15mm British Napoleonics - Part 1

Finally Kick Started My British Napoleonics

After a long hiatus I have finally returned to my 15mm Napoleonics. I collected the British by accident. I never really wanted to build a British Army because everyone seems to have one and I preferred less popular armies. The thing that pushed me into restarting them was my getting a bit bored of painting ancients for the last 7 years and that I picked up over 100 painted British infantry at the wargames club for £30. They were on terribly tired bases but were painted nicely.

I have just spend the last five days basing up 500 figures including far too many Highlanders and Riflemen so expect to see these offered for sale in due course. I am short of command stands to complete the infantry for 1815 and of course none of the cavalry, artillery or the infantry for 1800-1812 is based up.

Addendum: 03/02/19
Since I didnt get a game this weekend I spent the time productively. I found a bag of 15mm scale Fantassin, Warmodelling, Battlemodels [take your pick] British 1812 Command figures. Since I am still desperately short of command stands for my army I decided to have a go painting them since I have not painted any Napoleonics since at least 2012 and British Napoleonics for longer than this. I am very pleased with how they turned out. I had three odd painted soldiers that needed one more figure to complete the stand so ended up painting 13 figures in all. The Officer figure is in slightly brighter scarlet as was traditional in this era because they paid for their own uniforms and got much higher quality uniform cloth as a result.

Late T'ang Chinese - Part 8

Late T'ang Chinese - Part 8 The Fleet

As part of my building project I needed to source suitable models for the T'ang Fleet. There's a few makers out there who produce Junks including, Navwar, Langtons, Museum etc. The Tang fleet consists of four different types of vessels, 5 x War Junks, 2 x Horse Transports, 2 x Tower Ships and 1 x River Paddle-wheeler.

The war junks were the easiest to source as I used Grumpy's models as I already had a large bag of them in Project Lead Mountain. They are sold in the UK by East Riding Miniatures to special order as they are deleted from their current catalogue due to the Grumpy's moulds being at the end of their life and not everything is castable.

They are also available from Eureka in Australia casting code GRU-SHIP05

I decided that the fleet would be painted a uniform colour scheme based on traditional Chinese colours of Red and Yellow. 

Grumpy's Junk

Next up are the two horse transports. For these I purchased two large junks from EBay for next to nothing. They turned out to be Museum Miniatures casting code BO08.

Museum Miniatures Junk

The tower ships were problematic as no one makes anything suitable from historic ranges but I came across the now discontinued Spartan Games Ralgard starter fleet. 

Whilst these are designed for fantasy naval games they style is perfect for use as Chinese type ships. They are cannon armed but I can say that these represent the Greekfire weapons of the time instead. The model is right out of the box.

Ralgard Cruiser

The Chinese of this era used man-powered river paddlewheel galley type ships. Theres nothing at all like them available and I only had this line drawing to guide me. 

Since I had used two of the Ralgard cruisers I looked at the frigate models in the box and decided that I would convert one of them. The models sail was far too large so I took a pair of Grumpy's masts and sails to use on the hull. The stern rudder had to be removed so I could model a stern wheel and the model needed sponsons to house the paddlewheels that ran along the hull sides.

Converted Ralgard Frigate

Later Pre-Islamic Arabs Game From 2017

1st Ever LPIA Game - Yathrid [Medina]

I knew I had given the LPIA a run out but could not find a blog entry of it. I took pictures of the game but think real life interfered with my writing it up. I cant even recall the enemy army I fought against. I will have to ask Peter at the club since it was his army. The game took place on 12th November 2017. All I have is a series of pictures as a record of the game. I cant even remember who won or the score.

Turns out I lost 2-8 v Palmyans but was three elements away from breaking his army after taking out his Arab ally and another command.

Late T'ang Chinese - Part 7

More T'ang Militia To Expand The Army To 500 AP

With this blog entry I have almost completed the Militia part of the Late T'ang Army. They are all Outpost Wargames Miniatures and are the last three contingents of Militia Infantry and the last contingent of Untrained Peasant Militia. I am still four elements of Militia Swordsmen and twelve elements of Militia archer Skirmishers short but these are not a priority at this time. I started these just before Xmas and I am quite pleased I managed to complete 112 infantry in fourteen days.

Outpost Wargames Codes STC7 Unarmoured Archers & STC18 Unarmoured Swordsmen

Lastly are the final eight elements of Peasant Hordes that are required to complete the list options.

Outpost STC15 Peasant/Horde

I still have a lot of troops left to paint to complete the list options but I can field a 400 AP list at the moment.