So its welcome to 2024 and the first game of the year.

Alan hosted a Franco Prussian Game at his place which 6 of us were available for. Both Alan and Goldie have collected Prussians while Goldie and I have collected French. While I continue to paint as slow as ever, the French are a bit short on units so again ACW units are subbed in.

Once again the rules used are ‘Black Powder’ plus the ACW ‘Hallelujah’ supplement. We are still tinkering with shooting and ranges so these were the adjustments used for this game:

• Artillery shoots 48 inches
• Prussian artillery have no long range penalty
• French rifles/Mitrailleuse weapons shoot 24 inches
• Prussian rifles shoot 12 inches
• French are 3 base battalions and Prussians are 4 base battalions

From memory the number of battalions per side were evenish…but the Prussians were at least 2:1 in artillery(I am painting my 5 guns up now!).

Below is the centre of table where both sides are in possession of a building. Alan on one of his business trips to China spotted some display clothes in a shop , purchased 4 of them, has had them sewn together and now has quite a good terrain base cloth!

French firing line anchored on building…Prussian artillery in distance and troops in wood.

Prussian advance on their left flank……

The nasty Krupps.

French attack into flank of a Prussian line…..French fluffed attacks…took several turns but larger Prussian units attacking them on 2 sides eventually destroyed them.

French left flank…….avoiding the Krupp’s but giving up the longer rifle range.

Massed Prussians preparing to attack across the river.

Across they are….a mitrailleuse was hiding behind the building so artillery could not get it, and firing off against the Prussians advancing on the table edge…so a Prussian unit charged from other side and took it out….French commander has been taken away…….

French centre was quite well protected with 2 defensive zones and good firing zones.

The gap in Prussian lines is from a blown away battalion. It took A LOTOF SHOOTING TO DO THAT.

I tried using a twinkling light feature on phone camera…didn’t work that well.

French used old fashioned lines and swapped units to recover casualties…. as you should!

End of game…..Prussians take the building by charging in on 2 sides. French 2nd line was supporting but you need lots of hits to cause casualties…and artillery!

So that was first FP game for year. Was fun. We will need to work on the shooting as I still think its now quite right. Hopefully the Perrys will give us some more love in this period this year so we can flesh the armies out.

Now at Xmas I was given some love with 3 new bottles of Whisky!

The first to be reviewed is a gift from friend PW who was back from Vanuatu.

This is from Glenmorangie and it is ‘A tale of Winter’.

The bottling note for it is:

Following on from Glenmorangie’s A Tale of Cake, the magnificent distillery has gone and created Glenmorangie A Tale of Winter (we do like the idea that “cake” is in fact a season and that it precedes winter, but we don’t think that’s what they’re going for here)! Director of whisky creation Dr. Bill Lumsden wanted to evoke the feeling of winter, of sitting in front of a fireplace while the snow fall outside, and to do so, he finished a bourbon barrel-matured single malt in ex-Marsala wine casks. All those rich, comforting, chocolatey notes certainly put this one in the ‘winter warmer’ category.

Tasting notes are:

Nose Honeycomb, chocolate digestives, fragrant lavender, sultana, and cinnamon.

Palate Cocoa, Brazil nuts, vanilla tablet, jammy red berry sweetness developing, crystallised ginger.

Finish Spicy ginger remains, mellowed by vanilla and chocolate mousse.

Now I had a bottle of ‘ A Tale of Cake’ a year or 3 ago, and PW went a bought one as was so delicious. This one I have been enjoying almost as much.

Recommended.

Until next time…Terry out.