This Austrian Artillery Battery works for the 1st and 2nd Italian Independence Wars of 1848/49 and 1859/60 respectively. We are still in muzzle loading smoothbore territory but with rifling growing in popularity.
This time I opted for individually based figures.
Previously I had based some of them for Piquet Field of Battle rules.
The artillery pieces are Irregular Miniatures Russian guns.
Every now and then I get a bee in the bonnet and have to paint a figure or unit not in the plan.
In this case my sizeable paint queue from last summer has reduced, yet there are still units now 12 months on the table, and counting.
So of course it’s madness to start a new set of figures. Undeterred I have managed to get these six completed in a day with the help of high temperatures drying the paint rapidly.
Next up should be some more rule tests.
My current preoccupation is mid nineteenth century warfare. You can’t travel far without meeting the resurgent French Empire. Here is my offering on french artillery around the time of the Franco Austrian War of 1859. Being a few years before the American Civil War it can be argued that conflict obscures the war which inflated French self belief and probably contributed to their Prussian undoing by 1870.
Partizan at Newark Showground made a welcome return for me in 2022. Last visited in 2019 this show or rather the pair – “the other Partizan” that happens in the Autumn, had both become a regular destination for me.
This years show built on my trips to Vapnartak (masks still very evident as well as much caution) and Hammerhead (obvious relief as constraints eased) so I should not have been surprised that Partizan was “many in earnest”. I felt there was a lot of catching up conversation going on, which maybe meant slightly less participation? Yet the enthusiasm was so obvious – people discussing, looking and yes playing games – simple pleasures throwing dice and moving pieces.
And there was the other simple pleasure of admiring other peoples work. Conversations seemed easier and the enjoyment palpable.
For once I had no shopping list – 2 years of on online buying had emptied my pockets? Well no – quite simply I have been sticking to my projects and actually painting my figures and even gaming. That has meant less erratic moments for the Wargaming butterfly.
First up are the games that were on show. I concentrated on just a few for photos. on reflection mats seemed to be a theme for me!
The 40mm Mr Ian Smith and friends was a glorious display of Napoleonic soldiers and fantastic scenery.
The Immortals presented an excellent medieval action
Over to another Eastern European battle – no details gathered
Fast forward to 1833 and Westbury Wargames with their “two brothers war” in Portugal where all manner of nations piled in for another go just a few decades after Wellington and his Portuguese allies had fought their way through to Spanish held France.
And thats it. Well I did get distracted by mats and terrain this year. The terrain mats are a gift for the time hungry and space hungry gamer which is the most common type of wargamer I suggest. I think it is more the case that, at shows where displays are a product of a different amount of effort the textured cloths seem to be the better bet for “a look”? However I have seen some tables where the “hirsute” cloth swamped the poor figures who looked as though they were wading through 2m high grass.
All in all the displays I found were excellent and inspired me to wargame, which is what it is all about.
What did the other big sell do to me – the trader tour!
I impulsively fell for some pendraken and warbases material – invariably so. Usual suspects being bases plus some dice.
The man in the “corner” shop hailed from Birmingham and brought many an interesting box for the 1/72 gamer. They were at T22 in the trader zone – see map at the end.
I fell for this station……..
But was too late for its mate the Italian church – curses.
If you cant wait for me to paint these then try visiting https://comitatusgaulois.wordpress.com/
Chariobaude offers up a great range of painted Late Romans.
My current preoccupation is middle nineteenth century where in plastics you get the “plastic soldier review” much disliked Austrians. Failing this in 20-25 mm its really just Irregular Miniatures at each end so to speak 20mm or 28mm. I have posted a picture of 20mm Neapolitans posing as 1848 French at Rome elsewhere on this blog.
I will be back in the Autumn for the Other Partizan
Piedmont, after the French defeat of Austria in the Second War of Italian Independence, organised popular plebiscites in the central duchies with the forces of Modena opting to follow the Austrians into exile while the army of Parma collapsed and that of Tuscany was reformed and reorganised.
Many new volunteer units were raised including one battalion of Bersaglieri in Modena drawn from the Emilia and Trentino lands.
The Battalion was incorporated into the Piedmontese Army as the 23rd Battalion of Bersaglieri in 1860. It retained is unique facing colours.
Back in 2021 an early unit for this project (the wars of italian unification) came from the Strelets Sardinian box plus some spare Lucky Toys figures.
My review is here Strelets and Lucky Toys
Peter Pig (PP) have a history of promoting rules which are a little bit different in an engaging way. For the gamer there is an enrichment with pregame activity and this also helps the soloist. For those who like total control and the key variable simply to be them – the general’s actions, then these rules may seem too restricting.
Poor Bloody Infantry (PBI) is PP’s WW2 game. And I say game advisedly. Although PP makes clear that the rules have been well researched to enable necessary compromise for game play, the purpose is an enjoyable game between well matched forces.
The key differences I guess are the prebattle steps, then the use of large control grids (no tape measures please) and what once used to be novel – unit activation.
The success of PP over the decades has seen many other rules writers copy the pregame idea and certainly utilise the activation sequences. PP has a long history of rules development and making a real effort to “design in” their research while retaining game play.
I wanted to get my latest painted figures on the board again, so opted for a PBI game as it had been a few years since I played it. In fact I had to rebuy the ruleset as I had got rid of my original copy in a massive clear out of all wargame things post 1735! Silly me.
Narrative Background
The Vossackians had surprised the Azorians who had over extended their advance and were forced to retreat. The resulting chaos with only a single main route caused the Azorians many problems. The Vossackians failed though, to fully capitalise on the situation. As a result of being well forward, Senior Lieutenant Saray was ordered to advance on a road junction which appeared to be of value to the Azorians in their retreat.
As it happened Captain Turner had orders to secure the same road junction to protect other nearby routes of Azorian retreat.
Both commanders were advised that supporting troops would soon be provided.
As dark clouds gathered overhead the two forces unwittingly collided.
The Forces
Vossackia – Senior Lieutenant Saray had 3 platoons of rifleman, SMG’s and LMG’s. Junior Lieutenant Zhelezo and Junior Sergeant Stali led a platoon each. The platoons were slightly mixed up owing to allocation of replacements and issues with logistics.
Azoria – Captain Turner had Garand armed rifle platoons supported with BAR LMG’s. The Azorians had suffered in some previous actions so were not up to strength. Lieutenants Bacon and Bean led a platoon each.
A Map is to be found at the end of this post.
Note the tough hedgerows! they make a grid harder to leave in PBI. Cover affects movement in an abstract but logical way.
Activation is about mobilising possibly reluctant movement by soldeirs under direct fire. As you will see lack of movement and even pinning the opposition is key to allowing your own freedom of movement.
Game Over!
This battle narrative came from the actual game. It was most enjoyable seeing the encounter fluctuate before ending. PBI tells you that “ebb and flow” is part of the game design.
Some more PBI rules came into play during the game.
First was the arrivals of troops. In the pregame journey on the equivalent of a snakes and ladders board the Vossackians with the advantage failed to get a clear superiority in numbers and prevent the Azorians gathering sufficient forces for the action.
The Vossackians posture under the rules was agressive while the Azorians was only responsive.
I think the rules are good at covering troops on the board at game start and those being fed in. Another variable to add flavour.
Three objectives had to be taken by the Vossackians for game victory.
A countdown tracker starting at 23, and reducing, using 1d6 per turn meant game length was unknown.
The battle started well for Vossackia as the Azorians advanced allowing early contact and then finding the dice rolling for them. The Azorians quickly lost any parity on forces.
But later the rules around activiation started to work against the Vossackians at the critical moment. Things also slowed at the wrong moment.
To cap it all the countdown dice rolled for the Azorians with too many 6’s including the last one when the tracker was at 5. So the game ended early.
Cue – mega thunderstorm.
The positives are you get a fairly quick game – no measuring movement or ranges helps.
The abstraction that allows close proximity of opposing forces requires a bit of getting used to. I used the 6″ grid for 15mm with 20/25mm or 1/72 size figures. Maybe an 8″ (for 28mm figure) grid would give a better look.
What looks like contact isn’t. Contact is a process called assault and requires a lot of momentum to achieve.
The abstraction includes the proximity of the figures who spend some time in adjacent grid squares waiting to build momentum for an assault or simply erode the enemy through fire. The latter requires a decent advantage in numbers but the former is risky without overwhelming force.
The Vossackians lacked any heavy weapons or support which kind of reflected the “encounter” nature of this Scenario. And probably meant the Azorian victory was the right outcome.
Verdict is I will play PBI again.
I use a 2006 edition of PBI – easily picked up at show bring and buys (when they return) and on ebay. Of course Peter Pig will sell you the latest edition with improvements from over a decade more of game play. And PP also offers a fantastic 15mm range of figures and vehicles which, if I was not hooked up to 1/72, would suit my needs.
Roll on the Vossackian advance in Fauxterre 1930+……
John at “just add varnish” blog was having a clear out and thought I might like some between the wars armour. That is ww1 to ww2 so 1920/30’s era.
Thank you John. These were most welcome and have allowed me to dabble in some tank or tankette gaming while I paint up my infantry.
So here they are. A wopping 15 items! Generous John or what.
The John@justaddvarnish inventory
First Column
Second Column
Third Column
Here are some of them in close up. They show the excellent artwork by John@justaddvarnish
Thanks John these will definitely be appearing again in my “between the wars” games I have entitled Fauxterre 1930 and Fauxterre 1930+.
One of my latest side projects is World War Two, like most projects I soon reach for the online supply chain. Lockdown has driven this approach even more.
And to start me off my first purchases were from Hannants and Models Hobbies. These companies have given me great value especially for projects where I buy all I need in one go.
But hang on I was/would be buying mainstream stuff, not obscure or discontinued lines. And this was to be a side track slow burn project. So bulk buys would not be the order of the day.
Then it occurred to me that I could go out of my way, with lockdown easing, to visit real hobby shops.
I also decided my interest would be more early war, ideally more inter war era. Just to make life difficult again, this is not the popular end of WW2. Yet this was a fantasy ww2 happening on Fauxterre so anything goes and flexibility is the watchword.
Ok so far, but hobby shops tend to stock the popular, as in, that’s loads of late war armour with a preponderance of German kit.
And then I had another brainwave. After going through online availability I realised I had a massive choice. I would just buy the cheapest stock available in dribs and drabs.
This random approach really started to appeal. It would also make this project different again.
Such an approach interestingly is increasingly not online (and certainly not ebay) + white van man, despite Amazons best endeavours. Don’t get me wrong, online has been fantastic for choice and it still offers great value and even ebay can give you amazing bargains (the effort required though has changed).
So I decided – cut out the postal costs. I would buy piecemeal and when other activities had paid for my journey.
Then if a shop turned up I would go in and see what was available.
This actually fed my Fauxterre ideas. The opponents are both struggling to resource their forces. The parallel for WW2 is the Russians. They took various kit from the USA, France and Britain before getting their own plants working to meet demand. And the Germans reused thousands of captured kit. Probably the most useful panzer they had early on was actually the Czech built 38T? The Russians also benefited from the US inventions of Christie that ultimately led them to the T34 as I understand it.
So a bit of history bashing and Fauxterre sees two protaganists poorly armed going to war with essentially inter war/early war kit and with inter war mentalities.
Next up was – which forces to use – given I had decided no german kit.
I chose the Russians simply because this whole sidetrack project was started by Charles Grant and his Battle Gaming book from 1977 – a charity shop surprise discovery.
Airfix came up often as the low cost option online and seeing as they had made Russians, the very ones in Charles Grant’s book, so that was it. Only they don’t make them any more and old sets are now online and vintage and with a price to match!
In the shops its allied west or german it seems.
After some wrangling I decided I would stick with the Russians and that led me to The Plastic Soldier Company and their good value sets. The Russians kit would be opposed by American kit with splashes of any other kit I liked, while playing that “buy cheap in a real shop” game.
I have made some progress and here are my first kit builds.
Lets see how I get on with this slow burn side track project.
My latest unit of kittel coated Austrian Infantry have arrived on the Pedestal.
In 1849 the “rock” with tails was replaced with the “waffenrock” – a belted full wasted tunic. The kittel – the soldiers everyday service jacket was similarly styled.
Of more note is that in 1850 the shako (tapering down to the base) was replaced with a smaller shako (tapering up to the crown).
So these soldiers are no good for Radestky’s marches of 1848/1849. However they will just about do for the 1859 war with Piedmont and France often known as the Second War of Italian Unification.
I could even go for a Napoleonic style shako with the new waffenrock for all of a few months. Decisions, decisions……
Having said that, this epoch is so confusing on uniforms I will just enjoy painting and gaming with whichever figures I like. And more to the point my gaming figures will often have their dress uniforms on. So no change there then!
The figures are from Waterloo 1815 – one of the few companies to offer 1/72 figures for these wars.
For my chosen rules I now have 3 x 4 base units including the mounted general. For some units I hope to add a non gaming flag bearer element.
Brigata Milano was part of Division Turr being formed before crossing from Sicily to the mainland. The figures have good animation I think.
The bugler has a kepi – all the rage at this time (1859/60). He has acquired some Piedmontese uniform trousers.
I have again used the fine words and black and white pictures of osprey MAA 520 Armies of the Italian Wars of Unification 1848-1870 pt2.
You can find out more on the Garibaldini troops Garibaldi took to Sicily with him and those that followed on in my recent postings.
Finally you may notice the easter egg style basing!
The Wargaming Erratic 