Pontoon Bridging Set

Well the few days in Central Otago are gone and we are back home. Christmas Day and Boxing Day were a little cooler and overcast than Christmas Eve, but yesterday the skies were blue and a gentle breeze blew up the valley, over the vines and past the lodge...

...it was shaping up to be a stunner...and we were leaving to go home...

By mid-afternoon we were back in Auckland where it was warm, the skies were equally blue, but the wind was gusting to gale strength, and I spent the evening finishing off the pontoon train set that I started a week ago. 

The set consists of the engineer officer and the four pontooniers carrying beams...

The wagon, with timbers stacked for transport...

The wagon with the pontoon loaded...

And then with the horse teams that I had painted a month or more ago.

The whole set goes nicely with the pontooniers and the pontoon bridge set and workmen that I worked on back in September (here).

Merry Christmas!

 

It sure rolls around quickly, doesn't it?

Although dashing through the snow (in a three horse open sleigh as the Emperor is here) would be a rather fun thing to do, our Christmas is not a snowy one but a summertime one away among the vines in Central Otago. It is just a short stay - three nights away from all the fuss in a peaceful lodge.

We came down yesterday and visited some of our favourite haunts in this part of the world - Wanaka, Cromwell (where we joined a couple of friends for lunch at the Stoker Room), bought some cherries from a roadside stall, checked into the lodge, took in a wine tasting before dinner in Arrowtown, then back to the lodge for a few more glasses of wine under the evening sky.  The forecast of a cool day with rain showers was proved utterly wrong with brilliant sunshine and stiflingly hot.

Today we woke to this view from our front window...

The weather forecast is for rain today, but there is no sign of it yet, so let's hope the forecasters have got it wrong again.

Merry Christmas to all.

Last Game of the Year

Sunday's game (yes I know that was three days ago, but its been a busy three days),  the last game for 2024, was a Napoleonic battle - a Franco-Bavarian force fighting a Austro-Prussian force involving seven players. The game has no specific scenario and the terrain was relatively neutral with some gentle hills, a couple of small farms and woods. It was really just an excuse for a game.

The Franco-Bavarian forces had a significantly large number of battalions, although the Austro-Prussian battalions were larger. Each commend had a basic force and in some cases could chose from one or two options.

The Forces

Franco-Bavarian Forces	Austro-Prussian forces
French command one 12 line infantry battalions 2 cavalry regiments 2 artillery batteries  Option 1 - 3 artillery batteries...taken Option 2 - 3 cuirassier regiments French command two 12 line infantry battalions 2 cavalry regiments 2 artillery batteries  Option 1 - 3 artillery batteries Option 2 - 4 dragoon regiments...taken French command three 6 Guard infantry battalions 2 Guard cavalry regiments 2 Guard artillery batteries Bavarian command 12  line infantry battalions 3 cavalry regiments 2 artillery batteries  Option 1 - 3 artillery batteries...taken Option 2 - 3 cavalry regiments	Austrian command one 12  line infantry battalions 3 cavalry regiments 2 artillery batteries  Option 1 - 3 artillery batteries Option 2 - 3 uhlan  regiments...taken Austrian command two 11  line infantry battalions 1 cavalry regiment 2 artillery batteries  Option 1 - 3 artillery batteries...taken Option 2 - 3 cavalry regiments Prussian command  6 infantry battalions 2 line cavalry regiments 4 artillery batteries Option 1 - 3 artillery batteries Option 2 - 3 cavalry regiments...taken 6 battalions (4 landwehr, 2 line)
Total 42 battalions 13 cavalry regiments 14 artillery batteries.	Total 29 battalions 12 cavalry regiments 11 artillery batteries.

The Franco-Austrians deployed with French Command One on the tight. To their left was the Guard, then French Command Two. The line was closed out on the extreme left by the Bavarians.  The Austro- Prussians formed with Austrian Command Two on the left, facing French Command One, with Austrian Command One next in line and with the Prussians holding the extreme right, opposite French Command Two and the Bavarians.

The Franco-Bavarians deploy

The Austro-Prussian plan was to pin the French right, use a long ridge on the opposite end of the line to hide the weakness of the Prussian force and strike the French right-centre. Between the two armies on this part of the field stood a short ridge. Whoever took control of the crest, controlled the area. The Austrian cavalry massed in front, six regiments in all, backed up by eighteen battalions. The Austrians got initiative (first move) and three regiments of uhlans took the crest.

The Austrians on the left

The uhlans take the ridge

The French cavalry charged...

The Austrians counter-charged, smashing the French...

Then broke through on the supports...

The French infantry scrambled to form squares...

While the uhlans disengaged the cuirassiers covered the advance of the infantry

Suddenly in three turns the French right-center was in turmoil.

Meanwhile to their left French Command Two and the Bavarians were bring held at bay by the Prussians. A mere six Prussian battalions, four batteries and some cavalry were holding back nearly three times their number. This they did by not exposing their infantry and playing a cat and mouse game with their cavalry. The French and Bavarians were holding back.

The Austrian infantry smashed into the guard.

The French dragoons from their left turned to the collapsing centre to try to stabilise the line, but they were met by the Austrian cuirassiers.

The French troopers were driven off and the jagers assaulted and routed the guard artillery. 

 

The French centre continued to crumble and a huge hole opened up. The Franco-Bavarians conceded. It was an astonishing victory...and the first time that an Austrian led army had ever won on our tables. The Bavarians had not taken a single casualty; the Austrians on the left were only scratched, but the French defeat was clear.

It was an interesting game to dnd the year.

And now for a bunch of random pictures...

  

Workmen and Generals

Astute regular readers will think that they have seen the last civilians of below before...well you have, because when I placed this order I put down the wrong code and reordered a set I already had. Still, at least I have done them in different coloured clothes.

Finally there are three Swedish generals. Now, they are not really Swedish...no one makes Swedish general for 1807-08 so I needed to convert. The nearest I could find were the three figures that make up the Perry Prussian high command set that were decapitated and given new plastic heads. They still are not correct - contemporary illustrations dhow them wearing leggings and high boots rather than overalls. I could have cut down the overalls and given then green stuff boots, but since the cavalry wore overalls on campaign, I figured that it was probably not unreasonable that senior officers might too...well that's my theory and I am sticking with it!

There are still a couple more Swedish generals to be done, but they may not be done until the New Year.

More civilians and a game...at last...

I have completed another seven civilians for the Napoleonic era. There is one field worker, left over from the previous set, and six townspeople.

We also capped off the weekend with the annual birthday game and lunch for one of our group. This year we played an English Civil War game using "For King and Parliament" rules. Parliament won the day.

Down on the Farm

After a two month hiatus from painting, I am back with a few bits and pieces.

This batch continues from the Napoleonic civilians. 

The milkmaids, with three cows.

The field workers.

There are a few more civilians and some Swedish commanders to come.

A Bit of Scenery Work

Stew is going to be disappointed with me. In an exchange of comments of an earlier post I said that in my next batch of terrain tiles I was going to make some tiles with trenches in them and he was keen steal my ideas! Well I have finished this final batch an there are no trenches made and no ideas to steal!

Not that I am worried at all about anyone stealing (actually I prefer to say 'borrowing') my ideas...Hell I encourage it...I like sharing. I mean, I borrow  plenty from others. Afterall if Picasso said "good artists copy, great artists steal," then surely theft is the highest form of flattery!!!

There are three reasons I decided not to make trenches. First, since my tiles can only accommodate a below surface depth of 20mm, a proper 28mm trench system would require some sort of construction above the tile surface and that creates all kinds of storage problems. Second, with tiles that at 300mm (12 inches) square I couldn't find a way to make a trench system that could accomodate my existing figure stands that would actually look like a trench system. Third, even though I have armies for periods that made extensive use of trenches (Crimean War, ACW, Great Paraguayan War, Russo-Japanese War and WWI), how many times would I really use them? Plus I already have a trench system that I made way back in February 2013 (link) - maybe I'll just tidy these up.

Instead I have made some rather boring plain tiles, because you can never have too many plain tiles, right? Four represent dips in the ground as I made last time, but unlike the others sets that are square to the tile edges, these run more or less diagonally. Four are just plain tiles. 

Only one tile is a mildly interesting, a river section that widens to almost double my standard river size. It's not that I really needed any more river sections - I have sixteen of them already...enough to run my table length more than one and a half times - but this piece is made specifically to accomodate the recently presented Renedra pontoon bridge - you can see below:

This takes the total number of terrain tiles to 111, allowing me to cover table almost twice and more than enough for my needs.