Cotswold Wargaming Day 2023 - vibrant and friendly

Thanks to the efforts over the years of Keith and Jane Flint to put on a semi-public event in our region I'm a very proud "Cotswold lad" to support and attend our annual games day in Northleach, Gloucestershire, which this year, was on 15th October. 

 Keith has a policy of opening his community hall to those far and wide who want to put on a game for participation of others, or just to play a mutual friend from the other side of the region who would otherwise remain distant. In one case a local club puts on a game by and for their members but also open to visitors.  Theoretically it is growing - this time about 30 attendees, but there would have been 10 games but two had to cry off so there were 8 on the go at various times. I'm very pleased to say we had three wargamer wives not just in attendance but playing and taking an active part in conversations. A bonus was that I got to meet the "real life Amélie" Hussarette whose painting I sold at this event last year! (the likeness was just by chance but close enough even to fool her son!)

Many come from local towns and villages like me, but there are games staged by practitioners from many locations in the South of England. We missed the presence of Willz Harley (of "Wild Geese"/Spencer Smith fame) from Plymouth, but that gap was ably filled by another itinerant Wild Goose - Tony Dillon from Birmingham. At least one visitor came from "up North" - Cumbria, for his second go at a CWD game.

As usual my report is limited by my rare opportunity to try something different and play in someone else's game.  That meant, apart from a quick look at setup time when not everything was ready, I had a very quick tour round the games during my lunch "break" and tried to have a brief chat at every table. Thanks to everyone for putting up with an interloper asking questions.

I had taken the precaution of signing up in advance to Ian Bailey's Indian Mutiny game. Ian is a Cotswold resident (that "Royal" town of Tetbury) and I've had the pleasure of entertaining him once at my den, so it was great to at last be using one of his magnificent armies and benefiting from his knowledge and experience as an umpire. 

Mike, Tim, Ian and Paul setting up and photographing the Indian Mutiny game

A lot more on that later, but now a quick tour.

Art Exhibition

Keith kindly lets me set up a stall to advertise my military and Hussarette art

I had a copy of Volume One of "On Bloody Ground" rules,
"The Norman Conquest", for inspection, and a handout.
 Original acrylic paintings for the covers are coming on steadily.
 More details if you need them in an earlier post "On Bloody Ground"

A clutch of small Napoleonic themed water colour and pen miniature
 paintings set off a larger, framed, acrylic battle scene.
I plan to do a blog feature on that painting shortly

Imagi-nations India in 1755

Steve Johnson showed off his modelling skills to the full with a superbly neat mid 18th century game set in India, in 10mm. This is an alternative history/imagi-nations campaign set in 1755 with the French having sent off their Jacobite hangers-on to India to help fight the Honourable East India Company over trading profits 

One Ranald McDonald, an enterprising Scot, had set up a factory to manufacture a potent rhubarb drink  called Urn Bru. evidently much coveted by the Franco-Jacobite army. Steve was adamant the emblem is merely a Mughal arch characteristic of the cultural architecture of the time (!)😇😆

3D printed boats look the part

You can see and read  a lot more about Steve's game, and others, on his excellent write-up of the day here

Steve Johnson's blog post

Early World War Two desert

I've a weakness for 10mm WW2 models (my collection doesn't get out enough) so was keen to peruse this one -  a brigade sized action at the Battle of Sidi Barrani (December 1940). they even had the Royal Navy bombarding the town. The organisers were at pains to apologise to me for the base coat only paint jobs so far - never mind chaps as long as you had a good game, we've all probably got that guilt somewhere in our past (I know I have - oops!). They were using "Blitzkrieg Commander" rules, which I've always promised myself to have a look at one day.

Here is another one - early war must be popular

Syria-Lebanon 1941

I wasn't told personally but got it from Steve Johnson that this was an excerpt from Operation Exporter,

which I knew nothing about but it was Australian/Commonwealth/Arab forces fighting the Vichy French and the locals to stop the Germans mounting air attacks from Syria and Lebanon against Egypt.

Correct me if I'm wrong, the figures look German and Italian to my untutored eye. Whatever, I thought this looked great; getting desert terrain to look coherent with buildings is not easy and in 28mm scale  for Bolt Action I thought they did a grand job.

South American Wars of Liberation

Tim Cull advised that this was based on the Battle of Maipu (1818) during the Chilean War of Independence between South American rebels and Spanish loyalists. Very colourful 28mm armies in Napoleonic French/Spanish/Portuguese style uniforms so initially I mistook it for Peninsular War! The rules were described as those "developed by US enthusiasts over several years". Super effort.

Judging by this 1837 painting the hills really were that steep

Crimean War

Sadly I only took two photos of this one which I understand is the Battle of Inkerman.  I came up to Stuart C to ask him about it and firstly was told the figures were from one of Roy Boss's many collections. I then noticed Roy was sitting there and free to talk to. I hadn't seen him since 2019 so had a lot to catch up on. This totally distracted me from concentrating on the game which is a shame as I would have enjoyed getting into the detail. They look like classic 1970s 25mm to me which is one of Roy's specialities. Apologies Stuart and Roy you deserve better than my cursory look.

French in the foreground and British manning the redoubt

Cavalry of both sides mixing it in the foreground while the big Russian infantry columns close in at the top of the picture.

Anyway Stuart has now published more photos of this great looking game on his blog Cirencester Wargames

American Civil War

I learned that this nice looking game was based on the historical action around Stone Bridge, part of the battle of First Bull Run (1861). They were using Sharpe Practice rules which one usually associates with skirmish gaming, but I was told they took the basic 8 figure squads from SP and combined them into threes to make battalions/regiments of around 24. Thus it was a brigade level battle and looked really good.

Napoleonic Peninsular War

I had invited my old friend Tony Dillon to join us for this day. Not a Cotswolder but a Liverpudlian living in Birmingham, I hoped it would be worth his travel time and expense. He decided he'd like to offer us the chance to play a variation of his go-to game of choice for shows - using his own rules system based on a standard deck of playing cards, redealt to each side each move to determine movement and firing and called "Napoker".  I've no idea what the scenario was this time except a variation of "Sharpe's Sorrow" which I played at the Wild Geese get-together in about 2019 and for which he won "Best Looking Game". You can see why from these photos at CWD 23. Tony got to organise two games during the day including one between Keith and Jane Flint, and declared it "A grand day out in a convivial atmosphere"

Indian Mutiny - “The Siege of Norfleesh, 1857”

Back to the main event for me, a magnificent game in 28mm using mostly Empress Miniatures and Ian and Paul's variations on "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" colonial rules by Jon Sutherland. It was designed for two players per side - I met Mike Richards here last year and so we combined to play the British. Our opponents were Paul of Empress and Tim as the Mutinous Sepoys. (See here the great ranges marketed by Empress Miniatures).

The British are besieging Norfleesh fort and have one heavy battery in place but need more power so my job was to bring up another elephant drawn siege battery and a camel supply column. I had to use my infantry and horse artillery to keep the road safe from an expected big Sepoy surge. Mike had a small but useful brigade with which to keep the enemy away from his siege battery and our camp; sadly the dice dictated his commander was only a "Blusterer" which limited his flexibility. My leaders were "Able" and "Inspired" so I rarely had trouble giving commands, and got a lot of Special event cards which I eagerly used early on to try to thwart Paul.  Ian admitted that he was still trialling and developing how he wanted the rules to be and some aspects, like occupying buildings and killing leaders, had yet to be worked out. So the atmosphere was relaxed and (mostly) give and take. I took so many great photos I have to curb my enthusiasm here so will try to show a selection that can tell the story of our efforts to reinforce the Siege of Norfleesh. 

Initial deployment - Imperial force at left Mutineers at right. Camel train doomed by the umpire to deploy just there

A small contingent of loyal native cavalry protected the camel train

My aim was to get troops across the road and into the hills as quickly as possible to protect my transit route

Mike is suitably cautious as more and more Mutineer regiments appear

Above and below: The garrison of Ian's beautiful model fort luckily played no active part in our game

View from the Rebels right flank - led by an elephant mounted general

Here is a regiment in close up - lovely worn looking paint job, you can almost feel the lice!

Paul's Initiative card came up before mine so the
 camel train escort was overwhelmed and destroyed

He then moved them to the right to face my Madras Fusiliers while the second cavalry regiment ploughed into the camels 

Both they and camels were peppered by Enfield rifle fire from the Madras Fusilier skirmishers and canister from my Horse Artillery

I managed to thwart casualties from the Sepoy guns by a fortuitous 
use of my "Fouled Barrels " event card

Foolishly I thought I was safe enough on our right flank. The volume of fire swept away both camel train and the attacking cavalry. Those cool looking grey cavalry received a volley from the Fusiliers and retired behind the hill. In the foreground my elephant guns are now making progress supported by a Madras Fusilier company as escort

Attack being the best form of defence Mike pushed forward his Highland regiment down the valley to threaten the, currently rather sluggish, Sepoy enemy. His Sikhs guard our big guns facing the fort

Feeling smug now as no enemy survived in front
 of my solid line of infantry

But what a bloody 'orrible mass of darkies over the ridge!

Mike's boldness got him into trouble as the Sepoys opened up
 and were surprisingly effective, forcing him back with heavy loss

My right flank was assailed by Ghazi fanatics ("Don't worry", says Ian, "they are not as bad as Afghan Ghazis"). But they weren't detered by either rifle fire or artillery shells and overwhelmed my skirmishers in the rocks

Then moved into the flank of the Madras Fusiliers , but I was able to refuse the flank with one company and fight back a little 

Meanwhile my C-in-C was using his good capability to urge
 on the elephant guns and supply oxen with the horse artillery
 following up the rear to get away from those Fanatics 

They'd have to be quick though as the Fusiliers were forced into two parts with the Colour company being pinned against the walls of that the domed building, as seen below

It was beginning for me to feel like one of those football matches where the pundits say "They wuz right on top during first 'alf , then completely lost control after t'break" . My elephants were nearly home, complacency set in and I pushed the Madras skirmisher escort up the road between the hills to help fill the gap in our line. It was not necessary but just felt "appropriate".

Happily on Mike's flank his enemies had been unable to exploit 
 the temporary setback of the Highlanders and the defence was consolidated

But out of the blue Paul's "Cool Greys" had sneaked to the centre, got an initiative card and good movement dice just when it mattered and charged my Madras escort company. Skirmish fire from these Highlanders (without kilts) in the foregound did not put them off

On my right with cries of "Allah-u-Akbar" the Ghazis
slaughtered the Fusilier Colour party and walked off with
 the Colours 

Mike's brave Highlanders charged uphill and successfully saw off this threat to our front line near the Fort

But the final act before our time was up was for the Mutineer cavalry to break through my over stretched escort company and could now make a bee-line for my elephant guns, camp and siege battery

The Stuart Asquith trophy for "Best Game" was awarded to Ian
Bailey for this hard fought and exciting action

Ian did a great job keeping this balanced and the scenario was interesting and challenging. He declared it a narrow Sepoy Victory, which was fair; I admitted that if I'd been the real British commander I'd have been very worried by how things were shaping up. My opponent, Paul, used all the ruses available to him to play a clever game and exploit my foolishness and complacency. Mike said he had a very good day even though he did not have a great deal of action. Poor Tim's Mutineer regiments did not seem to move very much due I think to poor quality commanders but I hope he still enjoyed it. Whatever our fortunes in the game it was an absolute treat to play with such beautiful and expertly painted figures. Also I enjoyed the "Mad Dogs...." rules which were easy to pick up - at least the bits I needed. Thank you very much Ian for all the effort and an entertaining experience

Keith presents the
 Stuart Asquith Trophy to Ian

We had the usual prize giving but this time prizes were donated or organised by some participants and not just by Keith. There were prizes from Pendraken Miniatures, Empress Miniatures and a painting from me. 

I think Tony Dillon scooped three of them for his Sharpe Napoleonic skirmish game  - "Best Presented Game", "Most Innovative Game" and "Best Vignette or Terrain". Grateful thanks to all those who took the trouble to put on games, many to very high visual standards.

1809 Project: Hausen-Teugn-Dünzling Part 1 - Introduction, and building the terrain

Next Steps in the Campaign

The next step from the small, but successful, refight of Landshut/Altdorf was to test the rules with a much bigger battle. It had always been my aim to adapt "Honours of War" to a Napoleonic "brigade game" on which multiple players would be using up to maybe two Corps aside on a 12 foot x 6 foot table.  The first version of that size (played in March 23 as reported on this blog) was useful but unfinished, as I was too ambitious and only had two players in one day. So we now progressed the 1809 campaign 3 days on into Bavaria from crossing the Isar at Landshut to where a major battle took place along about an 8 or 9 kilometre front.

Austrians at the left commanded by Dillon and Guy. French on the right with Paul B and Steve J in the driving seat

Historical Background

Please bear with me briefly to understand how we got here and take a look at my annotations on this useful map from John Gill's "Thunder on the Danube, Volume I".

The red dotted box shows the approximate area of our battle

Archduke Charles is with the Austrian  (red arrows) "Main Force". He has protective Corps to right and left and another large force in Bohemia, North of the River Danube, hoping to box in the French and catch them in a pincer movement - a good idea but hindered by French possession of the crossing at Regensburg. The French and Allies (blue areas) were in disarray. The Austrian invasion had come as a surprise and Napoleon was not present, so Marshal Berthier was in command of several other Marshals and Generals, most of whom had more fighting operational experience than him. Neither side had a very clear idea of strength or dispositions of the enemy. That was partly due to lethargic scouting and staff work, but mostly to the broken, hilly and forested nature of the Bavarian landscape. This had left Marshal Davout's large Corps out on a limb holding Regensburg and the surrounding area. Charles felt there was a potential gap between Davout and the Bavarians but not where, or for how long it could last. At this stage the Austrian movement was steadily northward, hoping to encounter isolated French and Allied forces  and eliminate them. Charles hoped Davout would stay at Regensburg and be attacked in the rear by his  army, which would also split left towards the Bavarians. What he did not know, and why we had our battle here, was that Davout was moving all but one regiment of his corps westwards via the Danube valley to Abensberg. Most of Davout's Corps was actually moving westwards along the route Saalhaupt - Teugn - Abensberg while his baggage train was using the good highway adjacent to the Danube and needed protecting. 

The villages of Schneidart, Hausen, Teugn and Voxbrunn. The labels gave a reminder of the unit capacities I had allowed

Choosing our wargame parameters

I had devised the scale of my game to be 1 x15/18mm figure in close order to represent approximately 50 real troops with tactical units in 5 sizes from 12 to 70 or so figures.  The corresponding ground scale for me worked at 30cm (1 foot) = 500 metres. But my maximum table size is 12 x 6, so strictly 6 km x 3 km.  Looking at the options I was aware that Michael Hopper in his scenario book "Eagles over Bavaria"(see Footnote in the previous post or more info) treats this as two battles - they were adjacent and fought at the same time. I like to look at the bigger strategic picture where possible and it was clear that they were interconnected and the French all under Davout's command. I reckoned that the total orders of battle for both were within our capabilities and that it would make a good historical refight for two or three players per side over two day's play. I needed to have Dunzling village on the extreme East and Teugn, plus some of the road to Abensberg, at the Western end. That meant fudging the ground scale by about another 20-30%. I don't like to do that but it felt like we could get away with not changing any of the rules or ranges (eg Medium artillery range is 60cm which would be about 1300 metres or so on this table, not too bad).   In vindication Gill's great map in his book shows all the villages on one map and the action treated as one battle, just with slightly different phases. Which meant I could take that map and translate the most important section into a Photoshop version as my building guide.

See the Danube River road at top left and it clarifies that the roads through squares A1 to B8 traverse a valley which protects that route. Westerholz and Dunzling need defending to protect the flank.

So, map decided and players invited, I moved on to model making mode. I had to get everything ready by the last weekend in July.

Building the Terrain

I dismantled the previous setup (Landshut) and recovered all the high ground as separate ridges and hills, thinking I might be able to use some of them for this one. However, this time the higher contours lacked  large surfaces or plateau and were too convoluted, so I decided to start from scratch. I took the usual 8 x 6 base board back to its original form (designed for Brampton in Spring 2021) and added the two more 6 x 2 pieces of 18mm MDF I have in store. Then I laid down packaging cardboard in big sheets to produce a roughly flat surface. On this I could transfer a life-size sketch of the design from the map in felt pens and acrylic paint.

Above and below: Top contour outlined in cream and the valley bottom contour blocked in green for the moment.

Rivers painted in a distinctive blue initially (so they stand out for me) mostly along the valleys - as per the map

I then cut out a fairly accurate template of the top contour pieces in cardboard and labeled then in case of muddle

Recovered pieces of polystyrene were stuck with PVA to the undersides of the template. It's environmental policy in my den never to buy any polystryrene but only reuse what comes my way, and only chuck out when really too small to be any further use.

The slopes down from the top contour templates were smoothed with other card and then the whole thing covered with a layer of reasonably substantial wrapping paper (such as comes with every Amazon parcel!) applied with thinned PVA glue and left to dry (note the weights at corners to limit warping).

This sequence shows torn up pieces of wrapping paper being applied  only 2 to 3 layers thick, as papier maché with thinned PVA. When dry it makes a lovely solid surface to model onto, (and into if necessary)

Making sure that the course of the rivers was smoothed a bit without being obscured

The next three photos show the effect of painting in the three contours in basic colours, leaving the rivers for now.

Beginning to develop the middle contour green, some texture is added to the paint (sawdust, sand, very small pebbles) but not too course for 15mm or smaller figures

Decided to paint a basic brown for the roads at this stage to help me focus

Both green contours are getting more dry brush treatment with yellow, creams and browns. No right answers on this. and I never really know when I'm finished!

The roads are treated with a thin gunge of builders filler, PVA, paint and sand and then some "ruts" scored in them when semi-set

Dry brushing to lighten the roads, helped by thin dark outlining. Now I have painted the rivers with a thick but runny PVA and paint mixture in a natural muddy brown (as real rivers generally look from a helicopter or aircraft)

I've now placed the buildings I want to fill the village footprints. A bit more painting and texturing can be done now for BUAs if desired; mostly I just tend to to loosely scatter sawdust

The trees shown above are 3D printed ones and I don't have nearly enough so I had acquired two different kinds of trees from Ebay outlets.  The first batch (next 3 pics) were fairly bright green from China, but they are cheap and give scope for more work to make them acceptable.

I made small holes in cardboard bases then glued the trees in with a glue gun - it is quick and gives a bit of texture and substance to the trunks. I painted them a basic brown before applying the evergreen "foliage"

My Woodland Scenics "Scenic Glue" was past its best but pouring into my paint bowl, stirring like mad to revive the viscosity, and then adding water, gave me a very usable mixture to attach the very light scatter material which is an evergreen mix.

Note: This watery mix is good for very light foliage but I'm not sure if it would hold substantial tree leaf clumps. I use Woodland Scenics Hob-e-Tac for that. 

The next 3 pics show the second batch - these are more commercial German model railway trees and are more expensive, but they come a dark green colour which is acceptable, however, I prefer a more natural, less uniform look, so I treated them the same as the Chinese ones.

Once dry the bases are all treated with acrylic paste/medium (such as Winsor and Newton Large Grain Structure Gel) mixed with paint and used as the glue for all kinds of scatter mixes to make the forest floor

I never throw anything away! - The scatter mixes from each terrain are collected up with large paint brush and dustpan, sieved for size if necessary, and sorted, so I always have loads of choice for the treatments to give the next project. These trees can be spayed with matt varnish to fix them for greater longevity

The Finished Terrain:

And a quick tour round the completed table (rivers are still drying out) before it was messed up by blind markers and troops

My new evergreen trees were used specifically to make the areas I had decreed on the map to be "dense woodland" (skirmish infantry only). I still did not have enough suitable, small scale trees for the less dense woodlands, so just marked them in various ways with scrub and other foliage.

The top contour was left light brown as most is covered by woods. Not disguising it proved helpful to allow the players to know they were jumping  up a contour.

I was having to drag out all sorts of other foliage from the store boxes! All seen on this blog in previous games

The grey farm set was originally a 15mm La Haye Sainte bought at least 12- 15 years ago . Split up, I was pleased with it as the three parts of Schneidart village

I used most of my recently acquired (UK-made) 3D printed German buildings for this set-up. The sources of them are given in the first Comment on the previous blog post.

Model soldiers eye view up the Hausenerberg from Saladorf. Paul B had visited the battle area and said I had got it pretty accurately.  Apologies to any Hausen-Teugn residents reading this blog though!

Just to finish, here is another photo of the game in full swing. I will start the After Action Report proper next time.