AHPC XI - Mike W [Hall or Traps] Irish Scallywags leading the good Father astray!

This is my third Challenge (excluding the interim Lockdown Challenge last summer) and it feels good to be back! I hope everyone has stayed (and will stay) well and thanks again Curt for organising this diversion from the real world...

My topic for today and the initial one for this challenge, is a small vignette depicting two Irish Kerns leading a travelling priest astray, this is for the first chamber of the Challenge XI Dungeon - The Hall of Traps . The Priest is a Gripping Beast plastic monk from their Anglo-Danish set, whilst the Kerns are both form the Wargame Atlantic plastic 28mm set.

You'll likely see many more figures form these sets in coming posts during this challenge as I build upon my Anglo-Danish forces for my Hastings 1066 project and the ongoing Elizabethan Wars project we have going at the SAS Wargames Club.

So the premise of the vignette is that we have one kern directing the travelling priest off the well worn road to a position where the two scallywags will rob the priest of his golden cross and other religious artefacts.

L to R: Wargames Atlantic Irish Kerns, 1st is pointing the way.

2nd is encouraging the priest with a spear. Gripping Beast Priest

The priest is in a brown habit, with little of worth about him except his crucifix and holy staff, the kerns are in traditional 'ochre' type coloured garb.

Spear Armed Kern, before washes applied

As usual I have undercoated all figures in white then painted on (in this case) quite a lot f flesh and then their clothes before  detailing weapons, shields and belts etc.

Priest, pre-washes

All finished off with various coloured washes - which I'm currently experimenting with, and then varnished with a matt finish.

The other Scallywag - pre washes

So I used Flesh wash on all skin areas, cut 50/50 with water to tone down the pigment. On the priest's robe I used uncut brown wash, to help give the cloth a richer, darker feel and I used a brown wash cut 1/2 with water on the Kern's cloths to give a light brown shade. After washing the figures I applied a little base colour as highlights.

Final Vignette: Priest being diverted off the main track

Final Vignette: From another angle

Final Vignette: Priest has his 'bling' on view, encouraging the Scallywags!

Final Vignette: Priest trying to ignore the Kerns

Final Vignette: A Kern with spears behind you is never good....

Points:

3 x 28mm Figures @ 5 Points Each   = 15 Points

Hall of Traps Bonus                            = 20 Points

TOTAL 35 Points

2020 Gaming Results

By John 'The Hermit'

I know, I know, you all thought I’d forgotten it this year didn’t you? But despite our setbacks from the zombie pandemic and Doris and his nanny state government’s responses we did manage to score a few games throughout the year and if you count Mike W’s sterling efforts at running the entire ACW as a remote (virtual) game then we still have a clear winner in the two categories of;

1. Most popular period 

2. Player who contributed to the most gaming weeks.

Therefore without further ado (fanfare please!)

The most popular period of 2020 was.......yes, you guessed it........ACW! Hurrah!

Followed (miles behind) by.......Medieval in second place and Colonial in third place. (Medieval speaks for itself and Colonial covers the Boer War and the Sikhs)

The Player who contributed the most was........yes, you guessed again!.......Mike W! Hurrah again!!

Followed (again miles behind) was Steve in second place and finally me coming a distant third due to a late spurt of a couple of clandestine games at Mikey’s in a brief moment of Dorris allowing households to mix for a nanosecond around mid Autumn.

Rupert, Dave and Mark also just made it onto the scoreboard in time. Rupert due to his games in January and Dave and Mark as late entries (Dave assisting me with Sikhs plus his Viking skirmish, Although that added even more points to Mike W for providing the figures and finally Mark with his WW2 effort at Steve’s house.)

So there you have it; the “efforts” of 2020. Without Mike W whose campaign ran for 27 weeks non stop we’d have a had a pretty dismal year, but trust one of our boys to come up trumps when our backs were against the wall to keep us amused in our hour of desolation and bewilderment when trips up to The Star were like a distant memory and we’d all but forgotten what Chinese on a Friday night tasted like. Along came ‘Tommy Atkins’ to save the day. Well done Mike W for such a resounding success with his ACW campaign.

Oh, and thanks to everyone else for taking part. It’s not much of a party if you don’t have any guests!

Stay safe and lets hope 2021 is more gamer friendly.

More on Ancient Chinese Armies

 By Dave Vallance

One of the Warring States Ancient Chinese armies for DBA in 6mm, is the almighty Chin.

In front are 3 elements of Crossbow

2nd line, on army photo above, on the left, 2 elements of Psiloi light infantry, and 4 elements of loony Warband on the right

Psiloi Light infantry

'Loony' Warband

Back line, 1 cavalry element t on the left, 2 Heavy chariot elements (General in the one with the parasol, as are all the other generals). These are treated as Knights in the rules.

And finally 1 element of Light Horse.

13 units, but there are options to have choices to make up the 12 elements, in this case, either 1 Psiloi or 1 Light Horse.

The other armies are similar, some spear heavy, some crossbow heavy

Another shows close ups of the chariots. The General could be one of the three Ting brothers, Bo, Lu or Shu (work it out!)

And finally, one of the walled towns, in this case the town of Pi Sha. Note the tower which is slightly leaning. The buildings in the middle are not stuck down. 

Fighting for Liberty

I don't think that I've previously mentioned a specific book on this blog before, however, I have just finished reading Stephen Carter' Fighting for Liberty, an in depth look at both the Monmouth & Argyll Rebellions in 1685.

A darned good read it is too and for those of us lucky enough to have been on the 2017 tour of Somerset, following Monmouth's footsteps, its a very enlightening read. Dave is reading the book as well and has said its a good 'un too.

What it does highlight is just how organised the Whig rebels were, why & how much Monmouth and Argyll, mistrusted each other so much and how the various armies were organised - in quite some detail!

Having taken inspiration form the book I painted up a troop of rebel horse that can be used in either Monmouth's or Argyll's armies.

Monmouth's Lifeguards, 1685

The figures are Front Rank and arguably a little late in style for the 1685 rebellions, the next batch will have more campaign style 'battered' hats, as these are Lifeguards I wanted then to have a touch of avante-guard fashion about them  - thus they are sporting a natty purple coat, faced red, supplied in bulk from the Dutch Republic, these coats were found in both Monmouth's and Argyll's stores along with supplies of black powder and weapons which also included large numbers of double barrelled carbines and quad barrelled pistols.

Three Troopers in Purple and Red coats funded by William of Orange

These six figures represent three troopers in their purple jackets plus a trumpeter in reversed colours, along side two officers - one wearing his English army red coat with blue facings and the ensign in a blue coat with red facings.

Another view, these guys were veterans who fought in Dutch Service

The officer has possibly deserted one of James' Guards units (or more likely a militia unit) to side with Monmouth, whilst the Ensign has potentially deserted the Oxford Blues to do the same as his new commanding officer.

Command figures, the standard is from an illustration in the book

So Monmouth was able to form a Troop of Lifeguards and this is what these fellows represent in the English rebel army.

Another view of the command group

If deployed north of the border these guys would form a troop in Argyll's cavalry force lead by Sir John Cochrane of Ochiltree, these guys were known to be 'Dutch' veterans and fought well at the Battle of Muirdyke.

As an aside one of my ancestors, John Whiteford, was an the Ensign in William Cleland's Troop of the the Scots Regiment of Dragoons, who fought at this battle defending James II's cause against the Whigs. 

The yellow ensign in the photo's is a flag presented to Monmouth's Lifeguards by the women folk of Taunton in Somerset.

Once the current Covid madness is over I plan to run a series of games following the Monmouth & Argyll Rebellions, for these I'll be using Barry Hilton's excellent 4Play system with a dash of campaign stuff splashed over the top - quite literally!

The Argyll Rebellion in miniature!

An Introduction to Ancient Chinese Armies

by Dave Vallance

With regard to the appearance of these armies, there is not much in the way of proven uniform colours etc, for my five DBA armies I've just painted them up as follows ;

Chin : Blue 

Wei/Yueh : Red (the first Chinese Red Army!)

Chao, Land of Late-coming : Green 

Chu. Land of the Immaculate : Yellow 

Han : White (Virgin Soldiers)

The other two states were Yan, Land of Swallows (if to be done, likely in black) and Chi, the Land of the Devout.(not sure, probably brown)

For those wanting more detail, I'll offer a brief outline on the chronology up to this period

1500 BC - Bronze casting. The first recognised dynasty, the Shang, becomes established over a pre-existing people called the Hsia, but little is known about these folk. Shang introduce writing. 

1300 BC - Chariot introduced

1027 BC - the people known as the Chou (pronounced Chew, or Jew...the 'ch' sounds like a 'j') rise up in revolt. They win, becoming the Western Chou, Shang becomes a minor state. The Chou set up 4 'duchies', namely Yen, Lu, Ch'i and Sung.

880 BC  - Barbarians from the North West, the Jung, invade Chou, forcing them to move capital further east, becomes known as the Eastern Chou. 

707 BC - Eastern Chou fragments into hundreds of little states, who spend the next 300 years or so fighting amongst themselves. The period from now until about 479 BC is known as the 

' Springs and Autumns' which is fairly settled, any warfare is described as being 'chivalrous' and 'aristocratic', and not all that bloody .However, our old pals, the Chin, who are far out to the west and were considered as being barbarians, are on the rise, and start to conquer other lands in there area, such as Shu, and Pa..

Bear in mind that the ancient China back then was not as huge as today's nation, and the Chin would roughly be in today's west centre of China. The Chin are pronounced as 'gin' as in 'gin and tonic'

From 479 BC onwards, this period is known as 'The Warring States' as previously mentioned above, with warfare become more and more aggressive, and with massive armies. There were seven main states, as mention above, the last being Ch'i which fell (whoopsadaisy) in 221 BC to the all conquering Chin.

The King of Chin, a man called Cheng, now called himself Emperor Shih Huang Ti, Lord of all Under Heaven. He ruled ruthlessly until dying in 210BC in his wagon, whilst out on a pilgrimage. It is said that his Chancellor, a devious cunning chap called Zhao Gao, disguised the whiff of the Emperors decaying corpse from the others in the entourage by having  wagon loaded with fish follow the Emperor's one. 

Zhao was well into power politics, and managed to get one the Emperor's youngest sons, (he had numerous kinds with numerous concubines, the randy git!) proclaimed as the Second Emperor. 

However, once the Emperor's death was announced, revolts took place all over the Empire, some of the old states were re born. It got so bad that even a Chin general, had to stop the work on the Emperor's Tomb (this is where the Terracotta Warriors come in) and equip the labour force with weapons taken from the statues (which is why none have been found in their tomb) in order to fight off a revolt. 

Eventually there were two main contenders, a southern aristocrat called Hsiang Yu with an army from Chu, and a Liu Pang, a man of lowly birth, who commanded contingents from Han, Shu, Pa, and former Chin soldiers. 

In 202BC at the Battle of Kai-hsia, Liu Pang finally defeated Hsiang and Liu took the title of Han-Kao-ti, the start of the Han Dynasty which ruled China for 400 years. 

I'l leave it there as it is not relevant to carry on with all the following Dynasties etc. surprised if you have kept up this far!

Some info for you

Armies fought in five divisions, or 'battles', if you will, all denoted by flags :

Vanguard - a Red Bird

Left Wing - a Green Dragon

Right Wing - a White Tiger

Rearguard/reserve  - a Black Tortoise

C in C with bodyguard - Great Bear constellation

They also had varying rank names for their nobles, big cheeses etc, in comparison with their Western ones 

Kung - Duke

Hou - Marquis

Po - Earl 

Tzu - Viscount 

Nan - Baron 

Wang - King (!)

Chariots were the original shock weapon but were later supplanted by cavalry which was fairly rare at this time, except for the barbarian tribes on the borders who were mostly horse archers. By the Han dynasty, cavalry became more and more common, with some later examples being armoured up like cataphracts.

Even more Border Ruffians

 Friday's game spurred me on to finish the latest batch of figures for this project. Again sourced from eBay and a mixed bag of foot and horse, these being the foot figures, the mounted ones will be done at a separate time in the near future.

First off is a group of three command figures, a captain and two sergeants. All are wearing armoured breastplates, with the Captain in fancy hose and ruff. One sergeant carries a long spear whilst the other has a Bill alongside his trusty sword.

Left Captain, with two sergeants.

I'm minded to use the two sergeant figures as dog handlers, so that the war dogs at the end of the last post can come into play... 

Five Ruffians armed with Calivars, wearing assorted armour, helmets and jacks

Five Livery Men, all with Calivars in green coats, trimmed red

Finally two Bill men, each armed with a really pointy stick!

Border Ruffians - Our First Game

Friday 23rd October saw us play our first Border Reiver skirmish game played at Mike N's place. Figures were from John's collection and the rules were an adaptation of the 'One Hour Skirmish Wargames' set by John Lambshead.

The scenario was as below, supplied by John, as the first in a series of linked games.

The game was fast paced and enjoyable, with Mike N & Nigel forming th e'Nixon' side and Mike W & Dave forming the 'Armstrong' side.

After both side having difficulties controlling their broken men but once they were brought into control, the Nixon's archers were able to pour fire down on the Armstrongs as they herded their booty towards the table edge.

Gradually the fire told and the Armstongs were whittled down, Sandie Armstrong charged an exposed group of Nixon men, killing two in combat before he too fell to the arrows and the Armstrong side's morale broke.

Armstrong rider with horse, mule and booty

Two Armstrong riders with flock of sheep

An Armstrong leader in the ruined castle

Another view of Horse & Mule

Nixon men cross the river to engage with the Armstrongs

Nixon men approaching the Armstrong positions

Too late for the game, here are a group of eight war hounds that will be available for future games, especially involving the 'Hot Trod'. Figures from Wargames Atlantic Irish Warriors.

 

Off the Workbench - Late 17th Century Polish Dismounted Dragoons

This group of twelve figures has just been completed, they will fight alongside their countrymen against the Ottomans at Vienna, they are an eBay lot (as usual) and the figures are by Essex.

I don't have very many Essex 28mm figures in my collection, but after some conversion work they have ended up as being quite serviceable in their table top role.

Dismounted Polish Dragoons, in a variety of dress and poses.

The lot was a mixed bag of infantry and mounted troops, a half dozen Pancerni, Officer and Winged Hussar types that I'll take a look at later plus a bunch of rather disappointing Hungarian Hussar type figures, not really sure if I can make any use of these - although the horses will be useful.

Along with the horse was a bunch of Polish foot, many of those were actually dismounted Dragoons, so I have created a unit of these, the remainder will be made up into Polish Peasant Infantry.

So on to the figures, I will present these in batches of four, as each batch has a similar story...

Four Dragoons Firing

These are the most standard figures in the unit, I have simply swapped heads for more Polish looking ones from the less useful figures in the lot that I received. 2nd Left and extreme right figures are as delivered the other two have had head (and hat) transplants.

As ever the figures were undercoated white, I opted for blue coats and red trousers. Hats and some coats had fur trim and the guns are a mixture of matchlock and flintlock weapons.

Four running Dragoons

These four running dragoons had a badly moulded musket cut off, along with their left hands, the missing  hands were replaced by open plastic hands from various 28mm plastic kits and then a musket with sling from the Warlord Games 28mm plastic Marlburian Infantry range was added to each hand.

Command Group

The command group s made up of a Halberdier, Officer, Standard bearer and a Drummer. The drummer was created in exactly the same way as the running dragoons above but with the addition of a drum strapped to his back.

The flag is a generic Polish Cossack banner, I need to find out what Polish regulars used

I repositioned the sword arm of the Officer, to make the pose look more realistic, whilst I had to adjust arm positions on the standard bearer and turn his head, to get the look I was wanting. The Halberdier was as supplied, with the Halberd shaft straightened out as much as possible!

These guys are in the new basing format or dismounted dragoons, i.e. individually based rather than on regular multi figure bases. I have used round bases - previous ones have been square or oblong (for groups of two figures), aim here is to depict the loose order that these guys ought in.

I may go back and update the older figures one day.... 

General de Karckere and his Winning Team

By way of closing out the 2020 Self Hibernation Campaign, an award is to be presented to the winning player (Mike Newman), which is a miniature diorama of Generals de Krackere, Holt-Oglwthorpe, Starbuck and Banks at the 'Battle of Petersburg'.

General de Krackere and his leadership Team at Petersburg

General Nathaniel Banks, in close support 

General John Holt-Oglethorpe, pointing the way forwards

General Nathan Starbuck, 'Are you sure that's the only way to get there?'

The figures are from First Corps and specially obtained for this prestigious award, they were painted and affixed to the diorama stand by your friendly Umpire, Mike W. The physical presentation will be sometime in the not too distant future - Covid allowing.

Looking at the figures, I'd like to start with that of General Paul de Krackere himself, a fabulously rich individual, head of his own, self named, company - like many men of his ilk - he dresses really quite humbly, not wanting to waste money in unnecessary frills and impracticalities.

Paul de Krackere, pondering his opportunities

The other view

de Karackere wears a standard issue 'Sack Coat' with infantry piping added to each sleeve and three gold stars on the collar. He has standard sky blue trousers tucked into socks and wears utilitarian army issue brogues. This attire being much better suited for comfort and ease of movement around the trench works..

As a Corps commander, de Krackere has allowed himself the luxury of a gold waist sash to denote his rank. He is depicted here, looking out thoughtfully over the enemy lines on one of his regular morning reviews of the troops. On his black slouch hat he wears a gold star, representing the badge of the XX Corps.

Next under the spotlight is General John Holt-Oglethorpe, an experienced commander born in Vermont but who had previously had military experience in continental Europe, mostly the smaller German states. Holt-Olethorpe has followed in de Krackere's style but toned down the flamboyance of infantry piping and waist sashes to adhere to his own command's sense of decorum.

John Holt-Oglerthorpe, directing his troops, man bag on clear show

From the rear

For most of Holt-Oglethorpe's troops were mostly pious German and Dutch immigrants, they were not noted for their sense of humour or love of anything outrageously frivolous! 

On the collar of his standard issue sack coat are the two gold stars of a Divisional Commander, he carries a Colt Army pistol and his true love - a model 1850, Infantry Sword. In Holt-Ogethorpe's opinion, this is  all that a good officer should need to convey his wishes during a conflict situation.

On his hat is the blue star of 2nd Division, XX Corps.

Holt-Oglethorpe is depicted here waving his sword at a subordinate officer to ensure that a potential 'gap' in the lines is dealt with as soon as possible.

Holt-Oglrthorpe is a practical man, he carries a canteen of water, a habit he picked-up from his days in Europe and he also carries a small 'Man Bag', attached to his waist belt with some rations, first aid  dressings and other personal items.

Unlike de Krackere, Holt-Oglethorpe has gone for the 'mutton chops' look, feeling it is more distinguished looking with his now greying hair.

General Nathaniel Banks, on the other hand has copied de Krackere's hefty moustache look, being a slightly younger man he feels he can carry this look off even better than de Kracker himself....

Banks, is depicted in the uniform of his beloved 5th Massachusetts Cavalry, a Shell Jacket with yellow arm of service trim plus the single star of a Brigade commander on each collar. As part of this fine 'rig', Banks wears sky blue trousers with a yellow stripe plus regulation issue Cavalry Boots.

On his hat is the white star of 1st Division, XX Corps.

Nathaniel Banks, in his Cavalry Rig

The other view

Bank's wears the red sash of a Field Officer, de Krackere, preferring the gold version for Divisional Commanders and senior... 

Hanging from his regulation waist belt is the ubiquitous Army Colt  - Bank's having considered a sword an unwanted encumbrance in the Petersburg trench lines. 

Banks is depicted, waiting on orders from de Krackere, he was always a loyal servant of the Iowan, who recognised and acknowledged Bank's deep bond with his open troops.

Finally we have General Nathan Starbuck, known as the 'Italian Stallion', reluctant hero of Bull Run and many more battles. He is depicted here in the uniform he adopted on taking Command of his New York Italian Brigade.

Starbuck has gone for a cheeky goatee beard look, befitting his European origins and reflecting the fashion amongst his Central and Southern European troops.

Starbuck at the crouch, poised like a spring to react to incoming fire

Originally he would have worn a Frock coat, as did his men, but practicalities of combat convinced him that he would be more agile in a shortened coat, he had his tailor cut down a frock coat to make this shell jacket to wear in the field.  

On his hat is the blue star of 2nd Division, XX Corps.

The blanket roll was an addition after the Gettysburg fight, the thick roll of blanket, wrapped around a rubberised ground sheet, worn over the shoulder, body and neck was shown to have provided some protection against enemy sabre slashes, anything to increase his battlefield survivability!

As a nod to the panache of his Italian troops, Starbuck's jacket has red collar and cuffs and his red trousers are tucked into white gaiters, over regulation army brogues, again he found the gaiters to be vey supportive of his slightly weak ankles on the battlefield.

From the rear...

Starbuck's rank is denoted by a single red star on each collar and by the gold braid of the Hungarian Knots on each sleeve of his jacket. His once famous ostrich feathers have by now been lost from his hat and you can see Starbuck depicted in his favourite battlefield stance - 'at the crouch' -  ready to dodge for cover as soon as is necessary!

The eagle eyed amongst you will notice Starbuck's final piece of 'equipment', in this case a bloody dressing on his hand, the wound discreetly self-inflicted and although in no way of any medical threat, prominent enough for onlookers to notice and surmise that he has been in the thick of the action already this day.

In the Diorama, de Krackere is in front, protected by his faith in the right of his cause, he is backed-up ably by his favourite Divisional Commander Holt-Oglethorpe, who is signalling to his troops with his sword. Just behind de Kracker is one of his former Brigade commanders, General Nathaniel Banks, who is assessing how he'd be doing things differently, utilising the open space in the flanks - if he were in charge - but loyal to de Krackere to the end. Starbuck is there, as one of Holt-Oglethorpe's  Brigade commanders, very weary of potential incoming ordinance in the area, he is squinting to see any Rebel activities opposite their position.

Original First Corps General Set