Tin Soldier - Scythian Noble Cavalry

Pictured are my first unit of Scythian Noble Cavalry, this unit now brings my army to four small units (1 x Noble Cav and 3 x horse archers). They have been painted by Leroy Simpson, here in Townsville, of which he has done a great job and have been based for Warhammer Ancients.

One of the great features of this range is the classical image of Scythian warriors with back shields and flowing armour across the back of their horses.

The four variants of Noble cavalry produced by Tin Soldier. The figure second from the right has two head variants.

The Tin Soldier range has four different codes of noble cavalry and one which has two different head variants. However the range only has one code for the half armoured horse and only three codes for horse in the entire range. But this in turn makes a total of five different figures in a variety of poses and when painted and attached with either a spear or bow, plus a great selection of different shields, you can make your units look fantastic.

Breakthrough - Flames of War

Having a game at night and during the week is always good when your weekends are taken up with family holidays or work. This Thursday John Maguire put on a small Flames of War game, for myself and Jeff Smith. Again John helped us through the rules (only third time playing) and gave us a few trips for young players.

Fallschirmjager Light Gun Section

A Stug and supporting troops move towards one of the objectives

The scenario he picked was mission 5 - Breakthrough - which is on page 206 of the Flames of War rulebook. It is a great little game designed to get the defender and attacker thinking. The attacker does not have enough strength to cover the entire front and the defender has left gaps big enough for you to send small flanking forces through to help your other attacking troops.

Indian troops advance with close support from three Shermans.

A stand of Indian Infantry. I believe these figures are from the old range and are no longer produced.

The defenders force is too small to hold everywhere so he has to concentrate his defences around vital assets and try to defend them with from attacks coming in from a number of sides. Myself and Jeff played till about 1210am that night with the result of my Germans defeating (only just) his Indian troops. All in all I have really started to enjoy FOW and think it's a great little game to play in a evening.

A Command vehicle from one of the two Sherman platoons.

My one half section was all that remained from the Indian counter attack on to objective two.

The next game we have lined up is an airlanding by Fallschirmjager. John has about twenty gliders and a couple J52's and this time John will be playing and myself and Jeff will try to stop him - the photo's should be great.

A Small Battle in Spain -1808

This game played was between myself and John Williams. John, like me, has been slowly building up a Napoleonic Army. However instead of Spanish, John has been building up a mix of Imperial Guard troops and Line Regiments.

My Front Rank Spanish - waiting for the French to advance.

Johns' Imperial Guard advance. First a battalion from the Middle Guard then the Dutch battalion and finally Grenadiers of the Old Guard. All were painted by John.

The battle we played was the first time we had both gotten all our troops on the table top and seeing that John had a lot of Guard troops I thought it appropriate to place our small battle in the year of 1808 and when the Emperor of France, himself, was in Spain.

Close up of Johns' Middle Guard - All of Johns' figures are from Elite Miniatures.

French lancers Vs Spanish Lancers (in this encounter the French came off second best).

The battle was small. Our forces consisted of my small Spanish Division - 13 Battalions of Infantry, 3 Cavalry Regiments and two batteries of foot guns and John 12 battalions of Guard and Line Regiments, 7 Cavalry regiments (again a mix of Guard and Line) and finally 2 Batteries of artillery (one horse and one foot).

Converted Grenadiers a Cheval to the Empress Dragoons. John cut the heads off the former and replaced them with Dragoons of the Line heads. The figures came up great.

A battalion of Elite Miniatures Legere - painted by Leroy Simpson.

The scenario was plain and simple. My Spanish were to try and hold the village from the French and stop them from taking the road to Somosierrra. Well my boys held out very well for a number of turns and only broke after John had run my cavalry from the field and his cavalry had gotten around to my rear, cutting off my line of retreat. Thus with the Division taking 50% causalities and after ten turns, plus being cut off I had to surrender.

Spanish Grenadiers hold a town section against a renewed French attack.

One of the French Guard cavalry attacks which would soon see my beloved Spanish defeated.

Andrews' Perry Miniatures

Whilst down is Sydney, MOAB, I stayed with my good friend Andrew Parr and after lots of good food and wine I was able to snap a photo's of his Perry Napoleonic collection. The Collection consists of one Dutch Belgium Battalion, one Nassau Battalion, some light infantry, one foot and one horse battery and two units of cavalry for the Allied forces. All the above have been expertly painted by Leroy Simpson.

Belgium Chasseur Battalion

Flank Company for the Chasseur Battalion

Nassau Battalion

Nassau Battalion

Belguim Command stands, the Prince of Orange is at the back

Hussar Officer

Hussars


Horse Artillery Battery

Foot Battery

The French, which consists of four Line battalions, skirmishers, one battery of guns and a Cuirassier Regiment all of which have been painted by Andrew.

French Line Battalions, painted by Andrew

French Line Battalions

French Cuirassiers

More Cuirassiers

Andrew has based the figures so that they can be used as either units for 'General de Brigade' or the 'Shako' rules sets.

MOAB 2007 - WW2 20mm Demo

This was a fantastic demo game, heaps of great terrain, figures, armour and aircraft. Took them a while to set up, but you can see why. The figures use were all plastics, vehicles I'm not sure.

MOAB 2007 - Shako 15mm Demo Game

Great little 15mm demo game put on by a fine group of fellows. Every year these guys put on a Napoleonic game and it always draws a lot interest. This year I think the game being played was Austerlitz 1805. Almost all the figures are from the AB range. Rules used were a heavily adapted Shako rule set put together by the club.

MOAB 2007 - Sudan Demo

Another MOAB demo game played on the Saturday. Sudan early war, figures were a mix of Old Gory, Redoubt and Castaway Arts. Rules were Sword and the Flame .