Soon be Christmas…

That’s a cheery thought isn’t it. 

If you’re British it’d be best to get the sprouts on about now I reckon.

June’s HYW painting progress has been glacial, though an actual glacier would be very welcome around here at the moment, cos It’s….soooooo…ruddy…hot.

Okay these chaps are Perry 28mm French levy spearmen the front rank of which I’ve equipped with pavises in order to give them a vague stab at survival. 

When it came to a design for the front of the pavis I was a bit stumped until I found inspiration in my local towns 14th century defences. 

This is the Zizim tower in Bourganeuf. Built to house a captive prince, (like you do). It’s the right period too as it happens (the lovely cone shaped roof is a late 15th century addition). 

I get the feeling that progress will be modest on the HYW project given the weather, the number of units I hope to field and the current empty status of my wallet. What’s really needed while this ticks along in the background is a smaller scale skirmish type game that I can use with Mr Lambshead’s dice less rules. You know the sort of thing. 8 - 12 figures per side, bit of character development, ongoing semi campaign etc etc. 

No.

Stop it.

No!

Must stay focussed on the HYW stuff.

Okay we’re sticking to the HYW. Debate over. Good. 

With that settled I guess it wouldn’t hurt to just browse the internet a little bit, would it? 

I mean what’s the worst that could happen? I am, after all, renowned for my iron will…my ability to resist temptation…my erm…

Oh bugger. 

No one’s going to notice if a bit of cash leaks out of the household bills account, are they? Where’s the harm. I’m only stealing from myself when you think about it - and they do say your a long time dead. I mean, I could’ be knocked down by a bus tomorrow never having done 1930’s AVBCW. 

Oh the horror.

Toodleooh mes amis. 

…and this just in…

Excuses, excuses.

The garden has had all my focus this month, so there’s not been a lot of hobby progress. With that said it’s been glorious weather and good for the noggin to be outside with the chickens…of which more in a mo. 

As you can see below, I’ve completed the first English box of Perrys infantry and have moved on to the French. Slow progress and not my best work but they’re reasonable gaming standard and I’m still enjoying the painting process. 

An English ‘herce’ formation as described in Never Mind The Billhooks’.

A company of French crossbowmen - which I might deploy as two 6 man skirmish units.

Wokeness in the coop.

A few posts ago I put up a photo of two new Silkie chucks - sold to me as hens. Turns out that Edna (the white one) is actually a cockerel and wishes to be called Eddie from here on in. Mmmm. Our neighbour Marie Theresa has been mystified about my choice of chickens to date (not exactly major egg layers or practical birds in any sense) and having heard from the wife about Edna’s transformation asked…in French…

(WARNING -skip down a paragraph or two if you’re easily offended by graphic content)… 

‘if she could see my cock’. 

Yes really. *

Marie Theresa and I. The moustache is an absolute fanny magnet. I’m having to beat ‘em off with a stick at the moment. Well I am if they’re over 80 and French. Excuse the 1970’s lime green leather chair. I have a bit of a pash for seventies furniture. 

This alarming exchange came a week after the missus encountered the apparently pregnant 85 year old struggling up the chemin. The foetus in question turned out to actually be a canard sauvage (wild duck) that she’d captured on the pond at the bottom of her field. She’d stuffed it under her jumper (worn whatever the weather) so that it couldn’t see and wouldn’t know how to get home if it escaped. Very sensible. For those wondering how an 85yr old captures a wild duck, she claims that she charmed it with her singing and the same technique worked on a Canadian Goose last year. 

More crisp news

Stung by my criticism of the French crisp industry, French flavour scientists have sought to top their recent falafel flavour with these… I have to wonder where this endeavour will end (possibly me dying of a crisp overdose at 25 stone).

I’d better close for now. The Current Mrs Broom tells me there are some French Knights waiting for me downstairs. They could be the Perry ones I ordered of course, but you never know out here… they could just as easily be the real thing! lol. 

Toodleooh.

* I come from a working class ‘broken home’ in the West Midlands - so I find a degree of humour in such crudeness where folk of more refined sensibilities or better breeding do not. Apologies if you are one of the better sort. 

The dust up at Mansanar bridge

In this scenario the British need to capture the bridge across the Mansanar canal since the road across it gives the most direct approach to the besieged defenders of Salisbury house. 

In real life the mutineers beat the Crown forces on a number of occasions but were always hampered by poor command and brittle morale. In this battle I’ve attempted to reflect that - the mutineers have a bigger force, but, if the British actually get on to the bridge they will consider the engagement lost and immediately melt away.

They have deployed in a fairly random fashion around the canal bridge, intent only on creating a blockade of the garrison at Cawnpore. Morrisons mobile column trying to actually break out from the town comes as an unexpected surprise. 

All figures are Empress Miniatures 28mm and the rules used were The Men Who Would Be Kings. The British have 9 turns to capture the bridge before retiring to look for an alternative crossing point.

T1. Frobisher’s platoon enter on the lower edge of the board, moving at the double despite the heat. Ahead of them Mountjoy’s cavalry troop ride along the flank to flush out any hidden mutineers.

T2. Mountjoy’s troop find nothing to disturb the infantry as the canter past several potential ambush sites but just as they prepare to swing in towards the bridge itself…blammo… In the last position on this side of the board the dice revealed a platoon of the 28th Native Infantry who’d heard the cavalry coming. Mountjoy (whose die generated trait was short sighted) had succeeded in finding the enemy, though sadly with the loss of several of his troopers. The fire was from long range, so Mountjoy could not order a charge or return fire (he couldn’t see who was shooting) and instead ordered his men back the way they’d come.

T2. The men of the 28th let fly in a slightly uncoordinated fashion with their obsolete muskets, and cheer as several cavalrymen fall. 

T2. Secure in the knowledge that no enemy is present on their right flank the men of Urquhart’s platoon advance on the bridge along the central road - led somewhat superfluously by Colonel Morrison on his mighty steed - Maximus. 

T3. With their running shoes on (Urquhart is a fitness fanatic) the platoon managed to keep up with the colonel on his horse until they crossed the hump in the road and discovered mutineers on the ridge to their left.

T3. Oh bugger! A die roll revealed both potential ambush sites on the leftmost ridge contained mutineers. In the Indian turn the cannon and the shako wearing elite of the 28th fired into the British on the road. 

T3. The cannon fired and scored several hits. The chances of the leader going down are slim (a double 1 is required) so I rolled for it…and got… a double 1. Was this the end for colonel Morrison? Nope. The trait he’d rolled before game start was bulletproof bumbler so he could ignore the first hit. Perhaps the round shot took off his hat? Despite the musket fire from the soldiers on the hill he waved his sword and twirled his moustache to inspire the soldiers now pinned on the road. 

T4. Yet more of Urquhart’s men fell to musket fire and they became pinned again but the colonels moustache twirling was impressive enough to prevent them from running. Fearing for his short sighted leaders reputation Daffadar (sergeant) Kuldip Singh grabbed Mountjoy’s horses reigns and swerved the troop over the brow of the ridge towards the hurriedly reloading cannon. During the Indian portion of this turn another unit (of irregular horse) is activated on the bridge itself. All potential starting points have now been diced for so any unrevealed Indian units from their force pool can only enter the game from the far side of the canal.

T5. The Indian horseman charge off the bridge into the unsuspecting flank of Mountjoy’s troop. Brave Daffadar Singh and several others go down under the slashing tulwars but the fight doesn’t go the mutineers way and they are forced to retire. The rules allow for cavalry follow ups in this event so trying to catch up with some blurry figures he assumed to be his own men Mountjoy thunders close behind, his remaining troopers in tow. A second contact and skirmish causes the Indians to flee still further. 

T5. Still trying to catch those he assumes to be his own men Mountjoy makes it onto the bridge. The mutineers let out a collective moan of despair at the sahibs disregard for life and limb. Assuming he is protected somehow by the white queens magic they throw away their weapons and scatter. 

Game over and won within 5 turns! 

For a solo battle this turned out to be quite entertaining. I was convinced that the British would lose given the force disparity and the early casualties which pinned the assault force in place. The flukiness (is that word?) of the actual win and the fact that colonel Morrison should have been killed (except for his crappy character trait) made it a good, if fairly short, run out. 

So then the road is now open and Morrison’s mobile column is primed for a rapid march to Salisbury house. 

I think that calls for a quick huzzah don’t you? And perhaps a gong for Lt Mountjoy?

Huzzah!

Toodleooh. 

Morrison marches forth

Readers will recall that the redoubtable Mr Morrison sent me 36 beautifully painted Empress Miniatures (1st Madras Fusileers) last year, which acted as a massive boost to my nascent Indian mutiny project. The lads were accompanied by a mounted officer whom I’ve named Colonel Morrison in his honour. The following game will be his first run out using The Men Who Would Be Kings rules. 

The story so far. 

Indian mutineers had risen up in the fictional town of Jullundpur, forcing a small garrison of the 64th and the Weatherby-Blythe family to seek refuge in the Salisbury House EIC compound. Captain Lawrence of the 64th, disguised as a woman, managed to slip through the mutineer lines in the back of a cart and raise the alarm at Cawnpore.

Despite the rebellions occurring all around them, General Wheeler (officer in command) felt his position was quite secure and he ordered Colonel Morrison to form a movable column in order to relieve the Salisbury House defenders and return with them to the greater safety of the Cawnpore garrison.

The movable column is an adhoc force comprised of the 1st Madras Fusileers escorted by several troops of irregular cavalry. Morrison’s intention is to secure the bridge over the Royal military canal at Mansanar and reach Jullundpur in a rapid 3 day march. Other crossing points of the canal are available but securing any of those instead will lead to unacceptable delays and stiffening resistance. 

The scenario

The action is centred around the seizure of the bridge across the canal at Mansanar and the following 16 point British force is pitched against a defending 24 point Indian mutineer force. For easy of play all Indian units are led by officers with no traits and have a standardised leadership value of 8+ while the British units had the diced for characteristics as follows. 

OC - Colonel Morrison: “Bullet proof bumbler” (sorry Aly) Leadership value 9+. Luckily for him, if not his men, this Jonah leads a charmed life. Re roll (once) every successful leader casualty he falls foul of. 

Colonel Morrison - will add +1 discipline to any unit he is attached to. 

1st Platoon, C Company, 1st Madras Fusileers: Captain Frobisher - Fine swordsman. Roll 2 extra dice in melee. Leadership 5+ (very good).

Captain Frobisher - flashing blade extraordinaire.

2nd Platoon, C Company, 1st Madras Fusileers: Lieutenant Urquhart - Jolly sporty. This unit may add +2 inches to any at the double actions. Leadership 7+

Lieutenant Urquhart - All those hours spent at “rugger” are about to bare fruit.

2nd Troop - Prendergast’s Irregular Horse: Lieutenant Mountjoy - Short sighted. Cannot give order to charge or fire beyond short range. Leadership 7+

Lieutenant Mountjoy - What enemy? Where? Are you taking the pith (helmet). 

The British may enter anywhere along the leftmost board edge, though I’m minded at the moment to try a run along the bottom of the picture. No point engaging everything on the table, what! 

Special scenario rules

There are 12 possible locations for enemy units to be encountered, each will be diced for / revealed when line of sight is established. Any units absent from these positions will automatically appear beyond the bridge at location 12 which will always be the last location to be revealed. 

The British need to have a unit on the bridge before the conclusion of turn 9 to secure a win. 

All retreating Indian units must fall back towards or across the bridge. 

All stands of jungle terrain are impenetrable and block line of sight.

It is hellish hot (and not a dry heat either, lol) so all British infantry lose 1 inch movement / activation.

Any Indian defenders will immediately disengage and retire if a British unit makes it onto the bridge. 

Okay, I’ll be giving this a bash in the next day or so, so I’ll try and produce the batrep before month end - with any luck.

Toodleooh. 

P.s. if anyone knows where I can get my mitts on river terrain at least 15cm wide I’d be grateful of the heads up. I made some myself but it really didn’t cut the mustard. 

New arrivals and a home front update.

The recent loss of two of my garden friends (Bancroft and Mable) to a Stone Marten has come as quite a nasty shock but in the spirit of “getting back on the horse” and all that I recently acquired these two little bantams to build the flock back up to four. 

Edna and Elsie have expressed an interest in editing the blog. I may take them on as interns and see how they shake out.

The white fluffy one is called Edna, and the mottled grey one is called Elsie. She immediately put me in mind of the Ostrich that Bernie Clifton used to ride in his “variety” act but it turns out that I was another innocent victim of black and white childhood TV and the damned thing was apparently orange.

Black and White Bernie Clifton circa 1970. Funny what passed for entertainment back then. He’d be jailed for that these days.

Painting progress has been slowed by the inexorable growth of l’herbe but I’ve still managed to knock out six Perry men at arms which I present here for your scorn and ridicule. 

I’ve kept the heraldry somewhat light since much of it would be beyond my capability painting wise.

I was of course intending to post another Indian Mutiny battle report instead of this blether but I’ve had a bit of a problem with terrain (needed a none European 28mm compatible bridge and some river sections too) so that’ll have to be later in the month. 

Okay right then I’d best be offski, I can see the grass in the north 40 is over 5cm high again. Sigh. 

Toodleooh.

We few…we happy few.

Well it’s been three years but I’m doing English archers again, (though admittedly in 28mm this time rather than 15mm). What goes around comes around, eh.

Lovely thing about the 100yrs war is that only one side used a lot of cavalry and that should speed up painting progress. I hope. 

Here’s a few pictures of ‘em so you can see where I’m at. They’re Perry’s of course and lovely sculpts to boot but darned fiddly to glue together with my fat fingers and clumsy hands of death.

I probably should have titled the post “look ma no flock” since as you will observe… there’s nary a whisker of the stuff to be seen.

Once again digital photography proves it is not your friend. They look okay from a distance I promise.

 

And here’s the back of them, which is probably the view most opponents will have since I hope to command the French…and lose every encounter with panache. They’re in the colours of John Mowbray by the way, which you probably already knew. 

Lack of flock is heresy I know, but while these lads are intended for Billhooks - they may get a few runs out in Boathooks and I suspect they’ll look a bit daft on board ship with a small garden plot around their feet. I’ve gone with the Kenneth Branagh Agincourt “grubby as fuck” look for the peasantry on the basis that it’s hard as hell to look squeaky clean when you’ve got dysentery and been sleeping under a hedge for several weeks. We’ve all been there…am I right!?

What? Only me?

Cripes!

The blog title obviously refers to the words Shakespeare stuffed into Henry V’s mouth from his play of the same name but it’s also an acknowledgment that after several years of steady posting I’ve finally achieved the magic number of 40 blog followers. Wow. Slightly chastening to think that one of those is my granddaughter (hi Ella) whose only really interest is in finding out what her barmy grandpa is up to and another follower is manifestly dead (R.I.P Graham) ((though I guess he could still be following?)).

Seems like I emotionally invested in the Betamax of content platforms when the world had already moved on to the VHS of Facebook. The wife keeps telling me that size doesn’t matter…and it’s kind of her to reassure me that the number of blog followers isn’t an issue… but still. Too much France? Too much crazy? Too many flights of fancy into new genre’s? Let me know, on the reinstated comments section if you can be arsed. 

Toodleooh

Chicken Korma / Chicken Karma

As a rule you should never post when under the affluence of inkerhol but I’ve been round mes voisines today and Christ that Pastis of theirs is strong stuff.

I’m conscious that I owe the blog a post, but gaming has been scant of late and miniature painting has to unfortunately come second to me endlessly cutting l’herbe dehors. Fortunately the Pastis has opened a couple of the doors on my advent calendar of troubled youth, so I’ll regale you with an anecdote from the past in lieu of anything actually relevant or interesting.

Buckle up.

The Current Mrs Broom planted hundreds of Euros worth of new plants last year and within 48 hours the four new chickens I’d just purchased had dug most of them up. “Why chickens.” she demanded of me, (in a most fearsome bate) “and why now?”

It was a good question. So in concert with my recent interest in all things Indian, I consulted various Hindu and Buddhist sacred texts and burned a bit of incense. You know, like you do. The unexpected outcome was a trip in the BroomCo Time Machine (pat pending) to the long lost land of Worcestershire in the grim old winter of 1977.

Though it no doubt stretches credibility, the young Jolly Broom Man (miserable brush boy?) was nothing like the handsome strapping chap I am today, all quivering whiskers and steely gaze…no sir, I was a girly milk sop with greasy hair, a brace, and was still wearing flares when my peer group had all moved on to drain pipe jeans. 

My parents had bought a small holding and gone “back to the land” in 1974 but after a couple of years the realities of stoop labour were beginning to tell. We didn’t have much cash (to put it mildly - you try paying your rates with goats milk) and so pater would sometimes come up with the occasional wheeze in order to generate emergency lucre.

Apropos the post title - from a mixed farm perspective, cockerels are pretty worthless but my dear father had chanced upon 50 going cheap, (sorry). After injecting them with female hormones in order to make them nice and plump (for reasons I didn’t immediacy fathom) they became my charge down on the farm. 

They were a decent bunch them chucks, with the female hormones eliminating their usual urge to fight or fuck everything in sight - instead they were good with colours and partial to musical theatre as I recall. They lived in an old refrigerated van only slightly less tatty than the family home and though they were relatively well fed the conditions they lived in were generally poor. I felt bad for them but at 13 (ish) there was bugger all I could do about it.

In the winter of 77 pater got the nod from a bloke who owned the Grand Tandoori on the Soho road and the purpose of my gaggle of gay chickens became suddenly and horribly clear. On a cold and wet November night daddy got a couple of crisp new fivers and by the light of a sputtering Tilly lamp I got a lesson in how to kill a chicken by breaking its neck. Thrusting the still twitching corpse into my cold little hands he nodded to the rows of roosting birds and muttered.  ‘There’s another 49 of the bastards in there. You’d best be getting on with it.’ 

Lovely bloke my Pa. 

On reflection I’d have been better off strangling him. (Oooh girl got daddy issues!)

So as you can see, karmically speaking, I had a great wrong that I obviously and unconsciously needed to address. Once I’d explained matters to the Current Mrs Broom she became a lot more understanding. I find there’s nothing like a bit of childhood trauma to grease the wheels of forgiveness. 

Makepeace, my bearded Favorol, gets human breakfast granola every day along with fresh blueberries and raspberry’s from Intermarché. The flock wanders where they will and live in a state of the art insulated coop that cost over a grand. Karmically speaking I may not now be re incarnated as a toilet seat.

One of these days I’ll tell you about the great goat caper in which a 14yr old me had to illegally drive the green family VW 1300 beetle through Birmingham to the abattoir with four billy goat kids on the back seat. Happy days - and nary a Fonz in sight.

Oh crap, I almost forgot this is a wargaming blog. 

Here’s a picture of some English 100yr war lads I’ve been working on. Proof if proof were needed that digital photography is not your friend. lol. 

Just noticed the chap in the middle has a bit of a droopy arrow. We’ve all been there.

Toodleooh mes amis.