Hanoverian Flags of the Hoya Regiment

These are the pictures I was able to find of the actual flags carried by the Hoya Battalion at the battle of waterloo. For a discussion of how they were found and for more links see the TMP link:

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=148925

Napoleonics update - Hannover and French

This summer's project, which was finished just in the nick of time, was to get the last of my aged Napoleonic figures spruced up and rebased before starting graduate school. I made it with two days to spare. These are all twenty-five year old figures that I had painted in my teens that were in desperate need of an upgrade. I was too lazy to strip them, so in most cases I just piled on more paint and tried to make do. My goal here was to achieve a good wargames standard that would not look too out of place with my newer figures.

Here we have some Minifigs painted as the Lancers de Berg. I did take the time to strip the actual riders, as previously they had been painted as the Dutch "Red" Lancers and I was afraid the white would not cover the red very well.

Here are the aforementioned Dutch Lancers. I did a pretty cursory repaint of these, mostly just tidying them up a bit and adding a bit of highlighting.

This is two elements of Minifigs based as a regiment of line infantry per element. The Grenadiers have all been removed to form a reserve and the Voltigeurs have fallen back from their skirmish duties to rejoin the line. Though I didn't strip these, I really could have as almost every surface was repainted.

Two elements of line Infantry, this time from Hinchliffe miniatures. I really should have stripped these as I discovered that I had done a really poor job of trimming flash from these. I muddled through and either trimmed as I went or tried too minimize any flash with dark paint. These were some of the first figures I ever purchased. I found them in a hobby shop in Oxford England, when I was living there for a year back in the late 70's.

These are more figures from the same shop, though the standard bearer is an Essex addition that I recently purchesed. I would have preferred a Hinchliffe standard bearer, but the Essex was readily available. Here we have the Hoya regiment from Hanover as they appeared at the battle of Waterloo. I had a devil of a time researching the flag, but eventually succeded in finding photos of the original flag from a Sotheby's auction thanks to a helpful lead from the museum curator in Hanover.

You can see the back of the flag here. I was surprised to find that the pictures of the original flag differed considerably from its representation in the Osprey book on Napoleonic Flags, which showed the wreath almost totally surrounding the sword. In actuality the wreath was quite small and almost formed a double loop.

I tried to get a better shot of the front of the flag, but the folds make it difficult to see. It is a gold outlined cross with the motto: "FURS GOTT UND VATERLAND" forming a loop around it.

This is an element representing the Feld Battalion Verden with uniform details taken from Haythornthwaite's book on Waterloo. I encountered a great many conflicting sources on what this uniform looked like, so eventually I just had to pick one that I thought was the most trustworthy. The flag is a fabrication, as their is no record of what flag they carried. I used the coat of arms of the city of Verden as a basis for the flag.

Hundred Years War English

The HYW English is my core army. I sold off all my old armies which were a mix of figures from various older manufacturers in order to focus on building more homogeneous (in terms of figure manufacturers) armies. The following was my first to meet that goal and morphs easily from Free Company, to HYW English, to Feudal English.

The Black Prince leading the way. I chose him as a leader since he would be appropriate for a free company army in Spain allied with Pedro the cruel vs Henry the Bastard and DuGueslin, or a HYW army in Europe.

Dismounted knights

Support troops and artillery

The Heavy infantry. The spears are in the green and white livery of welsh allies and the blades are in black with the white ostrich feather livery of the Black Prince himself. Some of them wear the leek on their shoulder which I think symbolizes their Welsh heritage, but I'm still not really sure of the story behind the leek.

The longbows: heavy armored bows in back with more lightly armored Welsh bowmen in front wearing the traditional green and white livery.

Here we have the additional elements necessary to field a feudal English army: 2 hordes, a spear, and dismounting cavalry and the three spear to represent them as dismounted. Eventually I will paint an entire feudal English army with more appropriate accoutrement's, but for now the HYW era elements will have to do.

1806 Jena Prussians

This just in: The Von Beeren Kuirassiers are done. Now that I have the heavy Battle Cavalry, I have enough elements for the Prussians to take the field!

Here are some better pictures of the 1806 Prussians I have been working on. They are a mix of AB and Minifigs. The AB are far superior, but much bigger, so mixing the two has been a challenge. I am currently working on the Kurasiers and Dragoons which will finish out the army.

An Artillery limber which will serve as the camp for now. This is an AB grouping of marvelously sculpted figures.

The general staff - or a bunch of old farts in white powdered wigs, except of course for Blucher, who is sporting the uniform of his famed red hussars.

These are the figures that got me started on this project. Mark, "extra crispy" Severin gave me this Minifigs and some others when he was cleaning out his piles of old lead. I had to change the style of the Shakos to the earlier 1806 style, but otherwise they are very nicely animated figures.

The infantry: Grenadiers in the center and muskets on the wings and behind. Each element is painted to represent a particular regiment. The grenadiers were combined from companies of four different regiments so each figure is painted in the uniform of one of those regiments. The Grenadiers in the middle with the flag are painted to represent a standing unit of the elite 6th battalion of Guard Grenadiers . This is a stand of mixed AB and Minifig figures. The minifigs are standing on cardboard shims to raise them higher and thus minimize the size difference of the two figure manufacturers.

A side view to show off the pretty flags. All the flags are hand painted.

Excellent AB artillery figures. 1 horse artillery battery on the left, and two foot batteries on the right, one being hauled into position with bricoles and drag ropes or prolongs.

New Projects

I have been working on a few odds and ends so I have decided to post my progress. The two main projects are a 15mm Narnian army for HOTT which I have just begun, and a 25mm Lord of the Rings army for HOTT which has been in progress for decades. The elves are Ral Partha figures sculpted by Tom Meier. Most of these are painted and just waiting to be based. The Orcs are about half done, but I have all the required figures for both armies and It shouldn't take too long to finish them. I have also revamped my camp for the Hundred Years War English that I have and made a Barker marker. Enjoy the pics.

Narnian Camp and beasts element. The camp is Baueda, the badgers are from splintered light and the other animals from an old Ral Partha 25mm set, but they seemed to be the right size for the large Narnian animals. The standing stone is scratch built from insulation foam.

Finally the Black Prince will have a suitable place to rest.

This is a conversion for my 25mm Hott Elf army. The Elf is a Tom Meier sculpt from Ral Partha, which I have placed on a dragon sculpted by Julie Guthrie? from the same era. The dragon had some considerable modifications to make the figure fit.

I must have had the caffeine shakes when I took this one, but you get the idea. Sea elf pikemen.

I needed a Barker marker for 15mm armies, so I used this old 25mm Ral Partha crusader to add a little uumph to the marker.

Terry's Tlaxcallans

Terry Webb has finished his Tlaxcallan army and has given me permission to post them here so others can view them. Make sure you click on the images and enlarge them so that you can truly appreciate the amount of work that went into these. They are truly stunning to view - even if they can't fight!

Nashcon DBA Events Report

Nashcon was an all around smashing success, with lots and lots of gaming, a thriving vendors area, and for those like me looking to pay for our expenditures, a great flea market Sunday morning. For those of you following the Sarmatian saga, they did indeed sell, and I was also able to get in a smashing victory over Rob Torres' Greco Bactrians before their sale. I think that may have been Rob's first or second game, so he clearly used me to warm up his troops, as they went on to win the DBA open tournament. Paul Potter hosted a marvelous campaign game Friday night with lots of intrigue, rewards, and masacres. In the end Bob Kelso reigned supreme and took home a Bactrian prize army provided by Wargames.


NASHCON OPEN DBA TOURNAMENT

Rob Torres traveled down to Nashcon from Norther Virginia and was rewarded for his efforts by winning a hard fought victory over Paul Potter's Navarese in the final round. Rob got to take his pick of the three prize armies offered and chose to take a later Hungarian army provided by Wargames back home with him to Virginia. He's pictured here helping out in the DBA clinic session.

Rob Torres and Paul Potter face off in the final round. Rob took the final round 4-2 with his Greco Bactrians vs Paul's Navarese.

The Navarese

The Greco Bactrians advance

Ron Seaney with Polybian Romans and Chip Russo with Later Sarmations

Don Harting playing the Early Imperial Romans

Ed Dillon brushed the rust of his game with the Anglo Normans and wanted to give full credit to his successes to his opponents lack of die rolling skill.

Gray Strickland took time off from the busy vendors area to join in the fun playing an Italian Condotta army. Other participants were Terry Webb with the Feudal French, Bill Banks - the runner up and winner of a Parthian army, played the Early crusaders, Bob Kelso with Ghasnavids, Steve McBee with Hellenistic Spartans, and Nathan Lowe playing the Bosporans.

DBA CLINIC

The clinic was a resounding success with twenty participants, many of them new to DBA. We even had one husband and wife team, Doug and Laura Acker, join in the fun. All participants were entered in a drawing for a complete 25mm Saxon army provided by Iron Wind Metals. Bob Kelso was the lucky winner. He promises to be back next year with the Saxons all painted up and ready to battle.

Doug and Laura Acker face off with the help of Terry Webb and Glen Little.

Joe Collins played a very short game against Mike Hicks (below), Mike losing his general early in the game.

Ron Seaney gives Doug Moore a helping hand with the rules.

Mike Preston gives the Camillan romans a try.

Bill Banks gives Chuck's untried ebay armies a lesson in tactics. Bill was the eventual runner up in the DBA open Tournament.

A SPECIAL THANKS TO ALL WHO MADE NASHCON A RESOUNDING SUCCESS - YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE: THE ORGANIZERS, THE GAME HOSTS, THE MANUAL LABORERS WITHOUT WHOM THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN NO TABLES, THE VENDORS AND ALL THE GREAT GAMERS!