Friday Night Games: Action during the Siege of Magdeburg, 1551

Friday evening, 9th August, saw us at Mike N's abode where he was putting on a 28mm refight of an action at the Siege of Magdeburg, during the Thirty Yrears War. the figures were from Mike N's collection and the were rules an adaptation of Rupert's Renassance Wars' Rules.

Attacking Catholic pike blocks, approaching the Abbey.

Steve, Rupert and Dave commanded the defending Protestant forces in Magdeburg whilst the attacking Catholics were played by John, Mike W, Nigel and Phil.

Right flank of the Magdeburg fortifications

The protestant plan was to take the Abbey and then move on to assaultthe city walls behind the Abbey, with the left flank covered by Musketeer units who were to harry the defenders.

Left flank of the Magdeburg fortifications, with the Abbey to it's front.

It turned out that he Abbey was defended by a unit of Scots Musketeers, once pressed these defenders withdrew after a smattering of fire. Attacking pike blocks broke to the left and right of the Abbey whilst a flanking Musketeer unit on the right occupied the Abbey.

Central artillery batteries, in the centre of the Magdeburg fortifications

In th ecenter the atacking Musketeers took considerable casulaties from musket and artillery fire but they held on to press their attack.

The Abbey was defended by a Scots' Presbytarian unit.

At the end of Week One, there was all to play for...

The Catholic forces hit the Abbey and drive out the Scots defenders

Left most pike blocks by-pass the Abbey whilst flanking Musketeers approach the central batteries.

On the Catholic far left flank three musteteer units harry the defenders

AHPC XIV: From GrahameH 15mm - Venice and Cold War French

 Just finished off the troops from Venice for the Italian Wars. Nothing too taxing a pike block, some arquebusiers, crossbow  etc.  

48 man Pike Block.

Arquebusier 2 Units 18 figures each.

9 Figure Mounted Crossbow Unit.

18 figure Crossbow Unit (not sure I like the flags being at the back)

Sub Gen

4 Crew Artillery Piece 

All the figures are 15mm Essex. I made a bit of a mistake on the Sub General, by giving him the same flag as my other Sub General so will need to change that.

To celebrate finish off one of the Italian Wars armies at last I thought I'd give myself a treat and paint some more green. I thought I must becoming to the end of the NATO armies now, but it would seem I still have Battlegroups from Canada (I have been putting them off because of the strange colour camouflage their vehicles had in 1984), Belgium, Denmark and Sweden. You have to have Swedes they have the "S" tank. I have a serious problem. 

So the French. I again had painted all the infantry so it was just the vehicles to do. All 15mm from Battlefront and Butlers (3D prints)

The Recce Plt. A Butler print of a AML-60 

AMX-10P. Six of these, which are used for the Bn HQ, Mech Coys, Support Coys and as a FO.

A GCT 155mm SP. There are two of these Battlefront Miniatures.

And Six AMX-30Bs, making up two Armoured Companies.

That's it, or so I thought. As I said I have a problem and it would seem I had purchased another French Battlegroup. I can only assume I thought I needed more Infantry and I some VAB for completeness!!

So the second French Battlegroup - The Berlin Garrison.

Another AMX-30B Company (3 Tanks)

The Support Company, VAB APC with two Milan teams and a VAB APC with 120mm mortar. 

Another GCT 155mm SP (2 per Battery)

The Recce Plt with a M201 Jeep

AA Plt. 

An Infantry Company (there are 4 infantry companies in this BG)

A VAB. Theses are the transport for the infantry coys, FO and HQ

Finally a Gazelle, for a bit of air support. 

Mixed Batch of Figures - Dark Age Cavalry, Polish Renaissance, Wild West, WW2 & ECW, all 28mm

Well its been quite some time since my last post - real life havng caught up with me, organising & celebrating my Dad's 90th Birthday, helping my son and his family move house (still ongoing) and keeping on top of a busy work schedule and helping run a local sports club!

Anyway here is a bunch of stuff that I have got painted and completed over the last few weeks but not havd time to 'show and tell'. Overall not my greatest work but at least I've got things moving again....

All the Dark Ages Cavalry in one line!

First up are 11 x 28mm Dark Age cavalry, these are being presented as Norman allied cavalry or even as mounted Anglo-Saxon warriors - I have tred to keep the iconography neutral (as far as possibe) to give that flexibility.

Norman Allied Leader, Conquest GAmes figure on a Wargames Atlantic Horse.

The reverse view, showing shield

The group contains a leader plus a standard bearer, as well as nine other fgures armed with a variety of hand weapons ranging form swords, axes, javelins and spears. There is also a guy with a lance nad pennant.

Two more Conquest Games figures on Wargames Atlantic horses.
Both have been given kite shields and wear leather armour. The standard is generic.

And onther view of the two figures

The leader is on a round, 40mm base, as per the rest of my collection, there are actually three plastic figures, all left over Conquest Games Normans, seated on Warlord Atlantic Horses, the other figures are all metal and from a batch of Dark Age Cavalry I sourced form eBay at a reasonable price.

First three of the metal eBay batch

The metal figures have been suplmented with platic shields and a variety of metal and plastic weapons. The eagled eyed amongst you will see that I have base two figures together of a single base - a departure from my usual approach but a neccessity resulting from a very weak end to the javelein in the hands of the figure on the left - basing them together willl hopefully protect it a bit from my (and other's) sausage fingers!

These guys are all unarmoured and have a variety of weapons as well as kite & round shields.

Not the greatest picture, central guy is the one with a weak javelin
so I glued hime to a shared base with another figure, t tryand give it potection

These figures have been given a mix of kite and round shields, to give a feel of Norman influence on the more well off warriors but a reliance on older kit by the less fortunate.

A clearer view of the shared double base and the offending javelin

These guys will make an apperance at Stamford Bridge!

Final two figures

And final view!

Next we have two Polish Officers to be used in my Vienna 1673 games, they were again sourced from eBay at a bargain proce and you can never have enough Poles on the tabletop.

The two Polish leaders

I refrained from adding wings to these guys, prefering the to be able to be used as more regular cavalry, one is unarmoured and brandishing a pretty mean looking mace, whlist the other is armoured but is checking a scratch built map.  The map being used to cover an unfortunate cut into the horse's neck line.

And another view

Next up is a test figure from the Wargames Atlantic Panzer Lehr sprue that came free on the front of September's MinatureWargames magazine. I'm pretty pleased how he has turned out and I'm going to build a few more figures to join him.

Warlord Games Panzer Lehr figure, changing magazines on his MP40

Next are two venerable Warlord Games ECW pikemen, I have a bunch of these fully armoured fellows and I plan to build these into a small unit as and when I get time. I chose a light blue uiform for them but will likely try other colour conbinations for the remaining guys.

Two fully aroured and uniformed pikemen, ready to repel cavalry!

The reverse view

Lastly we have four Wild West townsfolk from Wargames Foundry, these have been lanquising in my loft, garage and/or workbech for far too many years and I felt it was time to finally get them done. I'll hand them over to join Mike N's vast 25/28mm Wild West collection as soon as I get a chance to go to a club night again!

Some fairly well armed Wild West townsfolk

Three Winchesters and a Shotgun, heavy firepower if they are able to aim straight!

That's it for now - hopefully not such a long wait for the next post!

28mm Renaissance Foot

These guys ahve been lanquishing on my workbench for some time now, they got 50% painted before I was oh so easily distracted into doing other things....

Pleaseingly, with the grondwork already completed I was left wit the fun part of finishing off the figures to a tabletop standard. In the group of nine figures are 6 x Warlord Games Landschneckts plus 3 x Warlord Games ECW figures converted to be suitable for my Marian Wars project.

The Landschneckts are five musketeers plus a crossbow man. These were all undercoated white and then painted using a range of paint types and colours, suitably garish in nature and with a good helping of leather jackets etc. The skin was shaded using Army APinter Flesh Tine and the rest of the figures with watered down Dark Tone.

The remaining three figures were two musketers and a pike man, these where  made-up pretty much strainght out of the box. Only real changes being on the pike man who had weapons hands swapped with Wargames Atlantic Conquistadors figures and a hat from the same grafted un the oringal figure's head.

Again these were undercoted white and then finished off in the same manner as the figures above.

All varnished and based as usual.