The Analogue Hobby Painting Challenge is about to start again (21st December) and run for three months and they are asking for ‘sign ups’ now.

The idea is that you get a number of points for something that you paint i.e. 5 points per 28mm foot figure. You set yourself a goal in terms of points and then while the challenge is running, you upload your image of any completed unit / base / figure to their blog and they calculate the points earned and add them to your ongoing roster. By the end of it all you hope to at least have met your goal.

This has nothing to do with painting quality or judging etc, it is purely to encourage painting motivation over the winter months - so Hoorah! to the administrators for kindly giving their time to this. 

At the end of the challenge, you should be well chuffed with your painting progress and the suggestion is that you make a donation to charity of your choice.

This is the 16th year of the Challenge and my first time of participating. I am an unlikely participant because it was only in the summer that I hit the wall of painters fatigue and resolved to move to 28mm and just paint at a much more pedestrian rate.

There is of course a fine line between ‘pedestrian’ and ‘dead in the water’ and I have not been picking the paintbrush up nearly enough.

So, I am joining the Challenge to get a bit of painting discipline back.

I would be happy to paint 1 x 20 man unit per month, so over 3 months that would be 3 units with 60 men. The Challenge is meant to be motivational and so they suggest stretching yourself a bit, so I will go to 4 units. 

That will be a total of 80 figures at 5 points each, gives me a 400 point goal. My Charity of choice to donate to will be MacMillan (a Charity for supporting anyone with cancer ).

You can prep your figures now, but can't start any painting until 21st December. If you haven't presented your first 'item' by 21st January, you are dropped off the roster .... well it is a challenge!

I reckon putting together a unit of 20 men properly based takes me around 13 hours, so four of them will take around 56 hours - so something like 6½ working days!

The above photo shows my new method of painting organisation. I paint in groups of no more than 10 figures at a time now. I made a little gizmo from an 8” x 8” piece of cardboard (I used an artists canvas panel). Then cut down a thick cardboard tube into 1” sections and glued them to the board using blobs of ‘No More Nails’ … hence it looks a bit like spot welding! Each tube takes a standard cork, which makes handling each figure easy. The whole thing was sprayed with a rattle can primer that I don’t like and wanted to get it used up.

The grouping in the photo are half a unit of French Napoleonic Line Infantry. They are still at the ‘ugly’ stage, but I am only a couple of painting sessions away from giving them their dirty wash. Thankfully, they are the second half of the unit, so soon another full unit will be marching to barracks.

For those interested in having a go, here is a link to the ‘Analogue Hobby Painting Challenge’

https://thepaintingchallenge.blogspot.com

After playing the 1809 Aspern Essling boardgame the other day, some work has been done to convert a slice of action from that game to take to the figures table.

I have put a post up on the Battlefields & Warrior Blog (link below) that describes the process of conversion, so that those elements peculiar to the boardgame are carried across to the figures table.

This topic will be covered in three posts. The first showed the boardgame, the second shows the conversion process from boardgame to table and the third will cover the resulting scenario played out with figures.

LINK;

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2025/11/taking-boardgame-action-to-figures.html

For tonights face to face game I thought it time to play an ‘Old School Tactical’ game from their Phantom Division module, which covers actions of US 9th Armored Division with 6 scenarios ranging from December ‘44 to April ‘45.

I picked ‘The Ruhr Pocket’ April 1945, which is a real mismatch between well supplied US forces and a hodgepodge of German units (SS, Wehrmacht and Volksturm remnants) that at this stage of the war were teetering on defeat …. but in places are resisting vigorously.

There are a couple of unusual aspects to this OST scenario. The Germans have differing ‘Gut Check’ (read morale tests!) values, depending on whether they are SS, Wehrmacht or Volkstrum. For every 5 casualty points that the Germans suffer, each of those values degrade by 1. Further, units can only rally if present with a leader. So this is a very brittle German force.

Secondly, on the first turn, impulses etc are not used. Instead the Americans waltz onto the board taking what is in effect a movement turn in which everything can move normally and without risk. Then the Germans are placed semi randomly on the board. The German force at set up is stacked into 6 off-board groups and there are 6 significant building locations over the whole board for them to occupy. The German player selects the first location (C10) and then rolls a D6 to randomly select which group go into that hex/building. Then the next significant building (F5) follows the same process etc.

It is a very dynamic way to set up and will no doubt bring some surprises for the US player if they have moved deeply. One of the German groups is a lone Tiger I tank …. where will that end up this time!

Finally, for those that know the system, the Germans get just 1D6+2 impulses per turn, which is pretty dire. The US get 2D6+3 and the consequence of that is that the US are going to be all over the German force.

That said, in the photo, a US Pershing tank has just poked its nose around the corner of a building and the Tiger has used the last German Impulse to get a shot off …… Thud! ... Explode! There is still a contest going on here, it is not all one way traffic!

With so many variables right from the get go, I can see some playings of this scenario being very successful from a two player perspective and some not.

It is a 7 turn game, but the US can win at the end of any turn in which all German units have some sort of damaged status, even if they are just shaken. Or if the US control 5 of the 7 target buildings.

As Napoleon tries to get his forces across the Danube, can his lead formations at Aspern and Essling villages, fend of the approaching Austrian columns?

This is a short 5 turn scenario that I have played to conclusion and posted some replay notes over on the Battlefields & Warriors Blog. The link is provided below for anyone interested.

LINK;

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2025/11/playing-aspern-essling-1809-day.html

Well, November seems to be turning into a 'Napoleonic Month'. The 2nd Edition Aspern-Essling boardgame, from the Jours de Gloire (Days of Glory) series, published by Vae Victis, has just gone onto the table.

The first day (21st) scenario is only 5 turns long, so that is getting attention first, while the rules ‘slowly’ return to me ….. I nodded off twice last night while reading them - Oh Dear!

The scenario starts at 1 PM and each turn lasts for 90 minutes, playing through until 7 PM.

The last time I played this, I remember being unsure how to get the best out the French cavalry, who initially occupy the space between the two villages and in the end they just got drawn in bit by bit, getting chewed up, whilst providing a series of emergency interventions to protect the line.  

There are a couple of interesting aspects to this game. (1) This is a chit draw game in which formations activate as their command chit is drawn from a cup. The French have the option to amalgamate some command into the hands of Lannes and Messina, so that whenever either of those two commanders activate, they can operate those amalgamated commands at that time, making the co-ordination of different divisions to the local situation much more effective.

(2) To get to the Aspern-Essling Villages, Napoleon’s force had to cross the fast flowing (due to snow melt) Danube, using two bridges, first a long bridge (over 700 metres) to reach Lobau Island and then a short bridge (100 metres) to run from Lobau Island to the far side of the Danube. So this became a choke point for the French advance, while upstream, the Austrians were throwing tree trunks into the water and launching burning boats, in an effort to damage and knock out the bridges, leaving the French in a precarious situation, with their forces on both sides of the Danube while the bridges were under a constant state of repair and attack.

Will the French units that are already across the Danube, positioned in the two villages, be able to fend off the approaching Austrian Columns? 

Thanks Jon for pointing me in the direction of this scenario book. Published in 2008, I wasn't sure that I would still be able to source a new copy, but Caliver Book (UK) had it in and it has just arrived - a lovely thing.

Of course the first thing I dived into was the Mariazell scenario, but was disappinted to hear that the author had used the wrong bit of geography for this particular scenario, but having the rest of the scenario, including the order-of-battle is most welcome.

For those interested, a list of 18 scenarios are described in a format favourable to the Shako II rules, but they look easily convertable to other rule sets that I have. The following actions are covered;

Wertingen

Gunzburg

Haslach-Jungingen

Elchingen

Albeck

Caldiero (South Flank)

Caldiero (North Flank)

Caldiero (3rd Day)

Amstetten

Mariazell

Durrenstein

Raussnitz

Austerlitz (South Flank)

Austerlitz (Pratzen heights)

Austerlitz (North Flank)

Austerlitz (Grand Battle)

Stecken

Overall, a lovely presentation that I will keep dipping into.

An initial trial with the Soldiers of Napoleon rules highlighted a couple of gaps in the collection that need early attention - the lack of Skirmishers and local commanders.

So the painting queue was interrupted with two French Mounted Infantry Colonels, from Perry Miniatures (French metal Pack FN4) taking centre stage. The third officer from the Pack will just have to be patient :-)

These were primed black, heavily dry-brushed (twice) and then contrast paint was used as a ground for the big areas of horse and blue uniform. This is a very fast way of getting paint down and for it to go into all the nooks and crannies, but I have never liked the look of Contrast paint alone, so then standard acrylics were used to block paint everything, including the horses and blue uniform.

Once done, a thin wash was liberally applied and then some very minor highlights put back in.

For varnish, they got a brushed coat of gloss, because they are metal, followed by a brushed coat of matt. I once read that gloss varnish is tougher than matt and so makes a good first coat on metal. I have no idea whether that is true, but I have no mind of my own, so slavishly follow the advice.

Finally they are mounted on 50mm ‘pill’ bases from Warbases using No More Nails to fix them. This ‘paste-like’ adhesive seems to help ‘settle’ cavalry down, as their own metal bases can be uneven underneath.

Anyway, it makes a start on the needed local commanders. The French will undoubtedly do better under their command. Two Austrian commanders are up next to keep things even.

I have just downloaded this for the Kindle from Amazon (UK) for 99p. The price of the physical book is £18.

At first glance, it looks like a nice, very readable, all-encompassing examination of the 1805 campaigns and battles, leading to Austerlitz itself.

The book begins with the forming of the Third Coalition and goes on to discuss the manoeuvres leading to the Battle of Ulm, followed by the subsequent actions that then led to Austerlitz.

There is a good battle account of Austerlitz and its aftermath. At the end of the book is a very useful order of battle, that includes formation strengths for both sides at the Austerlitz battlefield. 

At the Kindle price of 99p, it would have been rude not to get it! :-) 

After playing the Mariazell 1805 scenario over the weekend with the Soldiers of Napoleon rules, I enjoyed the game, even though the home brew scenario needs some better balance, but I was left feeling that the system might be a little process heavy for my tastes. I was finding that the good granularity that is definitely there was causing me to repeatedly dive into the rulebook just to make sure that ‘I had that right’. Also some of what was going on felt a bit contrived at times.

Having only played twice, I am perhaps being a bit unfair to the rules as getting to know the system better would undoubtedly help. Another possible thing is that playing the system solo means managing two hands of cards, which though do-able, perhaps gets in my way. I am not a ‘cards’ fan, so that is not a good place for this mindset to start from.

Anyway, just as a thing, I decided to convert the scenario to specifically work with my home brew rules - Eagles at Quatre Bras and I was immediately surprised how much of the scenario detail could just be jettisoned, especially the scenario ‘Special Rules’, which pretty much went in their entirety.

This reinforced my sentiment that the scenario under SoN was tending towards the presence of process, though it also leaves me wondering whether my EaQB take on the scenario will be less flavoursome.

[Photo - French artillery, a recent purchase from E-Bay that I have re-based to match my own stuff].

I would be the first to say that there really is nothing special about my own rules and doubtless many would not like them, facing that same problem of needing to play several games for them to become second nature and perhaps that just highlights a common wargaming problem of continually jumping between sets and never really properly getting to grips with just one.

In SoN, the cards add an extra bit of administration to play. Also there is a stepped process to showing the effect of casualties, with disruption levels increasing due to the rigours of contact and over time to keep those units in play, there is a need to swap those disruption markers out for base losses and I am left wondering whether this is any better than just going straight to casualties or accumulative cohesion deterioration.

The cards do bring a bit of narrative to play, but then my simple Event Table does similar. SoN is very clever and full of goodness. The question for me at the moment is whether with my ongoing bad back, so much goodness is extending the time that a game is taking to play and in consequence extending the time that I am on my feet (I stand to play to reduce stretching across the table). I spread the time at the table for the Mariazell scenario, with just one turn sessions, over two days to reduce back strain and so I am mindful that my choice of rules is depending more on my own physical  limitations at the moment rather than there being any real issue with the rules i.e. someone else will thoroughly enjoy the immersion and have it played through in a single session.

To ensure that there isn’t just an arrogant aspect off falling back to the familiarity of my own rules, I am also converting the scenario to be Black Powder compatible and might even extend this to doing a conversion for Keith Flint’s Shadow of the Eagles rules ….. I love the cover to those rules and the slim hard cover volume gives a sense of a Christmas Annual, a nostalgia thing ….. yes I am that shallow :-). It will be interesting to compare the plays on this limited scenario, who knows, I may be surprised! 

I will certainly replay the newly tweaked scenario again with SoN as part of this comparison and will probably do that first while the rules are still fresh to memory!

Anyway, as part of all this, I have just sent off the files (again!) for EaQB to a print on demand company to get the latest version done in a proper rulebook format with colour photographs in there ….. no doubt after the first playing, the new booklet will start to fill with hand written notes, just like the previous drafts have. I have done this about 7 times now, so they are the most expensive rules I have ever owned :-).

One of the good things to come out of this is that I am starting to feel an intimate connection with the Mariazell scenario as so much time has been spent on researching and tweaking it.

Anyway, there we are. Ultimately I would like to get to just one ‘go to’ set of rules and at the moment this could go in any direction, even to SoN, which I really want to like. With Christmas on the horizon, setting some kind of false line in the sand, it would be nice to give all four rule sets mentioned an outing before then.

In the meantime, I need to paint more Austrians, but a French infantry unit is blocking the painting sticks at the moment!