Monday, October 17, 2011

More Hussar Sabretaches from BattleFlags

BattleFlags have been busy and have now 'filled in the gaps' in last weeks initial release, so now they have sabretaches for all 14 French Hussar regiments.

You may notice that some of the range have the tenue de campagne sabretache (i.e. the black ones) and others are the grande tenue (i.e. the fancy ones), the range will be extended to cover both as they source reliable information (good luck with that!) as Richard comments "I want to create as much choice as possible for the gamer and collector within the Battle Flag range".

Given that we know that the Hussars have a tendency for 'anything goes' in regards to their uniform a mix of tenue de campagne and grande tenue regiments, whilst maybe not completely accurate, works for me, after all Napoleonics should be fun and not boring!

Just to recap, these are designed to specifically fit the Perry 28mm Plastic Hussars. A set includes 14 sabretaches and saddle rolls and goes for GBP3.00.

As a bonus BattleFlag are currently offering to anyone who states that they are followers or readers of this blog, at point of order, free world wide shipping on all purchases of over 5.00GBP. You can't complain about that can you!

Further details or to buy click here









Sunday, October 16, 2011

Flags of War - Lance Pennants

Flags of War have released several sets of generic lance pennants, some of which could be useful for your Napoleonic lancers and uhlans.

Priced at GBP1.75 for a set of 10.

More info click here

Friday, October 14, 2011

Battle Flags - Perry Hussar Sabretache and Saddle Roll Number Decals

Earlier this week I hinted that their was another supplier of Sabretaches waiting in the wings, well that was BattleFlags and as Richard explains they have been somewhat delayed due to ill health but today they are ready and have stepped forward and released their first sets of Sabretaches.

From their announcement:
New 28mm French Hussar Sabretache Transfers and Decals
I have just about recovered from a bout of pneumonia of all things, hence the rather slow output of late. But now mended I will be cracking on apace.

Just before I took ill I was about to release sabretache and saddle roll Regimental number sets for Perry’s excellent Plastic Hussars. One set of transfers provides enough waterslide transfers for wargamers to decal a complete boxed set.

The sabretaches are rather prominent and an elaborate feature on the hussars and these transfers allow the wargamer to create an excellent focal point on each figure.

Battle Flags wargame transfers will give superb results every time with uniformity and detail just not possible with a paintbrush. As with all our transfers they are true waterslide decals making them extremely simple to attach. Simply cut out, soak for 20-30 seconds and slide into place.

The saddle roll numbers just add that final touch for a superb finish to your miniature.

You can purchase these and any other transfers or flags from the Battle Flag range at www.wargametransfers.com or www.battle-flag.com






They look really great and you can expect a lot more to come from Battle Flags in the very near future. I think the one sheet per regiment makes sense from a user perspective.

It's pretty amazing that in one week we go from no sabretache decals to having two different suppliers! Great work from both companies I think.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Flags of War - New 28mm German States

Flags of War are pumping out new Napoleonic flags again and have just released a series of flags covering the German States.

Brunswick Infantry
1st Battalion - 2nd Battalion - 3rd Battalion


Grand Duchy of Kleve Berg
Regt 1-2-3 1808 - 1st Infantry Regiment - 2nd Infantry Regiment


Grand Duchy of Kleve Berg
3rd Infantry Regiment - 4th Infantry Regiment - Leib Regiment


Grand Duchy of Baden
2nd Regiment - 3rd Regiment - 4th Regiment


Nassau Infantry 1808 - 1815


More info or to buy click here.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

CAPITAN MINIATURES - A new miniatures manufacturer


I have mentioned Capitan Games quite a bit in the past here, they are the people behind the Capitan, Brigadier and Master & Commander, as well as other, rule sets.

Well it seems they are now branching out into miniatures under the appropriate banner of Capitan Miniatures and have some very interesting plans that surely do match their tag line of 'unusual miniatures'.

From their announcement:

Capitan Miniatures has been created to bring to the wargamers and collectors, a new line of wargame miniatures with three principal basis:

1st: Individual miniatures or series of miniatures designed to play with the Capitan Games wargame rules. Our first series will be MASTER & COMMANDER, miniatures of 18mm of naval units (naval officers, sailors, marines, and embarked troops), british, french, spanish and US. The series is done to play our new game of boarding actions in the Napoleonic Wars, MASTER & COMMANDER -CLOSE QUARTERS- that will be available in brief from CAPITAN GAMES

2nd : New ranges of Miniatures and periods that has not been casted before. In these range we will start with a series of the 28mm Spanish Guerrillas Units in the Peninsular War (1808-18014), and the first unit in the series will be The Lancers of Don Julian.

3rd: Individual miniatures or series of miniatures to complete existing ranges of other manufacturers. We will start with a mini-series of 28mm French Gendarmes d'Espagne, and Spanish Cazadores a Caballo, of the Peninsular War.

The collaboration of the wargamer or collector is essential for us, if you have any miniature or period that you want to see covered for us, send us an email to info@capitanminiatures.com

Our miniatures are sculpted by some of the best miniature sculptors of the world like Mike Broadbend, and will be produced in Spain by a Joint Venture with WARMODELLING.

Although Naval and 18mm are not my "thing", the plans for 28mm figures are very interesting indeed mainly for the subject matter, Spanish Guerrillas, Don Julian Lancers, French Gendarmes, Spanish Cazadores!!!

These would be perfect for some skirmish scenarios with the Capitan rules, which obviously is partly the idea, but if you are into the Peninsular War in a big way I guess they will make good additions to your regular Spanish army.

It is refreshing to see someone new coming along that isn't just doing the same old figures that everyone else has already done, but instead is choosing to find a niche for themselves and fill in the gaps in other ranges. You have to applaud this, and I hope it turns out to be a successful venture for them. I also like they will be making them compatible with other ranges, though what those are remains to be seen, but these days you have to assume they mean 'Perry sized'.

No release date as yet, just 'coming soon', but something definitely worth keeping an eye on.


Here are a couple of shots of the 18mm greens (sorry no 28mm shots available at the moment).







For more info click here Capitan Miniatures

Monday, October 10, 2011

Perry Hussar Sabretache Decals From LBMS


Little Big Men Studios have announced the release of Sabretaches decals for the Perry plastic Hussars.

From Stephen Hales:

I have just finished a sheet of Hussar Sabretaches to fit the Perry plastic French Hussars, I started these ages ago and only just found time to finish. At present I have only done the 7th, 8th and 9th regiments, but I will do other regiments sheets. I have tried to reflect the constant changing of the designs through the Napoleonic period as cash became an issue some designs became more simplified. So there are designs for campaign, full dress, elite compaines and trumpeters and officers were they differ from the troopers.

The image attached is low res version of the actual sheet.

These look superb quality as you would expect from LBMS, and the officer and trumpeter sabretaches show the sort of attention to detail that really marks them out, great work!

They are priced at GBP7.00 plus postage per sheet, as noted only the 7e, 8, and 9e are currently available others are being worked on.

For more info and to buy
click here



You might recall last year I covered Sabretaches for the Perry Hussars when Aldo Stucco produced some fantastic graphics for Sabretaches for the 1er to 11e Hussard Regiments designed to fit the Perry Hussars. The big plus is they are free, the downside is you have to buy some decal paper, then print and cut them out yourself. Not really an impossible task but one where if you are lazy like me you find yourself wishing 'someone would do decals for these' even if it means paying for them, I know I did!

I have recently received three Hussard Regiments 1er, 6e and 7e and was in the process of getting some decal paper when a little birdie told me that commercial sabretache decals were in the pipeline (though not these from LBMS) so I decided to wait.

I don't think GBP7.00 for three regiments is an unreasonable price, I doubt it would end up cheaper if you did it yourself using the Aldo Stucco graphics. The only problem I see is that by grouping three regiments to a sheet it can work out quite expensive in total if you don't want those specific regiments. Assuming the sheets are eventually 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12, I would need 3 different sheets to cover my specific 3 regiments which means GBP21.00 plus I end up with decals for 6 regiments I don't need! I suppose the answer will be to put the one's I don't want on EBay, I can foresee there being lively secondary market in these lol.

The only other point I should note is that if you look very carefully at Aldo's graphics you will notice the sabretaches are not symmetrical, that's because the actual Perry sabretaches weren't symmetrical either, whether it was a sculpting or casting error who knows, whereas the LBMS decals are correctly symmetrical. The difference at this scale is very tiny indeed, I assume the decals have been tested and it doesn't make any difference, I don't have a problem with that.
Steven corrected me and pointed out that the LBMS decals are in fact also non-symmetrical and were based off a scan of the Perry sabretache so they fit perfectly!!!

As they say you pays your money and you takes your choice, these are currently the only commercial sabretache decals available and are well worth it in my opinion, I have no idea when the other sheets will be available from LBMS though I think they are needed sooner rather than later to make it practical to use all LBMS decals.

Thursday, October 06, 2011

Warhammer Historicals Waterloo 1/2 Price Sale


The "Waterloo" rule set from Warhammer Historical that we mentioned here a while back are now on sale at half price (actually all Warhammer Historical books are currently on sale). That means that at the moment you can pick up this rule set for GBP18.00 plus postage (GBP3.00 for ROW). No idea of when the sale ends but it is 'for a limited period only'.

Although at full price I didn't think this was a set worth picking up, I think at this price it's a no brainer, definitely worth adding to the 'collection'.

For more info or to buy you can click here.

Saturday, October 01, 2011

New arrivals at MMPS

MMPS (Mabuhay Miniature Painting Service) have just restocked the 28mm French Napoleonic command figures painted by Chris Leason.

A big new bunch of French Command figures, painted by the talented Chris Leason, has arrived at MMPS.

And that's not all. We now also have French and British casualty figures that you can use as markers in your games. Same story here, I still need to finish their bases and then these will be for sale in the Bits & Pieces section of this website.


French marechals d'Empire, generals, colonels and ADC are now for sale in the Bits & Pieces section. These were all painted by Mr. Chris Leason for MMPS.

British and french casuallty markers will follow somewhere next week.

These are all mean't to complement the painted Perry plastic figures which are MMPS's main line of business. The command figures are priced at USD10.00 each and are well worth it at that price, I have a few already and I keep adding more of them whenever I place an order with MMPS. I have no hesitation in recommending them. You can see them here.



Friday, September 30, 2011

Warlord Games - Pavlovsk Grenadiers

WG are moving fast with their Russian range!

Although we have seen the Pavlosk Grenadiers before, now we can actually order them. They are priced at GBP20.00 per box, but remember if you are outside the EU you won't get charged VAT so that means 20% off that price.

Pre-order Pavlovsk Grenadiers

The third of our plastic and metal Napoleonic Russian boxed sets are the Pavlovsk Grenadiers.

Rewarded for their bravery on the battlefield by the Emperor of Russia they were allowed to retain their distinctive mitre caps when other grenadier regiments were being issued shakos.


This boxed set is designed to allow you to field one battalion of this very famous Grenadier regiment; the variants in the box allow you to build both musketeers and grenadiers along with a command section to lead them into battle. We have also provided a selection of flags from a number of regiments so you can get them into the action right away.


As you can see there are two types of mitre cap – the tall grenadier version and the smaller one worn by the musketeers. As with our 1809-1815 Russian Line Infantry and 1812-1815 Russian Line Infantry sets these are simplicity itself to put together as they are 3-part models…


Each boxed set contains 4 metal and 28 plastic miniatures. Also includes standard poles and flag finials. Also included are 56 metal heads so you can build them as either grenadiers or musketeers. I’ll say that again – 56 heads! Pre-order your box set here today!

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Perry British Ammunition Wagon

Just up on the Perry Miniatures Metal Workbench a 'coming soon' British 1814 Ammunition wagon.

Quite a nice addition, will be particularly useful in skirmish games I think. The team looks pretty much the same as that in the 'limber team standing' set.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Free playtest hex based horse & musket rules at Crusader

Another new ruleset, this time from Mark Sims of Crusader, available electronically and free, at least for now, just not sure whether after 'playtest' they will eventually become commercial, I assume so, but as the saying goes 'make hay while the sun shines'.

With a 6' x 4' representing about 4miles by 3miles this is a grand tactical game, your are the Army or Corps commander, uses 2" hexes, and obviously you will therefore need a hexmat!!

I've been toying with the idea of combining boardgame and wargame game mechanics for quite a while and have finally put all my notes togther into a (mostly) understandable format.

The playtest rules are available as a free PDF from the downloads page of the Crusader Publishing site here.

There are 20 pages of rules (plus some sample army lists) which includes a lot of examples and the fast play sheet could be squeezed into half a page of A4 (though I've added helpful notes) so they are easy to learn!

The rules are designed to use infantry battalions, cavalry regiments or artillery batteries but to have lots of these on the table. The scale of the game is pretty big with a 6 foot by 4 foot table representing something like 4 miles by 3 miles.

I still have stuff to do on the rules but the majority of the work is done and they are a 'playable' set for anyone that has an interest in hex based gaming.

Hope Mark doesn't mind but I think his first page introduction explains a lot of the thinking behind these rules:

Why bother with yet more rules? I have always enjoyed board wargaming as much as tabletop and combining aspects of the two seems to make perfect sense to me. These rules use a hex grid to regulate movement, firing and so on but they also use tabletop mechanics and figures. Both of these aspects have their advantages and disadvantages, a few obvious examples include the ease and accuracy of measuring movement, firing or facings with hexes but the problem with an inability to ‘stack’ units in a hex when using figures.

With the above in mind there are some abstractions that players are just going to have to live with (or find another set of rules to play, obviously). The game is designed for large battles where each individual battalion of infantry, regiment of cavalry or battery of artillery is being represented, The idea being that players represent higher level commanders and are not really interested in whether the 2nd battalion of the 27th Line has skirmishers deployed or
not. The local, lower level, commands are assumed to be doing the best thing at the right time, you can even say that the die rolls for firing, melee and so on reflect how well their command is doing.

What do the rules aim to achieve? Well, if you are anything like me you have fought your fair share of battles that start with both sides lined up within artillery range, each player has their troops to command and on the first turn one side or the other begins to attack. This isn’t because an all out attack is the plan but simply so that players get something to do and so that a game has a chance of being finished in a day or evening. As often as not there is little or no manoeuvre, no time for preparatory bombardment and the idea of keeping a reserve is laughable - after all, they’ll never have time to get into the fight if you do that so why bother?

The rules that you choose obviously affect this to one degree or another but I decided that I wanted a game where there were lots of units on the table and where both sides actually had time to develop plans and fight battles as they were actually fought. Turn 1 - charge! gets a bit dull after a while.

How did I try to do this? The obvious option is to make each ‘unit’ on the table represent a larger formation. Instead of your block of troops being a battalion make it a regiment or a brigade, this is what a lot of large scale rules do.
Unfortunately a battle with 25 units on the table where each is a battalion is not far removed from a battle with 25 units on the table where each unit is a brigade. Whatever you call them - you have 25 units. Once again the rules you choose determine to what degree this applies.

I wanted a game where I could command a Corps and have that Corps comprise all of the battalions, regiments and batteries that it did historically. The game then becomes about how you deploy and use that ‘mass’ of troops. You have the scope to detach troops, keep reserves, attack multiple objective and so on, and while you are doing this the other commanders (players) are doing the same thing.

Does it work? Yes, pretty well I think, so long as you accept the fact that the rules are streamlined (‘its all factored in’ conveniently glosses over a lot of things) to allow players to manage a large number of units in a playable time frame. If you want detail you wont find it here, if you want the spectacle of a mass battle and a realistic time frame for playing you’ll ignore the more obvious ‘factoring in’. Think like a Corps or Army commander and not like a Regiment or Battalion commander and you won’t go too far wrong.

If its a grand tactical set of rules where is the Command & Control? Basically, in a nutshell - its the players. I have yet to find two wargamers that fight or think the same way. Where one is ordered to ‘attack’ they’ll go all out with every unit as fast as they can while another will carefully creep forward covering every flank and terrain feature. I guarantee a multi player battle will have at least one player tearing their hair out in frustration - ‘That wasn’t the plan!’.

Finally, these rules are still in the playtest stage, the examples may not be complete, there are some sections that still need to be updated and there are no doubt a fair few typos and possibly some contradictions where one rule has been updated but another has not. I’m always open to suggestions about how to improve things but one thing I am not going to do is add anything. To my mind the trick to writing rules is to see what you can take out and still have
a realistic, playable game - anyone can add rules to cover situations or fill gaps where the basic rules don’t quite work. So, if you can streamline these rules let me know, if you just want to add cavalry feint charges, reverse slope bombardment or overhead fire from howitzers by all means do so for yourself but its not what these rules are about.

Nothing much else to say - try the rules, if you like them, great. If not then you can’t complain - they’re free.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Tremble Ye Tyrants - Take II

I did a brief post on "Tremble Ye Tyrants" new ruleset a week or so back, mainly complaining about the lack of information. Since then the only additional information I have come across has been a concise review by vtsaogames on TMP with all due credit to vtsaogames I think it is worth repeating here, though you should note that this review is only based on a read through of the rules not an actual game.

I just got my copy of Chris Peers' new Napoleonic rules, "Tremble Ye Tyrants" in the mail. This is a first impression after having read the rules, no game played.

The rules are 38 pages with a glossy color cover. Inside the front cover are some photos of a very nicely painted 28mm infantry unit. The photos are nice and related to the rules. Inside the back cover are ads for other Chris Peers ‘Ruga Ruga' games. This is not the sort of coffee table book full of pictures that is standard these days but then the rules only cost 10 pounds.

The main reason the rules take 38 pages is because Peers explains his reasoning behind a lot of the rules decisions. I like that but without it the rules would be perhaps 20 pages.

The rules seem old school but with modern tastes accounted for. There are no saving throws. There is a points system and a basic scenario generator that produces either an offensive/defensive battle, an encounter battle with troops arriving on table during the game, or a set piece with possible off-table troops later on. There is no terrain generation system. That's up to the players. The game needs D6 for movement, melee and morale and D20 for shooting. You'll want 4 of each, and always prefer a high score. A peeve of mine is otherwise serviceable rules that reward a high roll one time and a low roll the next. It makes it seem even worse when you do the opposite. I'd also rather the game designer did the work so I don't have to remember which kind of roll is needed for what test. All high gets a good mark in my book.

Another peeve of mine that the rules cater to is two kinds of woods, open and dense. Many rules have good going and bad, period. It's nice to see a little more choice.

Units may be battalions, cavalry regiments and artillery batteries. But they also may be brigade and artillery battalions, without any changes to ranges or rules. There is no hard and fast time or ground scale. But musket range of 4 inches indicates 50 yards to the inch to me, more or less. At higher scales you can rationalize it as including skirmishers. Your mileage may vary. Suggested base widths are 60mm, but as long as both sides are based the same the rules should work. The rules say a good table size is 4X6 feet, larger if you can get it. Infantry and cavalry units have 4 bases each and artillery 1. I imagine that 15mm and smaller scales can be played on smaller tables by halving ranges and such.

Qualities can be assigned to infantry and cavalry. Some are dashing, some are steady and some are ferocious. There are others. Ferocious infantry can attack with cold steel any time. Other infantry must wait until their enemy has a few disorder markers on them. It's an easy way to portray the cold-steel penchant of the British infantry – who don't get a firing bonus in these rules! It's a breath of fresh air for those of us with reservations about Oman's column vs. line story. The rules treat all artillery the same, except well-led French artillery may fire while prolonging forward and British may fire shrapnel. I imagine it wouldn't be hard to finagle raw gun crews should you desire.

The turn sequence is Rally units, roll for off-table troops and move beaten, routed and pursuing troops. Player 1 moves a unit, player 2 moves a unit and so on until everything has moved. Resolve shooting. Resolve melee. Take morale tests. End turn.

Firing is one d20 per firing stand, the result most often a miss or a disorder marker on the target. Sometimes a stand is removed from the target. Artillery has a rather short effective range, but can fire 4 feet at long range. Long range fire is unlikely to produce anything other than the odd disorder marker unless the targets are enfiladed or bunched up. There is bounce through fire, which is also used against reverse slope targets. In many rules, troops on a reverse slope are impervious to artillery fire. Accounts of Waterloo indicate otherwise. Melee is one D6 per attacking unit. The result can vary from a bloody repulse to the defenders routing before contact.

There are some nice touches. I've seen many rules writers jump through hoops to solve the massed column phalanx steamroller – and even then fail sometimes. With some rules, you make an enormous massed column block which cuts through defensive lines at will. In Tremble, each unit makes its own attack. You might do better waiting until the next turn to see how the first unit did. If the turns play quickly, this will be valid. If the turns drag on then the tendency will be to put everything in as soon as possible so there can be a decision before it's time to go home.

It took several passes through the melee rules to decide that this is how multi-unit melees work. Since it's a very different concept it would help if the rules were more explicit about this. Most players expect two units on one to be a done deal. These rules presume that the attacks are not simultaneous. It is possible for a unit fighting two to rout one and be routed by the other – or to rout both.

Victory seems to be a kind of last man standing affair. But since units that accumulate too many disorder markers rout, perhaps the game ends sooner than that. If not, it's certainly easy to just hang a 50% breakpoint or other preferred mechanism on the game.

There are simple army lists. Any self-respecting Napoleonic gamer will of course disagree with some of it. I do. But my gripes are minor and easily fixed. I don't think the Tremble police will come get me if I rate post-1808 Prussian line infantry as dashing instead of steady.

Mr. Peers writes well and can spell. This is the first of his rules I've read. There seems to be a solid game in here. The proof will be in the playing.

PS – one beef – no separate QRS. There is one on the back of the rules, but you'll have to make photocopies of it. I hope they post one on the North Star site as a download so I don't have to back-fold the rules on the copier at work.

Nick also posted a response to the above review, which I think adds a little bit of worthwhile information.
Dear Sir

Thank you for taking time out to post this view of the rules. I'll get a download of the QRS on the website, that is a good idea.

Confession time, I haven't played TyT yet, don't have the armies. The figures on the cover of the book are the start of my French. But I regularly play the other sets, especially the African set, Death in the Dark Continent, and they are a bit of a hit at our regular club meet. I think it is because this series of rules are easy to follow and so you begin playing the game after one session without constant reference to the rulebook. And they are quick. Even mechanisms that seem over simple you appreciate they are so you get through the game in an evening, and actually come to the same result as a more complicated mechanism.

I've priced this latest set at £10.00 GBP in the hope people find that cheap enough to buy just to find out how they read and play.

Thanks
Nick

PS On Military Matters and Brigade Games will have the book in the USA very soon, and Dave Thomas will have the book at UK shows, including Derby next weekend.

Let me also add that Nick at NorthStar has now added a QRS, available from the NorthStar site here. Though there are some formatting issues and I think the columns for movement are reversed (I think they are revising the QRS as we speak) the QRS gives you a good idea of how the game works.

What stands out to me is 4" musket range, movement distance based on D6 so average 3.5" for line, x2 for column, x3 for horse, so short firing range, longer unpredictable movement.

My $.02, very short ranges, very simple mechanisms, plenty of movement, plenty of variability, beer and pretzels type game should combine to work well on the confined (for 28mm) 6' x 4' tabletop and could be a lot of fun to play, don't start debating the historical accuracy of any part of these rules, your missing the point if you do, this is a ruleset to just have fun with, which is not a bad thing and can fit in even if you are a regular fan of some other more sophisticated set. I could see this being a set that generates a lot for 'house variant' rules which often adds to the overall satisfaction I think.

I will still stick by my view that I believe at this end of the market they should follow the 'lardies' example and offer a pdf version of the rules. You may say, as Nick does, GBP10.00 is cheap but I can pick up a copy of 'Grand Battery' for the same price off Amazon and that is 192 pages of a proper glossy hardcover book, which is another reason I feel that pdf would be a better route. They would be a no brainer then and they are IMHO missing a big opportunity if they don't.

There is nothing in particular that these rules have that sets them apart from several others, other than they are new and accessible, I think fun is the key word here, but seemingly in Napoleonics we are always on the lookout for 'new' so might be worth giving them a try and it does make a change from the 'heavy' rules we have seen a lot of in recent years... if they do them in pdf form.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Perry Update

News from the Perry's on the Austrian and Russian lines.


From Alan Perry's announcement in their new Newsletter:

Up on our site (on the Metal Workbench) are shots of the first Russian and Austrian metals which will be available prior to the plastic sets.

The ranges will be extensive and comprehensive (along the same lines as our ongoing British , French and Prussian ranges) covering all branches of the armies using the most recent research.

We will keep you updated on these as well as other ranges via this Newsletter and on the site.


Bye for now!
Alan Perry

and the pic's:





You can subscribe to the newsletter by registering on the Perry site here.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Warlord Games - New: Napoleonic Russian Support Packs!

We've seen all these before as greens but they are now available in the WG store so you can rush out and buy them if you wish.

From their announcement:
Following our superb new plastic 1812-1815 Russian Line Infantry boxed set are these two new metal packs – command and casualties! This is just the start of a comprehensive Napoleonic Russian range on the way! Cast a weather eye over these fine sculpts…

First up is this great-looking command pack. Ideally suited to armies fighting after 1812 you could easily use these as early as 1809 by swapping the drummer’s kiwer shako for one of the earlier pattern shakos as you’ll find them in the 1809-1815 Russian line Infantry set – you’ll have plenty of spares after all!

As you’d expect from us here at Warlord there is stacks of variety and options to allow you to build this pack in many different configurations and giving your army a uniform yet individual feel. As you’ll notice from the photos above, all right arms and heads are separate with the pack containing several options of each.

As you can imagine we’ll be producing a similar set for the 1809 pattern regiments so keep your eyes on the newsletter for first sighting!

You can purchase this command pack now here in the webstore.

What would a wargame be without casualty figures? Not only a great addition to your rank and file to add atmosphere to your battalions they can also be used as casualty markers for your games of Black Powder!

You can pick up a pack or two of casualties right here!

As I probably said before some of these poses do look like they were recycled from the Prussian Landwehr but I do like the drummer.

Of particular note "start of a comprehensive Napoleonic Russian range" interesting if true, WG has always struck me as not being really serious about Napoleonics, so I am very interested to see what they mean by 'comprehensive', especially with the Perry juggernaut looming large on the horizon, but as before their Russians do paint up spectacularly well!

One thing I wish, is that Napoleonic manufacturers would 'talk' more to their customers! I hate to do the "Perry are perfect" dance but at least with Perry I believe I know where the range is headed, what I can expect and some of idea when I will get it. Admittedly much of this is due to the Perry track record speaking for itself but other manufacturers don't really have this track record and I think they are missing a great opportunity to get people on board.

If WG are seriously planning a 'comprehensive' range give us an idea of what that means, not saying we need greens now but tell us the scope for the range so we can plan out where WG may fit in to our collections over the next few years ahead, otherwise I am afraid they will be all Perry.

Can't resist another pic of their Infantry...
Mouthwatering!