The Battle of La Rothière

It's high time I posted a few pictures of some of the amazing vintage Napoleonics that I saw during my recent travels overseas.

Part of my trip was spent visiting friends and family in the UK. They live all over the country these days, so I hired a car and took to the road. As a certain Roy B (aka Lewisgunner) was on my route, I asked him if he would like to have a visitor and to my very great delight he not only said yes but also invited me to take part in the most spectacular Hinton Hunt war game.

The two sides were the French, commanded by Ian (Stryker) S, with me as his 2IC in charge of the right; and the Coalition, with Roy and Stuart C commanding an enormous force of Russians, Austrians and Bavarians. The fight was to be the Battle La Rothière of 1 February 1814, one of the opening battles of the Campaign de France.

It was an inauspicious start to the campaign. The strategic situation was that Napoleon, with a relatively weak force, had blundered into an army of Austrians, Bavarians and Russians of over twice the size. Napoleon's overconfident advance thus became a desperate defence in which simply securing time to organise an orderly retreat became his main the objective.

I took zillions of photos, but they really didn't do proper justice to Roy's stunning collection.

Setting up. I rather foolishly deployed my battalions into straight lines,
 They looked lovely, but made the perfect target for...

Stuart's massive  grand battery on the hill directly opposite.

Ian, meanwhile, prepared for a defence in depth on the extreme left flank.

The mighty massed ranks of Russians and Austrians in the Coalition
centre prepared to advance

While on their right, facing Ian, marched the Bavarians

Realising my mistake, I awkwardly tried to redeploy towards the centre,
 being raked by Stuart's guns all the while.

It was left to the cavalry to defend the flank. Thus began a swirling cavalry battle,
 beginning with the heavies...

....and finishing with the lights, where thanks to a run of
ridiculously favourable dice throws...

....the French prevailed. The hussars even managed to win the first round
against a Russian square. However, the didn't stick around for a second go...

....and nor did the Carabiniers, who foolishly charged Stuart's guns
and were utterly wiped out!

Meanwhile, the Coalition centre steadily advanced....

...meeting stiff resistance in the fields....

....and on the edges of the town.

on the left, however, came disaster, as Roy's cavalry burst on to Ian's right flank!

After a final desperate charge against the Austrian hordes,
 the French conceded and quit the field!

Not content with providing this wonderful entertainment, Roy and his wife also put me up for the night and fed me like a king. Lovely food, witty and agreeable company, the whole visit was simply glorious. I was at a loss to adequately convey my thanks. I was very touched to be so warmly and generously welcomed.

A special thanks is also due to Stuart C. As I really didn't have a clue how to play Ian's rules, it was Stuart who did all the hard work, He also allowed me to carry out any number of very questionable manoeuvres. This unfailing gallantry, I'm sorry to say, was cruelly rewarded by a seemingly endless run of rotten dice throws. Without these three forms of assistance I think I'd have been utterly crushed by about the 4th turn.

Also on my trip were visits to Ian, Tony and Steve C, of which more in my next few posts.

Best regards to all

WM

Plans and Schemes

As the Bavarians are now on their bases, I've taken a few more shots of them going through their paces.

General Qui-est-il (also now based, but still without a name) is in attendance. The windmill is by Dapol.

So, wither the Hinton Spieler in 2016? Well, things could be said to look either daunting or encouraging, depending on one's point of view.

On the encouraging side, I've painted nine battalions, four squadrons and two batteries since September 2014, which works out as just under a unit per month.

On the daunting side, I doubt I'll be able to keep producing units at this rate during 2016. Apart from anything else, I'll be travelling overseas for part of the year, and when I'm at home there's a certain amount of deferred household maintenance to attend to!

The key thing, of course, is not to worry too much about the rate at which I can churn out new regiments, but to come up with some sort of plan. In 2016 this is to complete (in no particular order):

1. one additional squadron each for the Prussian Garde du Corps and Leib Hussars;

2. two more batteries of artillery (one French and one Prussian);

3. a French skirmisher battalion;

4. a Prussian close-order battalion;

5. four squadrons (two light and two heavy) of French cavalry; and

6. a basic wargames table and terrain.

The result will be two evenly-matched starter armies of five battalions, four squadrons and two batteries each; and the completion of Phase One of this project.


I'm not really daring to think about Phase Two yet.

WM

The Boys from Bavaria

The 4th Line on Parade

It's nearly ten o'clock on Christmas Eve. Wellington Girl has gone to bed, the Christmas deserts and gratin dauphinois are in the fridge, and the 4th Line Infantry are all but complete! A very productive day all round.

Impossible Bavarian Flag Number Two was indeed rather tricky as it took me quite a while to work out how to offset the lozenges in a sufficiently psychedelic fashion. However, it was definitely worth the effort, not least because it helps to hide some of the imperfections of flag number one!

Merry Christmas to everyone from Wellington.

WM

Bavarian Variations

Steve has sent me some wonderful photos of a Bavarian unit he completed a few years ago. Included among them were absolutely stunning drummer, standard bearer and (best of all!) pioneer conversions.

Steve's solution to the helmet-plumes-where-none-should-be problem was to remove them.

The main reason I haven't also removed the plumes on the Bavarian battalion I'm working on is that I was too afraid I'd make a mess of it!

I suspect there are several schools of thought on this issue of conversions. To what extent should figures be modified? Converting or modifying figures is a tradition as old as wargaming. However, in changing the figures we also lose some of their original meaning and all sorts of other information about the designer, manufacturer and the era in which they were made. On the other hand, information about the person who converted the figure is added. It's something I think about every time I do one of my own conversions.

Comments most welcome!

WM

Bavarian Blues 2

The 4th form up.

I really wasn't planning to do any more Bavarians at the moment, but having started them I just couldn't resist. The result is two companies of the 4th Line Infantry Regiment, with two more companies on the way.

The figures are:

1 x Hinton Hunt BVN 1: Bavarian infantry officer, charging;
8 x Hinton Hunt BVN 4: Bavarian infantry private, charging;
2 x Der Kriegspielers DK 174: Bavarian Infantry, at the ready (converted); and

last, but not least, a conversion of Der Kriegspielers DK 7: French Infantry Command 1809, drummer.

Drumming up the new recruits.

Er...a few too many sausages, perhaps?

Impossible Bavarian flag  number 2 is still in production.

An interesting feature of the BVN 4 figures is that a few of them are a bit ....er...wider than the others. Something went a bit wonky during casting, I suspect. However, they line up with their slimmer brethren well enough.

I'm a bit stumped about what colour to paint the helmet plumes. All of Marcus Hinton's Bavarian line infantry have them, despite the fact that it was only the the grenadier and chasseur companies that actually wore them. The plumes, therefore, should either be red or green. However, I wanted to represent fusilier companies in the centre of my battalion, so I painted them white. Transgressive, isn't it...!

The rest of the battalion should be appearing at some point during Christmas, I hope.

Auf wiedersehen,

WM

Bavarian Blues

I'm going to be busy with other things over the next few days, so this week's post is a few days early.

My commission is still not complete, and the reason for it is not totally unrelated to this chap.

The sad truth of it is that I've been captured by a horde of Bavarians. As they're going to require rather a lot of flags, I thought I'd better better find out whether trying to paint my own was going to be feasible. I should, perhaps, have found this out before succumbing to them.

So here is my first attempt. The figure is a Der Kriegspielers DK 174: Bavarian Line Infantry, at the Ready. I chose him because his musket was broken off at the hand and thus the prospect of removing the rest of it would be altogether less traumatic. I don't think I'd really have the nerve to hack into a perfectly serviceable figure.

I think there's definitely room for improvement!

I promise that there will be no more mucking about until I've completed the commission.

WM