Castle Fier: The Graveyard

 A couple weeks ago, some members of our club started the Iron Keep campaign from The Silver Bayonet: The Carpathians: Castle Fier. I'm going to try to document the campaign here on the blog.

We currently have five players in the campaign. I am playing my French list, led by Brigadier Gerard. A relatively experienced list, led by the Brigadier. Of him, according to his creator, Arthur C. Doyle, "Napoléon on Gerard, “if he has the thickest head he also has the stoutest heart in my army.” The list has a junior officer, a sapper, an occultist, and the balance of the members are Dragoons (infantrymen). This list is the most experienced of the groups, having played through seven or eight of the missions in the main book already. 

Ren is playing Prussians, using the Northstar set (TSB006 - The Prussian Unit). Ken is playing an Austrian list, including a Dhampier and some Guards. Ken's list is comprised of spare figures, some kit-bashed, that I painted up to entice him to try the game. 😁 Rob is playing a British list, with some hussars. Eric is running a "deserter" list, utilizing figures from multiple nationalities and led, of course, by Sharpe's Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill.

We played the first scenario, The Graveyard. With five players, we ended up playing the scenario three times. In the future, I would prefer that we play once, with all five players at once, I like the idea of that chaos... but if it fails maybe not. 

In all three games, the Tomb Wraith really intimidated the players, who generally found they had few weapons that could impact it. Also, an Undead Werewolf showed up in each game and did quite a bit of damage. The ghouls and revenants were mostly just obstacles, but the players were somewhat deadly to each other. 

Brigadier Gerard's group had the worst of it, the only leader to suffer a permanent wound - a leg wound. He has always been most effective on horseback, but since that isn't possible in future scenarios in this campaign it will be interesting to see how he does. 

Obadiah's deserters advance through the graveyard. For the first few games, we used a grass game mat which doesn't quite capture what the graveyard should look like. I wish I had put some castle walls around it.

The Tomb Wraith lurks near the central tomb, behind it you can see a clue marker, a discarded medieval helm.

A ghoul and an Undead Werewolf fight Rob's British force. 

The Tomb Wraith goes after the Prussian officer as he tries to escape the graveyard.

An Undead Werewolf circles Obadiah's beleaguered deserters.

Brigadier Gerard leads his dragoons in a dash from tombstone to tombstone as an 
undead werewolf attacks his occultist.

The French turn on the undead werewolf, saving the occultists even as the tomb wraith
and zombies come at them from all sides. 

The Prussians advance to sieze the spear, while Gerard an his men fight for their lives against
the undead werewolf, ghouls, and the Tomb Wraith. In this fight Gerard receives a permanent leg injury.

The scenario looks better on a stone courtyard, but still wish we had used some castle walls. Mounted this time (due to his leg), Brigadier Gerard and his dragoons face Ken's Austrians. 

Gerard and his men again face many undead foes as they try to fight their way to safety with the spear.
An undead werewolf to the left, a ghoul to the right, and the Tomb Wraith from their front, distracted from the nearer Austrian by a monster dice. 

I will to get some closeups of each warband and introduce them better in future posts. 

Army Spotlight: Wellington at Waterloo

We have another Army Spotlight: Rob's British force, Wellington at Waterloo. This is a 28mm army used primarily for Black Powder games. Rob has both French and British Black Powder armies, but since his Brits are a frequent opponent of my own La Grande Division Fictive, I thought it best to spotlight his British force. I copied my unit stat cards from Rob's concept, his revised cards are included below as well. 

Rob has been kind enough to provide the text for the photos of his army below.

Rob:

My figures are a combination of Victrix, Perry, and Warlord. This whole 28mm Napoleonic thing started when I was at Historicon about 12 years ago and some vendor was selling Victrix infantry boxes for $20 a pop. I got 2 French and 2 British, which was basically half of each army.

Wellington and Uxbridge. I also have Picton from Waterloo, but he was a bastard and he doesn't have his proper uniform, so to hell with him. My other generals are named after fictional characters from the greatest wargaming website of the early 2000's: Major General Tremorden Rederring's Colonial-era Wargames Page

That's Lord Uxbridge in the blue. He's on the wrong horse, as I assembled my officers a little carelessly. I've always been fascinated by the story of his amputated leg.

Wellington and Colonel Bindon Mudd leading the 33rd Yorkshire. Wellington was accidentally glued to Uxbridge's horse, which is saddled with a Tiger Skin. I had assumed that Wellington would get the fancier saddle, but it turns out that Uxbridge was the saddle dandy.

Household Cavalry (Life Guards). When I started with the British, Perry wasn't making these in plastic, so I only bought the Hussars. It didn't take many battles before I realized that I needed them eventually. I originally intended to make them Horse Guards, but since my Hussars were already in blue I wanted the unit to stand out more and so chose the red-tunic'd Life Guards. 

Life Guards once more. I went ahead and decided to make them a unit of 12 mounted 3 per base on... 65mm I think? 70mm?... after I was unsatisfied with the previous cavalry mounted 2 per base on a 50mm. This configuration looks better on the table.

 

Perry Hussars. There's so much detail on these guys, which made them a pain to paint but they came out well. I have 3 units, 2 of 10 and 1 of 8. You need to look at the Shakos to differentiate them.

British foot artillery. British foot artillery from Victrix. Cheap plastic but sporting lots of detail. Love this kit. I prefer using 2 guns to represent a battery. If I had to do it again, I would probably mount these to smaller square bases, but I think they take up a more realistic amount of battlefield real estate this way. If I had my way, we would use three guns to represent the big Russian batteries.

Chosen men with a casualty marker. There were a couple of riflemen in each box of British infantry sprues from Perry, so of course I had to build the 95th. They are technically a little bit better than the standard rifle company in the rules, but I increased the points cost to bring them into line. I think there were a couple of casualty markers in each box of Perry Hussars. Very thoughtful of them! One of these days, I need to find an appropriate model for Sharpe.

69th South Lincolnshire, 1st (and only) battalion. Units on the British side are differentiated by the color of the collars and cuffs, and also the tunics of the drummers. Technically every battalion should have two flags (one regimental and one union jack). I was originally going to have 36-man units, but decided that was too many at 28mm scale, so the number of command figures got reallocated during painting.

This is the 33rd Yorkshire, 1st and 2nd Battalion. The flags are printed from an inkjet on thick resume paper, then put together with watered down PVA and worked into shape. I should technically paint the edges afterwards to hide the constructions, but that's too much work. The flags were printed from scans of the flags which came with the various kits from Victrix, Perry, & Warlord. Those were printed on glossy paper, however - that's why I did a scan and reprint on all of them.

Soldiers of the 4th King's Own, showing my desultory brushwork. I prime black, then undercoat the flesh brown, then build up a couple of layers of dry-brushed colors. The faces and hands get a flesh wash, then another highlight. It looks good from 3 ft away.

The 4th King's Own, 1st and 2nd Battalions.

Just enough detail on the paints. Bent and broken bayonets are a huge problem with all my Napoleonic figures. It's mostly the Victrix models, which are mostly in more dynamic poses designed for skirmished or single-base figures rather than ranked infantry. If I had to do it over, I would have stuck with the Perry figures.

A rifle skirmishing company from the 44th East Essex flank battalion is set up to screen 2 battalions of the Coldstream Guards. The 44th East Essex uniforms with their yellow collars and cuffs are featured heavily in the Sharpe's Rifles series.

1st and 2nd Battalions of the Coldstream Guards, being led by Major-General Tremorden Reddering. These are Warlord figures. Adding guard infantry to my Brits makes them much more competitive against the French.

Army Spotlight: La Grande Division Fictive

 This army came about in an interesting manner, at least to me. I never really wanted to build a Napoleonic army, especially 28mm. Too much work, and I wasn't keen on the obsessive uniform study. And it wasn't a period or war I particularly favored. But my son was in his late teens and interested enough that he bought the Waterloo - Black Powder 2nd Edition Starter Set and insisted I take over the French so he would have an opponent. If you are a father you know that you cannot pass up the chance to wargame with your son!

I am not normally a fan of the French, but I knew I had to find a way to make a French army intriguing to me. And that was when I recalled Arthur Conan Doyle's Brigadier Gerard. I immediately began rereading the series and hunting for the stories I hadn't yet read. This foolish French officer gave me the spark I needed. I decided my French army would be "fictitious", it would be commanded only by French commanders taken from literature. Further, it would primarily be cavalry, especially light cavalry. I knew they would mostly perform poorly on the battlefield, but they should be fairly fun to have charge about - quick to advance and quick to withdraw, but always filled with élan!

I soon became as obsessed with uniform details as I had feared! Of course, my figures are far from museum quality, and I didn't get all the details right. I tried to set a good impression viewed from 2-4 feet away. It took me several years as I am a slow painter, but here is La Grande Division Fictive, fresh from their first (marginal) victory!

The generals first. Aside from Gerard, I didn't try to match General figures to their appearances - too difficult. The commander of the division is General Calvet, from Bernard Cornwall's Sharpe series. 

I got these figures cheap at the Historicon flea market, they were a bit dented and bent. They looked familiar and some research revealed they were probably inspired by a painting of Marshal Joachim Murat - see the image below. I painted the figure to the left to match Murat as much as I could. The central figure on the black steed is based on another painting (see below) and the third I painted from imagination. Generally, during play, the brown horse represents Calvet, the black represents Feraud, and the white represents Chabert.

The Equestrian Portrait of Joachim Murat, King of Naples
by Antoine-Jean Gros likely inspired the sculptor
of the figures I use for some of my generals.

Death of Prince Poniatowski on October 19th. 1813 by Horace Vernet
I chose to model the colors for another of the general figures above. 
Since one of my infantry lines is Polish (see below) I chose a Polish Marshal who
fought for Napoleon to base the paint job on But usually the figures represents Brigadier Feraud. 

I tend to run the division with five small brigades now. first Brigadier Gerard's Brigade. 

I have painted Brigadier Gerard as an officer in 2nd Hussars – the Hussars of Chamborant.

He commands a squadron of hussars and a squadron of chasseurs à cheval.

 2nd Hussars led by Brigadier Gerard.

9th Chasseurs à Cheval

Next, another cavalry brigade. This one is commanded by Brigadier Gabriel Feraud from the movie The Duelists. He commands my heavy brigade, with a squadron of dragoons and another of chevaux leger lancer.

6th  Chevaux Leger Lancers

French Dragoons

The final cavalry brigade comprises two squadrons of chasseurs à cheval (see above for their stat card).

It is commanded by Brigadier Armand d'Hubert, also from the movie The Duelists.

15th Chasseurs à Cheval

2nd Chasseurs à Cheval

I wanted to emulate Napoleon's Grande Batterie tactic, so I created an artillery brigade of 3 horse artillery batteries. It is commanded by Colonel Hyacinthe Chabert from Honoré de Balzac's novella of the same name. 

Horse Artillery.

The final brigade is the only infantry brigade. It is commanded by Brigadier Guy Loup, also from from Bernard Cornwall's Sharpe series. He has a battalion of Light Line Infantry, and two line Battalions.

Brigadier Loup in front of some of his men. 

To differentiate between them, I use all grey greatcoats for the regular line infantry,
though I know the coats were more varied in reality. 

I use brown great coats for the Light Line infantry, seen here passing behind a cavalry screen.

One of my Line battalions are the Polish Vistula Legion.

So, that is La Grande Division Fictive!