The Яussians Are Coming! The Яussians Are Coming!

 And yes, I do know that the Cyrillic R is actually a P, but I couldn't resist using the old movie title.

Over the past several months, I've been experimenting with a new set of rules -- "The Men Would Would Be Kings" from Osprey Publishing.  I got 'hooked' on them thanks to Neil of Toy Soldiers and Dining Room Battles blog and his 'Anglo-Russian War' thread, of which this post sets the stage.

I've been a long time Victorian colonial gamer using the late Larry Brom's venerable "The Sword and the Flame Rules."  But I've always wanted to do a smaller group of battles around a common theme.  So I decided to partially copy Neil's set-up.  In my imaginary conflict, the action takes place in the tri-border Russia-Persia (Iran)-Afghanistan area.

My first new unit of this theme was originally owned and painted by the late Dr. Mark "Doc Ord" Stevens.  I bought it from his widow after he died from ALS back in 2018.  They are a group of Old Glory Russians from their Boxer Rebellion line.  I've done some repainting to back date the uniforms somewhat.  They will be used as a border guard unit of two 12-figure platoons.  

Please click on images for larger pictures.

Border Guards 1st Platoon

Border Guards 2nd Platoon

"The Men Who Would Be Kings" rules use 12 figures for each regular or irregular infantry unit and 16 figures for a tribal infantry unit.  Cavalry are either 8 or 10 figures and guns of any type are manned by 4 figures.

The next unit I painted, this time from the bare metal, is from Askari Miniatures' Russian Colonial line.  These figures are dressed in the field uniform popular with Russian units all along the southern arc of the expanding Russian Empire.  It consisted of a loose white canvas smock, white canvas trousers, and a Havelock fitted to the kepi.  This "Slavic" style uniform was worn from the early 1870s through WW2.

8th Siberian Rifles, 1st Platoon,
led by the General Skobelev figure

8th Siberian Rifles, 2nd Platoon

After reorganizing and repainting the Old Glory Russians I obtained from Mark's estate, I had two figures remaining.  Since their soft caps looked like some of the ones worn by the figures I've used for a 'Back of Beyond' White Russian unit, I repainted them to match and added them to that unit.

The two "new" additions are flanking one of the original figures.

And the entire White Russian unit.

But there is more!  I still have two more "Siberian rifle" platoons to paint as well as a gun with crew and a Gatling gun with crew.  Plus there are four more figures on order to add to the White Russian unit.

And I have two British and three Indian infantry platoons and one British and one Indian machinegun team to paint.  More later!

New French Marins Infantry (1870-1871)

 

I finally finished my special project after several months.  It is a unit of Askari Miniatures French naval infantry in shore uniforms that 'Askari Al' had recently released.  They are equipped in what became the 'standard' uniform for French sailors used as land-based infantry by the Republican armies during the Franco-German War.  Please click on picture for a large image.

These figures are very well sculpted as one would expect from Askari Miniatures.  They came with standard French-style backpacks but I did not use them.

This unit will replace one of my older Old Glory Boxer Rebellion figure battalions as the "new" 5th Battalion, Toulon Regiment des Marins of the 1st Division, 15th Loire Corps.  Overtime I plan on replacing the other two battalions with these very nice figures.

French Naval Auto-Cannon (FPW: 1870-1871)

I haven't done a lot of painting so far this month.  I have done a little on a 15mm Confederate brigade for my "On to Richmond!" ACW rules based forces and a little on my special project (more on this once I get it completed).  The one element I completed is an auto-cannon manned by French naval gunners that will be used in my Franco-German War (1870-1871) French Republican forces.

I've had this 'large' Gatling style gun for a number of years as part of a collection of figures I bought.  I think it was manufactured by Falcon Miniatures as the wheel spacing resembled the heavy Krupp guns that I used as Hessian heavy artillery.  The gun carriage was rather wide and looked rather spindly.  So I shortened the axle and glued a reinforcing wire to hold the barrel mechanism.  I had to drill fairly deeply into the bottom of the barrel under the ammunition box, through the center of the gun carriage, and then bend the wire along underneath the trail of the carriage.

After painting, it turned out rather well.  The gun is manned by two Askari Miniatures French naval gunners from the Sailors line.  I bought two 4-figure packs and used six of them for the French naval heavy battery that I included in an earlier blog post.

This gun will be included as part of the Naval Heavy Artillery Battery in the 15th Loire Corps artillery.  If need be, I can also use it to support any French naval or land forces conducting operations in the Victorian Colonial period.

More Prussian 1870-1871 Artillery

The other day I completed painting the newly acquired gunners for the 3rd and 4th Light Batteries, part of the IX Armeekorps artillery for my 1870-1871 Prussian forces.

These two batteries each have 3 Frontier Krupp guns, 4 Foundry gunners, and 2 Frontier gunners.

Along with the 3rd and 4th Heavy Batteries, these compose the 2nd Battalion, 9th Artillery Regiment 'Schleswig-Holstein.'  The 3rd Battalion is attached to the 18th Infantry Division, IX Armeekorps while the 1st Battalion is attached to the 17th Infantry Division which is currently helping to guard the North Sea coast in northwestern Prussia.

This will basically conclude my painting 1870-1871 forces for a while.  Now to complete my Confederate forces so I can run some American Civil War games.

A Death in the "Family"

 

Just learned yesterday evening that long-time Jackson Gamer John Murtagh has died.  He apparently suffered a heart attack Tuesday afternoon.  According to his brother he had called 911 but after loading him into their ambulance the EMTs could not revive him.  John was a real larger-than-life character, always brimming over with enthusiasm for wargaming.  He was a feature at the local Bayou Wars and Colonial Barracks conventions and at Historicon.

He had a large collection of self-cast 40mm Prince August figures that he used to run both SYW imagi-nations and AWI battles.  He was a resident of Portland, Arkansas.

He will be missed by us all.

Rest of Hessian Artillery

After a brief diversion to paint WW2 German tanks, I returned to the 1870-1871 Franco-German War to finish the artillery assigned to the 25th (Grand Ducal Hessian) Division of the Prussian IX Armeekorps.  These are the last three of the six batteries of that division.

 The 2nd Heavy Battery, part of the 1st Abteilung (Battalion) consists of three Falcon Krupp guns and six gunners - one Foundry officer (with binoculars), two vintage Scruby 1" figures, and three Castaway Arts gunners.

The 1st Horse Battery, also part of the 1st Abteilung consists of three Ral Partha Krupp guns, two Foundry gunners (on middle gun), three Eagles of Empire gunners (left and right guns), and one Castaway Arts gunner (right gun).

These two batteries, plus the 1st Heavy Battery compose the 1st Abteilung.

The 3rd Light Battery, part of the 2nd Abteilung, consists of three Ral Partha Krupp guns and six Castaway Arts gunners.  Its two companion batteries in the 2nd Abteilung are the 1st Light and 2nd Light.

Now all I have to do to complete the 25th Division is paint five battalions of infantry (four musketeer and one jager) [120 figures plus a two-man brigade command group and two mounted regimental colonels] and two regiments of cavalry [32 dragoons and a two-man brigade command group].  That's only 195 human and horse figures.  Peace of cake, right!

That doesn't consider three more batteries of artillery (two Prussian and one French), five battalions of infantry (French), and ten regiments of cavalry (five Prussian and five French) plus assorted command figures.  That's only 668 individual humans, horses, and guns, including the above unpainted Hessians.

Oh well, just like eating an elephant -- one bite at a time!

Memoir 44 - Battle of Prokhorovka (Kursk, July 1943) 'Overlord' Version

As I stated in my previous post, this was a massive game with 25 units per side.  This particular battle was the one of the largest tank actions in modern history.  Some say the largest but others, including historian David Glantz, say it was the Battle of Brody in 1941.

Anyway, it was the largest one we've fought.  The German 2nd SS Panzer Korps had (or would have had if we would have counted properly) 48 armored vehicles and 44 infantry stands [92 in 14 armored and 11 infantry units].  The Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army had 47 armored vehicles, 32 infantry stands, and 4 artillery stands [83 in 15 armored, 8 infantry, and 2 artillery units].  As an interesting note, the 5th Guards Tank  Army went on to increase its stature and ended up as one of the Soviet armies in the Belorussian Military District where it formed part of the strategic second echelon armies against NATO forces in western Germany during the Cold War.

Now on to the battle.  There were six of us which just the right number as the Memoir 44 board is divided into three sections -- left, center, and right.  Jay (Lord Sterling), Ed, and Steve started out with the Germans while Mark, Phil, and I had the Soviets.  Jay and I were the two overall commanders who got to hand out the action cards.  In the 'Overlord' version, each side can play up to three cards per turn and at the end of each turn draws two replacement cards as long as your "hand" doesn't exceed your starting number, which for this scenario was ten each.  Victory was measured in units killed with 12 being the magic number.

I only took four pictures at the start of the first game, but they will give you a good appreciation of the games.  We played in my church's library on a table that is 10' long and 4' wide, which was just about perfect for the layout.  The two battle mats are from Cigar Box Battle [shameless advertisement] and were printed with 4" hexes.  I've also used these for a large number of Commands & Colors - Medieval battles.

Please click on an image to get a larger picture.

Here is a long view of the entire battlefield.  The Russians are on the left (Where else would they be!) while the Germans on on the right (Undsoweiter for them as well).  As you can see with the Russian tanks in the foreground, there are four 3-tank units with one of them down to only one tank as is the German tank unit directly in front of it.  Prokhorovka is in the middle of the battlefield on the left beyond the stream.

Here we are looking towards the German attack from behind the Russian center.  As you can see, we're using whatever we had available, including armored vehicles that had not even been fielded yet.  Here also you can see the losses.  And some of the cards available to me as the Russian commander.  Plus you'll notice a visitor to the battlefield.

A good view of the German command team with Steve pondering the mass of Soviet tanks bearing down on him while Jay (center) and Ed try to decide who gets what command/combat card.

Another shot of the Doctor facing down the German panzers.  But unfortunately for the Soviets he was neutral in the battle.

Things began going downhill swiftly for the Soviets who ended up losing with 5 or 6 victory medals to the 12 that the Germans got to win the first game.

At this point we reset the battlefield, went to lunch (at the Quiznos sandwich shop down the street, and returned, switching sides.  Then Mark, Phil, and I showed that since we lost with the Russians in the first game, we could just as easily lose with the Germans in the second, 12 Soviet victory medals to our 9.  It was a little closer but still no "cigar."

Overall it was a fun game and we plan on doing some more of these 'Overlord' variants, maybe one from the Battle of the Bulge.  There are many. many scenarios for Memoir 44 and all its iterations on the Days of Wonder web site.