Yet more French infantry

The next unit is finished, and yes it's more French heavy infantry. This time I did something a bit different and gave them a nice blue livery!

The usual mix of figures. As well as Perry, Steel Fist and some of the private commissions, there is one sculpt from Eureka and a 3D print from Warsteel. Plastic, metal and resin all in one unit.

Building terrain boards - Part One

I've started work building a new set of terrain boards. My original ones, some of which you will have seen on the previous post's battle report, were a learning experience, and now I've got the space I want to have a better go at them. I was very happy with the flat, plain boards I made, but the 'feature' boards (some ditches and a few other things) didn't quite turn out how I wanted, but I've learned a lot from the process.

The new boards will have a heavier, sturdier construction, and be built better with some new tools to make the joins between them as seamless as possible, and to keep the dreading warping as close to non-existent as I can. I won't go into too much detail, but the new ones are on both thicker MDF (12mm rather than 9mm) and also thicker foam (25mm rather than 20mm).

Here's some quick pics of the first few I've done. As you can see, they are made of an MDF board with a wooden frame - the river boards will have foam of the same thickness inside the frame, with the rivers and such cut into them. The non-river boards will not need foam, and are turned upside down, so that the MDF is the top layer. The close-up pic of the two types of boards side by side should show exactly what I mean.

And here's the first river board with the foam glued down. The next stage will be to apply filler, to fill in all the gaps and sculpt the river banks.

I have used some 50mm square MDF bases to plan out the boards and try out different configurations. There will be four river boards (well, a small stream technically), which will also feature narrow pathways, and various other boards with different configurations of paths and roads, including a 'village board' of some sort. To avoid things looking too grid-like, the stream and paths don't all enter at the same point on each edge, to allow for more realistic looking shapes. This does mean that not every stream or path edge will be able to join up with every other one, but will still allow for loads of different configurations, as the six examples below should demonstrate.

There will be other boards planned as well, including a wider river to be a more serious obstacle, with a bridge to cross it... but one thing at a time.

I don't know if I will log my progress making these boards in too much detail, but I will at least post some updates with pics as they happen! The next update (sometime over the next month or two hopefully) will see the first boards textured and painted.

Troops on the table!

Today I got to send my figures to war at last in my new gaming garage, with my good friend Jamie.

We played out a fictional skirmish set in 1477, with the French occupation of the County of Burgundy and the subsequent rebellion led by certain members of the nobility. In this scenario, Simon de Quingey led a force of Burgundians and German mercenaries to intercept a larger French force under Gaston du Lyon - he had to hold out until Guillaume de Vaudrey arrived with reinforcements.

We played the game using my own homebrew set of rules, which went pretty smoothly I think.

I was able to take some photos during the game, and can give you a brief rundown of what happened. Perhaps in the future I can write up some more detailed battle reports. The photos came out really well, though I really need to hurry up and paint a backdrop so we don't have to see the garage walls!

Here's a pic of the game on turn one, with most of the French having just entered stage left. The Burgundians have taken up good defensive positions behind the fences and hedges, and are awaiting for de Vaudrey to arrive (he can be rolled for from turn 3 onwards). There's a clash of light cavalry about to happen on the left flank. There are also a few more French infantry units yet to enter the table, and they have a large heavy cavalry unit which can also be rolled for from turn 3 onwards. As it happens both sides reinforcements turned up very late in the game!

The Burgundians and Germans held their positions well under the leadership of Simon de Quingey. They had one artillery piece which managed to slow down and disorder the French infantry advance very effectively. The small cavalry clash went in their favour to begin with, but surprisingly the outnumbered French horsemen did manage to push back and drive off their opponents. When the first French unit reached the fences and attacked the German mercenaries it could have gone either way - they were outflanked by more Burgundian horsemen but held their ground, the cavalry retreating. They were then reinforced by a second group, but things went against them and they were routed, with Gaston du Lyon himself being taken out of action! The Germans had been badly shaken though, and both sides wondered where their reinforcements had got to.

Burgundians line the hedgerows

The artillery prepares to fire

The French infantry advance is disordered

The disorganised assault begins

Fierce fighting which could go either way...

Eventually de Vaudrey arrived on the Burgundian right flank with a large force of German pikemen. The French cavalry reserve entered the field opposite them at the same time. Rejuvenated by the new arrivals, most of the Burgundian line now surged forward into the open field. The French cavalry attempted a charge against the wall of pikes but were perhaps predictably driven back, and with too much of the infantry line having been broken or shaken, and their commander felled, things were turning against them and they quit the field. A narrow victory for Burgundy! 

The long-awaited reinforcements arrive

French cavalry hope to turn things in their favour...

The Burgundians and Germans surge forward to victory!

A new gaming space

Something I've been working on this year.... is a new gaming space. A wargames garage!

Still got some tidying up to do, but it's ready to host some games now. I hope to get the French and Burgundians on the tabletop sometime soon.

It can hold a 10x4ft table, which is about the right sort of size for the games I have planned. Shown here is just a 8x4 setup, you can see the space for two more terrain tiles.

The next big challenge is to see if I can get good quality photos of games in action. I plan to paint a backdrop to make things look prettier too.

I'm going to really get stuck into terrain building this winter. These terrain tiles are ones I built years ago, the first time I'd done it, so I was learning as I went.. They'll do for now, but I'm going to replace them with some better designs.

Another advantage to having a permanent setup is I can do lots of solo gaming to playtest my own homebrew rules. That's not something I've really been able to do before when it required moving furniture around in a small living room to just try out a game!

Back to the baggage train

Just a quick update. A while back I shared an image of a gun with a two-horse limber. Since then I've added traces made from twisted wire. I'm very pleased with how this turned out, both twisting the wire to make authentic looking rope, and how they've attached to the horse harness.

I've also made a similar two-horse wagon setup. Both of these are from the Perry Miniatures American War of Independence range, with the gun obviously replaced by a more suitable 15th century piece. Looking at 15th century manuscript art it seems wagon technology didn't really change much over the centuries, and the ones in the AWI range seem perfectly suitable for the medieval period. Interestingly there are lots of examples of wagons and limbered artillery in the Swiss Chronicles. I was keen to use these setups with two horses in tandem, as they will be much easier to paint than a full four-horse setup with them two abreast!