Sharpe and his Rifles

Once again, Filippo surprises me with a wonderful painting job and a conversion. Above and below, Lt. Sharpe leading his men forward...
Sgt. Patrick Harper (below). Filippo made it converting from some plastic models (Perry, I guess), adding his curly hair, the chevrons on the right arm and the multi-barrelled gun.
He just picked up the shako of a French Voltigeur, and he's showing it to his Lieutenant.
The full "movie" squad: Hagman; Harris, Perkins, Harper and Sharpe.
"King George commands and we obey, over the hills and far away..........."

Neapolitans!

A selection of pics sent by Filippo from Florence. This is his brand new squad of Neapolitans Velites of the Guard, all 28mm Steve Barber Models. Above, two Velites (front/rear view).
The Guard Velites NCO in his resplendant uniform (Murat really liked this kind of uniforms). All facings are amaranth, a color that the King was very fond of....
The Drummer...
The Officer, with a picture of a wonderful 54 mm that Filippo took as a painting guide.
And finally the whole Guard Velites Squad. As usual, great job Filo!!

SDS Big Battle tonight

The "castle" is almost finished, and this evening the Battle shall begin!
I must say I enjoyed myself very much in building the house. There is still some work to be done, but I like the result. I'll have to adapt some rules for this particular scenario, and set some kind of victory conditions. Anyway, it will be an opportunity to meet before Christmas (we should be around 7 people) and drink some Spumante while eating Panettone.
I'll take note of everything and possibly make a Scenario out of it. Stay tuned for pics and a battle rep !

Building time

Together with my friends we decided to stage a SDS Big Battle for thursday, dec. 23rd in my lab.
It will be a participation scenario, loosely based on the French attack at Hougoumont, where a couple of players will play with the British inside a big house/castle and all others will command one or more French squads, trying to break through. As the attack will be very difficult due to heavy cover of the defender, there will be virtually no limit to the number of French squads attacking, but just 2-3 at a time. In this way people can come, take command of a squad, play 1-2 hours and then go, or keep playing...

For this reason I started building a BIG house (actually half of it, so that it is possible to move figures inside) with all the scratch material I have in the Lab. There will be also a high wall surrounding a part of the house corner (like in Hougoumont) from where the defenders will shoot at the approaching enemies. More about about this (and pics) soon...

Pics from MAG CON (Texas)

As I announced in a previous post, in the first week-end of December the MAG CON Convention took place near Houston, TX and SDS was played in a couple of tables. Above and below 2 pics of Dale's hand-made wooden soldiers (http://wooden-warriors.blogspot.com) in a classic French Vs. British scenario.
A close-up of the French squad, with a British Cavalryman. Dale uses scratch materials (the muskets are toothpicks!) to create his wonderful 42mm soldiers.
Another scenario was made using Kelly's 28mm miniatures (from Willy's blog - http://tacticalminiaturesgaming.blogspot.com).
British Rifles of the 95th take possession of some ruins. Many thanks to Dale, Kelly and Willy for their work and pics!

I'm back

...from a business trip that lasted a day more than expected. I was blocked in Paris by a snow storm that forced all passengers to spend one night in airport, and only yesterday I managed to come back via Madrid, but only very late in the evening.
I apologize to all people writing emails to me in these three days as I could answer just this morning or late yesterday night.

Pics of a great wargaming saturday (2)

More pics from yesterday's game chez Alessandro. In the previous 2 posts the description of the battle...
Some unexpected event took place (from left, me, Fabio and Max).
Max explaining to us his "Cavalry up and down" tactics, while I open a bottle (Alessandro on the right).A close view on the French advance on the right. Pics from Andrea.
See the following two post for more..

Pics of a great wargaming saturday (1)

Here they are! Thanks to Filippo for sending them, and in particular for the last 2 pics :))
Above, the initial setup of the British Forces (with a Dutch-Belgian unit added).
Three French squads (Marco's) advancing on the left: the first in line with a couple of skirmishers in front, followed by a double line and a column. The Officer carefully watches the deployment of his troops.
A Scottish squad in double line checking the advance of a French squad in line (and 2 Rifles going for cover behind a fence in front of the house).
A full view of the battlefield. It was a 120x180cm table, with some wooded areas and some buildings. And ...no, beer, plastic glasses and the big panettone cake were not part of the terrain :)
Another view of the British right during the early stages of the game. Max is shuffling activation cards..
On a last, desperate and unsuccessful effort to save the day, French Dragoons charge a reduced British squad. The redcoats will break, but a point-blank volley from the other squad on the right will then rout the eroic Dragoons...
And finally.... the interlude I told you about in my previous post.... Nothing to add, really nice job Filippo! (the contest was won by the British Officer, and the epilogue was as follows :)

A great wargaming saturday

Yesterday Andrea and me went to Arezzo to meet some friends and to play a company level Napoleonic battle with 61-65 rules. We agreed to bring all French and British miniatures 28mm figures we have and field as many squads we could.
In the end we had 8 infantry and 1 cavalry squad per side, making room for 6 players with 3 squads each. Alessandro, Marco and Andrea played the French side, and Max, Fabio and Filippo played the Brits. We used the Multi player Battle rules of 61-65 and I made some tweaking of the rules to adapt the game for napoleonics.
I started explaining the rules at 12.30 (they are all experienced SDS players) and the game ended with a (tight) British victory at 17.30 (lunch included). As it is usual in these circumstances (and it's a pleasure in my opinion) a lot of chatting and joking went on during the game, including a funny interlude when a Vivandiere entered the game and 2 Officers (one French and 1 British) made a charme contest for her :)
All in all, a 5 hours game with so many forces on the table, lunch and a complete overview of the game are really satisfactory in my opinion, and the game went on without any problem.
Andrea took some pics of the game and as soon as he'll send them to me I'll post them here.
The guys called the game "99-15" following the pattern we used for 61-65.

61-65 Italian version available

La versione italiana di 61-65 è disponibile in pdf su www.ganeshagames.net
Per le copie stampate bisognerà attendere ancora un paio di settimane.

The Italian version of 61-65 ia available in pdf. Printed copies will be ready in a couple of weeks.