Le Grande Condé

 Here is the main commander for the French at Rocroi, Louis de Bourbon, Duke d'Enghien, known as "The Grande Conde"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis,_Grand_Cond%C3%A9

The figure is from Warlord Games. The banner is home made.

TYW Cuirassiers and Commander

 Some more photos for your delectation - TYW Cuirassiers and a Commander.

Khalkin Gol - the game(s)!

 With my blogging hiatus, I realised that I never posted any links to the culmination of the Khalkin Gol project - the game(s) themselves!

I ran two games at club for this, firstly the short attack by the Japanese at the start of the campaign, the attack of the Azuma detachment which served as a preliminary battle in the campaign.

Khalkin Gol - Azuma

and next, the main battle itself!

Khalkin Gol - main

It reminded me that I never did refight the final battle at club, what with moving and packing.....looks like I will have to refight the other two again then!

(Rapid Fire 2 rules used)

Royal Navy Ships of the Line

I was kindly asked by a friend of mine, who has been inspired by some recent games of Blood, Bilge and Iron Balls at the club, if I could paint and rig some ships for him. 

Of course I said yes and we looked at one of the Langton's starter sets. It comprises of the 100 gun Royal Sovereign, the 80 gun Caesar, a 74 gun and a 64 gun.

These were the first ships I have done for about 8 years(!) so I was a little nervous about getting back in to the swing of the rigging! I was actually really pleased with how they came out, I have better lighting these days and also magnifying specs which really helped.

Here are some close up shots of them:

100 gun HMS Royal Sovereign - this includes a little jolly boat from NavWar of which I had a few going spare.

80 gun HMS Caesar

74 gun 'Common'

64 gun 

Naval wargame

 Good to get my collection out at club last week!

Naval game at NBHW

TYW Harquebusiers

 Another unit for my late war French TYW army for Rocroi.

This is a Weimarian unit, as the troops of Bernard de Saxe-Weimar went over to the French after his death.

A unit of Harquebusiers.

See them in action here, at our recent club refight of Lutzen 1632.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.963604529147216&type=3

More TYW French

 I've finished another unit for my TYW French army.

This unit is 'flagged' to be the Duplessis Joigny Regiment. You may be aware that this regiment didn't actually fight at Rocroi, however this will instead stand as the somewhat vaguley titled 'Mixed Infantry Regiment' instead - but they still needed a flag! The Duplessis Joigny regiment will mean it can of course represent that regiment in other engagements.

The mixed regiment at Rocroi consisted of a mix of the d'Harcourt, d'Aubetetter and de Gesvres regiments (source: Helion's "The Battle of Rocroi 1643).

The figures are a mixture of Warlord with some Redoubt thrown in. I've also replaced a couple of heads on the Warlord figs to give it a little more variety.

The base in the background is so I can take a few bases and use them in a friend's game using the 'Twilight of the Divine Right' rules. I have based them so they can be used for either Pike and Shotte or Impetus.

You may notice there are fewer pikes in this unit - the previous two units were - I think - slightly larger than most, so this number of pikes will be more likely to be the size of future units.

However - next up in TYW land will be a unit of Harquebusiers. These will be German in nature as the French army incorporated Bernard of Saxe-Weimar's forces later in the war.