Waterloo Beers and project update

Just a quick blog to make sure my faithful followers are in the picture. But first, too good an opportunity to miss to show you some Waterloo beers.

Belgian Waterloo beers on the Waterloo  terrain in my wargames room

In the week before our "Waterloo - Le Woteef" game Kevin arrived bearing a hefty cardboard box. It contained no less than 48 bottles of "Waterloo Beer", two of which are pictured above. His intention was to commemorate our West Country Waterloo Summer by having enough bottles to donate one to each of  the participants in all our games. The majority of those at Le Woteef were beer drinkers and very grateful. Noting that it was a hefty 8% volume of alcohol some opted to take their souvenir home and keep a clearer head for the game!

Kevin and I first encountered this in the Duke of Wellington restaurant near the Lion Mound on the battlefield last year, imbibed more of it in Waterloo village that night, and that led our intrepid  figure painter extrordinaire to import a crate from Belgium especially for our events. As you see it comes in a "Triple Blond" for those who prefer a more Continental style beer and a "Strong Dark" for those like me who prefer their ale more English style. The bottles are small at 33 cl, but just as well really.

Now, completely separately, but as my liking for the hop is well known among my children, I was given a present last week from Scotland by one of my daughters and her Scottish husband.

Scottish Waterloo beer sits astride the Brussels-Charleroi chausee on our,
as yet untested, La Haye Sainte battlefield

This is made by a brewery called "Born in the Borders" and is a normal  UK 500 ml size and a more modest 4%. I have yet to try it but the next weekend should give a good opportunity......which brings me to the update.

Apologies to those looking forward to the account of how "Le Woteef" game went. For the moment I will just say that the Umpire declared it a major French victory. I will be blogging it in the next few weeks but the lack of blogs has been due to a mad rush since that last game dismantling the terrain and rebuilding the part we need in 1:3 scale - that is 1" = 3 metres for 1 figure to represent 3 men.  The terrain is done - 96 square feet of sculpted landscape, the figures for the first Act are on the table (well at least the Allies) and I'm still working on the orbats and briefings, as well as the usual last minute panic to complete essential figures!  It has taken me three weeks of nearly full time effort, and sorting out all the borrowed troops from six collections is something wargamers of modest means like me can usually only dream of. The thirteen battalions of French infantry amount to 2000 figures and the 10 squadrons of French cavalry are around 450. Kevin is coming round Thursday to help with all the vital marking up of units and I hope we manage to get them all into play over the three days we have allocated. 6 players are coming from North Gloucestershire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire, and hopefully some local observers will pay a call from Stroud and Cirencester too.

I will be putting some photos on the blog shortly of the terrain and the starting line up.