Ottoman Janissaries in Egypt 1798

Club night tonight and as usual players are lining up to have a crack at the Ottoman Turks. However I have been busy over the Easter break and have completed my first unit of Janissaries to bolster the Ottoman Egyptian forces.

The figures are from the Assault Group Renaissance range, I have copied the uniform details from Charles Grant's Napoleon's Campaign in Egypt. The plate describes the uniform of a standard bearer, based upon from the information of Colonel Elting.

The figures from TAG are perhaps a little to early and in future units I might consider removing the plumes, but these will serve as an elite unit and bolster my foot forces which is largely made up of what is called in polite circles rabble.

 

 

You can read about how they perform in the coming days, over at the newly launched Wyvern Wargmers shiny new website, formerly the Evesham Wargames club, we have been going through a make over recently to grow our club membership.

You can find us at our new home.

www.wyvernwargamers.org.uk

All feed back welcome, drop in and say hello.

Platoon Forward for Napoleonics

Joe Legan wrote the excellent Platoon Forward which is a character based campaign system that allows you to add and extra layer of personality to WW2 skirmish gaming.

As soon as I had read the introduction I knew it could be used in a number of other periods, Colonial through to Horse and Musket.

Very often our Skirmish games had been stale encounters with little context of the wider campaign, players would through their troops against impossible odds because it was the last turn of the game.

Platoon Forward has changed that, our lead heroes have some depth they react differently based on their character traits, perhaps the biggest changing to our skirmish gaming is the use of the scenario generation rules and the incorporation of enemy blinds, common through out all of the Too Fat Lardies Rule sets. You never quite know what you will be facing or how many.

We have adapted the Platoon Forward tables for our Zulu War games through to the current encounters set in the age of Napoleon.

Our inhouse adaptions can be found below.

Type A Blinds

Type A Blind
D10	Battle	Patrol
1 - 4	As per Platoon Forward	As per Platoon Forward
5	Infantry Section (1,2 Militia, 3-6 Regular)	As per Platoon Forward
6	As per Platoon Forward	As per Platoon Forward
7 - 8	Infantry Section (1,2 Militia, 3-6 Regular)	Infantry Section (1,2 Militia, 3-6 Regular)
9 - 10	D6. 1 – 5 Infantry Squad (1,2 Militia, 3-6 Regular) and Platoon Leader, 6 Artillery Piece.	Infantry Section (1,2 Militia, 3-6 Regular) plus Platoon Leader

Type B Blinds

Type B Blind
D10	Battle	Patrol
1 - 3	As per Platoon Forward	As per Platoon Forward
4	As per Platoon Forward	As per Platoon Forward
5	Cavalry Section	As per Platoon Forward
6 – 7	Cavalry Section	Regular Musket Section.
8	Artillery Piece.	Cavalry Section
9	2 Cavalry Sections plus Platoon Leader or Artillery Piece plus Platoon Leader.	Cavalry Section
10	2 Cavalry Sections plus Platoon Leader or Artillery Piece plus Platoon Leader.	Cavalry Section

Type C Blinds

Type C Blind
D10	Battle	Patrol
1 - 4	As per Platoon Forward	As per Platoon Forward
5	Artillery Piece.	As per Platoon Forward
6	Cavalry Section or General Staff	2 Cavalry Sections plus Platoon Leader or Artillery Piece plus Platoon Leader.
7 – 8	Artillery Piece.	Regular Musket Section.
9 - 10	2 Cavalry Sections plus Platoon Leader	Cavalry Section

When generating Friendly supports the following should be replaced.
Artillery replace with Cavalry.
Armour replace with Field Artillery.
Light Support replace with Skirmish Section
Engineers replace with Veteran or Guard Section
Anti-Tank Gun Replace with Field Artillery.

Platoon Forward is a fantastic system that presents club players or the solo player with a hidden enemy that can change from game to game. Running in at £7.00 it has given us one of the best returns in a rule set for a long while.

Renaissance Imperial Spanish Infantry.

With a hobby like our's it sometimes difficult to decide what comes first in terms of inspiration?

In this case it was definately the look of shiny metal.  

The past few weeks have been spent reading up on the Spanish Armada and the campaigns of the Spanish in Flanders. Having just finished the last of Foundry's Swashbucklers, I thought I would turn my attention to the Spanish.

These could be used for Italy, The Netherlands, France, Ireland, Africa or the New World. 

I have some ideas on how I can pull all of this Renaissance stuff together and you can guarantee it will be a little off the beaten track.

As always comments welcome.

Pike & Shot & Zombie AAR

Sunday finally saw the role out of my first PS&Z game, I decided on using the starting scenario at the back of the rule book, but also liknk it to the previous encounter based upon the landing of the Armada.

The survivors are being pursued by Spanish forces when they reach a deserted village if the survivors are to have a chance of survival if they reach the ferry and cross the river.
The path that leads down to the river crossing, passes through a deserted village. Which has the stench of death about it. Who knows what the Pope has sent to this land to drive out our good Queen.

 

The Southern end of the Village

 

View from the Ferry and safety

Stephen Danes rules have some excellant mechanisms such as the firing rules which force players to decide between distance and impact, the incident cards give a great feel for the game as they pit the survivors against the undead hordes.

6 Survivors means 6 Arrival points, what is refreshing as the umpire is you decide where to place the Zombie arrival points to hinder the survivors.

Deployment
The survivor figures will begin the game at one end of the table (on the opposite side to the ferry). A small group of undead will be placed in a blocking position along the path, in a location where the survivors have line-of-sight.  I selected right in front of the village.

On with the game....

 

Turn one and the players appear to be an easy match for the sambling horde, although their pot shots appear to be having little impact on the bodies of the undead. What is a reassurance is that the Zombie movement is some what limited compared to the human survivors.
The players split and each head in separate routes each attempting to reach the ferry first.

  

William Cornish breaks through the hedge row and unearths the first burial ground, drawing 5 Zombies from the evil ground. He lets off a quick round and rounds for the West of the Village with the Zombies in tow.

To the East of the village Daniel Fanshaw a rich land owner from the Dover area, stubbles into the second arrival point, he is set upon by two zombies but fights them off. Without a scratch.

Ernisto Cortez a spaniard recently captured by the English by passes the arrival point as the zombies begin to mass as they breakground. But he is free and having no armour is able to out run the walking dead.

 

Mean while back in the West, William Cornish and John Miller are cornered faced with Zombies to their front and rear. They are able to shot several but the dead just keep on coming and the noise and smoke bring more zombies to their position.

 

Daniel Fanshaw and Ernisto Cortez rush down the main road, triggering two further arrival points, they evade the grabbing hands of the dead and head for the Jetty. The ferry is only fit for 4 of the survivors any more and the vessel might capsize.

 

Daniel Fanshaw holds his ground on the jetty as he stands ready to face the undead horde as the others hack at the rope attempting to free the vessel.

 

The ferry drifts to safety as the undead gather on the shore line, but what of Cornish and Miller?

Spartan Games - War of the Worlds?

Saw this announcement this morning from the guy's at Spartan games now it could be an April Fool, but it did spark me to revisit my War of Worlds collection. Many of the models peices have been in  hibernation for several years, but dusting off the storage boxes, it has pushed a number of unpainted items on to the paint table.......

They're Coming... 

Tripods from Black Hat Miniatures, Cylinder man from a tube of matchmakers.

 

"With the red weed taking hold the Martian's emerge."

 

 "The Thin Red line, faces a new foe"

 

"Bows and Arrows against the lightening"

I sense a club game coming on......