Prussian Campaign Medal for 1815 (Waterloo Medal)

The medal was instituted by King Friedrich Wilhelm III at Frankfurt-am-Main on the 24^th December 1813 and amended on 3^rd October 1815 to be awarded to ‘all warriors who without exception, whether in the field or before a fortress, truly fought and uncompromisingly did their duty throughout this current conflict’. This circular gilt bronze medal with loop for ribbon suspension.

The ribbon colour was gold centre with black and white striped edging and 32mm in width. On the front of the medal it has a cross pattée with rays between the arms, the date “1815” centrally within a laurel wreath. On the reverse side with the crowned cipher of Friedrich Wilhelm III above the inscription “Preubens tapfern kriegern” (Prussia’s brave warriors) circumscribed ‘Gott war mit uns, Ihn sey die Ehre’ (God was with us To Him the Glory) On the edging is inscribed ‘AUSEROBERTEM GESCHUTZ’ (from captured cannon). This medal is a generic one as the same medal exists with other dates inscribed on the medal. They are 1813, 1814, 1813/1814 and 1815 and with square and rounded ends to the cross.

Donald Featherstone's Solo Wargaming

Published by Kayle and Ward

Pages 201 plus covers

Originally published in 1973 and written by Donald Featherstone, this book was re-printed back in 2009 by Lulu.com.

The book is packed from cover to cover with a load’s of information for Solo wargamers especially in the early stages of this hobby who are unable to find other opponents in their area where they live, to fight on their table top battlefield.

This book describes many methods of manoeuvring two armies which you both command. Mr Featherstone has written this book well to understand wargaming and with helpful hints and tips to help you on the way to solo wargaming. Although there are no rules to use in this book, there is a lot of information and ideas to help you make your own set of rules. This book has over 60 illustrations and they are all in black and white. There are 23 chapters in this book which include

INSTANT SOLO-WARGAMING

CONCEALMENT IN SOLO-WARGAMING

SOLO-WARGAMING CAMPAIGNS

THE IMPORTANCE OF WAR DIARIES

CHANCE and TACTICAL CARDS

A SOLO MUSKET WARGAME

PERSONALISED WARGAMES

and many more. This book is well worth the read.

News from the Front

HaT have announced yesterday that the Napoleonic British Command set 8304 is in the queue ready for release. When that will be is any-ones guest.

The set will contain 4 sprues with 1 Sapper, 1 Drummer, 1 NCO, 2 Officers on foot and 1 Mount Officer on each sprue. The good news is that the set contains changeable arms and heads. This will be good for my Belgium/Dutch regiments as well. The head swaps look very good as the officer’s heads with the cocked hats can be used for my Brigade commanders. The only thing that is missing with this set is that there is no flag poles. Good times are a coming in the future.

How it all started for me - Part Two



I can remember watching many war films as a youngster and one about the First World War. It is in that year that Airfix brought out the English and German figures for WW1. It was 1966, the year that England won the world cup, and again with just a one box of each (very easily pleased); I would spend many hours playing with these where the English troops went over the top. A hard thing to do indoors but once again I found that the garden was the biggest battle field I could ever want.

In the same year they made the French although I never had this set. In the following year Airfix made the Americans and in 1968 the Royal Horse artillery. Both of these I had in my collection. One of Airfix’s down falls was to be their cavalry sets as the horses would always pop out of their stands and this set was no different. By now I was losing interest in my Tempo toy soldiers although I would never part with them.

My Airfix collection was now starting to build up.

In September of 1968 I started in my Secondary School and once I had settled in and made some new friends I found that I was not the only one that were still playing with their toy soldiers. In our History classes again we were told about the First and Second World Wars but also something new, the Napoleonic Wars.

It was in that year or the following year that I had a mate Robert who had a sand table in his loft. Robert invited me over one sunny day to have a look at his collection. His mum would buy him a few painted and ready to go on his birthday and Christmas. Here he would play with his metal Napoleonic figures marching up and down the sand hills. He did not have any rules for playing so we made up a few with figures moving at such a distance and rolling a dice to see if we killed anyone. It was great fun but it did not last for long as his mum stopped him having friend’s coming in.

Still in 1969 Airfix brought out their first Waterloo set of figures, the Highlanders and they were quickly followed by the French Curassiers. They were made in the old cream coloured plastic which I still have today in my collection. I had one box of each to start with and then but it was not till 1971 two years later that Airfix brought out the French foot artillery But before then a year earlier in 1970 a big film came out in the cinema which made a big turning point in my life and a start to a wonderful hobby of wargaming.

News from the Front

I have not done one of these for a while as there were no new figures for me to buy to build up my armies of late, but there was some good news from HaT over the past two days.

The news from HaT HQ is that there are indeed a lot of new Napoleonic sets coming out during the latter half of the year. I reported to you back in July last year that the sets 8197 Brunswick Cavalry and 8197 Prussian Hussars will be out later this year which is great news for me. They have been waiting around for the past four years from drawings to production. AT LAST!

But HaT have said that there are another three sets that could be out by the end of the year. They are British and French Command sets for which a long while ago we did see some roughs for the British but nothing else and a set of mounted officers.

Now the mounted officer’s set 8279 is one of them sets that just suddenly appear on their site. There are no box picture or test shots of these figures but there is a picture of them already painted up. This set contains four officers on horseback. There are two Prussian officers Line and Landwehr plus one Russian and one Spanish officer.