Flintloque Catalucians Finished

So after a few months of work, I've gotten through these units and finished up the basing. Seen here are a heavy and medium gun along with limbers. Limbers in this game are not necessary and due to their scale, only have two horses rather than the larger teams that would exist in real life. In any event, such details add to the game.



The line unit, pictured again with the general, but with finished bases. I may raise a second line battalion, however their tactical worth is of little value even if they are cheap point wise.



The first guerrilla unit seen here. In this game, the guerrillas are better than the line units and you can adjust certain stats by taking away from some categories and adding to others. Perhaps a scenario might make you desire to have better shooters than melee troops, then these stats can be adjusted to a degree. Seeing how they are skirmishers, enhancing their shooting abilities would be a wise idea in most cases.



The final unit that will be added in the near future will be a guerrilla cavalry unit when I get around to ordering a couple of more blisters to fill out the unit. Considering how small our games are, I won't need anything more than that to field a complete force for our 1,000-1,500pt games.

Napoleonic Fantasy: Flintloque

[My daughter reluctantly holds a stand of some guerrillas who she thinks are mad at her because of their mean faces]

For those who may not have known, some wiley Scots with a very unusual sense of humor created a fantasy line centered around the Napoleonic Wars. Their real introduction came around the skirmish version known as Flintloque and then expanded into larger battles called Slaughterloo. The Elves are French and Dark Elves are Spanish, otters are the Ottomans, dogs are the Austrians, ogres are Confederation of the Rhine, undead are Russians, English and Irish are Orcs (most fitting of all), Portuguese as goblins, the Scots are rats and Italians are toads. Leave anyone out?

So many, many years ago as a child, I played a demo game set up at a game shop. Richard Sharpe was there as Richard Sharke and the game was fun, if somewhat hard to take in visually. It doesn't play like fantasy, so other than some odd looking creatures wearing coats with turnbacks and shakos, it plays like a Napoleonic game. I had purchased the Ferach and Toadini (French and Italians in our thinking) and ended up painting them and trading them off several years later.

That friend I traded them to, had added to his collection troops for every one of the nations now. His only hole in his collection was the Catalucian Dark Elves. Having painted many Spanish in 15mm, painting some 28mm ones wasn't much of a stretch. Since they were free to me if I painted them, I've been working on filling out this force and painting it all up.



I went ahead and decided to paint the line troops according to the army book's depiction rather in the later British supplied blue of the 1812 uniforms. The guerrillas didn't have any real uniform but I used a lot of blue as many of the militias were fond of it. Alternative Armies only made one general figure for this line named Don Juan.

I bought a couple of packs to bulk up the guerrilla units as they are better than the line units. The artillerymen, guns & limbers are still on the painting table. Cavalry will be last. I will wait to do all the grass on the stands when everything is painted up. The line units are a maximum of 20 figures, light/guerrilla infantry are 12 figures and the cavalry as 10 figures. The goal is 2 line, two guerrilla units, 2 guns & limbers and 1 guerrilla cavalry unit. I'm about half way there now. I may even be able to get them on the table for a game by spring.

http://www.alternative-armies.com/

So late last year in an earlier post back in December, I purchased a couple of pontoon wagons and a pontoon bridge. I decided to post the follow up showing full completion of both.





The pontoon bridge will likely be used least of all, but might be interesting for an 1809 Rhine campaign someday. The pontoon wagons could work for the same theater or of the second invasion of Portugal when a group of pontoon wagons were taken with the army for a possible river crossing. In any event, they are novelty items and something really only a collector would seriously entertain painting.

Suggestions?

Recently I won an eBay auction for 57 AB French dragoons. Seeing how I've already constructed the units I need for the games I play, there wasn't a lot of purpose in me even considering this auction. I made a solid bid for about 2/3rds of the full price and managed to get it for even less. A real bargain if not a firm need for it.

Although no fan of "Digby Smith" or his biased writing style, his book focusing on cavalry engagements of the Napoleonic wars is an interesting read. I had an idea of doing a diorama scene perhaps against some enemy infantry forming up in a square. Since these dragoons are waving their swords as if charging, it seemed appropriate enough.

So I'm interested if anyone has any thoughts on what to exactly do with them? There are quite a few guidons to get rid of, but a firm 50 or so would be impressive in some sort of scene. Most of what I find (historically) isn't dragoons but of cuirassier or lancers doing some menacing of infantry. Perhaps against Spanish in a broken mob of a square? Open to any and all suggestions.

While I was away...

I received an email from a friend wondering where I had gone since my blog was so quite. As it turned out, I was busy with many things and got plenty accomplished for the upcoming year. After months of almost nonstop painting, I have about burned myself out for a while. The great thing that resulted from this work is that I have almost next to nothing I need to paint anymore and can just do what I want instead of what I need to play historical scenarios.

I needed a couple of replacement Portuguese units because I traded away some Essex Portuguese units that did not match my collection in either size or exact pattern of the uniform (they had the stove pipe instead of the Berretina that I preferred).

This now brings me up to seven units. Figures are AB. I may add more units so as to give me an excuse to play Vittoria.

Here are several wagons I've completed over the last several months.

The first two wagons clearly visible here are from Hallmark figures, with the limber crews from Old Glory. The hay wagon I found fun to paint and it painted up well. The second is carrying barrels which might contain liquors, water, gun powder or a variety of things depending on a scenario. I left it brown to reflect it was a requisitioned vehicle. I have some spare AB British limber teams that may also get to share this wagon.

The first wagon is also a Hallmark wagon with Old Glory limber crews. Having a lumber wagon to go with the two pontoon wagons just seemed like the natural thing to do. The pontoon wagons painted up well and it is unfortunate they are so long and will take up quite a bit of table space. Surely unique, as I didn't even know pontoon sets existed until I ran across the unopened packs from the 80's. Even being true 15mm scale, they fit right in.

Here are three British units I painted over the summer. There unit names escape me at the moment, but the figures are from Eureka.

I prefer the Belgic over the Stovepipe. Minor details really.

I believe they came out quite well. Poses are a little static, but I do prefer the march attack pose over the advancing pose.

Here are two more British units I painted during the month of November.

These two units I remember, this is the Herefordshire 36th Foot.

And this is the Sussex 35th Foot. This unit did not fight in the Peninsular Theater, but it did serve in Egypt, Italy and later at Waterloo. I love the orange facings, an uncommon facing color in the British army.

And last we come to the French I got to. Since I had some extra skirmishing voltiguers in overcoats from the first unit in overcoats I have, I decided to do another.

The infantry is just a generic unit, not so worried about making them anything in particular because you just can't tell! The sapper on the command stand I think adds to the visual appearance of the unit. In the background behind the infantry is Marmont and an ADC with maps and some confused Colonel scratching his head. I will use this is my refight on the Salamanca game as it fits in so well.

In the background, a couple of units of AB French dragoons are being lead by Murat and General Lasalle. Got both of these figures in a bag of Old Glory command figures and decided to paint them up because they are used in some scenarios and it's best to have accurate figures.

French Pontoon Train and Bridge

After being away from blogging from a while (which my next post will show why exactly), I decided to show my next project off. I'm going to be posting more regularly now, so you won't have to wonder why this blog went quiet. You rarely see these pontoon figures and it is clear why as almost no company makes them! Pontoon trains seemingly get ignored, much as limbers do, however they are an incredibly significant part of an army while on campaign.

The pontoon wagon chassis and pontoons are from Minifigs. Being the only company that made them in 15mm, there wasn't any other choice. The rear wheels are from Old Glory which are much closer to the 18mm world that our 15mm figures now inhabit. The front and the horse teams are simply an AB French limber set. The pontoons were a little over sized for true 15mm oddly enough, so this conversion works out quite well.

I picked up the Minifigs pontoon set from a friend who had two unopened blisters that he wanted to get rid of. I paid $10 for each, which was their original cost. Each pack had both Austrian and generic workers in action for construction, however since the figures were true 15mm, they would not work with my armies that I have at the moment. It appears that I will have to simply make the trains, pontoon bridge and lumber wagon (in next post) work as a convincing pontoon train.

The bridge set is from Hallmark figures out of the UK. I purchased it on eBay last week along with a few other odds and ends (including some 15mm cats & dogs believe it or not).

The bridge is a little rough on a few piece and one small hole in the resin that I will have to even out with lots of sanding and green stuff. I'll be following up with another post once the set is completed.

Review: B Company Bases

For many years as my collection of figures increased, storage and transport have become a problem. Living a good distance from the game shop or other friend's homes in which games are more often played, transport security matters. I had heard of magnetic bases but was skeptical.

Many of the bases I had seen were expensive, thin and seemed impractical for a large scale rebasing project. That was my view until I had a wargaming friend who showed me his stands. After that, I bought hundreds and began rebasing, as seen here.

At first glance, it appears different from what one would expect. The rough brown texture would appear to be a slight hindrance for adhering figures to. Believe it or not, it works fine and would probably do better than a flat surface if you're using sand or some other textured ground work.

Another feature I like is the fact that if you want to remove figures from the base, you don't end up destroying the base. After years of dealing with thick cardboard, plastic or wood bases, this was quite a change for me. According to the maker, a soak in water can loosen the figures to ease release. I found no problem popping them off with a hobby knife. The top surface appears to be some form of hard board and the bottom a flex steel type of magnet that is so well connected to the board that it appears to be one solid piece.

The bases come in almost any size you could want. Here is a 1.5" square, a 1.5"x1" rectangle and a 1" square base and a 1"x3.5" base reserved for my caissons and limbers. All the bases I've ordered (hundreds) have been precision cut and I haven't had one misshapen base or obtuse angle to date. The turn around time from when the order is placed to when it is received is far faster than Litko Aero Systems by a far margin. I made an order on a Thursday afternoon and had the bases on Monday. With Litko I've had to wait weeks and are far more pricey.

I highly recommend these bases if you're serious about transporting your figures in magnetic containers and for a sturdy, clean base.

Orders can be placed by contacting Bill from Good Ground LLC. http://www.soflgamers.org/B_Company_Bases.html