Lazun's Legion Hussars

These figures that were painted by my uncle are the showpiece of the my French AWI figures - he really did a wonderful job on these. The hussars of Lazun's legion performed scouting and reconnaissance functions for the French forces on the march as well as seeing action at Gloucester Point during the Yorktown campaign (along side the marines I showed in my August 29th entry), mixing it up with Tarleton's legion (poorly mimiced as Tarringgon's cavalry if you watched Mel Gibson's The Patriot).

All of my cavalry are based on 3"x3" stands to accommodate the large figures. I use two figures on stands for skirmish formation cavalry and three figures for cavalry in formed order (line). Since the Lazun Legion Hussars routed Tarleton's cavalry in the action at Gloucester point, I based these figures using formed order, as skirmishers in Volley and Bayonet wouldn't be able to impose their will on other cavalry. I have some British dragoons that can pose as Tarleton's force in a pinch, but I hope to paint up a proper unit to represent his force in the future. Once I paint up a proper Tarleton force, I can put on the hypothetical alternative history Yorktown battle I've been thinking about.

Royal Deux-Ponts Infantry Regiment

This is another of the French Infantry units that I acquired, indirectly from my Uncle's collection. I believe this unit represents German soldiers in French service of the Royal Deux-Ponts Infantry regiment, which was French line regiment number 92, actually comprised of German soldiers raised by the duc de Deux-Ponts. These stands are comprised of only fusilier figures and would represent either the entire regiment, or just the four fusilier battalions of the regiment, depending on the scale of the battle they're used in.

According to Mollo's Uniforms of the American Revolution in Color, this regiment accounted for itself quite well at the battle of Yorktown, leading the storming party into the British fortifications.

This unit features a beautiful hand-painted flag and a very animated officer, which was painted with a very 'German' look to him, mustache and all! OK, I guess he looks very 'French' too.

Regiment de Viennois

This is the first of two French Line Infantry units that were painted by my Uncle. As I didn't paint these figures, most of what I know about them is purely a guess on my part. From what I can determine this unit can represent the Regiment de Viennois which was comprised at least partially of Chasseurs for which the uniform and facing colors seem to match nicely.

The flag is hand painted on lead foil, and closely resembles the flag of the Soissonois Infantry regiment, although the colors are slightly reversed. The Soissonois regiment also wore uniforms faced in red, although to the best of my knowledge they retained their bearskin caps throughout most of, if not all of their time in North America. Still in a pinch I wouldn't hesitate to press this unit into service as the Soissonois regiment.

I'm very impressed at these figures, which were painted about a decade ago by my uncle as they exceed anything I have painted myself. The amazing thing about this is my Uncle's technique and skill has continued to advance well past that shown on these figures while my own painting techniques have seemed to 'peaked'. I'm quite happy to have been able to get these units into my collection.

Enter the French

This is the first of hopefully four or five posts showing the French in my AWI figure collection. All of the French figures were painted by my uncle Ralph, who in addition to being a fantastic painter has also been a mentor to me in wargaming since he got me started the hobby. Ralph painted these figures over a decade ago and at some point decided he wasn't going to finish the army and he sold/traded/gave them to a mutual friend of ours. I obtained them from that friend in a trade for a large collection of 20mm ACW figures as I was switching scales to 15mm. Since I didn't buy or paint these figures, I'm unsure of their manufacturer.

This is a mounted French general, and a single stand of French Marines. The marines are based, as all my French infantry are, on linear bases, but with a more dense figure population than stands from all other countries. I did this to represent the fact that the French didn't adopt the loose 2-rank formations that the British, German and Americans did. I should have put them on deeper massed bases but this didn't look right. I'll still allow them all of the V&B factors for infantry Brigades, I just didn't like the look of the deeper bases.

The French marines fought in several skirmishes along side Lazun's Legion at Gloucester Point during the Yorktown campaign. Although they fought in smaller formations than this stand represents in some scales of V&B, I can use this stand at lower (Wing scale and lower) scales or I can use it at the higher scales to represent a unit of converged marines for 'what if' games. I actually have a good idea for an alternate Yorktown game that I'm planning on using them for in this role.

Mare Nostrum

Mare Nostrum was a one-day ancients campaign game run at our wargaming club this past weekend by our current president, Mike Coppinger. The rules were something he's modified from another similar game he and other club members have played in the past. The campaign was centered around the Mediterranean sea during the Punic Wars. We fought five rounds of tabletop games generated by the campaign rules using DBA to fight the battles.

The major factions were Rome, Carthage and the independent countries of Greece, Numidia, etc. I played using Helenistic Greek army. Although I began the campaign as an independent, I was enrolled as a Carthaginian ally to even up the number of players in each faction. Considering my performance, I think Carthage would have been better served with me as an enemy than an ally!

This was a great day of gaming with good friends. The day was definitely won by Rome, as all of the Roman players did very well, including the winner, Jason Bostwick who did a masterful job of pulling off his first win of the day against me, 4-3, sealing the coup-de-grace with a mutual destruction attack on one of my units using the proverbial 'buttocks of death' move which destroyed his and my units at the same time!

Mike Coppinger has provided some excellent photos of the games, players and scores on his Picasa site, including a good photo of the souvenir DBA ruler designed and sponsered by Michael Bailey (thanks Michael!). I'd like to thank Mike and everyone who participated for a great day of gaming!

For those who noticed I took some time off from my Wargaming blog, I apologize. I've been re-energized by a recent trip to Historicon and should have plenty to post in the upcoming months.

Volley & Bayonet: Road To Glory

Frank Chadwick has published Volley & Bayonet: Road to Glory, i.e. version two of his Volley & Bayonet rule set. I use V&B for all of my AWI games and like it very much. V&B Road to Glory looks like it will be a EXCELLENT revision of an already great rule set. The booklet is well illustrated and contains plenty of photos, diagrams, the well-indexed rule set and plenty of scenarios with orders of battles and maps.

Volley & Bayonet: Road to Glory can be ordered directly from the author at his website: Test of Battle Games I'll be sure to write up a short review of the new version of the rules after I get a chance to run a few AWI games using them.

Where have I been?

I'm sorry for not posting in a while. I've been wargaming, but my blog has been neglected. I'll return to posting photos of my AWI figures as soon as possible. Next up to show are some great French figures in my collection painted by my Uncle that have found their way into my collection through a mutual friend of ours.

Until then, here's a video of another one of my projects. A flying 1/48 scale P47d Thunderbolt. Weighs 4.5 grams (about the same as two paper clips):



More photos are available on my R/C page here: http://pease1.sr.unh.edu/aew/rc/classroom/P47d/

Carnage Convention '07

Here are photos of my Freeman's Farm game as I hosted it at the Carnage '07 Convention as part or the Northern Conspiracy's participation in the Centuries of Conflict, 18th century theme games. I didn't win any prized for beauty, as my convention games are built for portability and gaming enjoyment, but everyone had a great time.

This was a re-play of the test game I hosted last month at our club's game night. The game night game saw the British thoroughly demolishing the Americans in good order well before the German right flank even reached the table. In this re-fight, the Americans drew first blood and kept the pressure on the 'Thin Red Line' throughout the game returning the earlier damage in spades. This go-around was a complete American victory. I'll put this scenario down as 'wargame balanced'. Another one I can pull out knowing I've got the forces balanced just about right. One of the great things about Volley&Bayonet is that you can fight a battle of this size, with gamers new to the rules, in under 3 hours. We played this scenario to completion, at Carnage, with 3 people who hadn't ever played V&B before and finished the game in three hours. About an hour into the game everyone was running their own tables and playing the game pretty much un-assisted by the GM.

Congratulations and thanks are due to everyone who participated in the Centuries of Conflict, supporting this great continuation of our old Tricon Convention. Next year's theme will be 19th Century: Napoleonics, American Civil War and the like. For many more beautiful photos of the wargames from Carnage, please see the Northern Conspiracy events page for the convention.

Freeman's Farm Game

Here are some photos of a Volley & Bayonet game I hosted at the Northern Conspiracy this past month. The scenario was Freeman's Farm (First Saratoga) with a slight historical variation. Historically the General Gates committed precious few troops to the Freeman's farm battle to the dismay of Benedict Arnold. Of course we all know what happened later in October when the full American force was applied. This scenario features an order of battle that has Arnold getting his way, convincing Gates to commit a larger portion of the forces from Bemis Heights. The end result is a much more evenly matched wargame.










This refight saw the Americans have early success both in withstanding the initial British charges as well as giving the Brits plenty of trouble from musketry with the Americans even knocking the British grenadiers out of commision early in the fight. These early successes were not long lived as eventually the American's luck turned and the British had their way with the Americans in the center of the line.










American reinforcements late in the battle were too little, too late and couldn't turn the tide before the Brunswick reinforcements decended on the American right flank. All in all it was a well fought battle by the players on both sides and a fun game to host! This game was a play test of the same game which I will be hosting next month at Carnage 10. More photos of this and other games that were hosted at the game day can be found on the Northern Conspiracy web page gallery for the October game day.

American 'Minuteman' Militia

With the summer winding down, wargaming season is just starting to get into full gear. Although my wargaming club games all year long, with my other hobby being flying R/C airplanes, my primary season for painting figures and gaming is fall-spring. Coming up over the next six weeks I'm going to be hosting a Monmouth Courthouse game at our club game day in October and the battle of Freeman's Farm at Carnage 10 in November. With both of those games to motivate me, who knows? I might actually get the unit of British line I have on my painting table finished up and posted here instead of posting more of my previously-completed units!

These stands are a couple of my American militia 'minutemen'. Living only an hour from the Concord and Lexington battlefield (Battle Road National Park) painting American militia is somewhat of a religion. These stands have that 'just run out of the house with what you had on' look to them. A small note about my face painting technique. In the close-up photos it looks quite overdone, almost cartoon-like, but on the tabletop the exagerated colorings really bring out the facial detail when the figured are viewed at arm's length. I have between 15 and 20 of stands such as these who pose as any or all American militia as needed. I will probably only post a few of them as they mostly have a similar style to them.