Hundred Days British

42nd Royal Highland (who later became the Black Watch) & 92nd Gordon Highlanders
42nd Royal Highland (who later became the Black Watch) & 92nd Gordon Highlanders

Life has been a bit hectic over Christmas – with holidays, work, catching up on gardening & clearing clutter (both wargaming and general household accumulation), and a few other matters – so I haven’t had much chance to progress any posts in January at all, even though I do have several part-written or drafted in outline. Meanwhile here’s a little eye-candy of a couple of my 28mm Napoleonic British units that featured in my ‘Hundred Days’ games in 2011!

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Dominant Hill: The Black Brunswickers Baptism

Recently I finally got my Brunswick Corps close to completion (well barring the grass for the bases, and the 3 Brigade Commander figures) and Cam and I were overdue for another larger game akin to The Crossroads (that we had played several months ago) – so it seemed a good excuse to give them their baptism as an entire corps. This time we went a fraction smaller than that game, but a little larger than a standard Lasalle AB List Game, with the forces selected using an updated version of Cam’s Lasalle Points System originally posted on the AWC Website. The purpose was to try a game with about a reinforced Division (e.g. an Infantry Division with Cavalry Brigade in support) a side, test out the points amendments (especially regarding on-table cavalry), and play a scenario from Charles Stewart Grant’s Table Top Teasers or Scenario Books. This is what happened about three weeks ago…

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A Lasalle Points System: Our Latest Draft

Those familiar with Lasalle will know it uses a set of ‘Army Builder’ lists to design fairly generic Divisions based on an across-the-board average of the real life historical equivalents  (very similar to what SHAKO II also does). To add extra flexibility, assist scenario design, and provide options for building historical forces and such, we’ve been working on a points system as an alternative for Lasalle.

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Gosh those Victrix Austrians Look Nice!

I stumbled across Jeff Lower’s Blog recently care of Michael Davis – and he’s currently working on some new Victrix Austrians – and my gosh they do look good! The new Victrix ranges include two Infantry packs (a early 1798-1809 set in helmets, and a mid to later period 1806-1815 set in shakos), a Grenadier set (for 1798-1815), and a Landwehr Infantry set (for the later 1808-1815 period). You can check out Jeff’s progress on his blog.

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Bijlandt’s 1st Netherlands Brigade

Continuing with more of Lieutenant General Hendrik George de Perponcher-Sedlnitsky’s 2nd Netherlands Division in the Hundred Days campaign here we have my recreation of (Major-General) Willem Frederik count of Bijlandt’s (or Bylandt) 1st Netherlands Brigade; following on from the 2nd Nassau-Usingen Regiment and the 28th Oranien-Nassau (Orange-Nassau) Regiment of von Sachsen-Weimar’s (Saxe-Weimar) 2nd Netherlands Brigade. So here’s some more ‘Work In Progress‘ type photos as I work on basing these chaps ready for service on the table top…

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28th Oranien-Nassau Regiment 1815

Continuing with Lieutenant General Hendrik George de Perponcher-Sedlnitsky’s 2nd Dutch-Belgian Division in the Hundred Days campaign and the balance of (Colonel) Prince Bernhard of Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach’s 2nd (Nassau) Brigade, and following on from the 2nd Nassau-Usingen Regiment is the 28th Oranien-Nassau (Orange-Nassau) Regiment – the unit von Sachsen-Weimar (Saxe-Weimar) was Colonel of prior to taking over the 2nd Brigade on the 15 June 1815. So as these are near completion and following the ‘Work In Progress‘ type photos theme, here’s the Oranien-Nassau regiment…

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2nd Nassau-Usingen Regiment 1815

I have finally got around to getting to work on basing up my figures for Lieutenant General Hendrik George de Perponcher-Sedlnitsky’s 2nd Dutch-Belgian Division in the Hundred Days campaign. First up is (Colonel) Prince Carl Bernhard of Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach’s (Saxe-Weimar in English) 2nd (Nassau) Brigade, with possibly my absolute favourite uniformed Allied unit from Quatre Bras, the 2nd Nassau-Usingen Regiment. As they are now firmly mounted on bases ready for completion by flocking, varnishing, and fitting of standards I thought it was a good excuse to take some ‘Work In Progress ‘type photos of the near completed regiment…

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Lasalle at NapCon 2011 Report

A scene from Day 1 of NapCon 2011
A scene from Day 1 of NapCon 2011

While I was unable to attend NapCon several other New Zealand Lasalle players did – and one of them (Lintman) has provided some great photos of the event on his blog – Two large multi-player games were staged, Day 1 saw a loose recreation of Waterloo, and Day 2 a refight of Vitoria. Check out more great Lasalle stuff at Lintman’s Blog, especially his magnificent Calpe Miniatures Prussians

Lasalle: The Trouble With Tribbles

The Battle For the flux de Tribble - as the Carabiniers storm across!
The Battle For the flux de Tribble - as the 1st Carabiniers storm across in foreground!

Okay – it’s got nothing to do with Star Trek & Tribbles – but I thought it sounded a cool title for a blog post (and AAR)! Anyway back at the end of July (2011) Cam and I played another Lasalle game – we reverted to the basic Army Builder List of a core force and 1 support option with standard troop values (1815 Hundred Days French & British) – the idea was to try out a proposed alternate scenario that was going to be used in the Lasalle Tournament at  “Call To Arms”  a convention in Wellington (New Zealand) in the second half of August. The proposed scenario in simple terms made both sides the ‘attacker’ (so Core Force + Attack Bonus + 1 Support Option) and placed 3 objectives instead of 1 on the table – all 3 having to be on the centre line, with one in the table’s dead centre, and one placed by each player not within 4BW or so of either of the others or the table edge. The following is a brief summary of the game with photo gallery…

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The Crossroads

Frederick William, Herzog von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel-Oels (Duke of Brunswick), leads his forces in the action at 'The Crossroads'.
Frederick William, Herzog von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel-Oels (Duke of Brunswick), leads his forces in the action at ‘The Crossroads’.

Today we played a Lasalle ‘Big Battle’ with over a Division of troops a side and had a very successful game – our first true large game with Lasalle. The scenario was based on “The Crossroads” from C. S. Grant’s “Programmed Wargames Scenarios” (Wargames Research Group Publications 1983 – Pages 79-81) modified to suit Lasalle (most especially the game turn limit and our forces). Both Cam and I did the mad panic thing during the preceding week getting extra troops and such either painted and/or based for our ‘big bash’ which allowed us to field 31 Infantry Battalions (14 French & 17 Allied)  supported by 4 Batteries (2 each) and 5 Cavalry Regiments (3 small Allied and 2 large French – we had more cavalry available but did not deploy them to avoid a too ‘cavalry heavy’ game.

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Picton Holds On The Chaussée de Charleroi

Picton's Troops Advance...
Picton's Troops Advance...

Having taken rather a beating the last two days, Picton’s division had spent the day retiring North towards Brussels and collecting stragglers, looking to join up with the balance of the Anglo-Dutch-Belgian-Brunswick-Nassau forces heading South and East towards them. Picton had received instructions from Wellington to ensure he delayed the French sufficiently to allow such a concentration of forces – and to that end Picton deployed on the fourth day to again offer battle to the pursuing 6th French Division of General de Division Prince Jérôme Bonaparte.

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The Hundred Days Continues…

The 1/32nd (Cornwall) Foot in action.
The 1/32nd (Cornwall) Foot in action.

It had been a tough 2 days – having taken a heavy knock from the advanced elements of Napoleon’s invasion force (Lasalle in the Hundred Days), the elements of Picton’s Division involved had withdrawn, thankful for their temporary superiority in light cavalry, and gradually collected the stragglers and remnants of their regiments to be reconstituted as fair fighting forces again, albeit in reduced numbers… The 42nd Royal Highlanders had been detached to rejoin 9th Brigade on flank guard duty, but the latter had sent the 3/1st Royal Scots in their place – Picton was glad for the fresh, as yet uncommitted battalion. The Duke had sent word of his intent to now try and rally the Anglo-Dutch forces at a position to Picton’s rear, but that Picton must hold his position for a day to allow them time to assemble – so Picton found himself staring at what must be the most desolate part of the Southern Netherlands (i.e. Belgium), scanning the horizon for sign of the French…

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