Borodino at Enfilade 2016

At last!  The day of battle was upon us!

Field Marshall Hamm's beautifully painted French hordes advance against the Russian redoubts...

View From the French left.  Looks impressive, but in fact, nobody on this side of the battlefield did much of anything for the entire battle...

Doug's nifty field ambulance vignette.  They would have lots of work to do today...

View from behind the redoubt in the center of the Russian lines...

Cossacks skillfully screen the Russian left flank...

Polish(?) infantry advancing for the glory of the French Emperor...

More of Napoleon's legions...

As the game kicks off, my little cavalry corps re-deploys to cover a rather conspicuous weak point in our line located  behind the ruined village of Semenovskaya...

A delightfully painted corps of Cossacks covers the Russian far right...Beautiful work, whoever painted these...I love 'em!



The mighty Russian Imperial Guard await their orders to commit to battle.  As it turned out, the orders didn't come in time to make any difference, but hey...that's life.

The advancing French destroy the Russian infantry blocking the path to Semenovskaya, tearing a hole in the Russian lines.  It's my boys' time to shine!

My Ivans sweep through the smoldering streets of Semenovskaya and advance to meet the accursed Frogs!

The massed cavalry columns collide in a hurricane of steel and horseflesh as, to their right, the French reach the main redoubt, grappling with James' Russian infantry.  James fights his battle brilliantly, and, despite a horrible tactical situation, holds out to the very end...

My hussars blunt the assault of Bob's heavy cavalry but the French horsemen decimate my ranks before retiring.  Next time I'll know not to put light cavalry up against heavies!

French infantry defeat the battered remnants of Revsky and Borozdi's forces, killing them or driving them out of their fleches, but my horse artillery open up at close range and clear the French from the captured fortifications in the very moment of their hard-won triumph!

The French horse re-group for another round of attacks.  My Hussar division is wrecked, so my Dragoons go forward!

Count Pyotr Bezukhov asks "May I be of assistance to anyone?"  Unfortunately, he is not killed.

My horse artillery make their last stand near the woods.  I was proud of them.  Despite their limited range, they eliminated two French infantry stands and damaged another one before being crushed by the French guns.

Russian reserve cavalry gallop toward the inferno.  I don't know what they were doing, but I thought they were beautiful, so I took a picture.

My Dragoons meet the French charge...

Again they compel a French retreat, but again the French leave my ranks in tatters.  I have only a skeleton crew left to meet the last charge...!  ...And there it ended.  After a long, hard fought game, the Russian left wing was completely destroyed, while battered but grimly determined columns of French still stormed stubbornly forward.  It was over.  Doug called he game for the French.  An awesome game.

Cheers to Doug Hamm, who put on a great game, and to everybody who contributed as players, mentors and painters.  See you next year!

Russian Hussars at Borodino

The last unit of my Russian Cavalry Corps are these Hussars.  They don't look like much, but I am all out of time to work on them, and so unfortunately this is as good as they are ever going to get.

I've painted both stands as being of the Izoum regiment....

...shown here painted by Keith Rocco in the big mix-up with French Cuirassiers at Borodino.

Like the Dragoons, these are Perry minis, and they're not bad, but there's something about them that made my paintbrushes surly, unhappy and bad at their job.  I'm no happier with these than I was with my Dragoons, but try, try again, right?

The braid on their chests refused to allow itself to be dry brushed, for some reason.  Not sure why.

I brooded over letting them have their pelisses in spite of the fact that they did not wear them on the day of the battle.  I have the pelisses painted up, however, and will take them with me to the con in case I change my mind.  Pelisses just look so damn good!

My finished corps.  Had to re-base the gun as it turns out I had it on the wrong size base.  Grr.  Well, they're not pretty, but you don't have to be pretty to be able to fight, right?  We'll see how they do at Borodino.  I'll post some pictures of them in action at Enfilade sometime in early June. 


Urrah!!

Ol' Piet's Beer Cart: Thunder Mountain Dwarves' Baggage Train Part 2

An ancient and sacred tradition in the Thunder Mountain colony dictates that when the King's army marches to war, it does so fortified by a number of casks of excellent beer and cider furnished at he King's own expense. 

Although appreciated by all, for some Dwarves the 'King's ration' is simply not enough.  Those who need a little something extra while working themselves up for, or winding down from, battle can turn to some of the private ale-selling enterprises that invariably follow in the army's trail.

Shown here is one of the more celebrated of these entrepreneurs, Pieter Larsen, known to the soldiery simply as "Ol' Piet."  Like the army's other farriers, Piet fought in the ranks in his youth, earning many hair-raising scars and blood curdling war stories which he's glad to share around the ale barrel in the evening.  Like so many old war vets, Piet is well known for being a bit crotchety and  short of temper.  His club and hook hand serve as an excellent deterrent to those Dwarves who have a hard time knowing when to stop tapping the kegs.

Here is Piet's beloved friend and co-worker, Polly, well known for being just as cranky and violent as Piet himself.  Her hind legs have developed enormous strength over the years of hauling her heavy loads and a sharp kick from her aft hooves have been known to knock obnoxious customers out cold.

Tellin' War Stories

Taking care of business.

"Snerk...Hrmm? Just a few more minutes Sarge, few more minutes. I'll be right there."

The complete baggage train.  The pictures look a bit washed out because I used my wife's camera and I haven't really figured it out yet.  Well this was the very last piece of my 3,000+ point Point Oldhammer Dwarf army.  It has taken years and I still want to add another 2k points or so, but the muster of  Thunder Mount is finally 100% ready to march!