Happy New Year to One and All!

Image courtesy of Downies.com

I hope you all have had a lovely restful Christmas with family and friends. 

May your dice roll true in 2017. 

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

1915 Christmas card to Australian troops from home.
Image courtesy Munro Collection via http://fffaif.org.au/?p=2090

It's been a busy year which kind of tailed off towards the end; real life has a habit of interfering with important things like wargaming and blogging!

Thanks for your continued support, and I hope to lift my game in 2016. I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday time with loved ones and that the new year brings health and prosperity to all!

Waterloo 200th Anniversary

I didn't know it was 200 years old!

I thought it was the Eurovision winner for 1974. Maybe it's a traditional folksong that ABBA re-intepreted. Who knows?

Fnar!

But seriously, folks, I just found out today that there was an Australian on the Duke of Wellington's staff at the Great Battle. How about that?

My Year in Review from Google+

Happy New Year, everyone!

I suppose everyone whose blog is Blogger-powered got one of these recently.

This pictorial review is a good indication of my year in wargaming, starting off with the picture taken by Darren of the Allied side at our little Quatre Bras game, featuring Paul, myself, Jim and our sadly departed friend Pete. From then on it takes us through a lot of Napoleonic gaming (surprise!), including the epic Borodino game, The Pt. Cook airshowe, some of my Comitatus games, and the big novelty of the year; SAGA!

Vale Pete Edmanson

We'll miss you, Pete

It was with much shock and disbelief that the NWA Napoleonics chaps learned today that we have lost one of our own way too soon. Pete Edmanson died suddenly in his sleep on Tuesday night.

Pete was a stalwart in the Napoleonics group who often faced my French with his Austrians, Prussians or Russians, but also played in the Pirate events and had a sizeable Dark Ages collection in 15mm and 28mm, partnering Darren and me recently into our SAGA forays with his Normans. He was renowned as 'Pistol' Pete after our Wagram game where he killed several generals (including mine!). His uncanny ability to knock down his opponent's commanders continued after that in the weekly club games to the extent that you expected to have your generals bumped off at some stage, no matter how the game was going!

As well as being a wargamer, Pete was a keen angler having traveled the nation and internationally in pursuit of the perfect catch. Pete also was a knowledgeable ornithologist, too. He could identify just about any bird you could find, and many was the time down at Drouin during our January games that Pete would look up into the trees surrounding Tim's property and point out the birdlife, identifying not only the species but the gender of the bird, whether it was a juvenile etc. etc. He was mine of information.

He is survived by his wife Claire and his children and grandchildren, of whom he was very proud.

His quiet, gentle manner will be sorely missed. Pete, you were a scholar and gentleman.

Blowing My Own Trumpet - 200 Followers!

Toot-toot!

Follow the shoe!
No, follow the gourd!

I'm not the Messiah! I'm just a very naughty boy!

I just noticed that my followers have hit the 200 mark, thanks to The Lord of Excess from The Excessive Gamer and other blogs. Thanks your Lordship!

I'm sorry that I've been a bit quiet of late, but with semester kicking off here in Australia, work has been pretty busy. After a day at work and then the second shift with the family afterwards, there hasn't been much time left in the day for painting or blogging! I'm hoping to remedy it shortly with some more units from the workbench to submit in a last gasp for Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge and actually exceed the target I set myself.

Thanks again for your continued support. It's much appreciated!

Milestone Celebrations and Giving Back!

Hip, Hip, Huzzah! 

This blog is celebrating...

...passing the 100,000 mark...

...450 posts...

...and 180 followers!

Monsieur le Rosbif & Johnny Frog has had a rush of milestones to celebrate all at once! Thanks again to all my followers and all those who regularly take time to leave comments. It is much appreciated.

To celebrate and share the love I am offering my followers the chance to win 4 books from my personal library. All are military histories (what else?) and all have relevance to the theme of the blog (Napoleonic military history), with 2 devoted purely to that theme.

Click the images to read a review of each.

If you'd like to go into the draw there a couple of simple rules:

1. You have to be a follower of this blog
2. You have to leave a comment on this post stating which book you're interested in (you can nominate all if you want to!)
3. The draw will happen on Saturday 6th of July 12pm AEST (+10 GMT)
4. The judge's ruling is final!

Best of luck and thank you all, again, for your continued support!

(Feel free to spread the word, too!)

Thanks! #2

March 2013 saw the most visitors ever to my blog by a couple of hundred visits compared to my previous record, June 2010. The difference between then and now is that the trend seems to be steady and not a one off. Hopefully it's all of you interested wargamers out there and not to robot visitors, but it's very encouraging to see that graph go higher, so thank you all for coming back again and again. It's most gratifying!

Dennewitz 1813-2013 Part 3 (& a Milestone!)

At long last here is the final exciting installment of our big January weekend battle; the Battle of Dennewitz 1813.

To recap, Bertrand's IV Corps has been driven back over the stream to hold the crossing points at Dennewitz and Rohrbeck and hold the south of the stream against Andrew B.'s Prussian 4th Army Corps. Franquemont's 38th Division (Wurttemberger) of IV Corps hold the line Dennewitz-Göhlsdorf, while Reynier's VII Corps are spreading out west from Göhlsdorf trying to outflank or at least spread out the Prussian forces in front of them. My intention was for the approaching XII Corps to then push through the hopefully thinned centre to split the Prussian forces in two and roll up their line.

The situation at Dennewitz

Prussians and Cossacks approaching Rohrbeck, while Fontanelli's Italians occupy the village

The head of XII Corps' column enters the battlefield, while the Prussians consider what to do next.

The rest of XII Corps including the supply wagon.

A slight setback for Reynier's VII Corps!

The cavalry at the bottom of the picture soon had things back to rights, though!

The Poles hold the crossing at Dennewitz, but the Prussians still hold the north bank

Robin moves the 38th Div. Wurttembergers to the right to make room for and screen the lead division of Oudinot's (Malcolm) XII Corps, Guilleminot's (Johnny W.) 14th Division.

Behind them come the Bavarians of Raglovich's 29th Division (Malcolm) 

Pacthod's 13th Div. move to the left of Göhlsdorf in support of Reynier's VII Corps

Andrew S. recalls the Prussians in the face of this threat

Johnny W. masses his troops for the attack on the weakly held gap.

Saxons of Reynier's VII Corps advance

French battalions of VII Corps in closed column

Saxon Jägers

VII Corps mass west of Göhlsorf

Ney attaches himself to the assembling assault force

Bavarians moving into position

French artillery pound the intended assault target, but what's that in the background? Not @#$*^! reinforcements?!

Saxon artillery move up to try and flank the defending Prussian infantry

French artillery and cavalry keep forces in Wölmsdorf bottled up.

Saxon artillery screened by infantry and supported by cavalry approaching Wölmsdorf

Curses! The Russians have entered the board with truckloads of cavalry!
That charge of ours will have to happen soon if we're to have any chance of success.

It looks like it might be too late as the area behind our assault target fills up with more and more Prussians!

Johnny W.'s artillery continues to pound while the infantry get themselves sorted behind the ridge.

"Attendez!"

The Saxon heavy mob: Spiegel Grenadiers, Jägers, Guard Grenadiers and Poles. They were to charge the Prussian infantry and guns to the west of Wölmsdorf

Prussian infantry

More Prussian infantry...

and even more!!

And now Russian cavalry, too!

...and even more Russian cavalry!

The French and Bavarians assemble at the top of the picture, while more and more Prussians mass in response closest to camera

The same view from the French perspective.

The Saxon heavy mob readies itself for action west of Wölmsdorf while the Russian guns decide who to react to; infantry or...

...cavalry! A tiny unit of Garry's chasseurs charge, forcing the gunners to flee and the infantry to sqaure up.

The Saxons and Poles now have clear run at a nice juicy infantry square!

They charge home..

...smashing the square, but now are vulnerable to counter attack...

...which duly comes, forcing the Saxons back to where they started from.

Meanwhile, east of Wölmsdorf the first attack prepares.

Bavarian chevaux legere attack the battery at the base of the hill. 

In it goes, sending the gunners running! The left flank of the infantry attack is now secure.

The French advance over the hill to attack the Prussians in Nieder Görsdorf

Prussian hussars attempt to stem the tide..

...but are forced back

Johnny W. successfully unleashes his forces on Nieder Görsdorf, but this is the French high tide. Too many Prussian and Russian reinforcements arrived before the French breakthrough could be achieved. With no more French reinforcements, we could not exploit the seizure of the village. We gave it a red-hot go, but unless XII Corps had rocket skates, our plan was not going to work with the number of reinforcements the Allies still had to come. It just took too long for XII Corps to move up into position to land the hoped for breakthrough move.

The big task of packing up the troops

All finished for another year!

As my first command of a big game, I was pleased that at least we weren't pummeled by the opposition. I was told by both Andrews after the game that they weren't expecting the westward flanking movement, and were stretched for a time before reinforcements took the pressure off. Able support was given by my subordinates, especially Jim, Paul and Robin, who had to bear the pressure to begin with but held stoically until Quinny and the VII Corps turned up. Quinny, Jenko and Pete E. then set about stretching the Allied reach until Malcolm and Johnny W. appeared. Unfortunately, the Prussians had reinforcements as well, and our plan couldn't bear fruit in the time left. Saturday night saw the French concede the battle but by no means defeated!

Thanks again to Andrew B. for all the hard work setting up the battle, to Tim and Jill for again hosting the event, to Andrew S. for being a worthy opponent, and all the rest of the Prussian gang for the great game!

Dennewitz OB


This conclusion of the massive 3-part post also happily turns out to be the 400th post of this blog. Serendipity, I calls it!

Thanks everyone, for your continued interest and hopefully there'll be a lot more to come