Reorganising my 6mm Napoleonics for Blucher

The publication of Sam Mustafa's Blücher sent me sorting through my old boxes of Heroics 6mm Napoleonics which I first started accumulating in, I think, the early 80s.

The core of the collection are Austrians for Aspern-Essling 1809, all historically organised in 18-figure battalions. The rest are a more miscellaneous collection of Austrians and French bought off eBay and rather horribly flocked IMO. The Austrian uniforms are not quite in period with my original figures and the French infantry seem to have rather a jumble of uniforms on each base, but I'm past seeing that level of detail and past caring about that level of accuracy.

Crossfire at Cavalier AARs

The calm before the storm

Cavalier is one of Britain's smaller shows, but well worth attending. It is supported by some major traders, and, falling in February, is the first show of the year for many in South-East England. Tonbridge Wargames Club ran my 'Crossfiregrad' scenario as a participation game. They have been keen Crossfire players for many years and helped to tweak the scenario. Although the toys were mine, getting the game developed and presented was very much a collective effort, so thanks to everyone for their efforts both on the day and leading up to it.

Crossfire at Cavalier

Tonbridge Wargames Club is staging my 'Crossfiregrad' game as a participation game at Cavalier this Sunday. If you're a reader of this blog, please come over and say hello, and if you're a Crossfire enthusiast or would like to give it a try, please volunteer for a game!

Here are the posters we will be using on the stand:

Galleys & Galleons: Chinese pirate junks

A flotilla of Chinese pirate junks from Grumpy's Miniatures has now joined my collection of ships for Galleys & Galleons. They are 1/300 but easily converted to 1/450  by replacing the crew and guns with Peter Pig  ones.

In the heading picture the original crew have been chopped off with GW Cutters and a chisel-shaped X-acto scalpel. I also once again replaced the masts with pins. It seems to be more difficult to superglue the sails to pins than to the original masts, but they should be more robust in the longer term. I'd rather restick a sail than be confronted with a bent or broken mast.

My introduction to Command & Colours

The first scenario from Command & Colours Napoleonics

Despite my enthusiasm for wargaming with hexes and blocks, I played my first couple of games of Command & Colours Ancients only last year, although I had previously played a couple of games of BattleCry, the ACW variant of the system.

As the game system has been out for some time and most readers are probably more familiar with it than I am, I won't attempt a comprehensive review, but I would like to share a few points in its favour for the benefit of anyone who hasn't played it. One's first impressions of a game are always improved by winning. I did win both games, though my opponent inevitably attributed this to lucky dice throws rather than tactical genius!

Galleys & Galleons: Waterlining the Pirateology xebecs

'Waterlining' the three Pirateology xebecs was an unavoidable challenge but not one I was looking forward to.

Owing to the relatively delicate and finished nature of the model, I could hardly put it in a vice, but had to handhold it. Luckily it was possible to rest the model on its stern and this provided a reasonably stable anchor point.

I made a nick in the bow with a pair of GW clippers and then attacked the model with a fretsaw. The hull is partially hollow, but there's a lot of thick plastic to get through.