Finished Peter Laing Legions

     While on vacation I painted up two of my "Peter Laing Legions".  Originially they had 4 units; one cavalry, two infantry, and one machine gun. One is based on the late 1800's US Army, the other the CIV from the Boer War. I started to add another infantry unit to the CIV and an artillery unit to the US legion. I think in the end they will become 6 units made up of two cavalry and four infantry units, with the machine gun and artillery added based on games.

    Recently I have been taken a break from wargaming and mainly been doing some reading. I also started working on a RC sailboat bought on Ebay. I will not be posting much for a while, although I will continue to follow other wargaming blogs.

The US Army Legion. The figure walking his horse is to be used if the cavalry dismounts to fight as infantry. The US Army during this period wore ammunition bandoliers around the waist, not over the should as the British army did. However, as I rarely fight historical games with these figures, a little "artistic license" was taken.

The CIV Legion. I started painting the third infantry unit, that is on the left of the picture.

Peter Laing Legions

      I recently read a book on the American Revolution. In the book they mentioned the use of Legions in both armies. At the time I was working on my Minifigs AWI armies and started thinking of making a Legion of Minifigs. Of course, I got distracted from my painting and lost interest in that project.

     I also have started rebasing my Peter Laings, switching from washers to plastic square bases. I was working on my Peter Laing Boers. One reason I wanted more Boer figures was so that some could be painted as dismounted Yeomanry. While walking my dog, I started thinking of how to use the new Peter Laings. I also started thinking of legions. As I have been using Neil Thomas' army charts, it dawned on me that his 3, 4, or 6 unit armies would make nice little legions. I decided to make several "legions" of Peter Laings, made up of 3,4,5, or 6 units. I already have a Natal Native Horse "legion" consisting of 2 infantry and 2 cavalry units. I decided to make two more legions, one based on the City Imperial Volunteers from the Boer War, another painted along the lines of the US Army in the late 19th-early 20th century.  Both these legions will have one cavalry, one machine gun, and two infantry units.

Working on Peter Laing Legions.

Close up of the first CIV infantry.

In the background some of the US infantry have started to be painted.

These are the two Natal Native Horse units that I got years ago.

Two units of Natal Native Horse infantry. These four units have been used in several games, fighting as a unit.

Another shot of the CIV infantry.

Gaming with My Tile Board & 2mm Blocks

      All week I had been planning  my gaming for Saturday. I was either  going to continue working on an AWI game using my 1st generation Minifigs or a Memoir 44 Vietnam game. Alas, by the time I sat down to start gaming, I had little time to get started with setting up the planned game.  So I pulled out my new square tile board and 2mm armies. Terrain was randomly placed and the armies deployed. These figures and board make setting up a game simple and fast.

     While playing this game, I started thinking of using the 2mm blocks as generic armies that would represent any time period between ancients to Horse & Musket. Using Battlelore as a basis, flags would be painted green for light troops, blue for medium troops, and red for heavy troops.  Militia and other weak units would only have three stands for infantry and two for cavalry. Elite units would have five units for infantry and four for cavalry. After my first game, I quickly painted some light units using this idea. The armies rolled using Neil Thomas' army charts; I used the ancients chart. Skirmisher units counted as light cavalry. The armies were made with light and medium troops only.  The game was enjoyable enough for me to continue to work on developing the generic armies.

The first game; an ACW game. I started taking pictures near the end of the game.

The Union forces are outflanking the rebel line.

An ancient game using Battlelore movement and dice. The red army have their light troops on the left.

The light cavalry of both sides engaged on the right.

The blue army starts pushing back the red army's center.

The red army tries to divide the blue's center.

The blue army stabilizes their center.

The red army starts turning the blue army's left flank.

The blue light cavalry drives off the red light cavalry off the field. The blue cavalry hits the red light infantry.....

.....and destroys that unit. The red army is now at 50% strength and must retreat.

I hope with the coming of cool weather I will start working with some of my Peter Laing figures. If not,  my 2mm blocks will hopefully keep me gaming. Only time will tell.