Monday 11 March 2019

On the painting bench this week are .......

... another 40mm British Peninsular command set, and more 15mm ECW horse for Steve the Wargamer. I fancied painting some of the ECW's and a reciprocal arrangement was reached involving beer! Only 16 mounted figures, 8 are done with 8 undercoated for this week. I'll leave it to Steve to show them in full on his blog once they arrive back home, but here is a quick sneak preview, an absolute joy to paint.

Early stages yet.




These 40mm's are the last of my stock of figures,( well I do have numerous Highlanders but have no plans for them as yet as I already have the 92nd,) so it's time to stock up, Andy is holding more for me. I spent an enjoyable hour or so last night working on these 4 whilst listening to The Napoleon Bonaparte Podcast, number 19 'The Peninsular War - part 1'. I was introduced to these several years ago by 'Foy' and they greatly enhanced my understanding of the Napoleonic Wars so I plan to go back through them once again whilst painting. The episodes relating to the Russian Campaign of 1812 were particularly good I recall.

I'm still trying to work out how best I can use my 40mm's on the tabletop without having to deploy a huge table and tons of terrain. Recently I came across the DBN rules (see below), and the more I learn about them the more I think they could work. A 6 x 4 table with all units on standard 120mm frontages (12 foot, 4 cavalry, 1 gun and crew), would be very practical I think, no  re-basing, just sabots to test this out. I really like the way they play, very simple but that suits me. Rather than me trying to describe how these rules work a good introduction is this 12 point battle in 15mm scale, victory goes to the player who destroys 5 enemy units and they play with just a single D6 per player. I'm giving this serious consideration.


6 comments:

  1. Stunning!! :o)

    I'm intrigued by DBN as well - I follow this chaps blog and he has some great battle reports...

    http://mrfarrow2udba1519k.blogspot.com/

    I would also recommend the "One Hour Wargame" rules as well - they are stupidly simple but eminently "tinker'able".. I also like his simple random force generator...

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    1. Cheers Steve for the link, the more I read the more I like DBN. I do have a copy of the OHW book and have read the rules, I think DBN could work well with the OHW scenarios and the random force generator.

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  2. Thanks for the DBN video link, watched it all and really enjoyed it.

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    1. Hi Norm, I have watched that a couple of times and also the 24 point Peninsular battle. They have really caught my attention, I especially like the CAP activation roll and the simple 1 dice combat resolution, the games seem to move at a cracking pace. What is more I can see how it can be made to work with my big figures on standard 120mm frontages. I thought the concept of battles fought on a small board would appeal to you Norm, in my case I think I could make it work on a standard 6 x 4 table which is manageable to me as I really do not want to go any bigger.

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  3. Lovely ECW cavalry! I'd second OHW I've tried it and thought while simple it was actually quite elegant and nuanced and gave a good game,certainly worth a try if you've already got it!
    Best Iain

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  4. Cheers Iain. I think I finally have something in mind that will allow me to use my 40mm Napoleonics, small games on a modest size table, no grid, OHW scenarios. More to follow.

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