Front Rank Men at Arms - Lion Rampant

They are quite good figures to paint with plenty of detail. These six represent my first men-at-arms, four of them are in fact the HYW personality set consisting of the (left to right) Duke of Orleans, the Marshal, the Constable and Guichard Dauphin (Master of the Kings Household). The two on the end are men-at-arms. I used Citadel Six shield transfers on these guys (identifying them as Lords Crequy and Dampierre) and also the surcoat badges on the Marshal. I did however, paint the shield of Dauphin. I painted up two standard bearers, one for the Constable and the other is for the Count of Eu. All are based on 20mm (I used 25mm on the Pavasiers) MDF bases. Flags are by Maverick Models.

Battered Markers for Lion Rampant

These are Foundry figures (8 of them), I based them on my few remaining poker chips I purchased from Asda many years ago. I added a small 7mm dice frame just in case they may be used for other rulesets that track casualties. I also painted a Front Rank standard bearer, he's from their WotR range, they sent him by mistake but I liked the figure I decided to keep him. I also managed to paint a Fleur-de-lis on his coat.

Perry Pavises for Lion Rampant

I've just completed a unit of 12 Perry Pavisers, these are French HYW figures. They painted up very easily, although the faces were a bit small and have little detail to paint. What really sets these guys off are the amazing transfers from Little big Men studios. The Lion is the symbol for the city of Lyons militia  and the Lamb, indicates militia from the city of Rouen.The transfers were very easy to apply, simply cut out and with the fingernail remove the clear plastic cover and apply the sticky side to the shield, use a few drops of water to get rid of the white paper backing and Voila!

I'll think I'll paint up another unit to use up the rest of the transfers.

Next to be completed are eight 'battered' markers, these are Foundry casualties.

Back into action?

It's been several months since I last touched the brush and paint, it was July to be precise when I completed my last unit. For some reason I've just been unable to paint anything, no motivation at all. However, I've been very active on the gaming front, I've played three games of Blucher at the club and many, many more games such as Spearhead, Deadmans hand, Saga, and play tested several times a rule set called BattleFactor.

Well in order to rekindle my interest in painting I've bought in some Perry and Front Rank Hundred Years War figures (28mm). Maybe I need a change from Napoleonic crossbelts and blue coats.  I've heard some good things about the Lion Rampant rules and so have started to build up a retinue. Rather than build an imaginations unit I've went for 100 years war french army. So I've primed some Perry infantry with the large shields (Pavises). I was attracted to these when I saw the absolutely stunning Little Big Men transfers for the french militia. 

Fingers crossed I can complete these figures very soon and then maybe get back into churning out the figures like I used too!

Dead mans hand

I played my first skirmish game at the club Tuesday night and it was quite fun. Karl hosted a game of Dead Mans Hand, there was the six of us in three teams of two. Yours truly and Steven were the Mexican bandits, Karl lead the other set of bad guys while Laurence led the good guys (US Marshals). Each team had about 8 figures (I managed to sneak in four of my Mexicans from the Ayton game). The objective of the game for the two bad guy teams was simply to wipe out the good guys. Even I understood that objective. The Marshals were holding out in the three level hotel building shown in the first picture. The second picture shows the Mexicans sneaking up at the back from the corral, not pictured is the other bad guy team taking up position at the front of the building.

The game was very enjoyable, its main mechanism is card activation for each character, a 1D20 is used for shooting with modifiers and 1D10 for morale. Figures have types such as boss, gunslinger, dude and varmint (in order of excellence of hit points, damage infliction and morale).  Each character has three actions, which can be all moves (10cm each) or shoots, or a combination. Each character can also accumulate tokens to identify status and injuries.

Our Mexicans infiltrated the hotel and started to give the Marshals some casualties and the bad guy team two was giving the Marshals equal hell at the front when all of a sudden the other bad guys started firing lead into our backs!  In a very confused shoot-out the US Marshals shot at bad guy team 2 and caused the majority to run away after they failed their morale checks, the last  of bad guy team 2 were eliminated by the Mexicans. Laurence (the lead Marshal) had a nasty habit of staying a floor two popping down to floor one for a crack at the Mexicans and then popping back up to floor two unharmed. Finally, the Marshall grew some balls and came down , shot my second remaining bad guy and tried to finish off my gunslinger character (Tuco), sadly for Lawrence Tuco was triumphant and the Marshal lay in a pool of his own blood. Literally the last man standing, needless to say he went across the road  to the Saloon for a shot of whiskey!

2nd Life Guards

These chaps are AB figures and so is the flag. Again, another set thats been lying around my desk for ages. I particularity liked the swords on these figures which are often sculpted too small and give the impression of big knives! Blue Moon  cavalry figures seem prone to this error. AB have gotten the British heavies 'right' in this respect and are fine figures.

These were present at Waterloo and formed part of  Somersets brigade which comprised of 1st and 2nd Life Guards, the Kings Dragoon Guards and the Royal Horse Guards or the "Blues". These figures are sitting awaiting their turn, along with Ponsonbys Union brigade.

Game of Blucher - Quatre-Bras

I foolishly agreed to umpire a game of Blucher at the club last night and with it being the 16th June it had to be Quatre-Bras! I've had no experience of playing Blucher so hence the word foolish! I read the rules several times and thought I got the jist of it but that fell apart once combats started.

Darrel and Peter were the allies and Ian and Paul were the French. I used the scenario from the Blucher website (by Sparker), and it did a pretty good job of scheduling the troops, starting at turn 16 and ending at turn 30. The only thing I disagreed with was the immediate availability of the cuirassier brigade, and I gave a foot artillery battery and a horse battery to the allies.

To keep things simple I did not use hidden units, unit characteristics or characteristics for the commanders -  except allowing an extra combat die if attached to a unit.

Main events were the aforementioned cuirassier brigade getting hit by the Dutch battery losing four strength points one lucky bombardment. The Prince of Orange was attached to Merlens light cavalry brigade which suffered casualties and the poor old Prince became a victim himself which really pleased Marshal Ney (Ian). We ran out of time but the allies held Quatre-Bras and the French held part of the road to Ligny, so hence a draw. There are not many pictures as I hadn't much time in between thumbing through the rule book and offering advice.

Hard to say what I make of them - rules are a bit more complicated than Grande Armee, I probably should have played a couple of game before doing this. My worst mistake was misinterpreting the reserve move, I thought it was 8 BW but is in fact 12 BW !!!! This is why we ran out of time at the club to complete. Basically the French were taking too long to march up.  I think giving a few more tries would do it justice, assuming the guys at the club will still speak to me.