F&IW French Flag Day!

 Actually not an official holiday, but just wanted to post an update with the flags for the French. As mentioned in the previous post these were resized so they are closer to the 5 feet square dimensions of the period. Also assembled the troops for a group photo op.

No particular reason of which unit has them or not. Just had to use the standard bearer figures to fill out the ranks. Left to right - La Sarre, La Reine, Marines, Cambis, Cambis, Etrangers. The La Sarre and La Reine weren't at Louisboug, but will proxy for the Artois and Bourgogne regiments that were there. The latter two regiments had white facings which would look too boring 🙂 As only the 2nd battalion of each regiment were at the battle, using the two known flags for the Cambis Regiment is likely incorrect, but such is the confusion in wargaming.

French forces less their Huron allies. There are 8 units of infantry, including 3 grenadier units. All except the 1 figure short Etrangers unit have 12 figures. Since I plan to use them with Rebels and Patriots they will be in standard sized foot units. Front row, left to right: La Sarre, Cambis grenadiers, Marines, La Reine grenadiers. Second row, left to right: Cambis, La Sarre grenadiers, La Reine, Etrangers. Third row: Marines in undress. Rear row: Coureur de bois, light artillery, and Governor General Drucour.

Plan to add flags to the British next - their flags were a bit larger, measuring about 6 feet square. Thanks again for stopping by and checking out the blog!

AW F&IW French and Giant British Drummers

These are the last AW figures from the large (for me) order I made from Noble Knight last month. The infantry are left overs that along with a few extra figures from earlier units are painted up as Volontaires Étrangers with green facings and waistcoats. With 3 earlier painted infantry figures there are now 11 of them - just shy of the normal 12 for regular units in Rebels and Patriots. As there were a few desertions during the Louisbourg siege, mostly by Germans, this could account for the missing figure. The drummer with them actually belongs to the Marines - replacing one of the "extra" figures stolen from the unit with repainted green facings. The mounted officer is painted up as a general officer and can represent Governor Drucour, who commanded the French during the Louisbourg siege.

Again, these figures are on the larger side of 28mm, and quite robust and sturdy for gaming. The mounted officer reminds me of Front Rank sculpting - if not even a bit larger overall.

The drummer figure doesn't have the sleeve lacing sculpted so I just painted it on as it is normally depicted on the coat.

The picture above shows, left to right: AW French drummer; AW British drummer; Foundry British drummer; AW British drummer; Foundry British drummer. The picture quite clearly shows the gigantically proportioned British Grenadier dummers. When I ordered them, they were intended to be used the Foundry guys, but as you can see they are way too huge. What makes the sizing worse is that the British drummers were usually youths of smaller stature than the rest of the men in the unit (as the Foundry figures are). I plan to use the two giants as some sort of objective markers. Maybe allowing the French to capture them for victory points.

The rear view shot above doesn't show a big difference in size between the AW British and French. As mentioned in a previous blog post, it's interesting to see the size/sculpting-style differences within the same range of figures sometimes.

Next up will be adding flags to the French units that have bearers. Incidentally, I ended up scanning and resizing (smaller) the French Marine and Cambis Regiment Flags of War flags I ordered. Beautiful as they are, they are too big IMO. They towered over the already largish AW figures. From what I read online, the French flags at the time were approximately 5 feet square - more or less. The Flags of War ones would be about 6.5 or 7 feet when compared to the AW figues which I estimated should be somewhere below 6 foot tall as an average height. I also downloaded some images of flags for several other units.

Well, so much for now. Appreciate your visits and comments, and until next time - wishing you all the very best!

Valour and Fortitude - 1809 French/Bavarians vs. Austrians

My buddy hosted another one of his 1809 Campaign games this evening. This time using Valour and Fortitude for rules. I only played the first version once, a couple of years ago - also hosted by my buddy, and also an 1809 Campaign scenario. For this evening's game, none of the eight players were very familiar with the rules - including my buddy who GM'd - as it was the first time using the updated version of the rules. I'm sure we missed a few things, but overall the game ran pretty smoothly. I ran two brigades of French infantry on the right flank. Another player on the same flank ran a couple of French/Bavarian cavalry brigades - one light and one medium. The other two players on our left flank and center ran Bavarian brigades. I think our left was getting battered by the Austrians, but our right flank did pretty well. The cavalry ended up destroying an Austrian Lancer regiment, and my French infantry destroyed the Austrian's best infantry brigade holed up in a village. As for the rules, they were fun to play - but again, I relied heavily on the GM and a few of the players who were reading up on the rules during game play. I pretty much got the basics down and ran with it. One thing that is unlike some of the other rules I'm familiar with is the firing phase being first; and once that unit has fired it cannot be activated to do anything else. I think skirmisher are an exception and can activate after firing, I think. There was something about not being able to fire at the same target with another unit - if I recall correctly.  Anyway, here are some photos from the game - all the figures and terrain are my buddy's. I may have mentioned it in previous posts, but for Napoleonics, he is only interested in the 1809 Campaign and has a huge collection for it.

My two French infantry brigades assualting the Austrians in the building/village. It had to be more than a building as an Austrian brigade occupied the area. The rules only allow one unit to melee an enemy, but can have supporting units for more attack dice. The average number of melee dice was 4 (before mods being added), and 3 for shooting.

French Chasseurs in melee with Austrian Lancers. They fought it out several times during the game - the Lancers eventually being routed.

Overall the game seemed to play even faster than Black Powder - that is, units break pretty quickly, especially in melee. Like Chain of Command, I don't mind playing these rules, but will likely only play it if someone else is hosting/running the game. I still like Black Powder over it, as I do Bolt Action over Chain of Command. The thing is, most folks I game with here hate (or strongly dislike) Black Powder and Bolt Action. Maybe it's because I'm not too worried about the "realism" that may be lacking in these games which others are looking for in a set of rules. In any case, thanks for checking out the blog and hope you all are doing well.

Mostly Galloping Major And A Few AW Miniatures Woodland Indians

Most of these are Galloping Major - only six are AW, which came with a French Infantry pack. Also, the majority are Hurons, and only six - the ones with only a single feather in their headdress are supposed to be Mohawks.

I used examples from Google for the face paint - so they must be historically accurate 😀. Vallejo Bronze Fleshtone was used as a base for the skin - then given a Minwax stain, followed by a light wash of Vallejo Skin Wash, and finally highlighted, again with Bronze Fleshtone with a little bit of Vallejo Elf Skintone.

These figures were quite fun to paint - although I usually prefer uniformed troops as those don't take much "imagination" to paint up. The details and sculpting of these figures are really good - and not overly complicated.

These figures may or may not be used for the Siege of Louisbourg scenario - as the few that were allied with the French left soon after arriving once the French they were with started coming down with Anthrax. Not sure if the British had any with them for this particular battle either. They're nice to have for French and Indian War anyway - I mean they are in the title.

Of course, I could dust off an old copy (first edition) of Muskets and Tomahawks too. Anwyay, glad to have these done as they are the last major "unit" of figures for this project. Thanks again for checking out the blog and hoping you all are doing well.

AW Miniatures F&IW Skirmishers

These are from a pack each of British Light Infantry, French Coureur Des Bois, and Rangers - all AW Miniatures. These were added to the order from Noble Knight awhile back when I ordered a bunch of their French Infantry.

The following pictures show them integrated with earlier painted Redoubt and Front Rank figures.

AW figs mixed in with Redoubt - the second rank of 60th Foot are all Redoubt.

Rangers mixed with Front Rank.

Coureur de bois mixed with Front Rank. Except for the AW figures being a little taller, they mix in well enough since the Front Rank figures have a lot of bulk to them.

Size comparison, left to right: 1. Redoubt, 2. AW, 3. AW, 4. Front Rank, 5. AW, 6. Front Rank. They all have pretty much the same bulky kind of sculpting - although some of the AW Light Inf legs look a bit spindly. It's interesting to see that even within the same make (AW), the sculpting style and size varies a bit. Overall Front Rank - at least these Rangers and Coureur de Bois - are shorter than the rest, but their overall bulkiness makes them fit in okay.

Next up are Woodland Indians mostly from Galloping Major and a few from AW. I've never painted Native Americans before so it'll be an interesting project - within the larger F&IW project. Until next time, thanks again for checking out the blog, and hope you all are doing well.

Chehalis Veteran's Memorial Museum Game Day

Had a great game day down in Chehalis at the privately run Veteran's Memorial Museum there. One of our gaming buddies is on the board of directors, and lets us have a game day at least once a year. I missed last year, but have been to several in the past. I was lucky play in a great Tribal game run by David, aka "I Live With Cats" blogger in the morning period. His figures are 40mm and very impressive - along with the terrain. My warlord ended up destroying a good portion of my opponent's warband before finally succombing to wounds from successive attacks by several enemy units. I did manage to secure my two objects though - destroying the warband's own totem and also have a shaman type safe until the end of the game. I'm sure David will be posting a detailed report of the game on his blog soon. It was my first time with the rules and they are card driven. That is, each player had deck of cards and it's used to activate and respond to actions during the game. The cards are also used for measuring movement - the long and short sides. Range for missile weapons is the entire table - as long as there is LOS. I was also able to finally get my Wargames Atlantic WW1 French and German figures on the table with a Bolt Action game in the second period. A captured Mk IV and Renault FT-17 from Warlord Games also made their gaming debut in the game. Here are some pictures from the two game I participated in.

The Tribal game prior to commencing. Two cards per player were drawn by the GM and had each players hidden objectives. My two were to destroy my own warband's totem and to secured the safety of a shaman (or whatever he was, as I can't remember). Then each player drew a card from their own deck and the order of play was decided by highest cards. Further cards were drawn for each unit, including individual heroes, by each player. These were used for activation or reaction.

David's 40mm figures are awesome to behold. His terrain is top notch too.

Second period with me hosting a Bolt Action WW1 game. As I hadn't played Bolt Action for some time I was a bit rusty at first, but then got into the swing of things. The Germans ended up winning by occupying more of the structures (ruins) at the end of turn 7 or 8. The Mk IV had the advantage over the FT-17 as it not only had several Lewis MMGs, but also a 6 pounder AT gun. The FT-17 only had a single Light AT gun. If I use it again I'll give it the option having an MMG. A French unit did attempt to assault the Mk IV, but it suffered a few casualties by the reaction fire from the tank. The remaining French had a fair number of hits but failed to cause damage to the tank. Here are a few pictures from the game.

French forces at the start of the game - two infantry squads, two machine gun teams, and the Renault FT-17.

Germans at the start - two infantry squads, two machine gun teams, and the captured Mk IV tank.

The terrain set up is pretty much the same way I had when I've run FPW games in the past. It seems to work well for these types of games.

The Mk IV unable to get LOS on the FT-17 in the distance.

Just an excuse for a photo op of the tank. I failed to get more of the FT-17 as it was hiding behind terrain most of the time.

German squad and machine gun team making into the ruins - this is an Old Glory building I've had for over 15 years - it has served well!

The other German squad and machine gun team occuyping another set of ruins on the opposite flank.

French squad advancing up to the stone walls for cover. They were eventually destroyed by fire from Germans occupying ruins facing them.

German squad moving up to hedges for light cover. They were able to take out the French facing them with rifle and machine gun fire.

French squad assaulting the Mk Iv near the end of the game. The failed to damage the the tank and had to retreat back. In fact, this was the only assault in the entire game - there was no infantry on infantry assaults. 

Rat Patrol game using homebrew rules. Greg the GM, came up from Portland to host this in the first period. He also ran it at Enfilade earlier in the year.

Xenos Rampant game - first period.

Chain of Command WW2 game - first period.

Napoleonic Rebels and Patriots game - afternoon period. This was run by my buddy James with his 1809 Campaign Austrian vs. Bavarian scenario. I played versions of this scenario a few times with both Black Powder and Rebels and Patriots.

Natives getting restless in the morning prior to the first period. I was able to set up my Bolt Action game on a spare table for the afternoon period.

The entrance into the display area of the museum - I've posted images of the displays in previous posts of prior game days here.

The P-51 and massive US flag on back wall.

As mentioned before, this museum is privately funded and very impressive. The displays contain a lot of personal items from service members from the Washington State and surrounding areas. It's easily accessed off of I-5 in Chehalis.

It was a great way to spend an overcast and drizzly Pacific Northwest day in a great museum with like minded gamer buddies. I was again encouraged to attend the Tuesday night games in Olympia and also have a Saga game day on Wednesday. Not sure if I'll make these, but it's always nice to have so many gaming opportunities nearby. Speaking of which, next month is another annual game day up in the Boeing Museum of Flight. Looking forward to that one too. Until next time, thanks again for stopping by and wishing you all the best.