Prussian Cavalry

I am being very productive, but taking photos is not high on the list at the moment so there is some delay on that front. The following figures are painted with basing just being finished, main flocking is down but just needs the final wave of bits and pieces to add on. 

The 2nd East Prussian Cuirrassiers, which are Hinchcliffe 25mm figures which I quite like. (Standard is yet to be added)

2nd Silesian Hussars, an old unit of Old Glory that recently were refurbished with some additional basing needed.

 

Currently, I have two other units to finish, both Old Glory Uhlans but the lovely wire lances I purchased something like "7 years ago" have gone walkabout. I suspect I might have to open every box I have to find them as they will be hiding somewhere obscure.

As I overfilled the PVA Palette, I also based some 15mm ACW figures I have for a "rainy day". I picked most of these up mainly for when I wanted to play-test Fire and Fury rules or other ACW rulesets, the confederates on the left are actually over 21 years old. They are TTG figures (or battleline in NZ).

Exciting 1/72 news

While waiting to pick up my father from an appointment, I popped into Acorn Models as they had recently had a shipment in of new 1/72 kits. To my surprise, Airfix is releasing a kit of old sets and to my surprise, I found a great classic...

 Allegedly, they plan to release ALL the old sets and one of those is the old Firefly kit that I have looked for a while.

At the same time Italeri re-releases the old Warsaw pact, just in time!

One Hour Wargames

One Hour War games are rather, paper Scissors, Mortars, but good for some simle fun.

Romanian Column flies down a road to it's inevitable destruction.  I had to exist via the road, and the Soviets on it refused to move, my column was overrun by a flank attack.

Italian Armour, gets ready to swamp a Russian defence.

A botched relief. Soviets attack a town while inept Italians send one unit at a time into the meat grinder. This came down to a infantry slog, with the Soviets taking advantage of the town as cover.

I bought several boxes along to this game, mostly Romanians and Italian. To my surprise and, alarm I found I had not finished painting most of them. I must have been in a rush 2 years ago, so I spent last evening finishing 33% of the force. The rest I shall do tonight, so that my Romanians for command decision are ready to go.

Battle of Elchingen, 1805

Battle of Elchingen, 1805

Today, Mark hosted Ion and me to a refight of Elchingen, from the 1805 Campaign.

The figures are all Marks collection as he hosted it in his lounge on a somewhat average summers day.

I took on the role of General Riesch, commanding a mostly poor Austrian force defending a ridge-line between two villages. MY forces were all on the table as of the start of the game, whilst the advance French forces would be bolstered on turn 2 and turn 6. The Austrian forces had a single battery, a smattering of Grenadiers, Cavalry and raw troops, with these forces being deployed behind the hills, in the town and on the far left flank.

The orders from Mack, reminded me of a Tarot card reading. Something like, "oh, something might happen, maybe, yes, no, maybe so, mmm yes, you think about that". So, having commanded a Spanish Napoleonic army for 15 years, I decided to what I did best with raw troops, defend, reinforce key points with Veteran troops and hope for a dashing charge to sweep away the enemy at a crucial moment.

The initial Austrian deployments below.  All Austrian troops move forwards, supporting the villages and also making themselves visible on the ridge-line  hoping to draw French into the central position.

 

General Reisch, far far behind the front lines.

The French advance.

 

 The village resulted in a game long siege, the French assaulted time after time, slowly gaining a foothold but at great cost in lost units. At a key moment, with a whole Austrian brigade on death's door, I replaced them with Veteran troops who held half the town for the rest of the day.

Austrian reserves attempt to push the right flank

 Attempting to interrupt the French Assaults, Cuirassiers and Grenadiers swoop over the hill. The Cuirrasiers charged, breaking two units before them before retiring back to safety.

The far most Austrian forces seize the other village in the face of Cavalry

 

 The French reinforcements sweep across the ridge to face the serried ranks of Austrians conscripts.

 

French Chasseurs charge across the ridge line, but are seen off by Uhlans, saving that section of the line from certain defeat. 

 

The left flank then collapsed after a unit broke and took most of it's brigade away with them, a rule mechanic came into play here that I thought was tedious, in that when a unit breaks, those around it take a morale test. However, if a unit breaks as a result of that initial morale the rest of the force takes another morale check. So in a single turn, a veteran unit had to roll morale 3 times, as a unit then broke on the second round which I thought was over the top.Simply in terms of play-ability, I did not really think too much of it, as I have seen a similar problem in another rule-set (A unit of 95th Rifles  had to roll morale 6 times in a minute in a 15mm game). But hey, lots of rules of odd mechanics and I was handling a raw army.

 

The casualties, 12 Austrians Units broken during the game. At around the 3/4 mark, we had lost only 5, however the great rout of the left flank increased this by 7 in around a single turn.

  

All in all it was a great game, Ion thought the game was over half way through for his French, but to me, it was far from over. My raw troops did  well, but in the end simply could not hold on long enough. Thanks to Mark for hosting!