Pacific Theatre Reading List

Back in late March 2020 New Zealand went into it’s initial (ultimately 5-week) lockdown to stop the spread of the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of that lockdown I took the opportunity to try and catch up on some reading on the pacific theatre (as I have accumulated a reasonable collection of books and had read only a few) – this is the reading list I put together for April 2020…

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Waterloo 200th Anniversary (3)

Following on from our previous Wellington & Auckland refight posts, on Saturday 21 June a third Waterloo Re-fight happened in New Zealand – at the Christchurch Wargaming Club, in 28mm using General de Brigade rules rather than Blackpowder that had been used in the previous 28mm scale Waterloo refight in Wellington. Continue reading “Waterloo 200th Anniversary (3)”

Waterloo 200th Anniversary (2)

Continuing on from Waterloo 200th Anniversary (1) the second re-fight was staged by our own Auckland Wargaming Club, here in Auckland on the 21 June 2015. The game was played in 6mm scale using Sam Mustafa’s ‘Grand Armee’ rules to facilitate the more sweeping view of the battle and assist in reducing the workload of producing the troops for the battle (there were still over 5,000 figures, in 1/300th scale, painted especially for this refight by several of the club’s members). Continue reading “Waterloo 200th Anniversary (2)”

Waterloo 200th Anniversary (1)

The 18 June 2015 is the 200th Anniversary of Waterloo, the battle – that along with Wavre on the same day – saw the final defeat of Napoleon and ushered in the ’50 years of peace’. Here in New Zealand there’s a couple of historical refights taking place to commemorate the battle. First up in Wellington on Saturday & Sunday 13-14 June there was a large 28mm scale re-fight at the Wellesley Club, then following on from that there was another 28mm refight at the Christchurch Wargaming Club on Saturday & Sunday 20-21 June, and our own re-fight here in Auckland, at the Auckland Wargaming Club, in 6mm scale on Sunday 21 June. Continue reading “Waterloo 200th Anniversary (1)”

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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Building the Quatre Bras armies in 28mm

27th Dutch Jaeger Battalion
27th Dutch Jaeger Battalion

For a long time I had been musing over what to do about Napoleonics. However now I am back into Napoleonics full time in 28mm, re-enthused by the release of SHAKO II and possibly also LaSalle. I’ll be documenting here the assembly of my forces for Quatre Bras, along with gaming notes and more. Eventually I’ll be hoping to expand my forces to cover a portion of the Waterloo battlefield – Megalomania? What’s that!

It was my intent to include a SHAKO Order of Battle for the forces of both sides – but the new rulebook includes such an OOB in it! However I probably will be doing an expanded OOB at a later date to allow for the expansion of the battle beyond the critical stages as covered in the SHAKO II Scenario – allowing it to be played in a mini-campaign format, and to do ‘what ifs’ covering the possibility that Ney acted sooner and more vigorously…

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