Army Showcase Part IV: WW1 Early War German Army

Hoi,

The 4th army for my showcase series is the Early War German army for the Great War. As usual we'll start with an overview shot:

Cavalry (Take a good look since this will be just about the only time that I used Strelets figures)

The mass of Infantry, 3 companies of regulars plus some Jäger

Close up of an infantry company

Close up of the Jäger

Hope you like it!

Cheers Sander,

Listening to: "Rock in Rio" by Iron Maiden

Holiday Update Part XIV: Labels

Hoi,

Finally added a "labels" section to the blog. Now I've started out with the idea of labelling all old posts but stopped with that when I saw just how much work that'd be. So from now I'll just label all new posts and those are the ones mentioned in the brackets in the labels section ;-)

Cheers Sander

Listening to "The Idle Prentice" by Gin lane

Holiday Update Part XIII: Battle Report

Hoi,

Last Sunday, Mark, Jan-Willem (Pijlie) and yours truly played a game of Black Powder Napoleonics. The game was based on capturing 3 objectives: both armies (French and Allies: Dutch, Brits and Prussians) needed to occupy a farm and crossroads and the Allies needed to destroy the French Artillery battery which the French had to prevent from happening. For me it was the largest game I played with my Napoleonic figures and I had to employ pretty much of all my late war troops. This forced me to supplement the French with a two battalion brigade of Württembergers which is pretty anachronistic but I just don't have more French infantry painted at the moment. I am doing something about that as we speak by the way. For Mark this was the first time with the BP rules and he wanted to have all of the basic rules pretty clear in his head up front, so I got a refreshment course as well, being a bit rusty on most of the rules myself.

Jan Willem played the French (General de Division Jean-Guillaume de la Flèche), Mark was at the helm of the Prussians (Herr General Oberst von Zinn zu Mann) and myself featured as Commander of the Dutch-British  contingent (General Alexander Offstreet), as the lads said: I've had a lot of fun coming up with them names so I couldn't stop myself mentioning them here.

Without further ado here are the pictures:

The set-up of the table, my gaming room was pretty much cramped up by the additional trestle table.

Some deployment pictures

The battle is joined:

Mark and me discussing our next step

In the end the game went something like this: the heavy cavalry on the French right wing was being stalled by their Dutch Belgian counterparts and failed to make in impression, the Dutch-British centre marched towards the crossing and took on the artillery  head on. On the French left wing the Prussians managed to wipe out more then half of the division and since the French cavalry on the left, by then had two of it´s 3 units shaken that division was annihilated as well. The Prussian Jäger managed to occupy the farm early on in the game and the French were unable to get them out. So in the end half the French army was broken and the Allies had 2 of the 3 objectives in hand with the guns a turn away of being charged by the Black Watch... Jan Willem had no option left but to sue for peace...

Jan Willem and I also played a game of Great War but that I'll show you later on this week,

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Ixnay on the Hombre" by The Offspring

Army Showcase Part III: Assyrian Army

Hoi,

For this Army Showcase I decided to take my oldest finished historical wargames army. Oldest in both chronological-  as in actual sense. I put this together for some games of WAB but haven't used it in about 8 years...

High time they should come out of the showcase right?

The army:

A block of regular infantry and allied infantry, I love the look of those massive shields

Tribal Skirmishers

Regular missile, I actually have a few more of these but they didn't fit the picture right.

Line Cavalry

Guard Cavalry, I am also doing a Guard Infantry regiment but it has been sidelined for other projects for quite some time now...

The general in his Chariot, I also have a King and chariot waiting behind the screens but he's got sidelined as well.

All HäT figures of course.

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "White Elephant" by the White Stripes

Army Showcase Part II: Colonial British Army

Hoi,

The second subject in our new series is the British Colonial Army that I use for Black Powder games. The highlights of this army must be the Elephants. These have been showcased by themselves before on the ETS pages  http://www.hat.com/Othr8/Sander91P.html for instance so here's just the army itself.

Overview:

 Camel Corps and Indian Brigade

 Heavy Weapons and British- and Scottish Brigades

Most of these figures are either HäT or ESCI, with some metals mixed in. I really am looking forward to the upcoming HäT British infantry sets since I want to add some Blue coats (Royal Marines) and the Royal Rifle Corps to this lot.

Cheers Sander,

Listening to: "Ephemeral" by After Forever

Holiday Update Part XII: More testshots Brunswick Cavalry

Hoi,

Here are the new HäT Brunswick Cavalry testshots. Nice little figures to put together and to paint, a sprue will contain 4 figures and horses plus several arm options. I opted for a command stand with officer and trumpeter and a seperate hussar on the charge. The Uhlan has the option of a lance arm in charging and resting position. Sine I intend to use him as ADC to my Black Duke figure I took the latter. I livened up the bases with some left over accessories from other sets, a drum, a keg and a musket (on the lancers base, but that got covered in glue and flock...).

Hope you like them cheers Sander

Listening to: "Deep Purple in Rock" by Deep Purple

Holiday Update Part XI: testshots

Hoi,

Yesterday's army showcase was quite easy to fix; I just took some figures off the shelf and snapped away with the camera. For today's update I bring you some pictures of just finished painted figures again. I managed to get hold of the newest HäT testshots of Napoleonic Mounted Officers and Brunswick Cavalry, and the former are done.

The set includes a Prussian Officer, Prussian Landwehr Officer, Russian Officer (early War) and a Spanish Officer. The latter two I have painted a little different just to show what can be done with them. I needed a Bavarian officer so turned the Russian chap into a Bavarian and then the Spaniard I painted as a Württemberg Officer. All except the Landwehr Officer have separate arms, being a testhot the sabres weren't up to their full length, but this will be remedied in the production runs. These loose arms can be exchanged between the 3 officers giving you loads of diversity of pose. Some head-swaps will been a very good idea as well, I can see the Landwehr chap, with his frock-coat, as a British, Nassau, Dutch or Austrian Officer. The plastic of these test-shots was very dark chocolate brown which reminded me of the early HäT cavalry sets like the Prussian Lancers.

To identify the chaps more easily and to make the bases more dynamic I included foot figures on each base and all excepting the Landwehr Officer's attendant are HäT figures, the latter is Revell painted as reserve infantry. I like the Prussian Regular Officer the most and the Spanish figure the least if truth be told, but hey I'm not complaining in any way! This is a brilliant way to get yourself a great amount of mounted officers. Just by painting them differently you'll be able to get a myriad of mounted officers for sets were none exist or where you want some diversity. The Prussians can be painted as Russians and vice versa so opportunities galore.

True, there are some minor gripes, mentioned here and there: the horses are not the best in the hobby, this time I agree on that point, but they'll do. There's two horse who have sheepskin shabraques over which they are carrying a saddle while regular practise was the other way 'round: i.e. sheepskins over saddles and I'll bet that's what PSR will comment on, but other then that I am just as happy as a bug in a sheepskin ;-)

Here are the pictures,

From left to right: Landwehr officer, Prussian Officer, Württemberger (Spaniard), Bavarian Officer (Russian)

Cheers Sander

Listening to: Sing Loud, Sing Proud" The Dropkick Murphy's