Battle of Hereford 1055

Sunday I went over to Matt's Dungeon and we refought the 1055 Battle of Hereford. AElfgar Earl of Mercia with Gruffyd ap Llywelyn, mercenary Irish Viking’s, Welsh and some of the Earls personal hurscarls attacked and sacked Hereford. Hereford was defended by Normans, yes Normans or Norman style Saxons lead by Ralph de Sudeley (the timid) and Saxons from Hereford.
It was our 1st chance to play our Dark Ages armies and my Picts doubled up as the Welsh, looked OK. The Welsh were mainly poorly armoured spearmen with light cavalry and a large number of Viking mercenaries. The defenders were well armoured infantry with some heavy cavalry with less well armoured Saxons around Hereford. We fought using Kings of War, which I really like but never win when we play.

The battle field, really need a wide angle lens for this.This is my left with the Welsh facing the Normans. The objectives are the village at the bottom, the cross in the centre and Hereford at the top

The mighty City of Hereford with Saxon defenders

The Viking Mercenaries with Saxons facing Hereford

I'm attacking so I attack with light cav and skirmishers to the fore

The Vikings advance

In the centre matt unleashes his cavalry against a horde of spearmen

Matt advances with is supposedly crappy saxon knights in front of Hereford

In the cente the light cav are flitting back and forth and Matt's line is losing cohesion

Lots as spear on horse action around the cross

I approach Hereford

All kinds of hell breaks loose in the middle

The knights and the spearmen are still fighting but I'm wavering

Not anymore, I've run off

Disaster the 2nd of my 3 hordes of spearment has legged it. 

The crappy Saxon knights are causing bloody hell with the Vikings

I scavange around in my unused troops box finds a horde of war dogs. They finsih off the main unit of knights and then eat the 2nd smaller unit

Looking thin in hte centre, the light cav have done a good job here

Matt allowed an extra horde o welsh to rock up, i was out pointed at the start and it seemed sensible. I brought on 2 hordes and neither of them moved but matt did attack this one 

The Saxon knights have legged it, maybe they were crap after all

Final throes in the centre, i've basically won the centre but Matt holds the village on the left. It's all down to the right and Hereford.

Cross the river, Kill the saxons

Here we go

Here we go again

Here we go again

At the cross in the centre Ralph the timid has been fighting against Boudi, barely dressed Welsh warrior woman (she is a Hasslefree figure so is bound to be barely dressed, and Gruffyd and has legged it - so he was timid

I've made it across the river (ish) but too late. Game end

The result was a draw and it was a great game.

World War 2 Early French Army

It's been a while since I posted. Normally that means my mojo is away but not in this case. In the month since I last posted I have painted an entire 28mm Bolt Action 1940 French Army. I know you all say "WHY". You have an entire 6 year war to play and you pick a month in 1940 and you have painted an army that got totally pummelled.
Well the French Army was actually quite good, good equipment, excellent armour and interesting units to paint. The problem was that they were designed to win the previous war. The tanks were slow and the tactics were defensive and static. They were totally unprepared for Blitzkreig, everybody was totally unprepared for Blitzkreig,
Also Matt has a large early war German army so I have somebody to fight. So hold tight there are a lot of them

The whole army, 2 and a bit platoons of infantry, 7 tanks and armoured cars plus enough support

1st up couple of Hotchkiss MMGs, been trying for ages to find a use for the piece of concrete

Both warlord figs

Next up 2 medium mortars. The regular one is Warlord but the Senegalese one is a conversion from a VBCW one. The mortar is hand made and the figures are Border Reiver British with head conversions, Crusader figures come with spare heads, which is nice.

Warlord Games 25mm Light AT gun

Warlord 75mm artillery piece. Varnish still curing so a little shiny but I am very impatient

Boyes AT rifle. These used to be firemen in VBCW and I just painted the uniform the correct colours

Random officer types

Regular Infantry Platoon.

French infantry sections are 12 men strong with an LMG and a grenade launcher rifle that acts as a light mortar or a rifle. Figures are mainly Warlord with a few Crusader minis. SMGs were incredibly rare in the French infantry and there is only 1 in the whole army

 4 Senegalese sections. These are the reason I started the whole project. I really like colonial troops and these were a Crusader bargain.

Next up the armour

Panhard 178 with light AT gun and MMG - Warlord

Somua S35 tank with 47mm AT and MMG - Blitzkreig

I do like the camo

2 relic FT17 tanks. Whilst the French had 400 of these they knew they were colostomy and they only fought right at the very end. They are only armed with MMG and have been repurposed from the VBCW collection. Think  rubbish, slow moving AC

Finally Char 1 Bis platoon - Italieri boxed set

These are both great and rubbish. Slow, very well armoured with 47mm AT and 75mm howitzer, Think cross between a Matilda and a Lee

Overall it's an interesting army and will fight differently to my other forces. Off to play Matt at ther Battle of Hereford on Sunday, was supposed to be Saturday but England are still over in Japan and have to play some colonial types on Saturday. 

Austrian Hussars and an Armoured Car

I think this will be the trend for the next few months. I have loads of 10mm Austrians to paint and other random stuff to paint as the mood takes me. So as I sit and watch the Rugby World Cup I will paint and type

So the Austrians 1st. Hussars are mad, the uniforms can be almost dayglo and very pretty in a psychedelic way, think Donovan on a horse

The Austrian Army I'm building is the one from the Battle of Lobositz, 1st big battle of the 7 years war and there were 2 Hussar regiments in the vanguard. Hadik Hussars on left and Banayaya Hussars on the right

Banayaya Hussars - Lime green, red and light blue. FFS just get the LSD off them, I have a battle to fight and I need them to hide in a paint factory

Hadik Hussars, much more natty in blue and red

To calm down I'm building a and early French WW2 army in 28mm. already have a couple of FT17 tanks and to complete the armour this is a Warlord Panhard AC. Nice model and I even put decals on it

Right laundry, prepping for Monday's start of term and rugby to watch. Gonna be a steady weekend

Border Reiver 2019 and My 1st To the Strongest

Border Reiver show yesterday and I pottered down to meet friends and buy toys. It was smaller than usual with far fewer traders, Colours was on at Newbury. I had a good morning there but had to leave after a couple of hours to go axe throwing. Which as a great laugh and I won (twice). My best throw was a perfect bull using a trick shot. Could do it again if you gave me a million goes.
On to the shiny stuff

The main purchase was to collect a pre-order from Pendraken. Boat load of 7YW Austrians. I now have enough for the entire Austrian Army at the Battle of Lobositz. Will keep me busy over the winter

Bargain of the century. 2 Forged in Battle 88's with transports - £4 from one of the traders

18th Century carriage - I like carriages. Same trader £4. I also bought a Stug for £2 but it was 20mm. Will use to make a scratch build of something

Finally 2 couple of French packs to add to my new project of Early War French. 

Bought a load of bases - boring photo - and that is it. Didn't buy anything from the bring and buy and I don't like how recently they have become the place where small ebay dealers set up stall.

The other event was that I went down to Pete's to play my 1st game of To the Strongest. I had been wary of this game as it seems a little like a cross between chess and snap. I was wrong, it's actually quite good with lots of opportunity for sweeping moves.

The battle was Pete's Persians, beautifully painted, and my Classical Indians, painted. Pete walked me through the rules for the 1st game and I won easily - elephants, heavy chariots and longbowmen are OK. 

2nd game Pete slaughtered me - 1 elephant unit routed by some light infantry lead to a bigger rout and then he ran me over.

Really enjoyed both games and the rules are pretty good and the games are quick. Downside is lots of counters for ammo etc