French Gardes du Corps, 3me Compagnie, sculpted by Steve Barber

Finally, after more than one year, I could find the time to paint this fantastic sculpts by Steve Barber, which I commissioned at his studio. I painted them as the Garden du Corps du Roe with the yellow flags, so it's the third Compagnie. A fantastic experience having his own commissioned figures and to paint them then. The figures come with separate arms, so you can paint them easily and in short phases, which is quite comfortable, if you don't have the time to paint 5-6 hours without a break. I confess, that I invested the last day 6 hours to finish the paint job, base them and making the grass, pigments and dust .. It's a great joy to have them and I plan already a new commission at Steve.. 

Winter battle as a test game

After so long time without occupying with my hobby, this winter came and made a change to this dormancy.. just prepared some regiments, gluing broken helmets, guns or bases and we met for our first winter game. It was the only sunny day in February here and we immediately went to the garden to build the tabletop, placed the former and the buildings, trees and hedgerows.
Topic was to prove the game rules which we had discussed just before.
But once you have placed your army, you are in this war-gaming fever and we fought a nice battle between Prussian army and the Russian invaders.

Aggressive Prussian advance from the left against the Russian center...

Prussian reserve troops on the outer left wing

The Cuirassiers of the KR10 Berlin Gensdarmes..

And KR5 Cuirassiers as second rank..

The Russian center awaiting the attack from behind the forest

A combined army group

other perspective

Prussian hussars en garde..

Moldawien and Slobodski hussars on the Russian side intercepting this attack..

terrible skirmish between Prussian yellow hussars and the Russian lancers and hussars

Now, heavy cavalry intervenes.. the Leibdragoons...

Russian artillery behind the hill tries to support their own cavalry by heavy fire

the other Russian flank moves now..

..leaded by General Shuvalov

Ryazanski horse grenadiers in charge

and the Russian infantry 

Prussian battery

Prussian fusiliers f the 42nd regiment behind a hedgerow

Anselm and Matthias, the Prussian Generals, suffered in the cold weather after 2 hours of war-game....

New sculpt by Steve Barber: French trooper of the Gardes du Roi and Gendarmerie

I am very proud to present my first own 40mm commission at the wonderful studio of the marvelous sculptor Steve Barber. I know his figures from the former series "The 3 Musketeers", which he did wonderfully and I bought the whole series. Since I saw on Carmen´s Painting Blog his 40mm Samurais, I decided to ask him for sculpting me the French troops "en cheval": It is a basic sculpt for all French of the "Maison du Roi", eg. the Gendarmes, the Gardes du Corps and others.
I can paint them with the classic red coats, as Scottish Gendarmes, as Gendarmes de la Reine or as all the Guards with the magic blue coats.
I wait with impatience, you can imagine...
But it takes a while for a master mould, and then it goes to the mass production.
Now we are discussing on a trumpeter and an officer...

You can order soon this figure with horse at Steve´s Homepage: link

Matthias-Manske-shop is still open

Due to the new European law of data privacy protection, every online shop has to work on a data privacy protection with a lot of restrictions in using visitors informations. This is, regarding the intention, not the badest idea of our politics. But the consequence is terrible: to create such a data privacy protection, you need  a lawyer, an expert and that means round about 10.000 Euro. I do not know how all the little shops should realize that, it is such an amount of money.
You could also ignore it. Or do it later.
But not in Germany. If you don´t, there are a lot of louche lawyers who only wait for that and then accusing you, because you do a violation of competition - easily you can be in the situation to have to pay a huge penalty (up to 50.000 Euro...). Great, Germany, great...

So, poor Manske, has to rebuild his website. But you can order figures furthermore. Just send him an e-mail: link 

Summer battle: Prussians stop the French at Mayence

The last period we didn´t post anything new, because of the active preparation for our annual summer battle. So, I finished some French cavalry units, completed the command stand and worked on the rule book.
At the weekend, finally, we met all together at my father´s house near Mayence and arranged in his garden the tabletop, the gaming mat and all the terrain elements.
The scenario provided a battle between the advancing French army under General Montcalm to the Rhine, where the Prussians awaited them in an area with meadows, a village and a forest - to stop their advance to the East.
It was a splendid war-game and we tested our rules again and again and still had to confess, that we should work on details (shooting points, bonus systems, morale etc...).

That are the French Generals: my son-in-law, Roman, and me.

And the Prussian commanders: my son Levent and Anselm, my nephew.

The army box with sheets, dices, markers...

... and the army sheets with values, combat forces, morale and general informations about each regiment..

The deployment: The French on the left side formed a long rank with the infantry. Their left wing was positioned in front of the village, the right flank was with massed cavalry. The Prussians stood on the hill with a powerful battery and placed infantry and cavalry more open and flexible. Two absolutely different styles of strategy promised an exciting game....

The village shows a bucolic and quiet view..

.. but behind, the Prussians are preparing the artillery fire...

on the other side, the French "Gensdarmes de la Garde" stood ready for capturing the village...

...flanked by the "Chasseurs"..

... but Prussians Jaegers awaited them behind hedgerows and buildings..

First attack by the Chasseurs to the village and the fire opening of the whole battle....

What they didn´t see, was the elite regiment of Prussian Cuirassiers, the "Berlin Gensdarmes" ....

...assisted by the terrific mortar. His first shot killed most of the invading Chasseurs, even before they could enter into a skirmish.. Nice Nürnberger Meisterzinn and Prince August figures!

On the other flank, the Prussians had a powerful cavalry and horse artillery...

..but the French cavalry regiment "Orléans" opened the initiative and attacked the artillery and the 18. regiment

Counterattack by Prussian Red Hussars

... and the Prussian Canaries swarmed out to reach the flank of Orléans!

Prussian headquarter on the hill, under French artillery fire..... one of the guns is already out of order...

Prussian Cuirassiers preparing the 2nd wave of charge...

French "Mestre du Camps" and "Commissaire Général" attacked Prussian Dragoons and Cuirassiers!! They were thrown back 2x by the Prussian counterattack....

The French center is advancing in line formation during the overheated battle between the cavalry units...

Langermann Dragoons in counterattack

French have to re-order their troops....

Typical Prussian formation: infantry, battalion gun and cavalry - a deadly mixture...

But the French center moves forward - in great discipline! Here: Royal Pologne and Auvergne

Their counterpart: Prussian Regiments 40, 25, 13...

....followed by 49 and 34...

French marching to the hill..

positioning French battery

The French were successful in the center. The long rank with 6 regiments, shoulder on shoulder, assisted by heavy artillery fire, pushed the Prussians back and caused them several casualties. They should retreat to the hill for getting some medical points to turn back later... The French tried now to reach the hill and to capture the battery position...

.. same scene

Wonderful miniatures (Trident!)...

But the Prussians thrown their last reserves into the battle...

French won terrain, but still not the battle...

Chartres, Champagne, Flandres and the Gardes Françaises

Orléans cavalry attacks the Prussian 18th regiment using our "break-into-infantry"-rule and caused several casualties...

Second attack by French light cavalry

The Swiss are called to support the front lines... 

The French headquarter: discussion about next steps..

Same with the CinCs... in large scale..

... and in small scale...

Retreating Prussians with 3 hits... (shaken)...

All in all a wonderful game with a duration of 2,5 hours and some advantages for the French. The won more terrain, but had more casualties than the Prussians. 

We lost a lot of time for each turn (30-40 minutes) and couldn't´t really find a fast decision in the battle. The French had more privates, the Prussians had better shooting points - so it was equal by force, but any kind of "Blitzkrieg" on one side or the other wasn't possible. 

Maybe we have to change the effect of the dices.

We will try, next time, also to raise the speed of the game.