Winter

June spells the official start of winter here in Australia and right on cue, the weather gods have brought miserable cold southerly winds and rain up from the Southern Ocean. After a few relatively mild and dry winters, this is something of a shock, but there's nothing like sitting by the fire nice and warm while the rain pelts down outside. I know the northern hemisphereans reading this are saying 'That's not winter!', but this is about as bad as it gets here.

The reason for this digression to things meteorological is that my latest batch of photos were taken indoors because of the foul weather outside. I've used my new Spanish farm buildings as a backdrop, plus a couple of my scratch built trees. The first unit are not Austrians, but a French battalion in white, depicting the short lived 1807 uniform. I've based this unit on the 15e Ligne which participated in the original 1808 campaigns in Spain in their black-faced white uniform. The Army Painter certainly worked a treat with these chaps. Also pictured are my horse and foot batteries and my command figures.

15e Ligne

Command figures

In column of attack

Horse gun battery

Horse guns again

My Divisional command figures

'Monsieur, your horse's arse makes more sense than you!'

Foot gun battery

La belle filles

Converted command figure.

Pointing finger of original has been replaced by Hussar sabre and hilt removed from scabbard.

My first command figure and one of my first mounted figures, too. Horse equipment painted brown, not black. Oops!

I had my first Napoleonic battle since beginning this blog last Friday, but forgot my camera! My Highlanders had their first taste of battle and true to form did not let me down. I had them in line alongside one of my line battalions and was charged by 3 French battalions in column. If my opponent had concentrated all three on one of my lines, instead of sending 2 against my line and 1 against my Highlanders, or spread out so that the remaining 3 battalions could also join the charge, he may have had a chance, but he didn't, and my massed volley ripped his attack to shreds!

Previous to that, our cavalry had been involved in a stoush that left my Hussars reeling, but in following my retreating horse, his Hussars placed their flank point blank against my guns. POW! bye-bye French Hussars!

My rifles and detatched light companies had the better of the initial skirmish combat between the main forces, although in the woods on my right flank, weight of numbers were telling against my highland light infantry. He survived a divisional morale check and withdrew his battered forces to regroup and came up with a clever ploy to discomfort my pursuit; instead of offering a solid line of infantry against my line, he opened a gap just wide enough for his surviving cavalry to gallop through in column, if I was stupid enough to offer him a target (which I almost was!). As it was, I had to put my line infantry into closed column to counter this threat which complicated matters somewhat.

By this stage the game was more or less over, with a moral victory to the British, while on the other half of the table, my partner was having a devil of a time against his French opponent who had stopped the British advance cold and took, lost and retook the village that was central to any advance by either army. In effect the centre of the table was one big pivot point, with one wing of both armies advancing while the other retreated.

This night was a warm up for new members and old ones who hadn't played for a while to familiarise themselves with the rules before we embark on a grand campaign in the next week. Already there is skulduggery afoot with diplomatic shenanigans and disinformation being spread! This'll be a first for me, so stay tuned for more.