Pike and shot battle Great Italian wars 50

 Had another game at the club and fancied ringing the changes a bit, we still used a scenario from One Hour Wargame but this time used Warlord game's Pike and Shot , which is a derivative of Blackpowder and troops from my Italian wars collection. We also used James Roach's unit profiles from his Olicanalad blog.

The scenario we chose at random had a hill in the middle 

The winner was whoever was in control of the hill at the end of eight turns, John held it for six turns, I got it off him in the seventh and was still there at the end of  turn eight , the variable reinforcements rule didn't help me much John got all his troops on early but half of mine hadn't turned up until the end by which time I'd already won the game with just the landsknecht unit.

Great to get the Italian wars figures out on the table, I've even picked up some more landsknechts for another block or four, do I need them ? Good question , not really but I want them? Working on some other Italian wars stuff so who knows there might be something apart from Napoleonics painted, not for the next post though!

All the best 

Iain 

The Gendarmes de elite of the Imperial Guard and a Penisular wargame Napoleonic 29

 The Gendarmes de elite of the Imperial Guard nicknamed the Immortals by their comrades in the Guard on account of them not being deployed in the front line in the earlier campaigns, although later Napoleon made sure at least some of them saw combat in his later actions, I wondered if there was an element of dislike towards these military policemen by the soldiers of the Guard, I remember my brother describing military policemen as squaddies who liked beating up squaddies! 

This unit is made up of the six spare figures of grenadiers a cheval that I got as the unit came from Colonel Bill's as an eighteen figure unit, looking around for something to do with those spare figures I figured they'd pass as Gendarmes de elite in spite of the aigiletes being on the wrong side.I  converted a trumpeter with a plastic Perry trumpet and at some point I'll expand the unit to twelve figures but for the moment six is all I have.

 I've got the flag ready for when I get a figure to hold it!

In addition I had a game with my nephew and his Penisular war British, a historical scenario with his British having to advance across rough ground and uphill, with the outnumbered French having to hold the top of the hill with time limitations on the game and bonuses for fighting at the top of the hill.

The game started badly for me and kept going, Des never throws good dice and forgot his own , I lent him my spare white ones, he has never thrown such good dice, seven sixes out of seven at one go, when he needed sixes he got them and the last picture is fairly typical of my dice throwing, the last throw for my unit, anything except a 2 and a 1! It was still great fun and I imagine we will be revisiting this theatre of war further down the line.

In the meantime? More Napoleonics, on horses!

All the best

 Iain