Flintloque with Regular Infantry!

So after the last game, in which we learned that elite cavalry are brutal, we had a go with regular soldiery. This was also our first game with more than two players. I think it worked out well, but we are going to have to start doing orders with tokens. Dan sent in pictures because I never remember to take any...

Mission: Capture the Farm.

British: Brought a unit of 8 Grenadiers (average/regulars, a captain, sergeant, a flag, a drummer and four lads). Along with them are 8 Scots Rats (mix of raw/reg and exp/reg, they have a captain and a piper).

French: 10 Voltigeurs (a mix of experiences, led on this occasion by a Sergent) and a Ligne company (10 Elves, led by a Lieutenant).

By dint of Dan and myself being say on different edges of the table we kind of defaulted into a valiant two pronged assault while the Elves lounged about brushing their hair.

Rats Advance!!

The rats, brave but never the sharpest lollipops in the kitbag, formed into their traditional pack formation and headed off towards the Ligne. Who, you may not be able to tell from this picture, were skulking in the woods as pointy-eared fops are wont to. Loading their muskets.

Orcs Reach the Farm Wall

Meanwhile the Orc lads head for the farm. Capt. Aylesbury leads the musketeers to the wall where they exchanged some boring and pointless gunplay with the elves on the wall opposite. Well. It was pointless for the Orcs. The Elves were hitting things and cheering..

Colour Party Moving Around the Farm.

The rest of the Grenadiers advance up into cover and try and work out what to do next. Unfortunately there's only three of them so the thinking is difficult and the answers are not immediately forthcoming.

Less Rats Advance!!

The rats huddle together while moving -- like that's going to protect their decreasing numbers from a section and a half of elves throwing lead at them with varying degrees of competence. Eventually the survivors close on the Voltigeurs and try to bite them. It doesn't go well. The elves outnumber them enough to simply hold them down and stab them. Ow!

Several Rats cannae tek it na mo' and run squeaking. One is later hung by the provosts for leaving the field without the correct paperwork^[1].

The Orcs Make Their Move

Captain Aylesbury decides that the gunfire isn't working (in the sense of; Orc muskets are like Orcs -- loud, but not actually very effective at shooting) and clearly the Orcs were going to come off worst against the better musketry.

Instead he leads those Orcs armed with suitable weapons on a charge across the courtyard to fight the Elves face-to-face. There's hacking with swords and spontoons, but the wall in the way reduces the effectiveness. Eventually^[2], Sergeant Dunstable remembered that he's a Grenadier and that he brought grenades!! In the most effective move of the battle he hurls a bunch at the Elf forces and in a crowning moment of awesome, hits the Voltiguer section leader. As the world is filled with the pitter-patter of bits of Elf falling from the sky, the section takes a morale check and an Elf runs away. (He is also later hung by provosts for not sticking around until the final whistle.)

But it's too late. Having shot, stabbed or routed all the Rats, the Ligne company is now rounding the farm and the brave Orcs are desperately, desperately outnumbered. The ones in the courtyard continue to run about waving swords and bayonets, but every turn they're not in hand-to-hand, there's a batch of Elves thumping them with close range musketry and the ground is getting thick with bodies.

Now, in our defence, when the game ended, the courtyard was actually held by an actual brave Orc. But he was outnumbered about 15 to 1 so he wasn't a particularly good candidate for longevity. And we did also save the Colours: Ensign Lootin decided that beetling for the table-edge was the better part of valour. But sadly the farm really does seem to belong to the French and at a surprisingly small cost to them.

(It's OK, we'll shell it tomorrow...)


^[1]A note from his mum.
^[2]He was promoted for his ability to unimaginatively stick to the rules.

What I Did On My Week Off.

People seemed fairly keen on me having some time off. And to be honest after the stressy year I've had, I needed a break as well. So what did I get done? Well, I tidied up the garage a lot and shredded mountains of paperwork dating back to the mid-90s for a business that I no longer run...

I also bought a car. My beloved old Hyundai, mere weeks after having a new clutch and a recovered gearbox fitted (to replace the one which shredded itself), once again started to make a funny road-speed-related thrumming sound. Something expensive about to fall off type sounds. So I decided it was probably time to follow all the advice that I should buy a new car (or at least a less elderly one).

I also managed to get WAY loads of Flintloque figures painted.

After discovering that veteran light elite figures are murderous, we thought we should revert to using regular line infantry, so for 200 points each;

Britorc Centre Company of
9 Privates and a Lieutenant

Britorc Grenadier Company of
6 Privates, a Sergeant and a Captain.

Highland Scots Rats Centre Company of
6 Privates, a Captain and (of course) a Piper.

Ferach Elf Centre Company of
9 Soldats and a Lieutenant.

Another Ferach Elf Centre Company of
9 Soldats and a Lieutenant

Wow. More Elves are on the painting table...

Wheat's Louisiana Tigers

I fancied doing a slightly unusual unit for the ACW skirmishing.

I wanted to do a reasonable sized unit as well so for $400, Wheat's Tigers.

Most of the time these guys get represented on the table as Zouaves, but only 1 of the five companies were equipped as Zouaves -- and then only at the beginning of the war. The other companies were outfitted in "salt-and-pepper" weave trousers, red firemen's shirts and both fezzes (which they apparently left in camp) and straw hats. I really liked the idea of the straw hats, so that's what I did them with.

The figures are Redoubt with 'bare' heads and the straw hats are a mix of plastic and metal parts from Warlord's ECW range.

There's a bunch of riflemen, a sergeant, lieutenant, drummer and flag-bearer. All the riflemen are Zouaves (higher pluck than regulars); it turns out that in larger LotOW games, it simply gets too annoying trying to have different skill/pluck ratings within the units, so the recent additions are units with all the figures the same. It makes it a little more tricky to juggle the unit to fit the cost, but I think it's worth it for the better playability.

Orcs...

Flintloque comes with the ten elves posted below and six Orc riflemen including the famous Sharke and Harpy.

Now they've got their flag, you can have a look;

The figures are, of course, AA and the flag is from Redoubt who do a pack of flags especially for Sharpe-based stuff (two colours for the South Essex and this 95th Rifles pennant). The rest of the rifles (including another Sharpe!) are still on the painting table.

Rocketmen!

I painted these a bit ago but they've got bored waiting for me to finish the opposition and photo them all in one go... they're the rocketmen, from the 1950s TV series "Raddigan's Rocketmen" (read a description of the series).

The eponymous hero, Colonel Raddigan, CSM Vickalovich and the source of all the series' technobabble: Sergeant Zigby.

Captain Ousterman, Smithson (a hand-to-hand combat specialist) and in the background a two-man heavy machine-gun team.

A squad of six rocket infantry led by a Corporal.

The figures are from Scheltrum via the B&B at Salute and are picked and armed to make 100, 200 and 300 ratings units for 7TV.