Wargame Warrior

I have tinkered with home casting of lead* figures in the past mainly using Prince August moulds. Always imagined it would be very satisfying to field an army of miniatures tht were my own creations. The whole having to be able to sculpt the master that will be moulded hurdle kept this plan in check for many years but eventually the example of a number of blogs has pushed me to have a crack at it. It was inspiring to see a number of gamers just get on with it and not be too concerned with produing stunning works of art.  (*in fact some sort of white metal that is mostly tin I suspect.)

Prince August home casting kit.

My yen for an 18th Century Turkish army to take on my Austro-Hungarians, looked like a promising object for the plan. For the infantry I decided to use the Perry Miniatures  plastic ACW Zouaves modified to make them less regular and 19th Century looking. For the cavalry I would need an unarmoured rider who would serve as Timariot Sipahis and later mercenary / militia cavalry.  The cavalryman could have a separate head to allow for a bit of variation. Also a right arm weilding a scimitar, which could be swapped out for a lance of firearm for further  multiple use of the basic casting. The cavalry would be mounted on the nice plastic horses available from Perry Miniatures or Warlord Games.  I used a "dolly" from Ebob as the skeleton that I could pose and know was about the right proportions for a wargames figure.Epoxy putty was then added to give bulk to the body as well as clothes / other details.

The masters "ready" to go into a mould...

The infantry figure needed a new pair of arms. One weilding a wickedly sharp looking yataghan sword. The left arm carrying the musket. Again a form constructed of wire and plasticard was made for the putty to be added to. I started with grand plans for half a dozen interchangeable arms for the infantry and horseman but just the three minimum required took long enough to complete.I consoled myself with the fact that I could cut away sword blades to convert the right arms for other purposes (holding lances, flagpoles etc.)

The lego mould box to contain the liquid silicon rubber until it had hardened.

For my first ever silicon rubber mould I bought a tin of the correct grade of liquid rubber from Alec Tiranti in London. It comes with the catalyst that starts the reaction that turns the liquid rubber into the solid mould that can accept hot molten metal. I had read many articles over the years about home casting and got some good advice from current bloggers making their own moulds. I freely adopted the elements of others processes that looked like they would suit me and plunged in to see how it all worked.

Tools and containers required. The liquid silicon rubber stains everything it touches!

Some bits went well: lego for the mould box was very successful and versatile. I did get a bit too ambitious wit the number of components that I tried to stuff into one mould however (one body, three arms and two heads made the channels that the lead is supposed to travel through very constricted.) At the end of the process however I had a solid chunk of rubber with the clearly identifiable hollows where my sculted masters had been.

A completed mould!

My lack of experience iin laying out my mould became apparent when I poured hot metal into it for the first time. Less than half of the mould filled up correctly, it was a bit disheartening. I did remember that air getting trapped in the mould is a common problem and vents need to be cut to allow it to escape.  Some careful cutting with a sharp knife in the restricted space of the mould gave me the vents and some further surgery to improve the sprue to each component was carried out. Eventually I was getting the entire mould casting successfully on almost every pour!

The mould  with vents cut  and blackened by graphite powder which aids the flow of the molten metal.

Once I had enough bits to be able to contruct 8 cavalrymen and convert a bunch of infantry, I stopped the addictive process and went to work on the output. The drawback with my "clever" scheme with all the seperate arms now became apparent. Having to glue the bloody thing in place! Yes I do get instant variation in my Ottoman units but I pay for this with having to file every join flat to be superglued.I had probably over estiimated where my patience will run out with this. Instead of dozens of units I may not get beyond five or six.

Shiny new castings...

So far then not perfect but more of a success than I had expected. I will have learned from my mistakes for he next moulds. Yes there will be next moulds as the production of shiny new figures from a mould is quite addictive. My Turkish units from these initial castings will have their  shortcomings disguised in the ussual way; with nice looking bases and large pretty flags!

Lots of pieces packed in a mould. Too many it turned out.

As well as casting up my own Ottoman 18th Century cavalry riders, I put into the same mould some pieces to help convert plastic infantry figures. The base figure is the Perry Miniatures ACW Zouave infantry. These are quite close to the look of many Ottoman infantry types (unsurprisingly when you think about it.)

I wanted a less regimented look to my Janissary / Sekban regiments than the poses out of the box. My idea was to have a right arm waving a scimitar or yataghan sword, which would give the right impression of ferocity. This would leave them needing to be holding their musket in the other hand (shoulder straps not seeming to be a thing in this period.) I will go into the sculpting and mould making in another post but I have ended up with a whole stack of the new sets of arms and of course the tedium of gluing the new combination of parts together.

As I am a new and untalented sculptor there is also a fair bit of work with greenstuff to get the new arms to fit and the results to look remotely human! To keep my interest levels up I decided to paint up the first stand's worth of figures (6 for Beneath the Lily Banners / Piquet). Here it is (the standard bearer is a Brigade Games Napoleonic Ottoman figure.)

(click on image for larger version)

This unit will be in fairly uniformI colours although the evidence is a bit lacking. Iam reasonably happy with the results but happier still that I now have the option of buying Warfare Miniatures take on figures for this period! I will certainly comp[lete the unit with the other two stands and then paint up a Warfare one so I can get a fair comparison.

My first unit of Ottoman Sipahi cavalry with a quick paintjob to see how they turn out...

For my first ever sculpt (more or less) and first silicon rubber mould, I am reasonably happy with the results. (I'm not claiming the horses, which are Warlord ECW plastic miniatures - courtesy of their half price sprue sale.)  The acid test will come when they are sharing a table with professionally sculpted miniatures.

These chaps are intended to represent Timarli Sipahis for the first half of the 18th Century. Aftert this the Sipahis were pretty much extinct and I shall be calling these mercenary Levend cavalry.

Sometimes I buy figures just because I like the person behind a company or I am wanting to show some support for a smaller commercial project. Agema Miniatures falls plum into that category without a doubt. I do not expecially need any more Republican Roman figures in 28mm but I appreciate the ethos and historical approach of Greg's company. So of course I bought all of the packs of metal figures that were produed to supplement the plastic offerings. The plastics are nice and well-proporrtioned but a little bit limited in their number of poses, so doing extras in metal made a lot of sense. 

Once I had the figures in my hand the "Wow factor" took over. These are some of the nicest figures I have ever seen sculpted in this scale. Just superb little castings with amazing detail and very natural poses, both action stances and relaxed. I was particularly keen on the Triari pack with the old veterans leaning on their shields and in a variety of more expensive armour types. Eventually I had to spoil it all though by adding my painting to the party! First I came upon a problem  The Agema plastic Triari match the metal additions perfectly for physiology but they are all in the classic kneeling pose. Totally not going to mix in with the stood up versions. My solution was to hack up some of the other plastic legionaries so that they could be adapted to carrying the Triari's typical spear armamment. 

(Click on image for larger version)

It works okayish... I had to steal some arms from Victrix plastic  figures which was altogether a nuisance. However the good news is that the new Hannibals Veterans box of plastics from Agema will provide additional bodies and spear arms that will do the job perfectly.

Here's some from the Agema Facebook page.

Just for the record the figures, counted from the left are: 4, 6, 7, 12, 13,15 are Triari Characters, 9, 10, and 11 from Maniple Command, 2, 3, 5, 8 and 16 are plastic figures from the Legionary box, (3 and 5 with heads from the Roman Allies pack of heads.) Figures 1 and 14 are interloperas that have been lurking in the lead pile fopr a very long time. They seem to fit in okay. They were I think from a company called Alban Miniatures possibly now a part of Matchlock / Minifigs. Apart from the last two all these figures are available direct from Agema at http://agemaminiatures.co.uk/product-category/republican-romans/metal-figures/

The motivation to get my Punic Wars Romans up to strength has been given a big boost (more like a jolt from a defibrillator I have to admit) by the announcement of the SOA Battle Day next year being Telamon. I have now finished the second Roman Legion in my army (Legion III) and I will be able to move on to the Allied "wings" forthwith.

Here are the two legions deployed for combat in their distinctive Triplex Acies formation. Light infantry Velites are at the front and then in order: Hastati, Principed and Triari at the back.  The Piquet version of this formation is made up of 7 units of foot and one of cavalry (not shown.) The right hand side of the formation above is the newly comleted Legion III.

The bulk of these figures are the excellent Wargame Foundry range. Still some of the nicest figures for this army available and in a huge number of poses and variants. If any faults could be picked upon some of the poses cause the pila and shield to clash when you are trying to glue them in place. These figures are at the small to medium end of the range of Republican Romans now available (see my comparison pictures here) but they are still one of the most accurate, nicely proportioned and have lots of subtle variants in armour and helmets without feeling the need to show every quirky variant from 200 years span and 1000 miles radius of Rome!

I have mixed in command figures from just about every range there is: Newline, Magister Millitatum, Gripping Beast and Crusader. The Velites are even more of a mixed bag with additional volunteers from Essex Miniatures, Irregular and Vicrtix. I am trying to strike the balance between a regular citizen army and one where much of the equipment was provided by the individual or aranged on a local basis. Thus the different shades of a basic shield colour within each legion.

With the Allies I will take a more varied approach. Each contingent (Piquet unit) will have their own shield colours and some of them blazons as well (I am going to try out some Greekish transfers for those with a Hellenistic heritage.) Hopefully they will be distinct from the Romans but still clearly belonging to the same army. The figures will be a mix of more Foundry (for the long term Romanised Allies sucvh as the Latins) and Oscan and Samnite figures for some of the more recent Allies. A fair few of these to do for Telamon including a big cavalry contingent. Even scaling the battle so that our usual legion represents 2 in the game, we are looking at over 1000 figures just for the Roman side!

We finally got some figures on the table. As we had a last minute loss of nerve about the quantity of young nerds at the Wayland Games venue (being ourselves very much old school nerds) we decided to do a game that would fit on my own dining table. Donnybrook was the obvious choice to me, so I told Les to bring his appropriately based ECW figures over.

A previous Donnybrook game set in the Highlands

Rooting around  for some scenery the first box that came to hand was a big bunch of adobe buildings. This got me thinking about perhaps a North African scenario but something different to the English garrison at Tangiers. This brought to mind a plan suggested by the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz in a series of essays to Louis XIV that he should invade Egypt in 1671 rather than Holland. Whether this was just an attempt to deflect Louis from attacking a fellow Christian nation or a real attempt to build a coalition against the Ottoman Empire, it is one of history's great what-ifs.

This was enough justification to set a scenario in Egrypt with a French force (including Scots mercenaries) looking to capture supplies in a small town.  The first question was did I have enough figures to stand in for the Egyptian force? Luckily an Ottoman army is a long term project of mine so I had ten Sipahi heavy cavalry just sitting there on the shelf. Some generic turbanned  cavalry who have represented Arabs from the 7th Century through to the 19th contributed another two units and some Afghan musketeers stepped in as Egyptian militia.

The French had four companies of musketeers in their raiding force (2 French 2 Scots) and an Elite detatchment of pikemen. The Egyptians had two units of Elite armoured Mamluke lancers, two of drilled native light horse and a unit of a dozen recruit level local militian with muskets. Never having used a Tribal force in Donnybrook before I used one of each of the character types including: an Imam, a Weapons Master and a Fearless Warrior (a lone lunatic with a two handed sword.)

We are a bit rusty with the rules so probably made many mistakes but it wa great fun to fling tribal cavalry in with reckless abandon, who then mostly got shot out of their saddles!  

My Egyptian militia flung themselves into the town with the Imam cheering them on from the rear with a few choice quotes from the Koran.  Easy to disdain but they can cause some casualties with their twelve musket shots. Luckily they didn't get into a stand up fight with eith er of the superior Scots mercenary companies.

We ran out of time to fight it to a conclusion (I think you resigned yes, Les?   ) I was lining up to trample the French commander beneath the hooves of Sipahi unit as he was accompanied by only two remaining pikemen. If they didn't get him Khalil Ahabbi was sneaking up with his big chopper!

As a game a bit of fun and a good remonder that it is easy to knock together a scratch force just from ods and ends of figures I have sitting around.  The Arab with a two handed sword I bought in a pack of Citadel men at arms when I was about twelve!

I have previously avoided looking too closely at my wargames hobby in terms of how many projects I have active or stored away for future revival or just hopelessly stalled. Inspired by Ross Mac's no-nonsense look at his own resources and interests on his enthralling blog  and where to commit his hobby time, I have decided to have a crack at something similar. I am writing as I review things, so excuse me if the mood swings violently!

My oldest collection of 25/28mm figures (not including Dungeons and Dragon RPG miniatures) is the Macedonian Successors. Started a little over 35 years ago when I first discovered playing with toy soldiers was a “real” hobby! My first purchases were towards a Pyrrhic army. This appealed to me from the pages of WRG’s 6th Edition army lists due to the diverse range of auxiliary type that could be added to the core of competent Macedonian pikemen and Companion cavalry. Elephants, Italian types, Keltic mercenaries, Cretan archers - basically all the fun of the fayre! Early recruits were able to get into action quickly thanks to my friend Nick starting a Hellenistic army at the same time. We were able to coordinate our buying and painting of figures and combine them into a joint army. (Often Antigonid Macedonian if memory serves.) A good starter army with no one “super-troop” unit that you have to pin your hopes on. There were a variety of dangers presented by this sort of army. I even had the Kelts pull the fat out of the fire one time, beating a unit of Varangian Guards when everyone else had given way.

Macedonian Successors

(Includes some Persians and Indians, who were allies and enemies)

Figures painted: 644 (plus 8 elephants)

Figures unpainted: Around 600 about a third are Achaemenid Persians.

Active status: Very active!

Even after all these years this period of history still enthuses me. The Macedonians are being reinforced on two fronts currently: The Bactrian Greeks are mostly painted and ready for their first game in 2018. Also the Society of Ancients Battle Day is Paraitekene this year so I am adding a small number of units to my phalanx numbers for that game.

So hopefully at least 3 games using these figures this year. This gives quite an “ancients” slant to the year already… My next largest collection I suspect will be Horse and Musket, particularly the 18th Century and Seven Years War. Although these were originally bought as a side project when I acquired a large number of Spencer Smith plastic figures just before they went out of production. It has become my other main period of interest, expanding into the latter part of the 17th Century with the recent Nine Years War focus.

18th Century / Seven Years War

Figures painted: 533 (plus several dozen guns and 8 elephants)

Figures unpainted: 120 or so Indian cavalry and sepoys. Less than a hundred(?) Austrian and French SYW

Active status: Active.

An ongoing interest almost as long as the Ancients armies. These have taken a bit of a back seat to the League of Augsburg / Nine Years War in recent years. However I am determined to get my Ottoman Turk project properly under way this year. Some figures have been bought for this already from Brigade Games, Old Glory and Dixon Miniatures. Some will be home caste and modified plastics and then there is the tantalising prospect of Warfare Miniatures starting their range. Not sure if they will hit the table in 2018 but a round dozen units painted and ready by the end of the year is a reachable target. Hopefully we will get the SYW boys out to play at least once as well.

My other “tricorn based” army, that I mentioned above, has muscled in on the SYW figures’ territory. These are the late 17th Century Nine Years War units, which have benefitted from usage once or twice a year at the League of Augsburg weekends in Derby and Dumfries, keeping them on the agenda. I have no ambitious plans for painting units this year. I am lucky to have a friend (Les) who has collected enough figures for us to play manageable games with our combined collections. If events in the Battle for Britain campaign call for it I may be tempted to paint up a unit or two…

Nine Years War

Figures painted: 336

Figures unpainted: 472 plus artillery? (just a side project  )

Active status: Active.

I will hopefully be able to attend at least one of the games up at Dumfries. I am likely to take along some or all of my painted units if they are needed. A fair chance we will get these chaps on a table closer to home at least once this year too.

My other main focus this year is related to the League of Augsburg via their skirmish rule set “Donnybrook”. I have a mainly Scottish themed 17th Century / ECW Donnybrook collection (~ 60 figures) which will in the course of time be expanded with more figures including Three Musketeers period heroes and villains. I think the rules should work fine for this kind of setting. More of a stretch is adapting the rules set for the new period that I started last year; the 1895 Heligoland Crisis.

This is a Victorian alternative history setting that I am greatly enjoying writing. The main opponents are the British Empire and the German Empire and the initial theatre of operations the British governed Heligoland Islands in the North Sea. I am taking liberties with history (but feasible ones) that have led to an Anglo-German conflict 19 years before the Great War. I am planning on expanding the conflict to include torpedo boat duels in the shoal infested waters around the islands and civilian / irregular forces for the 28mm skirmish games.

1895 Heligoland Crisis

Figures painted: 58 (plus 7x 1/600 ships)

Figures unpainted: 200ish

Active status: Active.

I have to accept that the effort for this project will be split equally between figures and terrain / rules tinkering. Getting to a usable version of the rules that gives the period a distinct flavour will be key to keeping up enthusiasm for painting new figures and organising scenarios for games.

 

The second ancients period that I have a big interest in is the Punic Wars and more generally the Western Mediterranean. This overlaps with the Macedonian Successors in the form of the army of Pyrrhos which included Italian contingents and of course the Republican Romans who clashed with him and, eventually, the other Successors. This project started for me with my buying and painting an Etruscan army with Gallic allies. There were no Etruscan figures available back then, so I used the multipart QT/Amazon range of figures to cobble together something that worked for me. For the Gallic warriors I used a bunch of the QT figures and a couple of examples from every range I could find. This gave me a fine irregular looking warband in the days before ranges had a lot of variants of any one troop type. This “project” has expanded in fits and starts over the years and now includes small forces for each of the Romans, Carthaginians and Samnites, to go with the Etruscans.

Punic Wars

Figures painted: 432 plus elephants and chariots

Figures unpainted: 300 - 400

Active status: semi-active.

One of our Roman army owners left our small band of brothers, so we were somewhat reduced in the number of Legions we could deploy on the tabletop. I have been bulking up my Romans to fill the gap but I have less empathy for them than other armies so it is less of a priority. Instead of classic Punic wars clashes we have turned to games featuring Kelts and mercenary forces instead. There is always a chance we will gwt these old favourites out for a game particularly if I restart my Truceless War campaign...

These projects I would happily call the "Good". Well developed, with enough figures to have a game. Still plenty of enthusiasm and new figures joining the veterans. I will come onto the "Bad" and Ugly" next time.

After our first try out of the modified Donnybrook rules for a game set in 1895 Heligoland, I had a think about the "feel" of the game as experienced. We had discussed right after what had worked and what had not and it was a generally positive impression. But... What niggled at me was the thought that I had, "How was this different from a WW2 or VBCW or Back of Beyond game?" Similar weaponry by the infantryman and an understandable tendency by players to use their anachronistic knowledge of later tactics. Some pondering required, that had to be postponed as work got busy and Christmas landed on me like a tonne of bricks.

A small party from the Suffolk Regiment. Unfeasibly Miniatures, which should be generally available soon.

"Helpfully", Les also sent me some chunks of information about the two Boer Wars (which bracket our 1895 conflict. First Boer War 1880-81, Second Boer War 1899-1902.) Essentially reading up a bit more on the reality of the British performance it became clear my tailoring of the British for Donnybrook 1895 was bollocks. The British seemed to learn nothing from the first war and it took the Second Boer War for them to start the process of sorting out tactics that suited the age of breech loading repeating rifles and modern artillery. My letting them fight as skirmishing marksmen with mad-minute drills was definitely not realistic in 1895.

Some Sikh veterans from an Indian regiment. Foundry figures from their Darkest Africa range.

This brings up the problem that was concerning me. How do you inflict on the players the requirement that they make the same mistakes as their historical counterparts? In larger scale games there can be compulsory formations for battalions or companies that reflect the thinking of the current battlefield tactics. For a skirmish scale game however it would be dispiriting to have to march the figures in close formation into the teeth of annihilating rifle fire, however correct that might be historically.

Seaforth Highlanders. Irregular Miniatures.

Additionally there did not seem to be a simple consensus as to which battle tactics should be used within the same armies in this period. The Prussians had the lessons of the Franco-Prussian war to draw on as well as frequent large scale manoeuvres. The British had almost continuous combat experience around the world on a generally smaller level than European army scale. Both nations (and others) quite naturally observed the ideas and methods of other armies as well. However, not only was there disagreement about what these ideas and lessons meant but there was patchy uptake amongst the generals and officers in translating new ideas into actions on the ground.

A German Navy shore party. Figures from North Star but not sure what they are meant to be...

The reasons for this were complex but from what I have read there was a strong body of opinion drawn from theoreticians such as Clausewitz and the experiences of battle going back to the Napoleonic Wars that offensive tactics were the key to victory. The morale and initiative advantages of attacking outweighed the benefits of being a defender even in prepared positions. Then there were voices that pointed to the more recent examples of the American Civil War and the Franco Prussian war where these certainties had been roughly tested upon the advent of universal usage of breech loading rifles by the common infantryman. One of the interpretation of these examples was that the frontal attack on infantry so armed was no longer a valid tactic due to the very high casualties that would be sustained by an attacking force.

But in the end it did not necessarily matter what was taught at Aldershot or the Prussian staff college. Tactical methods became enmeshed with politics in the German army and the preferences of the Kaiser became as important as those of experienced military planners. The British, who had seen committed attacking armies such as the Zulus and Ansars beaten by their own rifle fire from carefully crafted defensive positions, haughtily disdained these “natives” and many senior officers believed that a professional soldier would be able to press home such a frontal attack.

German Infantry from the 49th Regiment. More Unfeasibly Miniatures from the 2016 Kickstarter Campaign.

My approach to build in this disparity of tactical methods within the game rules is in 2 parts. Firstly I have decided that the officers and characters in the 1895 games need to have some assigned characteristics. Rather than the officer figure being the player’s representative it will be a professional military man with his own ideas on the way his men should be used in a battle. The officer’s understanding of tactics would confer upon troops acting in his command radius benefits and disadvantages. I have tried to distil the complex theorising down to two factors: The preferred formation / control system (close order, loose order or skirmish order) and Tactical school (frontal assault with the bayonet, frontal assault using firepower and standing on the defensive.) I have also tried to give all the characteristics a balance of good and bad effects, whatever history and my personal bias says the correct approach should have been for the period.

A German Officer. But will he be an advocate for the tactics of defence or attack?

The second strand of these rule changes is that units may only act upon their activation card if in the command radius of an officer or character (there is no let off by parking the officer well to the rear where he cannot interfere… This I think reflects well the more rigid hierarchy of command compared to the 17th Century. I have written up a draft of the rule additions here for anyone to have a look at and comment on (please!) We’ll try these out in the next opportunity we have to get some figures on a table.

Our first run out with new toy soldiers and the draft amendments for the Donnybrook rules was arranged for the weekend. Based around the figures that I had already painted and suitable ones from our collections, the scenario was a scouting mission by a small British force. This comprised of a squad of Heligoland Garrison Regiment (Inexperienced, 12 figures + a sergeant, D6) and three volunteer detachments of veteran British reinforcements. These were from the Grenadier Guards, Suffolk Regiment and Seaforth Highlanders. All regiments with experienced hands who had seen a lot of action recently in India. These were all Veteran, 4 figures, D10. The party was under the command of Lieutenant Delacroix of the Garrison Regiment but with instructions to listen to the advice of the Colour Sergeant of the Highlanders. The Grenadiers, being an advance party without any officers were accompanied by Major Rumbol-Smythe, as theirs was a regiment he had once been seconded to for a mission in the Congo.

The briefing was to investigate a report that a German ship had been seen docked at a secluded landing stage on the estuary of the Jagstavon. Discovering what they were up to and stopping it, if possible, was to be attempted if the reports were true.

The German force which was instructed to protect the cargo whilst being unloaded and then until transport arrived to take it inland. To carry out this task the lucky German officer Hauptman Schultz had a squad of the 49th Regiment of Infantry (8 figures, Drilled + a sergeant, D8) Arriving with the cargo steamer was a Seebattalion squad (8 figures, Drilled + a sergeant, D8) and enough spare sailors to provide another squad (8 figures, Drilled + a coxwain, D8). They also had a machine gun…

The landing stage had a small clump of industrial buildings and stockades clustered around it. IT was around these that Hauptman Schultz deployed his troops but close to the gangplanks in case a large enemy force turned up. This allowed the British to infiltrate the buildings without coming under too much fire. The Garrison Regiment occupied a large building that overlooked the landing stage with the intention of punning down the Germans whilst smaller parties worked their way around the left flank to catch them in a crossfire.

The plan worked well. The Garrison squad took a casualty as they milled around trying to get through a door and the Seaforths had one unlucky Highlander hit by a German bullet but the were soon able to start a close range fire on the enemy infantry huddled behind crates and bales. The Germans found themselves being whittled away and when Schultz sent his group of sailors in to shore up the position they took a terrific hail of bullets trying to cross a wall. The remnants of the Reichmarine party hunkered down but were eventually sent retreating back on board the steamer.

On the left the Seebattalion were making very slow progress and their machine gun seemed to take an age to get into the action. When it opened fire the machine gun was able to kill several of the Garrison Regiment in the top floor of their building but not enough to drive them back. The Seebattalion riflemen worked their way into the rear of the British in the meantime and opened fire on the flank of the Suffolks, killing one private before they knew where the attack was coming from. This was potentially bad news for the British. All their soldiers were engaged in the firefight with nobody left to respond to the flank attack.

The crumbling position of the rest of the German force, particularly after one of their sergeants was hit (50% casualties and morale check time) now prevented the Seebattalion pressing their advantage. Hauptman Schultz was forced to order a retreat. Under covering fire from the machinegun, the Germans dragged their wounded onto the steamer and slipped the hawsers to rapidly move away from the shore.

The Heligoland Garrison Regiment had soundly beaten the invaders (with a little help.) The delivery of supplies had been stopped but still it was not known. What was this mysterious cargo?

Steadily painting up the combatants for the two sides but I snuck in a couple of command characters (who might bear a resemblance to friends I game with*.)

First is Sir Leslie A. Rumbol-Smythe, Archie to his friends.

And his old sparring partner, Baron Nikolaus von Langenfordt

These two will have some backstory including previous encounters in other parts of the world. Archie is rumoured to be a handy chap in the sort of situations where Her Majesty's Government cannot get directly involved. The Baron is a fanatical patriot and has used his family fortune to support various schemes (dastardly ones natuarally) that he sees as advancing the cause of Greater Germany.

No images exist at the moment for the notorious Anarchist leader known as Adamos de la Hay...

I cannot for the life of me remember where the British office figure came from, maybe London War Room's old range of figures for battles on Mars. The Baron is a Westwind Miniatures chap from a pack called German Archaologists (I'm not sure how you use a sabre in a dig but there you go.)

(*Mainly the names to be honest...)