Aspern-Essling & Eggmuhl buildings

Austrian Grenadiers assault the Granary at Aspern Essling 

There is something really special about being able to put something that is recognisably a building from an actual battle on your miniature battlefield.    The old Airfix Waterloo farmhouse was sort of a charicature of a La Haye Sainte.  Close enough for wargaming work and that particular kit has graced my battlefields for many years. 

But these are a little different. 

These are some 3d printed Bavarian buildings for Aspern Essling & Eggmul.  The files themselves come from 3dprintterrain and the buildings themselves were very kindly printed by my friend Kris.

These were particularly scaled for 1/72 gaming, but can be printed in any scale, which is one of the joys of 3d printing.  These were done in 15mm, so that they're slightly undersized, but give the right impression. 

The Church of Aspern Essling

This kit is another 3dprinterterrain kit of the Aspern Essling church and very fine it is too.  Before assembling this, I test fitted everything and came to the conclusion that I would need to base this in two parts to allow the interior to still be accessed.  

I could just glue everything down, but that would leave two problems. 

1. I wouldn't be able to access the interior. 

2. The height of the model would prevent me storing it in the box that I had set aside. 

I'm slowly shifting my collection into Really Useful Boxes and I had found that at a 17l box would fit a half a dozen of these buildings quite neatly.  But I think I will definitively think storage first as it just makes life easier in the long run. 

This is the famous Aspern Essling granary.  My pal Du Gourmand tried printing it with his resin printer and the results while not bad underlined why FDM printers are the better choice for larger terrain pieces.  He had real trouble getting the piece to print without bowing under it's own weight and the result was so large that it was quite brittle.

So much so that the roof broke when dropped, Kris was able to print a replacement roof in jig time though. 

(pic stolen from TripAdvisor) 

The real building, which you can still visit. We saw something similar as Austerlitz and these really are very impressive structures.  I would not fancy attempting to assault one.  

And doesn't she look lovely all painted up. 

Now as we had a game coming up and I had very limited time, a very kind friend of mine, Boomer, stepped into the breach (while I was trying to get the Austrians finished and all the French flags done) and took on painting the buildings, so that they would be ready for the game. 

The model itself has three storeys and they stack ontop of each other. This building fills two of my five inch hexes (which aligns perfectly with the official scenario) and is about ten inches long.

A view from the end and I think, it's fair to say, Boomer absolutely nailed the look. 

These are more generic Bavarian buildings and they fit just fine in a five inch hex and will serve throughout the 1809 campaign, though I reckon that they would work just fine for games set in Germany in 1944-45.  

These have a very Central European look to my eye and I think they wouldn't look out of place in the Czech Republic or Austria.  

If you've any suggestions for where else these building might be good for, please let me know. 

Boomer went with a similar colour scheme on all of them, firstly because time was limited and secondly, because it makes them look more cohesive. 

All the interiors are playable and the buildings themselves are a very sturdy plastic. 

This is a small out building from the Aspern Essling Church kit.  By rights it should be linked by a decent sized wall with railings, but that would have given the church too big a footprint to be practical for gaming purposes.  But a small building that fits easily in a single hex is extremely useful. 

And lastly, the completed Church. 

All I did with this kit was add a base (which you can see here) and dress it up a little with some texture and static grass. This breaks down into three main pieces and the roof for easy storage.  The roof of the bell tower with the easily damaged cross is slipped inside the building to prevent it from being broken.  This is something I've had happen with a couple of other church pieces.  Speaking of which I really should base and repair my Dapol church. 

And another view. 

I'm really pleased with these and they saw hard use at the Aspern Essling and the Eggmuhl games, but it definitely underlined how fortunate I am to have such generous friends. 

Prepping for Aspern Essling & Eggmuhl

We're hoping to do Aspern Essling and Eggmuhl next month, which has meant that I've been doing some quick work bringing the Austrian collection up to speed and some work on the terrain.  I have fairly extensive kit suitable for Spain, but not so much for Bavaria. 

Eggmuhl requires some artillery positions, so I set to working out what I could do with what I have. 

What I needed were positions built out of gabions and possibly with some form of duck boards for the cannon to recoil on.  I used a mixture of 3d printed bits from my pal Du Gourmand and some bits and pieces from Italeri artillery sets. Given that we will be playing using Command & Colours Napoleonics, these will need to cover specific sides of a hex. 

I started off by laying out some 3d printed pieces on a five inch MDF hex. This approach was growing on me when I realised that all three positions that I would need for the game were located on hills.  Therefore they would need to be smaller to fit on top of my hills. 

So I started messing about again.  Once I had something that I was happy with, I slipped a piece of paper underneath and used a pencil to sketch in the shape I was looking for. I then cut that out and used the stencil to transfer the shape to plasticard. 

I was toying with the idea of using this part of an Italeri plastic bridge to add duckboards to this, but decided against it because it's actually an infantry position and I couldn't get one of my units to sit on it neatly.  This is no doubt, unrealistic, but it just didn't look right to me and interfered with the function of the playing piece, so I scrapped the idea.  

Once I had a outline that I was happy with, I cut the shapes out of plastic card with a scissors and trimmed the edges with a knife.  All the pieces were glued down with super glue and the base itself was bulked out with pre mixed wall filler. 

The artillery position and the infantry position side by side. 

The final product.  I am debating giving these a watered down coat of PVA to make them more solid, which given that they are wargaming pieces and will see some handling, I think will be the right thing to do before I prime them. 

In the mean time, I came up with the insane idea that I would have separate named figures for the all the Austrian commanders.  This proved to be a bigger job than I anticipated, so I'm going to bodge it somewhat.   Where I have figures that represent named individuals,  I will have a round base with the commanders name on it. More generic figures (i.e. the chaps who don't stand out like Picton, Ney, Bonaparte, etc) will be fitted with a section of steel paper.  I will make name tags on magnetic material that can then be swapped out to individualise the commanders for individual battles. That's the plan at least. 

These are from the Italeri Austrian and Russian staff set.  I didn't like the pose on the grenadier officer, so I cut his arm and super glued it in place so that he is holding his sword by his side instead of waving it over his head.  I am generally terrible at conversions, but having been inspired by the superb JP Wargaming Blog and YouTube channel, I decided I should give it a go. 

My pal RB has very generously offered to paint up the Austrian leaders for the game while get weaving on bringing the Austrian troops and the terrain up to the snuff. 

This figure will be representing Colonel Frimont here.

I went rooting through the Osprey on Austrian Commanders of the Napoleonic Wars, looking for fellas who looked like the figures I had for Austrian generals. I have a box of Italeri commanders and a really lovely box of Strelets Allied Staff which should make for some decent figures.  Given that some of them are pretty similar, I'm hoping to get brave and try some head swaps. 

It remains to be seen whether this will be a success.  RB is painting up the Austrian commanders and I will be transferring my Frenchmen to round bases and adding name tags.  Du Gourmand is 3d printing the Granary for me, so the plan as Hannibal says, is coming together. 

 

Specifically general

 

1. This may be Lasalle

More than ten years ago, I came into a collection of old painted Hinton Hunt figures of Napoleonic generals. I recognised some of them, but I've decided that I'm going to rebase them on round bases with names on them, so this post is acting as part catalogue and part reminder of who is who. 

From what I can tell, these were painted with enamels some time ago. I think I'm correct with the identifications, but if you see anything that you think is mislabelled, please let me know. 

2. General Junot (I think)

3. I'm assuming this fella is a Marshal as he has a baton, but not sure which one he is meant to be. 

4. This is a Strelets figures of Grouchy 

5. I'm pretty sure I can identify this chap. His name is on the tip of my tongue. I presume he's out looking for Grouchy. 

6. I would hazard a guess that this is Davout

7. But then again this might be Lasalle as well. 

8. This chap has been identified as Nansouty, but I'm not sure about it. 

9. It's been suggested that this fella is Marshal Murat 

D-Day - Juno & Sword

The lads getting stuck in at Utah Beach & the American Airborne landings. 

In 2014, Days of Wonder published the absolutely massive D-Day expansion for Memoir '44. It's huge and involves six sprawling maps covering all the invasion beaches and the airborne landings. 

They can be played in a number of ways, but we've had a lot of fun playing as an eight player team game by sticking two of the maps together. 

 

With a pre printed map, set up is surprisingly quick. 

The Germans contemplate the Allied Fleet. 

What I should say right now is that General Du Gourmand went absolutely above and beyond prepping for this game. He printed a huge amount of additional landing craft, bespoke figures and terrain for the game.  While all the terrain you need is printed on the map sheet, adding 3d houses, woods and bunkers added a pleasingly toy-like look to the game. 

Utah beach proved to be a death trap

The Allies pulled off an unlikely win in a close fought game on Utah, but it was touch and go for a long time.  A German counter attack managed to reach the beach at one point and the US Airborne were hanging on by their finger tips, but the Americans managed to get just enough troops ashore to hold it. 

I think historians would be writing about "Bloody Utah" for generations. 

After a pause for an excellent lunch, we launched ourselves into our second game. We played Juno & Sword, the Canadian and one of the British beaches, next.  I got to play in this one and thoroughly enjoyed myself. 

Allied Commander General Nolan giving a pep talk to the troops. His inspirational leadership was exactly what was required in the circumstances. 

"You see that's your problem right there Kommandant.  There seem to be a lot of Allied soldiers that have just turned up".

A gallant but ultimately doomed German counter attack. 

Keeping the reinforcements rolling off the landing craft was very important. 

One of the unique aspects of this particular game is the reinforcement table. This is a chart where the players roll a number of dice and attempt to match them to a menu of options, Yahtzee style.  The Allies have an easier time getting reinforcements, but need to get them off the landing craft which can be a challenge under fire.  If you can clear a beach, itself a tricky proposition, you can place your reinforcements there. 

Kommandants Sydney and Du Gourmand face a growing Allied beach head with the calm and aplomb that only years of Prussian schooling and six pints of stout can bring. 

We had a bit of a traffic jam on the beaches with German fire raining down on the lads while they tried to clear the wire and fight their way up the beach.  Note the Bridge layer tank on the right. 

A Churchill AVRE swings into position...

One of the unique units that the British can bring to bear are specialist armour known as "Hobart's Funnies". We had the option of deploying a couple of these on each beach.  We settled for the Bridging Tank and a  Church AVRE, which is armed with a particularly large mortar. This was specifically designed as a bunker buster and got a bonus against them. 

...and completely levels the German bunker, but somehow leaving the troops inside completely unharmed. 

This particular made me laugh a lot.  I just had visions of the bunker being shattered by the mortar bomb and the shocked German survivors crawling Wiley Coyote-like from the rubble. 

All in all, a cracking days gaming which ended with two close Allied victories, neither of which were a shellacking for the Germans.  We had some new faces (welcome DC!) and a lot of old friends around the table.  I'm looking forward to our next game day in August, which will hopefully be something in a Napoleonic line, though that is to be decided.