My figures get brushed on matt varnish once painted and then once fully based and flocked they get a quick swipe of a rattle can matt varnish .... but that is a job for the better weather and never over winter.

So, these are the Napoleonic Austrians that I have painted since the end of last summer and includes the batch that I did for the winter painting challenge and they were brought together a couple of days ago for their spray varnish.

They have now cured and are back in barracks. The French figures that need a rattle can coating have taken their place on the spray tray. We are entering a 4 day heat wave, so I either need to wait until that has passed or get lucky and get a cool early morning. 

Its actually nice to see them all together because it really shows the progress that has been made since last year and despite me almost resenting the hours poured into painting time, seeing them together like this is the reward to that effort.

I visited the Phalanx show (UK) today at St. Helens and had a very enjoyable time.

I may have discovered my 'go to' rules for the Wars of the Roses games and I picked up some bits that will help both the Wars of the Roses project and the Napoleonic 1809 forces.

There is a write up on the blog, together with some photographs.

LINK

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/06/phalanx-wargame-show-uk-2026.html

For last night's game I returned to the ASLSK The Guards Counterattack scenario, simply because I have been intensely looking at the rules and they are still at the front of my memory.

Mike has not played a Squad Leader based game for a while, so this game was just about doing the rounds of re-familiarisation. 

The Soviets threw themselves into the attack and the first half of the game can be characterised by the Germans getting a run of unusually good dice results and that hurt the Soviet attack, to the point that the German defence started to look like a series of unassailable stacks of powerful firegroups. On their right, the Germans were encouraged to go over onto the attack and advance into an enemy held stone building.

Then, almost out of the blue, everything flip-flopped the other way. Cpt. Denikin had been broken and had falled back into a hex at the rear of a building with three other broken 6-2-8 units.

He is a powerful 10-2 leader and in the Rally Phase, he recovered to good order and so did the three units with him, the Soviets made a broad attack across the entire board, initially resulting in three separate successful Close Combats - suddenly there were broken and DM'd German units everywhere, falling back into a shrinking perimeter.

The Soviets took their second stone building and it was pretty much over - a Soviet win and a very dynamic game.

Above all, the play had done its job of getting Mike back up and running with infantry combat. The depth of the possibilities as much as any complexity, makes this an unsuitable game to fully explain to a person before play, they would just feel bombarded by information. Better to explain a couple of key things and then learn by play as the various nuances pop up over play.

I just very loosly covered First Fire / Defensive fire and the moving in the open / non-assault move penalties and we were off.

Well my painting discipline has collapsed and these French Voltigeurs have been idle on the painting corks for a while now.

They are primed white and as a set of 9, these will give me 3 skirmisher bases, much like the Austrian Jäger that I did back in April (see the painting tab on the left menu).

They are metals (hence the rattle can primer) from Eagle Miniatures and come with bayonets attached, which I have nipped off.

My French forces are in desperate need of these chaps and really I could do with another three bases, whether to repeat with metals or go via the Perry plastics box is still to be decided.

It has been many years since I put the 'Guards Counterattack' scenario down on the table.

With my renewed interest in Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kits, plus the purchase of Beyond Valor, I have been able to get this scenario back to the table.

Once again, I am in the streets of Stalingrad trying to decide what to do with the 37th Guards.

I have done a bit of a write up over on the Battlefields & Warrior blog for those interested in an ASL scenario being played with ASL(SK) rules.

LINK

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/06/the-guards-counterattack-aslsk-ish.html

The recently released Battles for the Ardennes by Decision Games is classed as 'deluxe', but it came with errors on the counters and in the rules. 

The company has issued replacement counters and they have updated the rules as an e-file. However, this whole thing annoys me, I have a 'deluxe' game with nice looking rules and end up not being able to use that rulebook, but relying on downloaded sheets of paper instead!

Solution ..... send off the PDF download to a print on demand company. My 32 page replacement rulebook has arrived. I had it printed on 120 gm paper rather than 80 gm and as an after-thought, I was bothered that the pages would be too thick, but it's all fine and looks good.

There is a very slight sheen to the booklet, the original has a more matt finish, but outside of that you wouldn't know the difference. For an all in price of £12.97, I thought preserving the 'deluxe' aspect of the game was worth it.

But that aside, it is also all rather clever that these days the man in the street has access to the power of print - at one time only the big printing houses had that.

Last night for our face-to-face game, we returned to the Victory in the Pacific game, which we had recorded after the last session.

The game opens with the Japanese having already inflicted significant damage to the Allied fleets and this part of the game needed to use that advantage to expand their empire before the Allies recovered their strength.

At the Marianas Islands, the American fleet caught a smaller Japanese force napping, but the Japanese put significant ground-based air support in the zone and caused the U.S. to retire after just one round of combat.

However, it was a much different story at the Central Pacific Ocean zone. Manoeuvering had caused substantial forces from both sides to clash. The Japanese had hoped to spring a surprise with their three powerful carriers, the Akagi, Shokaku and Kaga, knowing that the Americans lacked air support.

However, it turned into disaster for the Japanese as the Americans succeeded in having a 'night action' over the Japanese wish for a 'day time action' and so in the battle, the much larger American force meant that the Japanese could not shield their carriers .... they were in the front line against battleships for gunnery action! [Air units need a day time action to fight].

It was just pure luck that two of the carriers survived the round of combat and were able to limp home, but the rest of the Japanese fleet suffered grievously.

It was a turning point in the war as the Japanese were no longer strong enough to be of significance in any one place while defending everywhere else. If the Japanese could have won their roll on getting a 'daylight' turn, the situation would likely have gone very much in the favour of Japan.

Of greatest disappointment to the Japanese was their failure to secure the Indonesia zone and the access that it gave to the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean. Their war plan had been to secure this area (for the constant stream of victory points) and hold it with minimal forces, while fighting a rearguard action against the Americans' inevitable growing strength in the Pacific area.

Here the Japanese had pretty much destroyed the entire Allied navy, but in trying to secure Singapore (port), they were largely defeated and frustrated by the powerful land-based Allied air wing.

Unfortunately, the gaming session once again ran out of time, but we had reached a point that the tide had turned very much and permanently against the Japanese, things from then on were only going to get worse, especially as the huge numbers of American carriers started to enter the war.

With Father's Day less than a fortnight away, it was time to look for something to pick up for the kids to save them that whole hassle thing of finding what dad will like ..... besides socks or something to clean the car with!

I came across this on the shelves of Waterstones (UK high street book store) yesterday.

Published by Tallis Street, the author is former Commanding Officer of the 1st Royal Tank Regiment and the book essentially covers the evolution of the tank.

The penultimate chapter is called The Tank is Dead: Long Live the Tank. The final chapter is called Afterword: An ode to the tank which is a very readable 'where we are now' type text in relation to the very modern battlefield.

While browsing on the shop shelves, what struck me about this book was just how readable it is - strange, as one might think that readability is the essentail aspect of every book, but his text must just strike a chord with how I process text.

I quite like that the chapters telling the story are somewhat independent of each other, making this an easy book to pick up and put down, returning to it when the fancy takes you.

I have a stash of books to read, but I can see this one propelling its way to the top of the list.

A few weeks ago I set about representing a corps level Napoleonic action by dividing it into three divisional battles, the centre battle and two flank battles.

We have already fought the centre battle, which was an Austrian victory after the corps commander ordered a cavalry brigade from his left flank table to move across to the centre to assist.

That of course now leaves the Austrian left flank table without their cavalry and they face three French brigades.

The left flank game was played at the weekend and there is a write-up over on the Battlefields & Warrior Blog (see below). Next, the other flank battle needs to be fought and the story will be complete.

link

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/06/battle-for-french-right-post-iii.html

The Wagram 1809 battle has been played through. It was very enjoyable and is justifying buying the deluxe version of the game for its ease of play, I'm sure that I will get a lot out of this box.

For an overview and ARR, I have posted to the Battlefields & warrior Blog.

LINK

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/06/wagram-1809-by-decision-games.html