In Cardiff for the rugby today and it's absolutely heaving with French supporters, including the other half and the offspring. With some time to kill I popped into Waterstones and blew a book voucher on this new paperback on the Agincourt campaign, perfect for the holiday reading this week. A bit ironic really. Allez Les Bleus!
The first half of the English Retinue for Ecorcheurs! has now been built, using the Perry Miniatures Agincourt plastic box set. There are nine longbowmen and a single man at arms in full harness, as you can see from the pictures. I have three more longbowmen to add, as well as four to six 'soldiers' with polearms, using the English archers with arms from the French infantry box set, together with two or three more fully armoured men at arms. I'm enjoying this project!
This has been a very slow burning project of mine, going way back to 2014 when I originally thought of doing it, but a recent birthday gift of a Peter Pig voucher is bringing it back to life. The original idea was set out here:
http://jimswargamesworkbench.blogspot.com/2014/09/lion-rampant-war-of-roses-retinues-in.html
...unfortunately scuppered when I realised there wasn't enough variety in the figure poses to make it look right. A while back, however, Peter Pig released a whole set of new packs to solve that problem, but I've been putting off getting some due to the cost factor.
With the impetus of a twenty five quid voucher this problem has now been solved. I've ordered some packs of levy, retainers and household men at arms plus Margaret of Anjou as a scenario objective (!) and Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, as a retinue commander.
This year is now definitely going to be focussed on the medieval period, so it's yet another string to my bow to have a 15mm Lion Rampant project waiting in the wings. I'm also thinking of a naval angle for this year, air warfare not being an option for obvious reasons, but more about that at a later date!
I was reorganizing the book shelves last night when I found a long forgotten paper back copy of this classic account of the defence of Malta in 1940, focussing on the famous Gloster Sea Gladiators, often referred to as Faith, Hope and Charity. There were in fact six of these but only three were airworthy at any one time. This will be really useful to fill in some gaps in my Bag the Hun scenario research notes and will also be a good book to read over the half term holidays. Tally Ho!
In advance of my copy of Ecorcheurs! arriving from Northstar, hopefully at the weekend, I've started planning and assembling an early fifteenth century English Retinue, using the Perry Miniatures plastic box set. Judging from the example retinues on the Ecorcheurs! website, a typical retinue mainly consists of longbowmen with a handful of men at arms in harness, so that's what I've opted for, albeit for the latter period of the Hundred Years War. The retinue will consist of eighteen or so longbowmen and about three or four men at arms, with perhaps a few extras to make up the numbers for Lion Rampant units. I've already glued together about a third of the contingent and hope to get the remainder ready for painting over the half term break. It's been a refreshing break from tiddly planes or ships and I've enjoyed it immensely already!
Before I sign off on the Algernon Pulls It Off! project I have a valedictory game to run at the club next month, with six players signed up and ready to go. The scenario I'm using has enough aircraft to stretch to two per player, allowing for those that get shot down to have a back up, but one RAF player would only have a single crew. To fix this, I've added a sixth DH4 and crew to the RAF flight, using an aircraft that was forced down earlier in the day. This is a simple fix and won't unbalance the game, whilst keeping the scenario historically accurate as far as possible. Bombs Away!
I am looking for something completely different and suitable for solo play, as a break from my air wargaming efforts that have taken up most of the last twelve months. Yesterday, I noticed that the new Gripping Beast small skirmish rules for the Hundred Years War are now available, so I'm going to take a dip.
I studied the Hundred Years War for my first degree and have the Perry plastic boxed sets of French and English figures, so all I need are the rules and some terrain, of which I have just about enough for a basic set up. I can also scale up any forces I produce for Lion Rampant, which was my first option for this period.
I've made a start on some English longbowmen already and the rules are in the post, so things are looking up as far as medieval wargaming is concerned, with The Barons' War also on the schedule for later in the year. I'm looking forward to something really different and plan to rope the boy into some games, once I've got things up and ready.
I've come to a natural end with the Algernon Pulls It Off! scenario project now that the WSS and Lard Mag articles have been published. I set out this time last year to try and revive the moribund rules by setting up both a Facebook group and the scenario research project, the aim being to give the game a boost and myself a focus for the year. It's now time to draw a line under it and move on to new things, whatever those might be. I won't be abandoning Algy but I've had enough of aerial wargaming for the moment and want to do something completely different, as I've found myself stuck in the wargaming doldrums of late and need a break. Toodle Pip!
Despite being unwell today I was cheered up by the arrival of my copy of Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy, including my article for Algernon Pulls It Off!. It's written by me, with the models and photos kindly supplied by no less than Steve Dean, who was very helpful in sorting out that side of things. Who knows, maybe I'll get another article in the magazine one day?
I had a bout of vertigo yesterday which lasts about twenty four hours and makes me feel terrible. I've now started to recover but I'm absolutely wiped out, so have had to postpone the club game of Algernon Pulls It Off! until the start of next month, as some of the players couldn't make the next couple of sessions. I may change the scenario anyway to 'Digger Dogfight' or 'Black Thursday' so that it accommodates six players properly. A bit of a pain in the **** but such is life when you are ill.
