Zouaves and Mexican Militia

Almost there now with the Zouaves and Mexican Militia.

All Perrys but the Officer is Argentinian from the Triple Alliance range. Pretty pleased with these.

Last three painted, all Perry's the Standard bearer is from the Bombay Infantry in Victoria's little wars range. Can start thinking about basing these up now. Flag is from Flags of War.

Also this week the first of the 1898 miniatures via Empress.

These are Phillipine Militia figures, whilst the style is quite different and I dont think I quite got the best from them they should mix in quite well as part of a Militia command group.

Six more to complete command bases for Mexican Republicans.

The Officer is a Perry Egyptian with head swap and I particularly like him, 3d printed Wargames Atlantic trooper and Perry Triple Alliance Standard bearer.

Again here a 3d printed Wargames Atlantic musketeer supported by officer and standard bearer from Perry Triple Alliance range.

Last of the Militia with Firearms, a mix of 3d prints and metal Foundry Peons and a Sikh swordsman that was sat around waiting to be finished, just because.......

6 more with machete and all the irregular figures I have will be complete. Oddly that gives me 5 battalions and a base over with two battalions having no command bases so I may decide to add those command bases and a small number more peons to get to 6 battalions.

Lastly a bunch of 1898 miniatures, these are Phillipino insurgents but paint up nicely with the odd head swap as Peons.

That should get me finished with the first 5 units of Mexican Militia. I may stretch that to six lets see.

Thanks for stopping by.

The Dark Age Falais Gap

This is how the game was described to me, although I have to be honest I dont know the actual battle it was based on.

Chris had threated to put on a Barbarians vs Romans game for a little while so I was looking for to this. The game had been played just a few days before by a different larger group, so the terrain was the same but the forces slightly smaller.

Rich Croisdale and I would be Romans defending a gap in steep escarpment, Andy, Chris Charlton and Steve would be Barbarians trying to break through.

The escarpment could only be accessed by light troops so the main fighting would be in the relatively small gap, the Barbarians needed to break though our lines, we needed to stop them. Simples!

Chris's collection is fantastic and you can tell I enjoyed this by the lack of photos, I was too busy battling!

We deployed all our heavy and medium infantry in the middle with a smattering of medium cavalry on the edges and most of our skirmishers on each ridge to keep the sneaky barbarians off our flanks.

We were not keen to give the Barbarians all the advantages of deployment, so, although we deployed first, we kept a division of our best troops off table to try have a strategic reserve to deploy where it could do most damage.

Not surprisingly the Germans deployed their heavy stuff in the middle to try pucnh through our lines under Steve, Mike had their right with a mix of tribal infantry and light cavalry, whilst Any had a horde of light and medium cavalry on their left, with the lights on the extreme left where they could try and swarm my branch of the ridge and the mediums nearer the middle where they could cover his flank from my medium horse.

A sound strategy.

After a couple of moves we were soon to grips in the middle with blocks of spearmen pushing and stabbing at each other and honours fairly even.

However this is where our strategic reserve came in, pushing the medium and heavy cavalry out to attack Andy's lights and replacing them with our off table  good quality Cataphracts and horse archers allowed us to pick on inferior quality troops, a couple of bad movement throws by Andy allowed me to get my troops into position to both block the ridge from him and then launch charges into the light cavalry.

My heavy cavalry made short work of Andy's medium and lights to break through and start to roll up the flank of the Germanic horde.

My right flank mediums eventually destroyed Andys lights, helped by some particularly spectacular dice throwing, spectacularly bad from Andy and on occasion spectacularly good from me. Unusual and very welcome I have to say.

Steves heavy and medium cavalry in the centre gave Rich some real headaches and almost broke through but he was able to hold....just.

Andy mustered two units of medium cavalry to challenge my Cataphracts, it was not nearly enough and the mediums were brushed aside.

The centre had just about held and both flanks were secure, on our right flank my cavalry had all but destroyed Andy's and was now well into the flank and even the rear of the Germanic foot. The day had gone to the Romans.

A fabulous game perhaps enjoyed by Andy ever so slightly less than me, sorry Andy!

Thanks to our host Chris Flowers and the rest of the gamers, great day all around.

Transylvania and Romania

 We just got back from a fabulous break in Romania, in particular the province of Transylvania.

I thought I might share the photos that Wargamers might find useful so here is a bit of a photo dump with the odd bit of narrative.

First of all Bram Castle.

Mrs C very disappointed as she expected a huge gothic palace out of the Dracula movies but for me it was a lovely fortress.

Vlad himself adorned one room, I was much more impressed with the reconstruction of the fabric of the Castle.

My impression is that almost all the forts and Castle had plastered and painted walls rather than exposed stonework.

This view might be more familiar from the outside.

Viscri, a "Saxon" village or small town with its own fortified Church.

My uploading is a bit haywire so two shot of Fagaras fort, newly renovated have crept into Viscris.

Back to Viscris.

Fagaras with a big old moat, draw bridge and scarp.

And Viscri again.

Most of the Transylvanian churches are fortified to a greater or lesser extent, this one is particularly nice. Each neighbour hood being responsible for its own tower mirroring the larger cities where each workers guild was responsible for a tower or gateway.

Sighisoura, the Old town with its walls and Germanic buildings around a town square was lovely, the feeling that you could be almost anywhere in Germany, Austria or Czech republic was strong.

Each tower was manned and managed by one of the local city guilds, so the Drapers may have one tower and the copper workers another.

Folk Museum outside Sibiu, this was a number of groups of rural village buildings across a couple of miles of countryside and gives a really nice idea of rural buildings in Eastern Europe for those historical battlefield.

So their you go a whistle stop tour of Romanian architecture, hopefully of use to someone. Beautiful country and well worth a visit.

Thanks for stopping by.