15mm Peter Laing U.S.Cavalry and Indians Miniatures

In my last posting I used some Peter Laing U.S. cavalry and indian figures that I bought pre-painted. The paint job is better than I can do and deserves to be seen up close. I also mentioned to Ian Dury that I would show a couple of photos of some unpainted cavalry in kepis.

M3010 Cavalry (képi) horse walking

M3011 Cavalry (képi) horse charging

M3005 Cavalry (hat) trumpeter

Two of the painted cavalrymen.  M3002 Cavalry (hat) horse charging and M3001 cavalry  (hat) horse walking.

M3006 Mounted Indian scout.

M3008 Indian with rifle, charging.

M3007 indian with bow, charging.

Two painted chiefs in full war bonnets. The painter seemed to have  divided the figures by color coding  the feathers .  M3009 Indian with spear, charging? If anyone knows differently, please let me know.

F323 Indian, rifle trail.  In catalog in comes in under "Suitable items from other ranges"

M3007 Indian with bow, firing.

F3008 Indian, war bonnet with tomahawk.

As you can see,  nicely painted figures that I will leave alone! I showed this figure because of the extra detail in the pants.

!5mm Peter Laing U.S. Cavalry vs Indians Battle

   I must admit when is started looking for Peter Laing figures a few years ago I got lucky. Besides some kind people giving me figures they weren't using, there seemed to be a boom on Ebay. There weren't many people bidding and I managed to get quite a good collection in short order.  Among them was a large collection of US Cavalry and Indians, both on horseback and foot. Besides a couple of small Civil War battles, I have never used them. While going through my plastic figure I found an Atlantic plastic frontier fort. I was hoping, like my Airfix castle, it would be the right size for Peter Laing figures. Unfortunately, the ramparts come to the top of the heads and doesn't look right.

   My wife has 2 weeks off, starting the day after Christmas. I wanted to get one more game in before her vacation and decided to use the cavalry and indian figures. What's more, I had ordered several sets of Command and Colors: Napoleonics  dice. They came the day I was setting up the game so decided to use my new dice.

   The scenario is thus; a troop of cavalry went searching for some renegade indians. Alas, they failed to find them and were returning to the fort. The troop closed on a narrow pass which, once cleared would bring them a short ride home.  As they approached the pass, the renegades they had been searching for came charging out of the pass at them. There was only one thing to do. The captain ordered the troop to form line and attack.

US cavalry on the top left; indians in the bottom right. The cavalry must exit on the bottle right of the board. I used Horse & Musket rules from MWAN magazine. In the battle if the crossed sabers came up, the horseman was dismounted and had to fight on foot.  They then acted as infantry.

The cavalry in column; the indians start their charge.

Some of the nicely painted cavalry.

The indians.

A close up of the nicely painted indians.

The cavalry started to fall into line.

The indians close in rapidly.

The indians manage to dismount several of the cavalry and disorder the cavalry's charge.

The cavalry counter attack; they throw the indians back but do not break them.

The cavalry  in their counter attack start separating; the indians turn and slam into the scattered troopers. they suffer heavy losses

The indians concentrate on dismounting the cavalry. The dismounted cavalry is easily scattered.

The captain managed to rally some men and took a defensive position on the hill; the last mounted soldier tries to join them.  Outnumbered 3 to1, the odds are against the soldiers surviving the day.

The last thing the cavalrymen on the hill see.

MOLLY CHRISTMAS!

I was hoping to find Peter Laings under the tree this year; This is what I found instead. However, I'd take Molly over Peter Laings any day.

Merry Christmas to all.

Attack of the Peter Laing Elephants!

       I had time yesterday for a quick wargame. I had been wanting to use my new elephants and so I figured I would use Hyboria as an excuse.

     With the victorious and very popular  General Mingol returning to Vendhya with his large army, King Umgak was growing concerned about his future. To try to raise an army of levies was out of the question. General Mingol's army is made up of levies, who were now battle hardened and would outmatch any levies the king could raise. What's more, the peasants had heard of General Mingols generosity with the loot gathered during the campaign. Their loyalty would be suspect. And so King Umgak gathered what few regulars he had at hand. He had one light infantry unit, two medium infantry units; but his secret weapon was three new units of battle elephants.  Certainly these would simply trample the levy hordes.  What Umgak forgot is that Mingol's army had seen elephants in action and the elephants were the only unit lost in that battle. Certainly that would lessen the levies fear  to the appearance of the elephants!

General Mingol's army on left, Loyal Vendhya on right.  General Mingol would be defeated if he lost 6 units, the loyalist army if they lost 4 units.

The elephants prepare for battle.

The elephants close rapidly with the enemy, pushing back the center. However, they leave their infantry support behind.

The center elephant unit looses one to the archers; the light cavalry closes on it's flank and wipes out the unit.

The leftmost elephant unit at lease has it's flank covered by infantry.

The light cavalry on Mingol's left flank closes with the elephants on front of them, eliminating 1/2 the unit but loosing 2/3 of their own strength.

The rightmost elephant unit eliminates one cavalry unit, and turns on the next one. The loyal light infantry unit comes to its' support.

General Mingols forces manage to flank the leftmost elephant unit….

...and brings down the mighty beast.

The loyal light infantry arrives too late to stop the light cavalry from finishing off the last elephant unit.

A gap appears in the Loyalist line.

The loyalist forces try to consolidate it's line. They continue to battle the enemy. Although they have lost their elephants, General Mingol's forces have also suffered heavy losses.

The loyalist forces are now "supporting" each other, and are now considered bold.

However, the cavalry eliminates one unit; another unit is forced to retreat two hexes, and the loyal light infantry  is at risk of being cut off. The loyalist forces now save themselves and flee the field.