Peter Laing Little Wars

      One project that I have worked on in the last few weeks was a "Little Wars" army with the Peter Laing Victorian Parade figures I have, reinforced by Crimean War figures.  I also wanted to get a game in so I brought out this new army.

General Loed Alfred Hayes gathers his army around Westbridge. The rebel forces  appear first thing in the morning formed for battle. 

My "Little Wars"army drawn up for battle.

The rebel army sendss their two best units to cross the east bridge to outflank the Brookshire army.

The rebel artillery hits the Speckled Horse, which was advancing against the rebels at  East bridge.

A rebel unit crosses West bridge and forces back the infantry guarding the bridge.

The Speckled Horse hits the rebel infantry. They only have one hex to retreat to (the other hex was blocked by the unit on the bridge). As can be seen, they have three retreat rolls against them, so they retreat one and lose two more. The followup attack kills another soldier.

The Guards bring the rebel artillery under rifle fire. They manage to push back the  artillery.

The infantry  clears the village.

The Speckled Horse eliminates one unit.

The other rebel infantry pushes the Speckled Horse back.

Even though they are "in the building", the artillery kills one Guardsman. Meanwhile, the rebels send another infantry unit towards the east bridge.

The Guards rifle fire drives the artillery off the field of battle.

General Hayes sends another infantry unit around the west side of the village to bring another rebel unit under fire.

The Speckled Horse has exhausted their horse; the Black Horse comes forward to relieve  them, and to get some  of the glory for themselves.

Too late, the rebel general moves downriver. The unit who has been trying to hold the west bridge falls under deadly crossfire. 4 units have been eliminated.

With only two units left, the rebels retreat.

The scenario is from ONE HOUR WARGAMES. The rules were MEMOIR OF BATTLE.

Half Hour Wargame

   The last couple of weeks I have been thinking of my blog. For me, my blog really hasn't offered anything original or new for quite a long time. The Peter Laing market seems to have dried up. It's been a while since there has been any good lots to buy. As for my gaming, I use rules that are from other blogs.  What's more, I would find myself trying to find a way to make my games interesting for anyone who comes to this blog, instead of planning the games for my enjoyment.  I have decided to spend more time on my gaming. I will try to add posting if I think it would be of interest to Peter Laing fans.

    When I first started looking for Peter Laing figures,  trying to find information about them was hard to come by. There were maybe half a dozen photographs on Google. One goal of my blog was to get more photographs of the figures online. I think if you Google Peter Laing figures or miniatures, you will find a good collection to enjoy.  The small group of Peter Laing fans have shared their pictures and stories about the figures. Reading these stories of people's memories of the early years of Peter Laing, I found that their stories only made me appreciate these figures more and their place in war-game history.

   I have been trying different ways to use my new Heroscape pieces. My last idea was to use Neil Thomas' ONE HOUR WARGAMES. The field would be 7 hexes by 7 hexes (originally it was going to be 6 x 6). I played a couple of games, one using my "no brain game", the second I used BATTLELORE. I think using the Richard Borg rules with modified movements will make for a good quick game.  I  used OHW army selection charts and scenarios. The game lasted a little over half an hour; great when you are pressed for time. Below are a few shots of the Peter Laing figures in action.

The Persian Army vs the Arab Army. The Persians brought their elephants.

These elephants need to see more action.

The elephants crash through the Arab center.

The Arabs manage to kill two of the elephants....

.....and the Arab cavalry drives the other one back to it's own line.

The Arabs manage to kill the last elephant, and wins the battle.

The size of the game board for this game is 11 inches x 13 inches.

Look at Books

        While camping last month the campground we stayed at didn't have Wifi.As we used our cellphones to connect to the internet, long before the month was over we had used all our data, meaning that we were going to have a very large phone bill. As such, I started bringing old military magazines to read during lunches at work. I saw a book advertised; UNKNOWN WARS OF ASIA, AFRICA AND THE AMERICA'S THAT CHANGED HISTORY by Steven M. Johnson. It has been an interesting read. I have almost read it in a week, which, is fast for me.

       I also have been looking at my Peter Laing Renaissance figures. I really want to do something with them. I know little of the period and the armies. There is a website that has a collection of Airfix magazine articles on Renaissance armies by George Gush. My understanding is the articles come from a book by George Gush RENAISSANCE ARMIES. I found a copy at a very good price and bought it. I received it today and look forward to reading it. The illustrations are excellent.   I have always been jealous of the British, as they seem to have the best books on military matters.

New Hexes & a Battle Cry Ancient Wargame.

      I received my new Heroscape swamp water hexes. I'm very pleased with them. Anyone who has put together a Heroscape board will tell you that the pieces can be rather difficult to put together. These pieces went together easily, taking maybe ten to fifteen minutes to assemble the board based on the Battlelore board. As the hexes are flat, the hill hexes don't lock together as they do with normal Heroscape hexes.

   I wanted to try the new board out, along with trying a different set of rules and using two armies from Neil Thomas' book; Ancient & Medieval Wargaming.  I wanted to try a Battle Cry variant for ancient battles.  I used the recommended Persian & Greek armies. Both armies have 8 units. The first army to lose 4 units is defeated.

The new hexes in the typical Command & Colors 9x 13 board.

The new hexes with old hexes as hills.

The Greek Army on top; Persians on bottom.

The armies close. Most of the Greeks are heavy infantry so they are slow to move forward.

The Greek light infantry push back a Persian unit.

The Immortals are stopped by the light infantry.

The Immortals are hit hard and suffer 60% losses.

The Greeks push back two infantry unit.

The Greek light infantry is eliminated.

The Persians start shifting their cavalry to their left flank. 

The Greeks push back the Persian Blues, a unit that has distinguished itself in other games.

The Persian Blues counterattack, and eliminates the Greek unit.

The Greeks manage to push back the Persian center.

The Persians now sends forward their cavalry on the left. The cavalry on the right pushes back the Greek left.

The Persians overrun two units. The Greeks have lost four units, and the battle.

In the end  I think that I will use Battlelore for my ancient wargames. After all, those rules were made for Medieval warfare. I also think I will use  a point system to  pick units in the army.  I will also allow the army to deploy in the first two back rows, instead of just the last row. This will allow heavy troops to close sooner and allow for more centrally located reserves.

I wanted to try some of my terrain  in the new  hexes. I'm happy with the results.  I  think the new Heroscape hexes was well worth the money.

Ten Minute Pike Unit & Back to Square? One

       While cleaning up my desk, I came across some of my Peter Laing ECW figures. I was wondering how long it would take me to paint 4 pikemen using the basic painting such as I used for my SYW project. I took a quick look at my cellphone for the time, then started painting. When I had the figures painted I checked the time again, and realized that I didn't look at the clock. I got 4 more pikemen out and, after checking the clock, tried again. 10 minutes later they were painted, except the base. That includes a quick telephone call from my wife. I did put a coat of gloss lacquer on them. Perhaps just occasionally painting figures like this I will have two ECW armies done before I know it.

     I did receive my gaming mat from HOTZMAT.  It fit on my gaming table as I hoped. But after putting some figures on it, I realize the hexes are too big for my plans. They would be good if I use my based 1st generation Minifigs Napoleonics, or my old Airfix figures.

        After painting the pikemen, I played a quick war-game using a chessboard and my Sudanese and Arab figures. I was disappointed with the game. I just find using hexes make for a better game. That brought me back to the Heroscape  hexes. So once again I am planning to set up a board using the BATTLE CRY or COMMAND & COLORS board as inspiration; a 9 hex by 13 hex board. I also decided to try to find one or two hex terrain pieces for the board. I decided to go on Ebay to see if I could find a good buy on the pieces.
     While looking, I came across some pieces referred to as swamp water hexes. These pieces are shaped the same as regular pieces, except they are flat green pieces, much like the water hexes. I think that these would make a better game board than the regular pieces. What's more, someone had three lots of 42 pieces, more than enough for my board, so I bought all three. I do believe these were made by another company to supplement Heroscape  after the game was discontinued.  By having a flat top instead of raised detail, I think terrain pieces will fit better on them.

One of the units of the 10 minute pikemen.

The two completed units.

Ottoman Turks vs Austrians

     One problem I have always had was using different figures for particular scenarios. At first I wasn't going use these scenarios except as written using the armies as listed. However, they gave me a chance to use figures that I have wanted to use for a long time. For this game, the battle of Soor, which was originally fought between Prussian and Austria, is to be fought with Ottoman Turks taking the place of the Austrians, and the Austrians taking the place of the Prussians.

The Turks on the left, the Austrians on the right. The Turks start out with 2 APs, the Austrians with 4 APs. Green arrows show Austrian movements, yellow arrows turkish movements, red arrows ranged fire.

Some of the nicely paintedPeter Laing Janissaries I bought last year finally sees some action.

The first move. Both armies bombard each other, as the Austrians start to extend their left flank.

The second move; both sides are still maneuvering.

The Turkish cavalry on the right try to drive off the Austrian cavalry facing the.

The Austrian cavalry counterattacks and pushes back the Turks.

The Austrians eliminate one of the Turkish cavalry units, and ranged fire drives the other cavalry back. The Austrian left starts to push forward. The Austrian cavalry at the top of the picture tries to drive back the Turkish cavalry on the hill.

The Turkish cavalry at the top drives back the Austrian cavalry. The Turkish fire against the advancing infantry doesn't slow them down.

The Austrian cavalry in the foreground overruns the Turkish cavalry.

The Turkish artillery eliminates one Austrian artillery battery.

The Austrian cavalry and infantry eliminates the rightmost Turkish infantry.

The cavalry overruns one of the Turkish batteries/ At the top the other Austrian cavalry  eliminates another infantry unit. The Turks have lost 7 units; the battle is lost. The Austrians only lost one unit.

With the Austrian have 2 more APs, and the Turks having terrible dice rolls, it was a hard fight for the Turks to win. In this game the Austrians had 4 generals (I only had 3 painted) to the Turks 1. If used as in BATTLE CRY, they could have given the combat units an extra dice.  By the way, once again I used  the AWI variant of BATTLE CRY.