Vive la Commune!

The Funny Little Wars Group recently gathered together in a dank, foreboding, cobbled courtyard, in a long forgotten corner of old London town. The cries of cutpurses, ne'er do wells and an angry mob echoed in the surrounding alleyways and rookeries........ you couldn't ask for a better setting in which to recreate Paris of the Communards in1871.

 The western suburbs, from the gateways in the crumbling ancient walls, wide boulevards run through to the heart of the City.  The boulevards are denoted by chalked lines, the areas between the boulevards are a congested warren of houses and narrow alleyways (you have to use a bit of imagination here!)

The National Government has fallen after embarking on a disastrous war against Germany which saw the City subject to a six month siege and the humiliating capture of Emperor Napoleon III at Sedan.  A new Government of National Defence has been established at Versailles, troops are sent to recover all the artillery from Paris but they are opposed by a popular uprising of the workers at Montmartre, backed by the Paris National Guard

The view from the South Gateway, the red flags of the Revolutionaries fly from all the major buildings seized by the National Guard, the artillery park at Montmartre is in the left background.  Prominent supporters of the Versailles government, the clergy and Archbishop Darboy have been rounded up and imprisoned.  Elections are held and a Commune Council is installed to run the City.

Meanwhile Versailles builds an army, calling in troops from regional garrisons, gendarmes, firemen, naval and foreign legion units.  Marshal MacMahon is ordered to retake Paris, he occupies the surrounding forts and opens a bombardment of the City.

MacMahon marches on Paris but his way is blocked by Fort Issy which is still held by the Communards.  The garrison Commander, Leon Megy, has taken the precaution of barricading himself in the forts deep wine cellar, several hours later a runner is sent back to Paris to inform the Council that he is in no fit state to command.  A company of National Guard are sent to assess the situation, and stiffen resolve in the fort, they have secret orders to spike the guns and escape if resistance looks untenable.

MacMahon's columns suffer heavy casualties from Fort Issy as they advance but eventually they surround the Fort and overwhelm it.  The garrison manage to spike the guns before they surrender, they are then executed by the victorious Versailles troops.   This sets an ugly precedent which will have unfortunate consequences for the hostages under arrest in Paris.

The indiscriminate bombardment of  Paris has continued daily and turned much of the suburbs to rubble but caused relatively few casualties.  Rather than cower the Communards it has strengthened their resolve to fight to the end.

Meanwhile the Revolutionaries have not been idle, barricades are thrown up, buildings booby-trapped with explosives and incendiaries.  The newly formed Committee of Public Safety have ordered more arrests of anyone suspected of supporting Versailles.  A sweep of the suburbs uncovers a counter-revolutionary plot to rescue the hostages and the traitors (seen here in prison with Archbishop Darboy) face the firing squad.

The biggest problem for the Communards is that they don't have enough men to hold all the strongpoints in the City, also they have an abundance of artillery and shells but few artillery crews trained to use them.

As MacMahon's troops forced their way into the City, my character, Gustave Cluseret, was arrested by the Committee of Public Safety and accused of leaving the gates open, I was to be tried for Incompetence.....or Treason.......or Both! (don't you just love committees?).  News that I would face the firing squad when found guilty drew rapturous applause from my fellow players! (steady on lads, it's only a game).

Happily a favourable roll of the dice saved me from the firing squad!  A desperate struggle begins in the streets and alleyways as the Communards struggled to withstand the steady disciplined advance of the regular troops, canister shot rips gaping holes in their ranks but there are just too many to stop and the revolutionaries are continually forced to fall back from one strongpoint to the next.

As the fainter hearts among the workers begin to drift away the fervent hard core revolutionaries dig in and prepare to sell their lives dearly as the fighting grinds down into a struggle from house to house.  There are also a few surprises held in reserve, as the regulars seek cover in unoccupied houses they set off the infernal traps, the air is rent with explosions and fire sweeps through the district, although the actual casualties are light.  The regulars must now face the fury of the Petroleuses, emotionally patriotic women (seen here in front of the buildings left and right) who launch themselves suicidally at the invaders, bombs in hand, this time the casualties are much heavier.

As the ranks manning the barricades get thinner and thinner, only the fanatics remain and the inevitable end is in sight.  A massive quantity of partypoppers were expended simulating the effect of canister shot, booby traps and the bombs of the Petroleuses.  Great fun!

While all this has been going on, the Versailles Government has been negotiating with the German Army, who still occupy the eastern approaches to Paris, to be allowed to pass a another column of troops through their lines and attack the undefended eastern suburbs of the City.  this new column races through the streets brushing aside the light defences, as news of the impending collapse reaches the Central Committee there is just enough time for me to give the orders for Archbishop Darboy and the hostages to be executed while all the prominent buildings are put to the torch.  The new attack quickly reached the central redoubt but we didn't hang around to take any pictures of their triumph.  My comrade Louis Delescluze (played by Graham A.) donned his red sash of office and honourably climbed onto the barricade, pour encourager les autres, where he was promptly shot dead.  I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and made my escape during all the confusion dressed as a nun.

And thus ended the Paris Commune of 1871.

Okay it didn't all happen quite like that but my rendition of events is closer to the truth than some of the more spurious Versailles sponsored propaganda you are likely to see appearing in other parts of the blogosphere.  A nasty, vicious little campaign, as the quelling of civil insurrections so often are, but also an interesting and unusual one which throws up a lot of fascinating personalities and is so often overlooked by the enthusiasts of military history.

An interlude while I do some 1:1 scale painting

This past week I've been up a ladder with a paint brush redecorating the hall and this has necessitated taking down the display of toy soldiers I have there.  The figures need to be individually removed and dusted so I took these photos to remind me where they go when I put the display back up, as I'd taken the pics I thought I might as well share them with you dear reader.

Discreetly camouflaged by several years of dust, the figures here are not any particular favourites just odds and ends that I've taken a shine to and picked up over time. Occasionally things get moved around but the order of display is largely governed by the size of each compartment.

I've always been very open about collecting toy soldiers and when I mention my interest to anyone they immediately assume that I mean lead guardsmen standing to attention in red tunics (and in fairness there are a few of those), so this little display is my way of showing the diversity of the subject.  Click on a picture to enlarge, there are no prizes for identifying what they are but it might give you a minute or two of fun, now where did I put that duster?

A few of last year's finds

Rather late in the day but I just came across more pics of some figures I got at last year's Plastic Warrior Show.  I didn't take a table last year because I felt in need of a big spend up on toy soldiers and you just can't do that with the same reckless abandon when you've got to look after a stall. I bought heaps of stuff, stocking up on fodder for conversions which I won't bore anyone with, so here are just a couple of the less usual bits:

This is the original plaster form for the mould of a Charbens red Indian which never went into production.  It's very difficult to visualise the finished product from looking at the inverse impression in the mould so the chap who sold it to me had made a metal casting to see what the figure would have looked like,

These plasters came from the estate of John Riccardini who had worked as a freelance designer for several UK toy manufacturers, principally Charbens, these are red Indian legs from the Timpo swoppet range. These plaster forms were first cast around the master figure and would then be sent to the foundry where they would then be copied in brass, fine detail would be engraved into the brass to finish the mould and the plaster could be discarded. I have several original brass moulds but these are the only plasters I have ever had. I only met Mr Riccardini once and he was a very nice chap, he engraved his name into one of these moulds, I suppose to assert his intellectual rights, which is a nice touch, I wish I'd made more effort to stay in touch with him. Too late, another missed opportunity to learn from the people who made the toys.

A mounted Roman officer made in France by JSF (Jouets Standart Francais), originally made in hollowcast lead, this plastic version has a high plaster content and is starting to deteriorate but happily is still all in one piece. 

Another figure from JSF from a series of French army off duty, it's a very large set with many unusual poses but quite hard to find and very sought after when they do turn up.

Well that's it until after the PW show next week, I thought it was time I did a post about proper toy soldier collecting as this blog has become rather 54mm wargaming heavy of late, but as that has always been the prime focus for my collecting activity it will probably continue to be the direction that this blog takes.

Good hunting!

Tony Bath - War Game of the Middle Ages and Ancient Times - part 2

So how did the rules work out?  Well I have to admit when I was drafting the quick reference sheet I had grave misgivings.  Players dice to see who goes first in each game turn, the winner moves, fires and melees, then the loser does the same, actions are consecutive not simultaneous.  Movement distances and terrain penalties are sensible and not over complex, the same goes for firing ranges and effect, so it's all fast moving.  So far so good.

The French Battle advances, crossbow companies in the lead followed by knights on foot and heavy infantry.  The mounted knights hold back while the footmen test the softness of the ground and clear a path through the English men at arms.

The only difficulty we had was with the melee system, the rules state that when a figure from one side moves to within half an inch of an enemy they create the "contact point" and that all figures within an infantry move (i.e. 12 inches) of said point are included in the melee. Seems straightforward but in practice so many troops are drawn in that it just becomes one almighty bundle, perhaps it works better with 30mm figures?

First blood to the archers, three companies of French crossbows get off the first string of arrows and annihilate the Burgundian bowmen.  Realising the threat of being unable to reply to the enemy archers the English light horse charge and catch them unsupported in open ground as they ride them down.

The melee is a two stage process, first you asses which side has won then you calculate the casualties.  And this is where the difficulty comes in, different troop types (see QR sheet at bottom of post) have combat values which vary depending on the troop types opposing them.  This is fine when both sides have the same troop types in the melee but with the 12 inch inclusion zone described above it is inevitable that you will have mixed arms (heavy/light cavalry, heavy/light infantry etc.) on both sides and we found it nigh on impossible to figure out who had won the melee, try it yourself and you'll see what I mean.  

To simplify the situation we broke the melees down into a unit on unit calculation rather than the 12 inch free for all and it seemed to work okay.  Once the winner has been decided, casualties are based on a simple calculation which ensures that the larger side always wins, very similar to the system in H G Wells "Little Wars"

The footmen of both sides lock horns as they slowly splash through the soggy marshlands.

In the melee we found that when the heavier armoured French eventually came to grips with the enemy they bludgeoned their way through the lines but the greater numbers and mobility of the lighter Allies meant that they could quickly plug the gaps to blunt their advance and wear them down by attrition.

Four companies of English men at arms hover like mosquitoes around the edges of the wetlands.

Over the years I've been picking up bits and pieces of Timpo knights on the cheap - a pair of legs here, a torso there, from the junk boxes at shows and when I started to put all the bits together I found I had a decent enough quantity to field an army with no painting involved.  The only drawback being that there is a preponderance of Crusaders which seem to have been very much more common.  The idea of using them as a Crusader army in the Holy Land doesn't really float my boat and I can't see me picking up enough Timpo Arabs to make that feasible so I have decided that any figure in a white tunic with a red Cross of St. George will be English.

After riding down the French archers the English cavalry have overreached themselves and are charged in the flank by the French heavies.

I think it's fair to say that some rather basic tactical errors were made on both sides, notably advancing archers unsupported in an attempt to close the range for them (I might consider extending the bow range to 3 feet in future games).  With the loss of all the archers the game turned to one of local melees erupting all over the field and with no morale rules to break the tension these became a fight to the finish slugfest.

The English numbers hold up well against the heavier strength of the French knights and both sides are worn down by attrition until the allies decide to slip away leaving the French in command of the field but too depleted to follow up.

So all in all a fun fast play game, we both agreed the rules worked well as the core of the system but they need a little bit more built around them like something to cause a unit to break and run or even refuse to fight.   Our aim was to play the to game as close as we could to the original rules, or at least our interpretation of their intention and I think we achieved that, although I would love to have tried them using 30mm flats.  This was just a trial run so we kept the scenario simple but tried to include as many of the troop types and terrain features as possible, the original manuscript offers additional features such as constructing earthworks, sieges, supply etc. And for the Ancients there are chariots and auxiliaries, all the more reason to buy the book (see last post)

The quick reference sheet for the rules, should anyone wish to give them a spin!  Oh I think I forgot to mention that the loser of a melee falls back 1 move, quite important that. 

Tony Bath - War Game of the Middle Ages and Ancient Times - 1956

Following on from the Herring War game a few weeks back (see earlier post) AM and I made tentative arrangements to meet again across the table of  Mars, AM chose the period, Medieval, so I got to choose the rules.  I was a little surprised at the choice, but pleasantly so as I'd been spending a little too much hobby time working on the 17th and 19th centuries recently and a change is as good as a rest etc.

The lay of the land at the start of the game.  The flower of French chivalry confidently line the southern hills on the left while the bawdy English and their brutish allies the Burgundians are jostled into line along the northern slopes opposite, between them the marshes in the valley floor are swollen from the incessant rains

I mentioned in a previous post here that I had stumbled across the first set of wargame rules written by Tony Bath, founder of the Society of Ancients, in 1956 and since then I have been looking for an opportunity to try them out. 

The English lights - cavalry and infantry rush into the fray

There's something that appeals to me about the idea of using old rules for playing with old toy soldiers.  Now, my medievals don't hail from 1956, they're mostly from the 1960's, (well, some are) so not too far out. When I first read the rules I assumed they were written for 54mm soldiers because the movement distances were what I would expect for larger size figures and of course that was the type most widely available back then.  Also there was something about the game mechanisms that reminded me very much of Wells' Little Wars rules.

The well appointed French heavies - cavalry, infantry and swarms of crossbowmen begin a ponderous advance over difficult ground

Tony Bath actually used 30mm flat zinnfiguren which he imported from Germany for his games as the Ancient and Medieval periods were barely covered by the toy manufacturers of the day and this was long before the advent of the 20mm wargame miniature or even that pillar of the hobby soon to be known as Airfix.  By contrast the historical coverage of the flat manufacturers was, and remains, phenomenal.

Faced with the prospect of a charge from the heavy French horsemen, the English infantry make for the relative safety of the marshlands

Although the name of Tony Bath has become synonymous with the Ancient period it was to be several years after writing these rules that he founded the Society of Ancients and it is clear (apart from the title) that he intended them to stretch to cover at least the Hundred Years War as there is specific provision for "dismounted cavalry in full armour armed with shortened lance as used by the french at Poitiers".

The French crossbowmen have secured the ruined abbey

So, very much an old school game was had, with books under sheets for hills, pine cones for bushes, marshes hastily cut for the occasion from card and aquarium ornaments for ruins.  The Anglo-Burgundian force were mostly Timpo swappets with a hindrance of militia provided by Elastolin Saxons and stiffened by a phalanx of Deetail pikemen.  The French were mostly conversions, some painted in heraldic livery and finished in the toy style.

First blood to the French, the heavy cavalry on their right charges into the first line of Burgundian men at arms while a body of militia forms a hedge of pikes to protect themselves from the onslaught

We wanted to play the game as true as we could to the original rules without any tweaks and we could see that they depend on testing combat strength v mobility between the various differing classes of troops, so to give them a good first run out we made the opposing armies very different in composition.  The French were much heavier with greater firepower, about  30 heavy cavalry, 30 heavy infantry and 30 archers.  The Allies were much lighter but greater in number: 15 light cavalry, 60 light infantry, 10 militia, 10 heavy infantry and 10 archers. 

On the French left more heavy cavalry approach the marshes but are checked and look for firmer ground through them

I was given permission by the British Model Soldier Society to reproduce these rules for enthusiasts but before I got around to doing it I discovered they had been published as part of the History of Wargaming project, edited by John Curry, in Vol 4 - More Wargaming Pioneers so if you want to give this game a spin I would urge you to buy the book, it costs less than £12 and is part of a project that deserves all our support.  What I have done is produce a summary of the rules in a quick reference sheet which I will make available in the next post, but you really should still buy the book because there's a lot more in it.

The English men at arms jeer at the French knights from the relative safety of the wetlands egging them on to come forward

Ancient Wargame - how does that work then?

Some years ago I came to the conclusion that painting 54mm Napoleonics and ACW for wargaming was a bit like cleaning out the Augean stables, the mountain of plastic never diminished and my hobby had become a chore instead of a pleasure.  To break the cycle I began searching for prepainted figures and bought up a clearance lot of the Timpo Romans made by Toyway (not to be confused with the original Timpo Swoppet Romans which would have required a remortgage on the house), these chaps are made of PVC so the weapons are a bit wangy and they plug in to a truly dreadful base which looks like a big orange dome.  Neither problem is insurmountable, dip the weapons in boiling water then straighten them and run under the cold tap - all sorted.  For the bases I reverted to my old favourite the tu'penny bit, the figures being PVC they stick to metal like barnacles on a boat hull, okay it's a bit of faffing about but it's not as tedious as having to paint 100 figures.

The Toyway/Timpo Romans, well detailed and nicely animated, I think the armour is quite accurate too.

I have never played an ancient wargame (not even with the Airfix figures I had as a lad) and my knowledge of the period extends little further than the Romans/Britons and Greeks/Persians but I have flicked through various Great Battles of ... and Great Commanders of .... type books so I know I am missing a trick and with that in mind I reached for the copy of Xenophon's "The Persian Expedition", which has been yellowing on my bookshelf these past two decades and headed for the local pub.

Britains Trojans, not the nice early Herald series figures but the later Hong Kong versions made of PVC (so I have no qualms about mounting them on new bases).  Will they pass muster as Carthaginians?  They'll have to because I haven't got anything else!

Xenophon's history of the Ten Thousand has provided me numerous scenarios which require few cavalry and no chariots or elephants, which is a good place to start as I only have infantry at the moment.  I have a reasonable number of Britains Trojans which will get the tu'penny treatment and be pressed into service as Carthaginians, supplemented by various African natives as ........ well Africans.

Rules?

I recently happened across some old copies of "The Bulletin" the magazine of the British Model Soldier Society but they were priced ridiculously high so I just bought one issue, July 1956 - the month I was born.  Flicking through I found a set of very basic Ancient/Medieval wargame rules written by a T L Bath, which appeared to be written for 54mm figures.  Enquiries on the Old School Wargames Yahoo Group showed that they were the first known rules written by Tony Bath who had founded the Society of Ancients and they were designed to be played with 30mm flat figures.

to be continued

Seen at the Plastic Warrior Show - May 2012

Now that I feel suitably recovered from the exertions of the day here are a few of the photos I took at the Plastic Warrior Show last weekend:

This rather fine mounted Saracen made in France by JIM was on the stall of Belgian collector Daniel Lepers, shame about the horse's tail though.

The joy of attending a show is the plethora of boxes to rummage through.

Even bigger boxes, plenty of raw materiel for collectors building armies or making conversions.

And then some good stuff

At the start of the show these shelves were full, you can see from the gaps that by the time I got my camera out nearly half had been sold by collector Joe Bellis.  Click on the picture to enlarge then click again and you will see:

Top row - bartender and gambler with derringer pistol from the Cherilea Western Bar Brawl set.

Second row - Large scale (65/70mm) Lone Star Indians, these have swoppet heads, looks like the whole set here.

Third row - The Cherilea Great Helm Knight, originally made in hollow cast lead as part of the Baronial Series, the mould for the horse was modified for the plastic version to make it a rearing rather than charging pose, also I have never seen the plastic version with the knights helm so I suspect they dispensed with it.

Fourth row - Four Monarch Highlanders (two each with double handed sword and claymore and buckler shield) which I mentioned recently in the post about Monarch Conquistadors, a Speedwell FFL, a Trojan WW2 Australian and at the end a Britains ECW roundhead.

Fifth row - A couple of the rare Crescent 65mm Mohicans, a Cherilea Davy Crockett, seven Timpo Cossacks - very hard to find these undamaged, Charbens FFL officer and another of the Trojan Australians.

Bottom row - Crescent mounted Arabs, FFL and First World War British Cavalry, the foot figures are two Cherilea Nubians, a prone Japanese machine gunner from Trojan (hard to see), a very rare Cherilea Indian firing a bow - previously made in hollow cast lead and finally a Cherilea Davy Crockett.