Great Northern War again

Onwards and upwards.  Facing colours and muskets, faces, shoes and general tidy-up. It was at this point I forgot the Swedish officers had blue stockings so I did a quick white paint over.

Anything to painted metal is undercoated yellow or grey then a gold or steel wash gives the final effect. Also started the sash for the Russian officers and did the proper blue stockings on the Swedish officers.  Almost there.  

And the finished figures. I don't think I'll do a final oil / liquin / white spirit wash with these. Instead I'll just do a matt varnish. 
 

I've seen pictures where the Russian officer's hat trim has a red stripe and gold lace on the cuffs. I might do these later, but I'm going to stop here for now. Finishing the bases will be next along with adding the second rank chaps.  

Next will be finalising the standards and I've already printed off a batch to use. I've decided to base most of my GNW units on the battle of Poltava. I'll be looking to get a good colour contrast to the uniforms.     

And finally - silly fact of the day - in the GNW there was (and maybe still is) a Swedish regiment called Bjorneborg. I'll have to do them sometime.     

More later on rules and bases and sources.

New Great Northern War project

A project that's been in the background for a while finally got underway in the last couple of weeks.  The Great Northern War and WSS in 15/18mm.  My idea is to start with Swedes and Russians then expand the forces to include other colourful units from the era. 

So here are the first couple of units.  These are all Blue Moon miniatures.  I was going to try the layered painting technique, but after an experiment that didn't look good, I decided I could do better with my normal wash technique and controlling the flow of the paint with the brush.  

I've decided to do the first two units in the 'standard' Swedish and Russian infantry uniforms.  Here are Swedes in the blue uniform.   Just the basic wash of Humbrol blue over white undercoat.  

And some pictures after I'd tidied up any overspill from the base uniform colour with white and painted in the buff belts.   

And two pictures after I'd added the facing colours.  I'm not sure if I've got enough of a contrast between the buff of the Swedish breeches and the yellow stockings and turnbacks so I might use a lighter highlight on the buff. The yellow and red are Humbrol colours which I've always found excellent to work with.      

      
More pictures shortly I hope. 

Late Imperial Romans

These will be the next chaps I intend to sell. This will be split into Eastern and Western armies of roughly equal aize. I'm not too sure yet what will be in each except that the cataphracts and most light horse will be in the eastern army, and the cavalry will be in the western army.  

I.m sure this is everything. If not, then another photo session and another post to come! 

I found these early pictures of work in progress.

The Light Horse generals for the Eastern army.   

 Legion and more legion.  All with supporting archers.  

 another picture of the above. 

 Another legion.  

 Light Horse archers. 

 Light horse.   

Archers. Part of eastern army.   

The psiloi or skirmishers.  I've forgotten their proper name at this moment.   

 More legion - just in case they're needed on the battlefield. And all with supporting archers.  

 Auxilia.  Again with supporting archers.

The blue shields. 

  another picture of the above.   

Two pictures of white shield chappies.  

And two pictures of the red shield lads.   

The cavalry command group for the Western army.   

 The cavalry.  Two pictures of each.    

 And the cataphracts of the Eastern army.    

And more light horse from the eastern army.   

And that's it.   

The most fought over locations in wargaming - the Bulge part 1

Here we are in April and there's still snow on the ground. Random thoughts turn to games with a winter theme. So, here we go - maybe the start of a series - the most fought over locations in my game collection; the Battle of the Bulge and Bastogne.

I think my first Bulge game was Battles for the Ardennes. This was an excellent SPI quad game - 4 separate games that combined into campaign games. Although the main game was the 1944 campaign, there was also a 1940 quad game and campaign in the package. Classic Bulge scale of 2 mile hexes and units mostly regiments.  (This view is looking west)

Many an hour was spent moving and fighting through this terrain with my regular opponent at that time. All the ingredients were there - road traffic jams, Allied interdiction, fuel shortages and of course, the 101st at Bastogne. Even if game play needed the 101st elsewhere, it's almost obligatory to send them to Bastogne. 

The maps on my original game are a bit worn with use, so I later bought the Decision Games version. Same game, but slightly different graphics and some unit strengths revised by the games original designer. (Again, picture looking west)

  

I think Bastogne was my next Bulge game. Part another SPI quad, but this time a common set of rules for different battles. Bastogne features just the fight for the town and surrounding area. A nice little game, with graphics that were standard for late 70's SPI, i.e. quite pretty and very functional. This game had a scale of 850 metres a hex and battalion level units.  (This view is looking north)

Then there was the Avalon Hill remake of their original 60's Battle of the Bulge game, Bulge 81 (because it was released in 1981). This saw a lot of play with club opponents, specially one who was a major Bulge fan. Many nights were spent on this game, and many hours on 'postal' play where we'd just swop moves as we met in passing when we worked in the same building.  

Again, classic Bulge scale of 2 mile hexes and mostly regiment counters. A great game, fast to play and still a favourite.  (This view is looking north)  

Then there was the GDW entry. Point to point movement, based on their brilliant House Divided system. At first it seemed strange, and not too pretty, but it actually worked quite well. I definitely got the impression of the importance of roads. Only so many units can move along each type of road in a turn with divisions able to motor down the red main roads, with fewer units moving on brown seconday roads, and only 1 unit of the black tracks.  

Again, classic Bulge scale of mostly regiment counters. A good game that's often been overlooked.  (This view is looking north) 

And of course, if there's a Bulge game to be mentioned it has to be the mighty Wacht am Rhein. One of the SPI monster games from the late 70's, this did the Bulge at battalion level, 1 mile hexes, 4 big maps and 1600 counters.  

 

For a time this was the definitive Bulge game. I think it's the only Bulge game where I managed to get some German units of 116th panzer over the Meuse, though because they were so few, I couldn't exploit the situation. Everything else was held up in fighting. I only got to play this once against an opponent as few people would commit to the time to play a monster game.  

A second edition was done by Decision Games but I didn't buy it. I heard comments that they'd made it too complex and forgot that a monster game was still a game. I might buy it someday.

And a sidenote - I got a Russian front game called Korsun Pocket which was based on the Wacht am Rhein system. Also 4 maps at 1 mile per hex and same scale and with a couple of thousand counters.  

And another little SPI game, called simply Bulge. It's almost a complete antidote to Wacht. One small map, division level counters and a novel sequence of play. (This view is looking north). 

I'm going to stop here for now. This takes me up to the end of the SPI and Avalon Hill eras. Seven games so far and another seven to come from the 90's to date.