargaming about 10 years ago and started painting up loads of new French I decided to paint up the whole of the Confederation of the Rhine (the Rhinebund) regiments as a change from painting lots of blue coats. In moving to 6mm I have of course taken the opportunity to paint up the whole of the Confederation again. This post has the 20mm shots, and following posts will have the 6mm force, and then a comparison of the two.

The whole Rhinebund contribution of 16 battalions in 7 regiments, plus a couple of batteries.

The Wurzburg gun battery. The Wurzburg figures (and paint job) are 40 years old.

The three (old) battalions of the 1st COR Regiment from Wurzburg.

2nd COR Regiment from Nassau. HAT figures, for the 1st Bn, the original Airfix figures for the 2nd.

3rd COR Regiment, also Nassau, 2 Bns.

1st Bn 4th COR Regiment, Saxe-Coburg and Saxe-Meiningen (the guys in the sky blue trousers)

2nd Bn 4th COR Regiment, Saxe-Gotha

3rd Bn 4th COR Regiment, Saxe-Weimar

1st Bn 5th COR Regiment, Anhalt. I've actually got these in 25mm Hinchcliffe as well.

2nd Bn 5th COR Regiment. Lippe.

1st Bn 6th COR Regiment. Schwarzburg

2nd Bn 6th COR. Reuss and Waldeck - note the Waldeck flag.

1st and 2nd Bn 7th COR. Mecklenberg.

Mecklenberg Battery. Another 40yr old piece, think my brother actually painted this one.

***Imported from old blog***

Battle of Craonne - 25mm

Here's the account of the Liphook Historical Wargames Society refight of Craonne at the end of Jun. I was Napoleon :-(. The rules were the Liphook in-house rules, very old school in style and the game was played over 3 tables with about 7 commanders on each side. The game lasted from about 9am to 4pm real time one Sunday.

10 min per turn. 1mm = 1 yard. Units represented to company/squadron level but moved as battalions/regiments. Single figure casualty removal (usually by card marking) and 5 states of disorder (I think).

The battle started after the French had taken Hertebise Farm. The main differences from the historical battle plan were that Carpentier and Rebeval made their main push through the woods either side of the neck to try and outflank the guns - so lots of skirmishing with the Russian Jaegers, but a push across the neck was still needed in the end, and De Morvan's Young Guard Division was seconded to Nansouty so as to give him a combined arms force to hopefully secure any advantage he gained on the Russian flank, and also with the option of exploiting W to the table edge.

T1 (1100) 6 Russian batteries are deployed right at the head of the neck. Cossacks line the ridge on their L above the Lette. Rebeval and Charpentiers Divisions from Victors Corps push forward in skirmish order through the woods, which are already infested with Russian Jaegers. Victors other troops hold back on the neck. Ney pushes forward towards Ailles.

T2 (1110) Skirimishers push forward. Ney reaches the small bridge just past La Maison Blaume.

T3 (1120) Skirmishers almost in contact. Ney splits forces sending the Spanish Brigade towards Ailles and the rest towards the ridge - but mindful of the Cossacks

T4 (1130) Nansouty's cavalry starts to emerge from the woods on the S spur. Guard artillery moves onto the neck. Skirmisher firefights start in the woods both N and S of the neck.

T6 (1150) Exelman's cavalry move N on the spur, towards the Russian 2nd line guns. Some Russian cav being sent S. Guard infantry begins to move onto the neck but already getting very congested. Victors Young Guard is slowly pushing the Jaegers back, but with more success in the S.

T8 (1210) Young Guard in the S wood almost pushed through to edge, but Guard in N wood being pushed back.

T9 (1220) The Cossacks above Ailles finally decide to charge Ney's advancing infantry but bounce back.

T10 (1230) Young Guard now at edge of both woods, in S try and exit but bounced by defending Russians. Most of Nansouty's cavalry now on the plateau. De Morvan's Division which had been seconded from Mortiers Corps to bolster Nansouty's cavalry only force starts to emerge from the woods.

T11 (1240) Nansouty charges the Russian Pavlograd Hussars which have been monitoring him. In the N wood the Russian 14th Jaegers have pushed through the Young Guard line, but 15th Jaeger are being pushed back out of the woods.

T12 (1250) The Pavlograd Hussars rout the 1st Provisional Hussars but spent on followup surrounded by De Morvan's infantry. 3rd Tirallieurs finally exit the S wood on the flank of one of the Russian guns at the head of the neck.

T13 (1300) Nansouty's cavalry advances in skirmish order against the 2nd line Russian guns, but 2nd Provisional Hussars routed by Don Cossacks. Charpentier assaults the Russian battery from the edge of the S wood. Ney's lead troops almost cresting the plateau, whilst his Spanish Brigade invests Ailles.

T15 (1320) Nansouty's Grenadiers a Cheval chase off the Cossacks. Nansouty's guns decimate the Pensa IR which had formed square at the far S end of the spur.

T16 (1330) Charpentier's infantry exploits L and C beyond the Russian battery. Grouchy's cavalry finally has space to start moving across the neck. Vorontzov moves some infantry against Ney's forces cresting the plateau. The Pavlograd Hussars are finally chased off by the 1st Guard Lancers - but annoyingly for little loss (these Hussars were an annoyance to the French for the whole game), but they rout into the 10th Tirallieurs who are just following up a Russian battalion they have routed.

T17 (1340) There is an evolving cavalry melee between the Nansouty and Vorontzov cavalry on the spur.

T19 (1400) On the middle table the Polish Lancers melee with the Don Cossacks. In the centre the Russian guns(mostly spent) and infantry are pulling back to the 2nd line, with a few infantry battalions in square against the advancing Guard cavalry. Ney is making a 2nd assault up the slope.

T20 (1410) 2nd Provisional Hussars charge the Russian 2nd line battery SE of La Bovelle, but take 4 casualties and are Broken.

T21 (1420) Guard Chasseurs a Cheval charge the 8/9th Don Cossacks. 26th & 27th Chasseurs a Cheval charge the Vlapov (?) Don Cossacks. The French forces a now well S of La Bovelle and beginning to wrap around it.

T22 (1430) At the W end of the neck 1st Fusilier Grenadiers charge a Russian square of the combined grenadier companies of 15th Div and routs them. De Morvan's Division is pressing the Russian 2nd line gun SE of La Bovelle, which is now spent.

T23 (1440) A 2nd Russian square beyond the neck routs due to close range artillery fire and friends routing. Cossacks charge one of the Guard batteries on the neck. Ney and Rebeval pushing up onto the plateau again, which is now defended by a line of Tulsa IR.

T25 (1500) Russian centre now in full retreat to La Bovelle. The gap SW of La Bovelle which Nansouty and De Morvan had been hoping to exploit is rapidly being filled by Olsuflov's IX Corps with cavalry and artillery. French orders adjusted to try and exploit further S towards Paissy and Vanstcesse.

T26 (1510) De Morvan's Division now on the 2nd table, which is now the focus of action in all three sectors.

T27 (1520) Nansouty and De Morvan move WSW towards the stream crossing W of Paissy. Ney has cleared all but one building of Ailles from the Russians, with some others on fire, but exploitation W is stalling due to the lack of cavalry - the ridge W from Ailles now lined with cavalry and guns - the Russians having no infantry W of La Bovelle, it all being bottled up in the village.

T28 (1530) The Russian Beckendorff Hussars (them again) are enfolding the front of La Bovelle with Russian guns. The Russian 3rd line guns W of La Bovelle are frustrating any flanking move by Nansouty.

T29 (1540) Nansouty's cavalry is beaten back from the stream crossing by flanking fire from Paissy (although not quite sure how they managed to shoot up that slope :-) ), and the guns on the other side of the stream. Ney is still fighting over Ailles.

T30 (1550) Russian gun line at La Bovelle is keeping the French Guard from closing, and the Hussars are keeping them in square.

T31 (1600) Nansouty has another push on the L flank. Empress Dragoons charge the Russian guns in front of La Bovelle but are beaten back.

T32 (1610) Guard Horse artillery on L flank starts bombarding Caissy. Beckendorff Hussars finally pulled back into La Bovelle and their guns are more or less spent so a direct assault by Mortiers forces is likely to commence next go.

At this point the game was halted and a Russian victory declared. The French had not been able to successfully flank La Bovelle, and the Russians had put up a stout defence which had slowed the central advance.

There is a full set of photos taken with a proper camera here on Flickr.

***Imported from old blog***

Space in Images - Missions - Rosetta

Some lovely images of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko coming in from Rosetta. Just image what they will be like when the probe drops down to 10km, and when Philae lands. Just makes you want to put the whole thing in a space sim or even my Port2Jump and set a Traveller adventure there.

http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Missions/Rosetta/(class)/image

***Imported from old blog***

Battle of Craonne - 2mm

During the last couple of months I've been fortunate (?) enough to refight the Battle of Craonne (7 Mar 14) three times: solo in 2mm as planning for the Liphook battle, as Napoleon in a 25mm mega-battle (3 tables, c.7 players a side) at Liphook, and solo again in 6mm to fix the things in the plan that went wrong in the other two!

This is a summary of the 2mm battle. The 25mm version is already on the Liphook web site (but I'll also post here for completeness). Once I've got the 6mm version posted I'll try and draw it all together.

The 2mm (and 6mm) games were played using the Div/Bde Level version of my own Steady Lads Steady rules, vaguely Shako'esque, which work on a 40mm hex grid (so as to avoid any distance arguments!). Each base is a Brigade and only grand batteries have their guns explicitly represented. Activation was card driven. 1 turn = 30 min.

The Russians are formed up in about three defensive lines, at the head of the neck, by La Bovelle, and at the pinch to the rear of La Bovelle. The French have a Cavalry and Young Guard force under Nansouty on the L flank, Young Guard under Rebeval and Charpentier moving across the neck, and Ney with just infantry on the R flank. The French plan to hold back in the centre until the two flanks can bring pressure to bear on the Russian flanks.

View of the battlefield. Arrows point down slope. 1 hex = 200m. Hurtebise Farm on bottom edge of table, La Bovelle farm in middle, Cerny village in far distance. Just page through the other images, the red dice at bottom show the turn number (in base 6 - sort of!)

The descriptions are typically given Left, Centre, Right from the French point of view.

1 (1100) French advance except across neck. Nansouty's cavalry pulls up on to the plateau.

2 French advance except across neck

3 (1200) L: Cossacks charge unformed Nansouty Gd Cav but recoil. C: Russian guns take 1 CEF off of Fr on neck

4 L: 2nd Cossack charge against Nansouty results in a bounce. CR: Rabeval pushes Ru back at the head of the neck, but 2nd Bde at -3 CEF. R: Ney inf take -2 CEF from Cossacks on slope as they try to force their way up the slope onto the plateau.

5 (1300) L: Ru charge Nansouty's Gd Cav, Melee goes to 2nd round but looking bad for Dragoons. R: Ney pushed back off ridge. C: Guard arty opens fire on Ru inf and forces a retreat. Victor moving onto flank. Charpentier moves up into gap on neck.

6 L: Grenadiers a Cheval rout Russian Dragoons, take damaged infantry by La Bovelle. CL: Rabeval finally beats back Russians, but Division spent. C: Gd Arty continues to maul Ru inf in front of La Bovelle.

7 (1400) L: Cossacks charge Chasseurs a Cheval, but bounce back. C: Russians pull back to La Bovelle. 3x attacks La Bovelle and Russians suffer badly.

The French are now clear of the neck. Nansouty now joined up with the main French force.

8 C: Russian 1 Bde destroyed, causing some consternation in units to rear. Russians pull back to a new defensive line c.1km W (rear) of La Bovelle. French 2nd wave troops brought forward. R: Ney pulls up to the ridge as the Russians pull back.

9 (1500) C: Fr 3x and 7x go in against Russians. Successful but have to reform. R: Ney goes in against N of new Russian line, winning but bloody. Cossacks pushed back in melee onto infantry line.

Ney now joined up with the main French force.

10 Cossacks charge reforming 3x and 7x and rout them, buying time for infantry to form a third and final defensive line about another 1km back. Cossacks flee when counter charged by Fr Gd Cav.

11 (1600) Ney's Young Guard charge Russian line, but pushed back by cannon fire. Lancers fail to charge home vs Russian cavalry. Grenadiers a Cheval do go in and rout Russians, and maintain order and reform. Russians now at break point.

12 (1630) French 4x Dragoons chase 1 Cossack Regt off table, and eliminate a 2nd whilst reforming. Russians forced back to Cerny. Lead French units 1.5 km W of La Bovelle, 1 km fm Cerny and the table edge.

1700 - Planned end of game

There is a full image set on Flickr.

***Imported from old blog***

Battle of Tudela Refight

Over the weekend Nick and I had the first proper game with my new Steady Lads Steady rules for Napoleonic Wargaming. Vaguely reminiscent of Shako, but designed to be played with full unit bases and on a 40mm hex grid with 6mm figures they are as close to my ideal rules as I've got. They'd worked well in solo games, so it was time to try them out in a proper games and with decent sized force (about 30-40 battalions/regiments each).

Having last year picked up a copy of the excellent Battle Studies in the Peninsula by Partridge & Oliver last year, and with a Peninsula campaign perpetually in the off'ing we decided on the Battle of Tudela. The big tweak we made though (since Nick likes Brits and to make things more equal) was to replace Saint March's militia brigade with a Brigade of seasoned British troops). You can download the scenario.

The playing area was just under 3ft x 6ft, and yes it took a few hours to draw all those hexes!

In keeping with the real life battle only a couple of divisions started on table, the rest coming in at random times as the battle progressed - which really helped to make it fluid and unpredicatable. Only Digeon's Dragoons failed to actually arrive.

So here's a quick summary of the proceedings.

All in all we both felt the rules worked really well. We probably spent about 10 hours on the 20 turns, but that also includes cooking a full Sunday roast and a Goulash on Saturday. We could probably get slicker on the rules (I'm looking at doing some quick reference cards to supplement the QRS), and also a bit of parallel working when unit activations don't conflict.

***Imported from old blog***

Preview Darkside Video Animation for BBC R2

The BBC are having a Dark Side of the Moon day on Monday. Nice trailer video for the Tom Stoppard play - although more than a shade of Elysium about it.

***Imported from old blog***

Edinburgh Fringe 2013

Just back from this year's long weekend at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Not a classic, but some good shows in there - 16 in 3 days (and a couple of bits), not including the cafe. We got a a lot more different venues, some we hadn't been to before and hardly spent any time at the Pleasance (when previously we've spent almost whole days there). We also found it harder to work out what the "must-sees" were - perhaps because we normally go at the end of the festival when all the reviews and awards are out. None of our Festival faves (NIE, SpyMonkey etc) were there either to structure our schedule around. Also we saw hardly any posters for the shows we did see, adding to the feeling of being just a bit more in the dark.

Here's the shows in order:

Friday

Death By Murder* - We took a chance at using the half-price hut for our first night, just off the train seeing it was nearby. We go what we paid for. Sort of improvised comedy but not very well done and some pretty amateur acting. One of the cast played the inspector and had to work out who the murder was, but it just didn't really work and wasn't that well done.

Saturday

Pussyfooting**** - Nice drama piece by a young theatre group we know via contacts in Birmingham. The neatest thing was the use of blackboards of all sizes to represent the set and props with drawings being hastily drawn as the play went on. Well acted and not a bad script around a fun plot about people's feet taking them over.

Seven Ages**** - flyered whilst buying tickets at the Fringe Ticket Office (saving us 90p a ticket vs iPad app purchases). 7 linked scenes about the 7 ages of pan, told and acted with wit and charm by Kevin Tomlinson, some with audience suggestions. Funniest was the "one word at a time" Clue style section with his assistant who couldn't remember that R came after E for the Queens initials, or that it was Great Britain and Northern Ireland (not ... and Scotland!).

Ballad of the Burning Star*** - history of modern Israel told Cabaret style complete with Drag Queen and gold spandex shorted Starlets. The Guardian had given in 5 stars but it just didn't really hold together. The play we say a few years ago consisting of monologues of cafe patrons each of whom gets blown up in turn as the end of their piece was far better.

Solfatara**** - Another that we'd been alerted to from friends in Birmingham, this time a Barecelonan production, in Spanish but with English subtitles. But it soon became apparent that the subtitle were part of the act as Annie-Hall style they started giving voice to the inner thoughts of the main characters (and even of the subtitler). The set-up was that a character in a mask (so very/only expressive eyes and mouth became the (evil) inner voice of the main character as the relationship between him and his wife went through volcanic (hence Sulfatara) outbursts. Really well done, really accessible, very nice piece.

Boredom***1/2 - Earlier in the day in search of a coffee we'd gone into Hunt & Darton's pop-up cafe just up from the Pleasance - without realising that it was actually an "event" - with Hunt & Darton curating a different ambience each day - today being "community" so we found ourselves at a large table doing a puzzle with a group of Australians. Really nice ambience and as good as many a show. SO in the evening we took in their Boredom show, which was prefaced by the two of them sat po-face saying "This is Hunt & Darton's show about boredom - good luck" and then proceeded with a variety of dead pan monologues, sketches, slideshows of food, a collection of model pigs and so. Well done and very amusing in a very dry way. Giving it **** would probably be wrong in principle, it wasn't meant to be that exciting. But **** for the cafe.

Sunday

Voluntary Departure **** - Woefully poorly attended black comedy in a very small venue, it was nice to see a piece by more mature performers just acting their hear out - the woman in particular in this two hander was superb, the script really tight, sharp - just delivering that with a solid hour on stage at a brisk pace and some really wonderful wordplay was stunning. The plot was about a voluntary euthenasia clinic in a future state, the clinician advising the client how to die, and finding out why he wants to die. There was a 1984 watching security eye, and constant references to "our leader" - which for some reason kept making me think of Alex Salmond and a future Scotland. The the ending could perhaps have had a bit of a better build up, but overall really good.

High Plains **** - Really good simple (ghost) story of the modern American west told by a battered friendly drunk. Very simple, very effective.

Inspector Norse **** - Subtitled "The Girl with Two Screws Left Over" this was a wonderful mix of The Killing, Abba and the Ikea catalogue. A two hander from two mature women (Lip Service Theatre) and a set (and props) made almost entirely of wool. Just very silly but very good, highlights being the crisp-bread foleying of walking through snow and the woollen animal roadkills piling up on the front of the car. From the web site it looks like they make a serial habit of such popular culture send ups - must try and catch them again.

Humans Inc. A Sci-Fi Epic on Stage from anthony springall on Vimeo.

Humans Inc - ***1/2 - Every year I try and see something SF related, but am usually disappointed. Is it that people try too hard with Star Trek style sets, or that the plots are too cliched, or that the subject matter just doesnt attract good or inventive actors. Humans Inc almost broke the mould, but not quite - and a cavernous venue populated by a handful of SF geeks didn't help. The staging was really good, handheld LED frameworks for flying spaceships (or bits off), (real) lasers cutting through the smoke, white handheld screens being used almost balletically (?) to creating moving corridors, lifts and housings. It's just the plot was far too cliched and the acting (particularly from the lead) far too variable.

The Colour Ham - ***1/2 - Sketch and magic show delivered by three guys who were in perpetual giggles about what they were doing - some deserved some not. Well done but just a bit too much audience volunteer humiliation for my liking but they did appear to get their come-uppence when one volunteer turned out to be the neighbour of one of the performers and she had no idea what he did for a living!

Monday

Domestic Science **** - We made a conscious decision to see a bit more on the Free Fringe this year (having seen and enjoyed Austentatious last year), and along with the half-price hut on the first night, and generally lower ticket prices (earlier in the festival, not all weekend/bank holiday) we probably averaged a lot less per ticket than previously (despite still donating about £7 a head for the free shows we saw). This was a really good science show, lots of simple demos/experiments with household objects, smart and funny delivery, and a highlight of my wife being dressed up as the Hubble Space Telescope (image available on request!)

School of Night's Spontaneous Shakespeare **** - Jo saw this last year and really liked it. Four real "thesps" improvising around Shakespeare (and Chaucer), with some wonderful "study notes" style interjections to take the play in challenging directions. Great fun and well worth seeing again next year.

Ulysses Dies at Dawn ***** - You know that you've finally reached the real Fringe when you walk into a venue and wonder if a) you're in the right place and b) if you are whether you ought to turn right round and head back out. The WhyNot venue was a dark basement bar, the clientele sat on a motley collection of chairs and bar stools, and was dressed in a variety of fashions from punk to goth - Deb and I were initially the oldest people there - and certainly the straightest. But the guys with aviators googles on their hats, and the girl with a set of golden wings gave it away - this was steampunk and where we should be. From the description it had sounded the most like the wonderful grunge Beowulf we saw 2 years ago - and I wasn't disappointed. The Mechanisms do what can only be described as steam punk folk/blues music story telling, and do it incredibly well. The band members had their own be-costumed steampunk personas, a highly charismatic leader (first mate!) to propel the whole drama, and an audience (with no small number of devoted followers) which was rapt. This is what I come to the Fringe for. And of course interestingly despite the classical references of the plot it was SF, and well done steam punk SF.

Baby Wants Candy **** - Whereas as Ulysses was gritty this was slick and a bit manufactured - but great fun. Improvised musical, by a US group, in this case Oh Brothel Where Are Thou. The best bit was the rest of the cast trying to keep it together when the plot went off in a completely unexpected direction involving a Narwal horn and a toenail!

Tuesday

Aaand Now for Something Completely Improvised **** - We'd wanted to see this earlier but it had sold out, but decided we could just about fit it in before the train. Well worth it. Probably felt the most "improvised" of all the improv we saw (more than previous years), cant say it was "pythonesque" in the way described in the brochure (apart from one interjection), but again the fun was in watching in how other cast members dealt with the evolving plot and trying to keep straight faces. The two most glorious moments were one actor (supposedly with bird tendencies) regurgitating an opal fruit into the mouth of another, and one actors own mobile phone going off repeatedly - as the other actor said to him - "we'd have shamed an audience member mercilously for that", the miscreant got off lightly!

***Imported from old blog***