Rebels and Patriots 1798 game: Capture the plans

This was a first outing for my part-painted 1798 Irish Rebellion forces. I improvised a variant of Scenario A: First Clash At Lament Ridge which I called Capture the Plans:

An informer has alerted Government forces that secret plans for a French invasion are buried under a cottage floor. Players gain 3 Honour if they are occupying the cottage with an infantry unit at game end. Game is at least 10 turns. Thereafter throw D6 at beginning of each turn. If D6 >= 4, that is the last turn. Use character traits for Captains. Deploy in 9" zones one unit at a time starting with the Defender. Attacker activates first in each game turn.

The scenery needed careful definition:

• The road is aesthetic only.

• The cottage is Hard Cover and cannot be targeted by long-range cannon fire. It is enterable only by the door and has a capacity of one foot unit. To enter a unit moves up to door with one move and takes another to go inside. Shooting only via long faces with a 45 degree arc of fire. Attacking only via the door side.

• Stone walls are Hard Cover but do not obscure LoS.

• Hedges are Cover and block LoS. Units next to them can see and be seen through them.

• The Wood is Cover. Units can see into or out of them but units outside them cannot see through them, i.e. they block LOS to units outside them.

I positioned the cottage nearer to the Rebel start line because I feared they would be shot to pieces. Things turned out rather differently.

The Companies were as follows:

UNITED IRISHMEN
12 Pike/Shot Line Infantry Aggressive Poor Shots Green 3
12 Pike/Shot Line Infantry Aggressive Poor Shots Green 3
12 Pike/Shot Line Infantry Aggressive Poor Shots Green 3
12 Pike/Shot Line Infantry Aggressive Poor Shots Green 3
12 Pike/Shot Line Infantry Aggressive Poor Shots Green 3
12 Pike/Shot Line Infantry Aggressive Poor Shots Green 3
6 Shelmaliers Skirmishers Sharpshooters 6
24

CROWN FORCES
12 Militia Line Infantry Green 3
12 Militia Line Infantry Green 3
6 Light Infantry Small 5
6 Grenadiers Shock Infantry Small 5
6 Yeomanry Light Cavalry 4
1 6pdr +4 crew Light Gun 4
24

I commanded the Government forces while Bernard and Chris took control of the United Irishmen. Sometimes it’s an advantage not to have a collective command, but in the event my combined opponents played much better than I did. The Rebel Captain was with one of the pike units. I placed mine with the Yeomanry.

Crown Forces: Line, Lights, Grenadiers, Gun, Line and Yeomen Cavalry. The cannon had little potential for fields of fire that would not be blocked by my own advance so I placed it on the road. Rebels: Pike-and-shot units as shown. Shelmaliers initially on road.

Very early in the game I suffered a friendly fire incident (double 1 on Activation) when my left-hand Line unit fired on my Lights inflicting a casualty (above). My opponents found this very amusing! Worse was to come...

The Rebel Sharpshooters took up position behind the wall next to the cottage. With a 24" range, and hitting on 4-6 they began an intimidating fire on my Grenadiers and Lights. Cotton-wool denotes a unit that has had its First Fire.

Galled by the Rebel sharpshooters I decided to move around the other side of the cottage. It would be a long way round but seemed the best option. On my right the Line unit lining the hedge began to take its toll of the Rebel unit lining the hedge directly opposite it.

The Light Infantry and Grenadiers, both weakened, moved into the shelter of the dead ground provided by the end wall of the cottage.

The cannon proved completely ineffective though this was partly due to forgetting that artillery reduces Hard Cover to Cover.

On seeing a friendly unit rout, the Rebel General's unit, which was occupying the objective, retreated out of it! Result! This would give the Rebels a draw rather than a win.

View from the flank. I was bringing quite a lot of fire to bear but it was a bit of a sideshow. The Rebel sharpshooters had also moved round to the flank.

Aware of the Rebel unit crossing the field to my right, I moved the gun up to the hedge to get a crack at it but the pikes charged me causing a rout! We were unsure how to resolve this. We decided to move the crew away leaving the gun in place. I'm not sure that is correct and have not been able to find any further explanation in the rules.

While the Rebel General's unit remained exposed outside the cottage I decided to commit the Yeomanry but they declined to charge three times despite being accompanied by the Captain.

Even more significantly, the Rebel Captain's unit reoccupied the cottage at which point I gave up though the game was almost over anyway and a clear win for Bernard and Chris.

I didn’t play at all well. I think the mixture of infantry, cavalry and artillery confused my options, the large amount of cover shielded the Rebels and prevented me from bringing my superior firepower to bear, and the Rebel sharpshooters were particularly decisive.

I lost the game but I was pleased with how the 1798 project looked and played. It captured period flavour and made the game sufficiently different  from other R&P games (AWI and ACW) to make the project worthwhile. I had feared the Rebels would be shot to pieces before closing but this didn't happen so indications are that the game is reasonably balanced. I had always wanted to do this war. Rampant games sizes made it possible.

Painting Pledge All of my current projects involve basing-before-painting and playing with unfinished figures, but I have pledged myself to do more painting before a given army puts in another public appearance. However, this is the first time these 1798 forces have been used so there is no additional painting to draw your attention to. I will be adding a 'Painting Pledge' note to all battle reports until figures are finished.

Washes and Shades 1

Some textured card used to test washes.

It's been a while since I last completed an army of 28mm figures using a wash technique so it was time to think it through again. I don't have any coloured inks or dedicated colour washes. I do have a lot of different acrylic paints so that is what I’m using.

I've previously washed figures using a simple mix of acrylic paint and water. This time I wanted to get more contrast, so decided to mix the solutions more carefully and to experiment with adding detergent (dish soap) to reduce water resistance and improve flow. Isopropyl has also been mentioned as an ingredient but as it's used to strip acrylic paint I think I'll give that a miss. Another trick I wanted to try was to wet each figure with water before applying the wash.

The figures I'm working on are my 28mm 1798 Irish Rebellion companies for Rebels and Patriots. I want the Government forces to look uniform but I want the Rebels to look '40 shades of grey-brown' so they are an ideal subject for experimentation without running the risk of ruining anything. I therefore started on the Rebels.

Most historical peasant clothing was dyed grey but faded to brown. Various browns, grey-browns and greys will therefore feature as my principal wash colours.

It's a long way down the line but I will also be altering my finishing process. The provisional plan is:

1. Spray gloss varnish.
2. Wash with an ink stain or shade.
3. [Highlight if necessary but hopefully not.]
4. Add PVA builders’ sand, talus, static grass and tufts.
5. Spray with Dullcote.
6. Add flags.

The gloss varnish will again help the final shade to run off the raised surfaces and congregate in the crevices.

The figures had all been primed with white gesso. The washes are intended to be a one pass application of the main clothing colour, though other washes and block painting will be added for variation.

The washes were mixed in varying proportions depending on individual paints but they were basically about 1 part paint to 5 or 6 parts water and one drop of washing-up liquid.

This is what I noticed as I went along but I will be saying more in conclusion.

1. Basically the constituency needs to be more like a watercolour than an acrylic.
2. The detergent did break down water resistance and help the wash to spread but it took time to convince me. Use too much, however, and the wash bubbles and the paint gathers in arbitrary patches rather than running into the crevices.
3. I tried wetting figures first as some recommend, but the effect was too extreme. It diluted the paint too much and created an overall very bland finish.
4. Washes need to be put on pretty liberally. If you try to be sparing you end up covering the figure too evenly.

Group 1 - Coat d'arms 208 Wood Brown

Group 2 - Vallejo 160 Neutral Grey

The grey looked too neutral, so I added the remnants from the first wash.

Group 3 - Cda 501 British Khaki

Group 4 - Cda 537 Faded Khaki

Group 5 - Cda 519 Mid Stone

Group 6 - Vallejo 983 Flat Earth

Darker colours such as this provide better contrast and make the wash approach more effective. 

Group 7 - Cda 208 Grass Green

This was the first group of figures wearing uniform coats. At this stage they looked like exotic frogs…

Group 8 - Cda 110 Royal Blue

Group 9 - Cda 110 Royal Blue + Vallejo 154 Sky Grey

The gun needed finishing in a 'leaden blue' so I added some grey to the remnant of the Royal Blue.

Group 10 - Cda 238 British Scarlet replaced by CdA 146 Ruby Red

This was the most important group, the most challenging and the least satisfactory. Cda 238 British Scarlet covers poorly when block painting and made a very uneven wash so after a few figures I decided to wash it off and start again. My paint collection is quite old. I've been told that it may not be the age of the paint so much the age of the paint forumula. I then switched to Cda 146 Ruby Red but the figures still came up a sickly pink.

I was happy with the brown, grey-brown and grey washes for civilian clothes but I wasn’t confident that the final stain would make the uniform coats look right. The green was too vibrant, the blue was too grey and the red was shockingly pink.

I tried another wash of a slightly darker red on the redcoats. This reddened the pink a little but it also flattened the shade effect. Even Mrs Phalanx made a passing comment about how awful they looked.

Somewhat discouraged I put the redcoats aside and put a dark but very dilute wash of Cda 521 Army Green on the greencoats. This worked well. It toned down the luminous green but still left a lot of contrast. The figure on the left has been rewashed.

I made a similar improvement to the bluecoats using some cheap Navy Blue hobby acrylic. The figure on the left has been rewashed.

Encouraged by these successes I made a thin wash of Cda 509 Brick Red. Here the figure on the right is the one that has been rewashed. This toned down the pink and restored a shading effect, but they still don’t look quite right. Once the facings and cross straps have been painted in a lot less red will be showing. After the final staining I may have to touch up the red with a more appropriate colour. Time will tell.

These secondary washes on the figures in uniform coats pre-empt the role of the final stain but the figures do look better. Having to do a second wash is contrary to my central principle of economy of effort but it's still quicker and easier than a dark to light approach using two or three tones solidly applied.

My 1798 Irish Rebellion companies for 'Rebels and Patriots'

These are my 28mm 1798 Irish Rebellion companies for Rebels and Patriots. I’ve been buying them from North Star using my monthly Wargames Illustrated discount. All the figures are Trent Miniatures. They have great character and required only minimal cleaning up.

United Irishmen. The units are a mixture of pikemen and gunmen. The skirmishers (bottom left) are Shelmaliers. The command figures (bottom centre) will be put into one of the pike units. The remaining figures (bottom right) are spares for different configurations.

There are no silly cast pikes but no open hands either, so the hands had to be drilled. I started with a pin vice but the metal was quite hard so I dug out my old modelling drill and upgraded the power unit from 9v to 12v.

It’s some time since I’ve used this so I had to decide on technique:

1. Start the hole with a pin vice hand drill which is more controllable than the electric drill. Once the hole is started you can get a purchase with the latter. If going through two hands, start each one with the pin vice.

2. Don’t just drill. It will jam. Keep pulling it out and pushing it back in again. This doesn't seem to happen with the pin vice.

3. Avoid letting the drill slip under a finger nail - it's uncomfortable and may cause delay.

The figures came with sharp wire pikes. I shortened these to 60mm to represent Irish half-pikes.

Irish Militia etc comprising two units of Line Infantry (centre row), Grenadiers (bottom left),  Light Infantry (bottom right), Yeoman Cavalry (at the back) and Artillery. The mounted Captain (next to the gun) replaces an ordinary figure in whichever unit he is put with.

The Crown troops required a lot less work. Many of the Militia (and Rebels) came with separate heads. This provides good variation for the Rebels but less so for the Militia. The Militia heads can be angled a little differently, but only up to a point.

In search of the Shelmalier guns of 1798

What's the news, what's the news, oh my bold Shelmalier,
With your long barrelled gun of the sea?

Eighteenth Century Irish fouling piece (from contemporary auction listing).

Shelmalier or Shelmaliere is an area in County Wexford, and the farmers of east Shelmalier were accustomed to shooting wild fowl. In the 1798 Rebellion the Shelmalier men were renowned for their marksmanship, but what exactly were their "long guns" so celebrated in prose and song?

Somebody has probably written a history of the Shelmaliers, but if so I haven't so far been able to find it. Rather more information is available on hunting pieces in America. These were widely spread amongst civilians and could be used to shoot solid shot (for deer or to fend off Native Americans) or bird shot (for the general hunting of small game).

Superficially they resembled muskets or, more particularly, Kentucky Long Rifles and they were manufactured from the same components. But they weren't rifled. They were essentially long-barrelled smoothbore shotguns. They were not as robust as military muskets and they were not designed to support bayonets.

I don't know if any of the 28mm Trent Miniatures have long guns. It's not essential as there would have been a lot of variation and maybe not all fouling pieces were actually longer than muskets. I was just interested to track this down.

Classifying Irish pikes in Rebels and Patriots

Battle of Vinegar Hall

My 1798 Irish Rebellion project may not reach the table before next year, but I’ve been doing some research on Irish pikemen which has led me to think again about how they should be classified for Rebels and Patriots.

The Irish pikes of 1798 were typically 8-12 feet including the head, and while sometimes referred to as "half-pikes" because they were shorter than the lengths that had been used during the Civil War and earlier, they were nevertheless pikes and used in the same way. (My model pikes will be 60mm, i.e. about double the height of the foot figures.)

Rampant rules typically have an infantry type equivalent to Lion Rampant's Fierce Foot. In Dragon Rampant it's Bellicose Foot and in The Pikeman's Lament it's Clansmen. In RAP there are Natives, but these are more like skirmishers.

This suggested that I might have to invent a new unit type to accommodate charging pikemen, but putting aside the question of firearms for the moment, contemporary sources (see below) have convinced me that the closest unit definition is in fact Line Infantry.

While it might be assumed that Irish pikemen were a wild mob of uncoordinated warriors fighting as individuals, and while they may have been poorly trained and disciplined, they were drilled to manoeuvre and fight as close order infantry and could and did see off cavalry.

The Irish leader Joseph Holt left memoirs in which he wrote: "My pikemen were the most difficult to manage. I had to teach them to step in time, to face about, countermarch, wheel about, but particularly to disperse and form rapidly, and to march in quick or double quick time."

Contemporary illustrations depict Rebels
with mixed weapons.

Now to the question of firearms. They were scarce but preferred to pikes if they could be obtained. Civilian blunderbusses were supplemented with stolen civilian pieces and captured muskets.

It makes good military sense to organise differently-armed soldiers into separate units, and there were separately organised firearm skirmishers such as the famous Shelmaliers with their long-barreled fowling guns and sharpshooter reputation.

However, it also seems likely that Rebel bands would randomly accumulate a proportion of firearms without being reorganised on a rational basis, and this is how they are depicted in contemporary illustrations.

The memoirs of the Irish Rebel, Myles Byrne, specifically refer to small mixed units. Byrne says that they had nothing to fear from the Yeomen, "for twenty pikemen that kept together, with two or three with fire-arms, was quite sufficient to keep the best of those corps at a respectful distance."

All in all, the references to close order drill and the concept of pike units with mixed weaponry would, I believe, justify the definition of Irish pikemen as:

Line Infantry, Aggressive, Poor Shooters, Green @ 3.

This keeps them within the standard rules and distinguishes them from their Militia opponents who I would define as:

Line Infantry, Green @ 3.

If you wanted to discount firing altogether, then you could define a new unit type with no firing and, maybe, a cost of 2, but I personally prefer to avoid house rules if at all possible.

REFERENCES

The Irish Pike

G. A. Hayes-McCoy
Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society
Vol. 20, No. 3/4 (1943), pp. 99-128

https://www.jstor.org/stable/25535242

Methods of Using the Pike in Ireland: 1798-1921

https://outofthiscentury.wordpress.com/2017/10/19/methods-of-using-the-pike-in-ireland-1798-1921/

2019 Interests

GAMES
I didn't actually get to play many games last year, so this year I need to be more proactive. Games I'm keen to play are:

• The Men Who Would Be Kings using my Pathans and Egyptians.
• Lion Rampant using my Late Medievals. 
  
• Dragon Rampant.
• Dux Bellorum using my 25mm Vikings and Anglo-Danes. 
  
• Hammerin' Iron.
• L'Art de la Guerre.

PROJECTS
I've learnt not to over-face myself with too long a to-do list, so while I have a lot of unfinished and potential projects, I'm only going to list (1) major projects which are (2) currently underway and (3) which I seriously intend to progress during the year:

 Timeline Miniatures Border Reivers from Hoka
Hey Wargaming (not my painting!).

• 28mm Border Reivers for The Pikeman's Lament. This is my main painting project for 2019. As soon as they have a basic coat of paint I intend to start using them and will then finish painting them over time.

• 28mm 1798 Irish Rebellion for Rebels and Patriots. I'll continue gradually to collect these. If I complete my Border Reiver project, acquisition might speed up.

• 28mm American War of Indepenence for Rebels and Patriots. I recently bought an ideal collection of well-painted Perry plastic British and am now looking out for a matching force of Continentals. This project will either be realised suddenly or not at all.

• 15mm armies for L'Art de La Guerre. I'm currently reorganising, rebasing and supplementing some of my old 15mm Ancient and Mediaeval armies in order to create paired opponents for ADLG. My areas of interest are the Late Roman period, the Dark Ages and Europe 1250-1300. Rebasing figures and buying painted ones doesn't involve too much time or effort.

So there you have it: a modest range of rules systems (mostly closely related) and a firm committment to working on only one major painting project.

'Rebels and Patriots' for 1798?

The latest and last set of Rampant rules - Rebels and Patriots - is due out in January 2019 and will fill the gap in the Rampant range between The Pikeman’s Lament and The Men Who Would Be Kings. The rules have been written by Michael Leck and Daniel Mersey.

Osprey wanted the rules to be focused on North America for commercial reasons, but they should be perfectly applicable beyond. One possibility amongst many hundreds is the Irish Rebellion of 1798 in which I have had a long-standing interest, especially since watching the TV mini-series The Year of the French which was shown in the 80s. I go back a long way!

At one point I started collecting 15mm figures for this conflict with the intention of using the Maurice rules, but it would have meant doing another mass army and the rules weren't really suited to pitching a predominantly pike army against musketmen.

So I was quite excited by the prospect of a Rampant set for the horse-and-musket period which would once again allow me to satisfy an historical interest with a relatively small game. I had assumed/hoped that R&P would have some type of 'charging infantry' that would accomodate Irish pikemen but from what I can tell the 'Natives' type in R&P is essentially a shooting type.

At first this put me off and I was wondering about creating a custom unit type or maybe using The Pikeman's Lament instead. However, it is possible to increase Aggression and make Natives Poor Shooters. This would represent a small number of firearms mixed in with the pike in addition to the firearms otherwise fielded by skirmishers, so I think I should be OK after all.

Trent Miniatures (currently available from North Star) do a good range of 28mm figures specifically for this conflict, so I've already begun to use my £5-a-month Wargames Illustrated credit to (slowly) accumulate forces.

Croppy Boys: Trent Miniatures 28mm Irish insurgent pikemen.

Current priorities

28mm Irish War of Independence for FUBAR rules

All finished apart from varnishing. That's waiting for a warm dry day but there's little sign of that.

15mm Crossfire 'Stalingrad'

I'm now planning to create some new cork terrain boards incorporating roads and to add separate pavements to the buildings. This will hopefully improve the aesthetics and make the 'Stalingrad' cityscape a little more convincing.

15mm Armies for Maurice rules

These rules have recently captured my interest. I'm looking at doing the the Jacobite Rising of 1745 and the Irish Rebellion of 1798 in 15mm and maybe the American War of Independence in 15mm or 10mm. The Seven Years War (Austrians vs Prussians) also appeals.

I've been drooling over the look of 28mm figures, but they would take a long time to paint, would be bulky to carry and require a big table. I think 6mm could be rather fiddly with each unit consisting of four separate square bases. So 15mm, or maybe 10mm, seems a better idea.

In any event, painting up even two new armies in 10 or 15mm is time-consuming. I get there in the end, but by then my interest in the period and/or rules has usually passed on to something else. It's a no-no in some clubs but I'm seriously wondering if putting unpainted figures on the table is the only answer. I could then be using one pair of armies whilst painting another. Alternatively I could make up some counters like the birds-eye-view counters used in the rulebook diagrams.