A Mulberry Harbour

I'm sure many of you know how it works ... you go onto a website looking for something particular and then get sidetracked and follow a few more links / threads and end up not where you intended but close to a "Checkout" button.

Well that what led to the purchase I'm showing below.  I went onto Shapeways to look for a 6mm Freya Radar for my Normandy Germans.  Then saw a reference to a Mulberry harbour component which ended up with these landing on my doorstep.

Beach ramp and bridges

Bridges and Beetles

Pierhead

LST Pierhead

In need of a beach and water board

Realising that it would not be too often that I would use the Harbour setup, I saw something else that I thought may have been more useful - Rhino ferries.  So click and a few of them were on their way.

Rhino tugs and barge

Small Rhino ferries

No comments on the prices if you follow this link :)

All of these come from https://www.shapeways.com/shops/miniandbeyond?section=1%2F300+WW2&s=0

Start of something "big"

I have long looked at Pendraken 10mm figures and wondered whether I would - considering I have tons of unpainted Adler 6mm Napoleonics that I am gradually painting my way through.

Well I thought I should get a few 'test' packs to see what they would look like and how easy they were to paint.  I have wanted to do the War of Spanish Succession after being inspired initially by the atmosphere and paintings at Blenheim Palace.  This was further encouraged by the wonderful publications of Charles Grant in his Refighting History series.

So a test unit was embarked on a French one was the result.  I'm pretty happy with the way it came out and was very easy to paint and base.

Plans are a foot for Ramilles!

Thirty Years War at Annandale

We met at Annandale yesterday for a great game of Baroque with some lovely Thirty Years War figures painted by Maurice, Bob and Grant.

Maurice and I were opposing a nasty looking bunch of Swedes.  Managed to play to a conclusion in about 4 hours of game time.

Most of the villages / hamlets are from Total Battle Miniatures 10mm range.

My pike and musket regiments in line before the battle.

Part of the Swedish line opposing me.  Unfortunately out of shot to the right of the Swedish infantry was a large number (five regiments) of Swedish horse.  Against them I only had three regiments.  Pretty obvious that this flank was going to be the result of the battle.

It didn't take long for the horse to come to grips with each other.  My first unit of Cuirassiers below didn't earn their horse feed on the day.  These guys lasted one round and with the followup they routed. 

Action pretty quickly turned to my massed Reiters taking on another unit of Swedish horse.  These Reiters has inserted themselves into a gap between villages and were protecting the flank of my infantry as they slowly advanced towards the Swedes.  On the day, they fought as gallantly as anyone could hope.  This melee lasted in the vicinity of five or six turns.  In the end they broke but only once they were contacted on the flank by another fresh unit of Swedish horse.  

While the horse battle was going on the infantry ground their way towards each other.  As we advanced, my artillery slowly took chips off two of the Swedish units to the extent that when we finally met both Swedish units did not last long at all.  

Unfortunately my two units of infantry in the foreground of the photos took a few rounds of fire from the more powerful Swedish units before we could get into melee with thee.  This resulted in both being thrown back and then quickly overwhelmed by the Swedes.  

The end results was that both our armies broke on the same turn - a very enjoyable draw on the day.