The game that never was.

The game that never was,or how an imaginary wargame,actually was just that. The last few months I have deviated from continuing with my SYW project to paint up units from a place created by my imagination,actually following in the footsteps of Charles Grant as it were.
The intention was to be able to participate in a weekend game organised by Henry Hyde,editor of Battlegames.
I do like Battlegames,and have briefly spoken to Henry Hyde once,several years ago,he seems a fairly decent type of person if you can form such an opinion from his editorials.Anyway I thought I had enrolled [if thats the word] in the weekend several months ago,and offered up a sizeable force to fight.
 The game is due at the end of April,and after a few feverish telephone calls,I was kindly offered a shared billet at a pub near the hall where the game is to be played.
All well and good,until I received notice the list of participants was closed.

Huge disappointment,to that news,and a fair amount of bemusement as I thought I was sorted for the game.[ I was bemused by the terse yet hysterical e mail I received] Anyway I thought I would post some of the stuff that I had completed just to cheer myself up.Hopefully it wont put me off building on what I have already completed.
I opted for purple,yellow and blue as my ducal colours,and thought a combination of French flags dotted with the odd colour mixture would look eyecatching. Trying to find something positve to say after the let down, I think this will focus my attention on my Hanoverians.



Hanoverian Horse Grenadiers

 Well I finally finished my Garde Grenadier half regiment. In our 'Nostalgic Whim SYW Rules' 24 figures make up a regiment of horse,but the Hanoverian regiments were small,so these are a 12 figure regiment. I will add the horse element at a later date to make it up to a full regiment.  I do like this unit,which will no doubt jinx it for its entire wargaming life. My last favourite unit, was a full brigade of Young Garde Tirailleurs,who managed to always either rout,or just plain runaway before they have a chance to do anything. I try not to curse my troops too much,but sometimes you imbibe imaginary status on what turns out to be a completely naff unit. Bring on the peasants I say.

 My imaginary! units move on a pace,with a battery of guns nearly finished,and the garde lancers underway. I have decided to go to the imaginary SYW weekend at the end of April so I am attempting to pad out my contingent as quickly as possible. When I say imaginary weekend it does actually exists, put I cant think of another name for an excuse to turn up with make believe,operatic uniformed units and hopefully socialise with likeminded people. 

 On another note, I have just completed re reading Charles Wesencraft's 'PRACTICAL WARGAMING',

 and again I came away thinking Charlie was vastly underated as one of the driving forces of wargaming. His ideas were well before their times and are still very relevant in todays climes.

 Charlie is 83 this year [I think] and I still bump in to him at North Eastern shows, but whenever I bring up about his contribution to wargaming,he just doesnt get it.

 I have been lucky to game with him twice,once when John and I put on a refight of Blenheim,which featured in the Practical Wargamer and then in a refight of Borodino. Both times he was a tough bugger to game against, but he did have a cracking sense of humour. 

Anyway onwards and upwards, next my ducal wagon train with artillery attached.

Ducal String Quartet

Well, the painting continues anon, with my version of Eurekas string quartet, painted in the ducal colours of deep yellow and purple. The figures were a pig to fix to the chairs, but were still a nice figure to paint,so cant really complain to much.

 I took receipt of a small number of painted Spencer Smith cavalry this weekend, I had forgotton how simplistic these figures are, with very little detail etc to paint. I have attempted to touch them up a bit but they are still not very good,and certainly not a patch on my RSM figures, but its all a matter of personal taste, and if they were good enough for Charles Grant then who am I to gripe about them.

I have nearly finished my batallion of Garde Grenadiers  [ I think I will use the French spelling from now on] again in deep yellow, they dont look too bad all things considering.

 I intend to maintain some discipline and alternate between one batallion of Hanoverians and one from my new side project, well thats the theory anyway.
 As stated previously I have been attempting to collect an Old School wargamer library and have been attempting to obtain copies of a lot of the books that set me on my way in the wargaming world. I think it may be of interest if I downloaded bits from some of these books. I still find a lot of the stuff relevant, even if we have moved on as regards to the availability of figures etc. But even there I still find, Hinchliffe, Willie, Rsm and Warrior of a decent standard compared to modern figure designers, even the Perrys and Eureka.

Now for something completely different

I have stated before that I tend to jump about a bit and seem to have a bit of a low attention span. Well  I have been greatly inspired by the blogs etc of people with imaginary nations, and lets be right Charles Grant, Robert louis Stevenson and H. G. Wells,all created such nations.

 So I have been painting up my ducal guard lancers and ducal guard grenadiers. Why is it that wargamers tend to start with guard units? I had a few spare RSM Russian units [if there is such a thing] and decided to model the army around the basic colour of deep yellow. I have always been interested in the historical figure Augustus the Strong of Saxony and Poland [ what a name!] and decided that the duke of my nation/state would be one of the many illegitmate children that he fathered. The army will be a combination of east meets west, hence the eastern guard lancers.

I was inspired, after I had seen this RSM figure in the excellent  LEAD GARDEN blog, and had to have such a unit. So well done for the inspiration and help. I will have to include a jannisary type guard  [ again] unit to bring a bit more exocticism to the army.
  Again these are not the best painted unit Ive done, but I wanted a more toy soldier simplistic look.  I am also doing a ducal string quartet, curtesy of Eureka miniatures.

Finally RSM Hanoverians.

Well I have finally completed my first unit of RSM Hanoverians, ie Regiemnt Von Scleither.

 I tend to paint the flags oversize as I like to show off more colour on the wargames table. The figures themselves are slightly slimmer than the other nationalities, and had a bit more flash on them, still I do like the elegance of them, I think they typify the image of the lace war era.
 I will next paint a combined Hanoverian  grenadier unit, as there will be a right hodge podge of colour.
 These are probably not my best paint job, but I did enjoy painting them.

Hanoverians,

Well, its been quite a productive week for me, in that Ive managed to complete one full regiment of my Hanoverian line,and the half regiment of Guard Horse Grenadiers,and I have also started my unit of Garde Foot grenadiers for my imaginary principality. This is a bit of a first in some ways,although when I was first starting wargaming,I did paint a lot of French napoleonic Airfix as a make believe country.I remember that they had red crossbelts? Why the deviation? Well I have now read so many blogs, plus Charles Grant over again,that I had to deviate a little. I had some spare! Russian RSM figures [can you have such a thing] that I decided to give it a go.

I must admit it has been quite liberating.

Things might get a bit tight time wise for my painting,as we finally break ground on Monday,to start building my home. I have tried to put the design of my wargames room to the back of my mind,well just until we have at least a shell. But I must admit it is a tad exciting, I just hope the builders have plenty of spare foamboard off cuts for my new terrain

Still Plugging Away.

I have always suffered from a low attention span, which can be a bit disconcerting at times. and no doubt if I was a youngster again, I would have been whipped off to some child physcologist and identified as needing help.

 Anyway, in between attempting to complete my latest battalion of Hanoverians, I had to divert precious time to this Eureka set, Frederick and Voltaire.

 Eureka,just seem to go from strength to strength, designwise. I only wish that they just weren't so damned expensive, as I would have treated myself to some more additions to my metal mountain,which at this moment is bigger than the EU's butter mountain.

 The subject itself is not really my cup of tea,as I find Frederick a nasty piece of work, but the devil looks after his own, Still I can always hope that Eureka design a nice set for Maria Theresa.  

 On another diverse note, Colin staged a refight of the same scenario from the AWI that had caused us rule problems last time. This time we refought it using Blackpowder rules. It was a huge improvement and flowed well as a game. The thing I do like about Blackpowder is the uncertainity about whether youre brigades are actually going to do want you want them to do. Represnting the Americans this time, needless to say I had a few problems. Still very enjoyable and good fun.