Tuesday 31 July 2018

French Horse Artillery Limber

I love this limber set. It is the second one that I have done for this French in Egypt project.


It is such a heavy piece that it requires something stronger than my usual cardboard bases. Last time I used a piece of hardboard and was horrified when it warped when I applied the basing material – thankfully I was able to correct the warping. This time I used a grained timber base.

 

Several months ago we replaced some wooden blinds in our kitchen and to my delight the cedar slats of the old blinds were 45mm wide – slightly narrower than the size I use for my artillery bases but near enough nonetheless – so being a good wargamer I squirreled a few away out of sight of prying eyes that would never understand just why it is so important to hold on to these little gems for future projects. The base worked perfectly and there is no warping.



Also, today we played 15mm a WWII game with the Italians facing off against the Soviets. I didn't take many images of this game so I will leave it to my friend Keith to provide a full description on his blog  (https://1808534.blogspot.com). Below are the few shots that I did take of our glorious Italian troops advancing, before ot all went wrong...and the last image is an excellent example of what went wrong - three hits on vehicles with anything but a "1" to save....Well at least the Italian airforce destroyed the   railway station that was our primary objective. It is just a shame that our whole fighting force was destroyed in the process!






11 comments:

  1. Nice looking limber! Early war games are great fun, I'd guess the Italian armour wouldn't be great up against a T26!
    Best Iain

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank Iain. I too prefer early War before it just becomes a slugging match between heavy tanks. The Italian armour would have done much better with better dice rolls!

      Delete
  2. I remember you taking that photo of the 2 ones Mark...that kind of summed up the day for the Italians I guess...despite appearances, our Russian tanks were pretty fragile too - several were knocked out by AT rifles, for Goodness sake!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was just thankful that my command was intact. No one fired a shot at me so I was able to pack up my guns and go. Reports say that my character was last seen in a small village outside of Verona, dressed as a grape picker.

      Delete
  3. The timber has turned out rather nicely...
    Those Carmelite (yellowish brown) Coatees add another interesting colour to an already colourful army...
    Are you sure I didn’t roll these dice... ;-)

    All the best. Aly

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree the limber set is wonderful and agree with an earlier comment of yours that Alan has worked worders with the gun sets in this range. In some ways there is a sadness to completing this project because of the breadth of colour - going back to work on later French will seem a little drab.

      At least those dice weren't mine...in fact I had a good dice day, I was relatively successful wuth my activations and even managed to get the Italian airforce over the table (requiring a 5 or 6) for six of the ten or so turns. But mind you I commanded the artillery that was well to the rear and never even fired on by the enemy.

      The three "ones" reminds me of a time when a certain player (who has commented above) had to either roll seven dice to hit or roll to save (can't recall which now) requiring anything but a "one" and promptly rolled seven ones.

      Delete
    2. Thanks Mark - that was I ...and to be scrupulously accurate, I rolled EIGHT 1's for saving throws on eight hits....needless to say, THAT particular battalion disappeared like "sna' aff a dyke!" (That's very quickly for you Sassenachs :)

      Delete
    3. I couldn''t quite remember if it was seven or eight. I do remember doing almost the opposite though rolling six dice and scoring six sixes in a WRG game many years ago that equated to 8 hits (sixes were double hits with howitzers) the look on my opponent was priceless as his entire unit of Saxon cuirassiers popped.

      Delete
  4. Nicely done with those kitchen blinds, and even nicer work with what you put on them.

    I do like to include limbers and caissons where I can, but it always seems like a vaguely thankless task for some reason in that they are often overlooked in games. Which is a pity because they add some real flavour and character.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And the good ing about those cedar slats is that they are thin enough to simply cut and snap to size
      with a sharp knife.

      I remember in the old WRG days having big ox drawn limber for a gun which was great because it could not rout and could be positioned as a flank guard and if it was attacked the attackers had to hack their way through it one stand at a time. A bit gamey I know, but it all was in those days.

      Delete
  5. Thanks for giving such a great information about horses
    Horse matching is so important as far as my concern
    I'm very crazy about horses.
    keep doing well.
    Horse matching sets

    ReplyDelete