Happy New Year

Well this is the very last post for 2017, so I would like to wish my nine followers and for the ones that take a look here now and then.

A Happy New Year for 2018

It's been very disappointing not to have any new figures for me to buy and although Waterloo 1815 French Foot Dragoon figures did look promising, the size has let them down by being 25mm and NOT 20mm. Still we have a new year to come, so lets hope that there are more great sets to follow. 
I must get myself motivated this coming year, so please keep looking. Thanks again folks!

Merry Christmas from the General

Well it’s another year over and not a very exciting one for this blog and not how I would have liked to end 2017. It seems that my wargaming has come to a complete stand still even though I have been to a few shows this year which I had hope would jump me into action.

Still I really do hope that things will now start to pick up as most of the DIY for inside my house and outside have now been finished for this year. So I have been busy.

I would like to thank my nine followers once again for staying with me and for all of you who have taken a look over the year from around the world. I hope that you all have a really great Christmas with plenty to eat and drink. So I would like to wish you and your families a very Happy Christmas.

Birthday Goodies

Well my Birthday has been and gone and I have a few more pieces to add to my wargaming collection from Birthday presents.

First up top left hand corner of picture is five packets of bases from “Products for Warganers”. I might get round to basing my figures one day. Some more “4Ground” Mature orchard trees. To add to the other packet I got last year at SELWG to make two small or one large orchard. Again from “4G” a laser cut Corduroy Bridge in 15mm. This is so my bridges are not all to one scale. From “Debris of War”, two packets of medium hedges. These really do look great and I hope to use these as my orchard boundaries. I thank my family for the presents although I was with them when they got them at SELWG. 

SELWG 17 Report

For the very first time I have now been to three wargaming shows in a year and SELWG will be my last of the year.

SELWG was once again at the Crystal Palace Sports Centre and on a sunny and windy autumn day I arrived at about 11 am. The entry fee was once again just £6 and picking up my programme I set off, as I usually do to visit the trade stands and the Bring & Buy stand. Here there seemed to be quite a lot of people taking a good look at what was on offer, so I went away and returned later when the crowds had died down a bit. One thing that was a bit sad was to see where the Harfield stand used to be a empty space where once they traded on the concourse. 

Main Hall

Down in the main hall, there seemed to be more people at the show than last year and the trade stands were very busy. I was hoping to pick up a box of the “Waterloo 1815 French Dragoons on Foot” that are now on sale but no such luck. having a look around there were no stands selling any HaT figures this year which was a great shame. Again this year there seemed to be more traders selling 28mm figures than 20mm but that is down to today’s trends I guess. Traders selling terrain is also dropping off as more and more wargamers are now making their own. So although I did take some war funds with me, there seemed to be nothing that I fancied. So back to the Bring & Buy stand to see if I could have a better look. There was a lot on offer here from figures and tanks to terrain and books, but nothing for me this time. The show seemed to be better than last years but there were a few traders and wargaming clubs missing in the space’s that were around. Still this could, I hope, change for next year’s show. I left the show at 2 pm. for home on a fantastic sunny autumn day.

Gravesend Wargames Club - WWII

Loughton Strike Force - Napoleonic's

Redoubt Enterprises - ACW

Deal Wargaming Society - WWII

New Figures at last

I have just seen the good news that the Waterloo 1815 "French Dragoons on Foot" are now out, although their official web site has no news on them?
There are a total of four spurs with 13 poses on each giving you a total of 52 figures. But they are priced at £10.99 UK pounds. A little expensive but they do look very good and I hope to pick up a box at SELWG next week.

Skirmish 2017 (Napoleonic Special)

Last Sunday I went to the Skirmish Show in Sidcup, South East London as I had such a good time there in March earlier this year with the Zulu themed show.  This was my second wargame show in a year which I have not done for a very long time. Still as this was going to be a Napoleonic Special show I just could not wait to get there. It was a cold start to the day but I was in the hall by 9.45am.

The first thing that hit me was that there was not as many traders there in the main hall or in the lobby as there was in the March one. There seemed to be less people around this time but I thought it was early yet but they never came even when I left at 11.30.

On the wargaming side there were thirteen tables but only five were for Napoleonic’s of which one was a naval game and another one from the Skirmish Wargames - Sharpe Village in 54mm.. The other three were from the Herne Bay & Whitstable wargames Group in 20mm , North London Wargames Group 6mm Borodino 1812 and Rainham Wargame Club a 28mm game with French and Prussian troops.

Soldiers Kit

In the main hall though there was a nice display of British Napoleonic equipment and had a very nice chat with the owner. Still I did not come away empty handed as I picked up a box of French Light Infantry by HaT which have been on my shopping list for a few years now.

Next March the first special show is Vietnam but before that roll on SELWG in October.

The Gentleman is from the Crimean War

Model Shop, No-Way!

Last weekend I went to the Isle of Wight for a 40^th Ruby anniversary of a friend staying in a hotel in Sandown. To my surprise there was a model shop called Upstairs Downstairs. It was nice to see a model shop for I have not been in one for a long time now. Upstairs there was the railway gear and downstairs the wargame stuff although this was mainly for Warhammer and Airfix kits, but there were many difference types of trees on offer and also grass tuffs of many different colours.

The shop was packed with railway scenery and looking around there were loads of products that I could of purchase.  But I did not go away empty handed as I picked up a packet of Metcalfe OO/HOs Cobblestone Builder Sheets, M0051.

There are 8 sheets of the cobblestone sheets in the pack and these are going to be used for the courtyards in my farms and for the town square.

If you are going on holiday to the Isle of Wight this summer then take a look at this shop in Pier Street Sandown, between the pier on the seafront and the main high street. If not then look at their website.I hope to go back there again but I must have some cash with me next time.

Another Great Find

At last I have found the book that I have been hunting for since it was released in 2014. 24 Hours at Waterloo 18 June 1815 by the author Robert Kershaw. The book has been researched from eyewitness accounts, diaries and letters and it gives you an hour by hour account of that famous battle from both sides. The book contains ten chapters.

I found this second  edition in “The Works” which for those of you outside of the UK, the shop sell’s mainly books at a greatly reduce price. This book retailed at £9.99 pence was on offer for just £3 and as the book is on my want list, I picked a copy up. But my review of this book will be a bit later on in the year, I hope, as I am at present reading another book, which has taking me ages to finish.

The Battle of Waterloo 2015 Commemorative Stamps

The British Post Office made a set of stamps to mark the 200^th Anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo.

I have completely forgotten about these and I will now have to start looking for them as they do not appear on the Post Office web site now.

The landscape stamps are:

The defence of Hougoumont

The Scots Grey's during the charge of the Union Brigade

The French cavalry’s assault on allied defensive squares

The defence of La Haye Sainte by the King’s German Legion

The capture of Plancenoit by the Prussians

The French Imperial Guard’s final assault

The horizontal stamps are:

92^nd Gordon Highlanders

Light Infantry King’s German Legion

Prussian Infantryman

French Imperial Guard Grenadier

These stamps look great but I have never seen them around although how many of us now receive letters in our post from family or friends? 

This one is my favourite one out of the set

Skirmish 2017 (Zulu Special)

Today I went to the SKIRMISH 2017 Show in Sidcup, Kent promoted by Redcoat Models.. I have never been there before and I thought that it was about time that I did.

The weather was dry but dull and very windy but I managed to get up early and set off by bus to the venue. As I got off the bus in the main road, there was a clear sign to show you which way to go, and so finding the Chislehurst & Sidcup Grammar School was very easy.

Arriving at just before 10 am The entry fee was a mere £4 and once you left the entrance to the building you came straight into some trade stalls. 

Main Hall For traders

The layout to the show was very easy as most of the trade stalls were in the main hall. This is where the Zulu War exhibition was and it was on the stage. A nice collection of the British 24^th foot uniform and weapon’s  including their kit and for the Zulu’s spears, shields and pictures.

British Infantry Kit

In the dining hall was where the wargame/demonstration games were being played  and although it was not that very busy it was great to speak to fellow wargamer’s and take a good look at their set ups.

There were two games that caught my eye the first being a large Zulu demonstration game in 1/32 scale with the building of Rorke’s Drift from 4Ground. This game was a lot of fun to watch with the Zulu’s slowly winning the game.

Maidstone Wargames Society

The other game was by the Maidstone Wargames Society a Roman hill fort being attacked by Celts in 15mm. Also in the hall was the Welling Model Club who were painting up their British Zulu figures and here I had a nice chat to two of the members. With a cafeteria in the side room in another room off the hall was a small bring and buy stall which had all sorts of things from terrain pieces, figures and books. I left the show at about 12.45am  and I must admit that I did enjoy the show and made me think of all the fun that we had when I was running a wargaming club back in the 80s.

Wargaming Hall

Skirmish Show This Sunday

I have never been to any of the SKIRMISH Show’s in Sidcup although I was going to go there last year and never got round to going.

So this Sunday (19^th March) I will be making that trip to the Chislehurst & Sidcup Grammar School in Sidcup.

It starts at 9am and ends at 2.30pm but the good thing about this is that there is a cafeteria and fee Parking. They usually run two shows a year and this on this occasion it’s the Anglo Zulu War Special.

I am really looking forward to this as it will be my first show of the year and my next one will be the SELWG 17 in October. As always I will be doing a show report here with a few pictures.

Marshals and Generals

HANOVERIAN COLONEL

Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Von Ompteda

Born: 26 November 1765 – Ahlden an der Aller, Hanover

Died: 18 June 1815 – La Haye Sainte, Belgium

Rank: Colonel

In 1771 at the age of six, Ompteda was sent to his uncle Dietrich Heinrich Ludwig Von Ompteda to be educated and when he was 12 years old in 1777 he joined the Royal Corps of Pages at Hanover. In 1781 he became a lieutenant in the foot guards. In 1793 Ompteda rose to command a grenadier company in the French Revolutionary Wars and was badly wounded at Mont Cassel, and then in 1794 he sailed to England with Field Marshall Wilhelm Von Freytag.

By 1803 he was a major in a regiment of the Hanoverian guards, and when the Convention of Artlenburg dissolved the Hanoverian army on 5 July 1803, he was one of the first to join what was to become the King’s German Legion. In 1805 he led an unsuccessful expedition to northern Germany during the War of the Third Coalition. A year later he and his battalion was moved to Gilbraltar.

In 1807 his battalion was moved again and shipped out to Zeeland, where they fought against Denmark in the Gunboat War, known as the English Wars. On his return journey his ship sank off the coast of the Netherlands and he was taken prisoner in Borkum until being freed in a prisoner exchange in 1808.

In 1812 Ompteda was made lieutenant Colonel and in 1813 he was put in command of the Legion’s 1^st Light Battalion KGL. By 1815 he was a Colonel and a brigade commander in General Charles Alten’s division within Wellington’s army.

Ompteda was killed at Waterloo after being ordered by the Prince of Orange into a counter-attack in column with the 5^th Line Battalion to retake La Haye Sainte.

As the 5th Line Battalion under colonel Ompteda was on its way to reinforce the defenders of La Haye Sainte, the French cavalry attached to Jean-Baptiste Drouet, d'Erlon's Corp I rode them down; only a few of the intended relievers survived. Ompteda was shot at point blank range. He was 49 years of age.

After a six-hour defence, without ammunition, or reinforcements, the KGL were forced to abandon the farm, leaving the buildings in shambles and their dead behind. A total of over 4,000 cavalrymen and soldiers were said to have been buried in the communal grave opposite the farm after the battle.

There is a plaque to Baring , Von Ompteda and the KGL on the outer wall of La Haye Sainte.

Allessandro Barbero describes Ompteda's final moments as follows in his excellent re-narration of the battle of Waterloo:

"Suddenly, the order came to deploy in line and advance at a walk; when his men were some sixty yards away from the enemy, Ompteda had the bugler sound the charge and urged his horse into the midst of the thick line of French skirmishers. The tirailleurs scattered. Colonel von Ompteda was encircled by enemy infantry, and the French officers, amazed by his courage, shouted to their men to take him alive; but Ompteda, who was by then beside himself, started aiming sabre-strokes at the heads of the men surrounding him, and someone lost patience. When lieutenant Weatherly regained consciousness, the colonel lay dead two steps away from him, with his mouth open and a hole in his throat."

The Plaque at La Haye Sainte

Thank You World On Another Year

Today I celebrate nine years of blogging and hasn’t time flown by. But although I have not done any painting for nearly two years now, this blog has turned out more as a history lesson than a war-gaming blog.  This is not what I wanted to do but a general progress on how my armies are being collected and painted for the Waterloo campaign.

Still I am grateful for my eight followers although I have lost one over the last year or so and I have now had over 10, 000 hits in the last year and 31,000 over the nine years.

Looking over my posts I have frighten myself in that over the last nine years I have only painted a total of 472 figures. I have yet to pick up the paint brush but I hope that I will do soon. I take my hat off to other war-gaming bloggers who seem to have endless time to paint, make terrain and war game and visit shows around the country how they do this I will never know. But as we say good-by to the first month of 2017, I hope that this year is going well for you all and let’s hope that I can turn the corner in this fantastic hobby and start to enjoy myself when I started painting my little men all those years ago.

More News From The Front

WATERLOO 1815 have announced that they are in production of a new set, number 041 titled “Napoleonic French Foot Dragoons”

The set is going to be a full box of dismounted dragoons and the set looks very promising. To see the masters of this set go to their Facebook Page. The set contains Marching and Action figures plus an officer, drummer with their colours. Although Waterloo 1815 boxes are a bit expensive, I think that they will be a great set for those of you who battle Napoleonic’s. I am not sure but I think that I read somewhere that a regiment of Dragoons did in fact march to Waterloo as there was not enough horses to go around the French army at that time.

These are far more better than the Strelets set 009 “French Foot Dragoons and Polish Grenadiers” which contains half dragoons and half Polish Grenadiers.

News From The Front

Over the weekend on the HaT forum, there has been talk about figures that are on the "INCOMPLETE LIST OF MASTER FIGURES".

HaT are saying that the figures that are on their list for future release will be produced some time in the near future. Although I have been waiting for so long for the figures that I need for the Waterloo campaign, it’s good news for me at long last and they say that there will be more to come on this list.

Here is the list that I would like HaT to produce ASAP.

8234 – French Light Infantry in Greatcoats = These will be just the marching figures and are in the queue ready for dispatch.

8294 – 1815 French Line Infantry - Marching = In queue ready for dispatch.

8295 – 1815 French Line Infantry - Command = Moulds Lost? BOTHER!

Prussian Landwehr Infantry mixed set with Marching, Action and Command figures. These are now for Crowdfunding. The masters look really good but I am at the moment sticking with my humble Airfix sets that I have already painted.

The Prussian Limbers/caissons/wagons and the Brunswick Infantry are still in development.

There is another French Elites in Greatcoats set to come and the Dutch/Belgium Carabiners both are at unfinished stages. Lets hope that there are going to be a few more surprises in the coming week.

French "AN IX" Cavalry Pistol 1801

In 1800, Napoleon was concerned about order and organization of his army and appointed a Commission composed of artillery officers and arms inspectors, whose task was to define a weapon system that could replace that of  the 1777 model. The work of these specialists reflected in the regulation of 21 Pluviôse AN IX (February 11, 1801), signed by General Saint-Germain, an artillery officer who served as general manager of the arms-manufactures since AN VII (1799). Inspired in part from the 1763-1766 model, but based on the other weapons manufactured during the Revolution, this pistol is shorter than its predecessor and was produced by four manufactures, those of Charleville, Saint-Etienne, Maubeuge and Versailles.

The “AN IX” cavalry pistol was introduced from 1801 until 1807 and it replaced the disappointing 1777 model pistol. It gave rise to a remarkable weapon, intended for the light cavalry – like the Hussars and Chasseurs, each of the troopers having two pistols in holsters on each side of their saddles.

The muzzle loading single shot flintlock pistol weight was 1.290 kg and the length was 352 mm including the barrel of 207 mm. The pistol had brass furniture which includes the buttcap, barrel band, triggerguard and sideplate with the stock made from walnut. It had a tapered 8 ¼ inch round barrel smoothbore in .690 diameter which would fire a .69 caliber lead ball which must have given the rider quite a jolt when it was fired. A small steel ramrod was fitted onto the bottom of the stock with brass fittings. The rate of fire was between two and three rounds per minute with the effective range of 5 to 10 metres. By 1807 approximately 33,000 pairs had been produced. The “AN IX” pistol continued to be used in Napoleon’s cavalry as he made sure his army had the best firearms of the day until the end of his reign in 1815.

The Function of the flintlock pistol: the cartridge made of paper filled with gunpowder and a lead ball is taken from the ammo pouch. The cock is placed in the half cock position and the frizzen opened. The cartridge is then bitten tearing off the end, a small amount of the powder is placed in the pan, the frizzen is then closed. The lead ball, along with the rest of the powder is placed in the barrel, followed by the paper. This is then rammed firmly down the barrel. The rammer is then placed back in its receiver. The cock is pulled into the full cock position and the weapon is then ready to fire. On pulling the trigger, the cock holding the flint forward striking the frizzen and exposing the powder in the pan. At the same time the flint strikes the metal of the frizzen a spark is caused setting off the powder in the pan which in turn sets off the powder in the barrel causing an explosion which them forces out the lead ball and paper wad from the barrel.

The Ageing French Elites

After waiting nearly seven years for the “French Elites in Greatcoats” which are going to be produced by HaT Industries, it looks more likely that I will have to wait another year or so.

Back in January 2009 HaT announced that they were going to bring out the French Elites in Greatcoats in 1/32^nd, 1/72^nd scale and even in 28mm. Much joy there was when they announced them as no other company has produced such a set, other than Revell’s set 02570 French Grenadiers in Greatcoats. The first masters were shown in Jan 2009 box number 9310 French Light Infantry/Elites in Greatcoats which had marching and action figures and set 9311 Elites in Greatcoat Command which had an officer on foot a drummer and four NCO’s. Great so far?

These 1/32^nd sets came available at the end of 2009/ early 2010 but then there was no news on the other two sizes that they were going to produce and they were dropped from their listings. But good news in March 2016 the 1/72^nd sets are back on but there was no sign of the action or command sets. Box number 8234 is now Elites in Greatcoats but only in marching possess.  Oh well but I still want them and they should be out some time this year.

Now in 2017 the set is still being produced but it has now been taken over by the new crowdfunding idea for three 1/72^nd Prussian Landwehr sets one marching (8309) one in action (8310) and a command set (8311).  Don’t get me wrong they are very good sets but I want my Elites more than more Prussians.

Hat have slowed right down on production over the last couple of years but all the other plastic companies are doing the same in this economic crises that we are in. Still I hope that the Elites will be in my army soon and another set that has been on Hat’s list for a while are the Brunswick Infantry. Now that’s another story.

Wagons Roll

While I have talked about using wagons on the battlefield table, I thought that I would show you my only two of the four wagons that have been painted way back in the 70s. These are the Atlantic ‘Pioniers Wagons’ set number 1052. This set is very hard to find as the company went out of business in 1984 and they are very expensive if you wish to purchase some on the Internet.

As I have said that these are my main wagon supplies for my army back then and even now. The set contained four covered wagons made in brown plastic each pulled by two oxen. These were then a great set to have which also included barrels shovels and pick-axes and a little lantern which could be attached to the back end of the wagons which I think was a nice touch as shown in the pictures. 

The other two wagons in the set have yet to be painted and with some spare Airfix French Line Artillery horses I am going to change the oxen for horses. As you can see that they could be for any army as there are civilians from the set driving them.