Quatre Bras Test game 5 imminent

As we mentioned in the previous post "Scotland forever" we have all been working very hard towards the next test game leading up to West Country Quatre Bras in September. Test Game Nr 5 will be this coming weekend and will be the biggest so far. We are going for a fun, fictitious scenario to give each side plenty of attacking opportunities as well a some close country for defence.

The project team members are getting familiar with the Rank and File rules and we have applied various unit characteristics and unit sizes, and now need to test what can be achieved in a two day game only a bit smaller than we intend the real refight to be. So Kevin has come up with a great scenario and extensive orders of battle to give us the following:

• Specially made up terrain 10 feet x 6 feet, made by me
• 8 wargamers, 2 - 3 aside and flexible umpiring
• 2,400 figures scheduled to put in a phased appearance over two days of play from the collections of four of us
• Multiple sizes of units to see how they fare, and including new rules for recovery and reforming to allow for several hours of historical battle and renewed attacks.
• Trying to balance size of army against extremes of quality, such as Dutch militia and French Imperial Guard lancers.
• Victory points for table objectives, both geographic features and occupation of terrain 

Here is an overview of the terrain, including my recently painted skyscape backdrop panels, with a few figures in just to test the "trample-able  crops" system.

Kevin said he wanted some "head high" crops that could give some measure of concealment. We will be using markers for hidden units but this shag pile rug lightly PVA'd and painted is still flexible enough to allow even plastic Perry figures to be partially "buried" in it. Here are a few examples using spare units of mine.

And a few more views round the battlefield, which in keeping with the Dutch-Belgian location, he is calling The Hoeke Valley, as a small river runs between two large ridges.

The team members have provided me with a selection of their latest offerings for the game, so here are the highlights for your delight.

Kevin offers leader vignettes and casualty marker figures

Duke of Wellington

General Reille

General Picton

Earl of Uxbridge

2nd Lancers of the Imperial Guard

 Tony is providing figures showing a lot of the late Peter Gilder's influence with classic Napoleonics - British, French and Netherlands artillery

James is currently providing units for the Brunswick corps

Duke of Brunswick

General Hill

Von Mahn

Von Moll's battery

James tells me the lances and pennants still need working on.......

And a little bit from me - I'm only providing about 250 figures out of the total, the latest of which are all plastics, but who is to notice when they are all milling together in the game!

Rogers' Royal Foot Artillery battery. Gunners are Victrix and limber and supply caissons renovated original 1970/80s Hinchliffe.

The French 1st Chasseurs a Cheval in their distinctive helmets. Don't look too closely as they are not accurate. I put my hand up to do this regiment as I could repaint 24 of my British Life Guards that had been done originally for La Haye Sainte in 2015.  Those had been made by combining Perry plastic British hussars with French carabinier heads, so the horse furniture and equipment is British style, but....this regiment was a bit maverick anyway. Being the first and only Chasseur regiment to have been converted back to the Bourbon army in 1814 they hammered the royal motto on their new helmets to fit their renewed allegiance to Napoleon.  OK from wargames distance in my opinion.

 We are also expecting to field French Dragoons as part of our "what if" elements of Quatre Bras and I ma contributing to both the 2nd and 7th regiments. For now though I'm only required to contribute two bases and some casualties of the 7th, with their crimson facings.

So, nearly all set, and hopefully I will find time to report on the Battle of Hoeke Valley  itself next week.

Scotland Forever! - Gloucestershire lad Kevin's 28mm tribute, and a QB project round up

The project team is busy working on more units for Quatre Bras this Autumn. Kevin East has sent me photos of his units of Highlanders painted last month. His account also has a few test figures and I include them as several followers have expressed interest in Kevin's technique.

"I thought I would share with you some photos of the results from the painting I did in March. You might guess by the title that there are some Scots involved; the 92nd Gordon and 79th Cameron to be exact! These are my latest contribution to the Quatre Bras 1&2 games and they will make an appearance in the May test game (so whoever is French, beware, they are blood hungry!) 

I must admit they took some determination and staying power to achieve, as I now know from experience, I never want to paint a kilt, scots socks, or bonnet headband again! And what's with the knobbly knees? BOY, do they take some painting! That's probably why the artist studios charge extra for highlanders!?

I'll try to find some figures on Ebay I can transform into more highlander casualties. :-(ohhh no more kilts!) (We require one loose casualty figure per live base to litter the battlefield as they fall - CG)

I also copy you in on 3 images where I tested painting the kilt several ways (5 ways) until I was happy with just the colour result I wanted (Not easy! I wasn't interested in the quality of painting but only the impression of the final result). I then painted over them again in the final colour way and method selected. I tested it on one figure first before painting the whole lot - better safe than sorry! I then painted the figures in batches of 10 (smaller than usual) to keep the painting quality to a level I was content with.

Anyway, I hope you like the pics and enjoy their first appearance by way of initiation in what is so far dubbed "QB Test Game 5", coming shortly "

Thanks Kevin. Awesome doesn't even begin to do them justice

Just to show Kevin isn't the only one busy, James has sent us some photos of his Brunswick cavalry and artillery in process.

And I've been assembling a pack of Victrix British Artillery to make Rogers Battery RFA. Just in the undercoat stage so far. The horse teams are very old indeed Hinchliffe French figures salvaged, restored, and converted to make artillery team riders and wagon train for our ammunition replenishing rules.

Richard has received his "brief" from Kevin on making up the British Foot Coldstream Guards Battalion and Tony has just sent the following:

"I'm just back from Hep Loo where the Prince of Orange went for his summer breaks. He's remembered here as the hero of Waterloo. Maybe we should be kinder to him.
I'll finish off my Guard Horse Artillery at the weekend and get some pics sorted."

We will look forward to seeing them Tony.

So it's all go, and I'm also eyeing up the terrain preparation for QB Test 5.