Tradition of London: French Grenadiers of the Guard, Head of Column Napoleonic Wars Review

 

 

 

This is the first set sent to me for review by Tradition of London. Tradition of London have been trading for over 50 years and though there have been ups and downs including in 2012 the closing of the London shop they are still going strong. Their soldiers are still made in Nottingham, England but they have a base in Stockholm, Sweden where all the soldiers are dispatched from.

 
Over the years Tradition have supplied many museums as well as special editions including Carlton Television for the Sharpe Series. Other notable customers have been The Tower of London, Mary Rose and the National Army Museum.  
 
Tradition of London sell a wide range of Toy Soldiers in various scales. They also sell white metal kits for those brave enough to build and paint their own. The Kits come at a very reasonable price, for those with the skills (or those wanted to gain the skills) they excellent value for money. They also sell Del Prado, King and Country, Steadfast, W Britain, Bravo Delta and CBG mignot figures plus miniatures for wargames and other items like paint and books\magazines. They also have the envious claim to the largest stock of Toy Soldiers you'll find. So pretty much something for everyone.

 

The set I received for review I couldn't have chosen better myself. They show off the different styles of Toy Soldier on the market when you compare them to my previous Thomas Gunn reviews. Thomas Gunn soldiers are your perfect example of the modern toy soldier, where as the set I received from Tradition of London show of the high gloss traditional toy soldier, little changed since Victorian times. Which considering they are Napoleonic suits them perfectly. The set is 54mm French Grenadiers of the Guard, Head of Column.

 

Example of presentation box. Not this actual set though.



 

The set comes in a lovely red presentation box with Tradition of London's motif in gold on the front. Straight away it struck me as the perfect present for anyone into Toy Soldier or the Napoleonic Wars. On the side of the box is a label saying "Hand Made Traditional Style Toy Soldiers Made in England. French Grenadiers of the Guard. Napoleonic Wars - Toy Set 768". Lifting the lid and then removing a layer of padding you then finally lay eyes on your collection. Quality hits you instantly. You know you have a special set here and something to show off as often as possible. Set into a layer of padding are eight soldiers, their gloss paint shining out. You instantly have a fantastic set to create a diorama of marching French grenadiers.  The set consists of one Officer with sword drawn, one Standard bearer, two Sapeurs, two Sergeants and finally two Drummers. Only the most physically powerful soldiers were chosen to become a Grenadier and would lead assaults on the field of battle, even leading the way through breaches during siege warfare. So you are looking at the best France can offer and all kitted out they do look like fine specimens!

 

This set in all it's finery
 



 

The Officer  is leading the troops with his Infantry Saber (Briquetes) drawn and held upright. The Grenadiers had be a formidable sight so they wore tall bearskin helmets with a red plume to give them a taller appearance. Though the Officer here is clean shaven many wore moustaches or beards, again to give them a more war like appearance. The Officer doesn't carry any back pack. He does appear to be wearing some sort of medal. He is wearing black boots, white breaches, white vest, white gloves, blue coat with dark blue collar, white lapels, red cuffs with white cuff flaps, red  turnbacks and pocket piping. He is also wearing white gloves. He is marching and stands on a green base. He is painted in Gloss and really does have an authentic Toy Soldier appearance, perfect for the era he represents.

 

The Standard bearer again is marching and stands on a green base. He is wearing a similar uniform to the Officer expect this time he isn't wearing black boots with tan tops. Wears bearksin cap with red plume. His coat is dark blue with dark blue collar, white lapels and red turnbacks and pocket piping. He is wearing black boots and white gaiters. He also has a red shoulder belt designed for the end of the standard pole to fit into so he can march with just one hand holding onto the Standard. The standard has a bronze eagle on the top and a blue pole. Cravet Red, white and blue with gold embroidery and fringe. Like the Officer he has gold epaulettes. Again he is clean shave, however you can see the end of some glorious side burns sticking out the bottom of his bearskin helmet. The actual standard has been hand painted it looks fantastic.  Again he really oozes the era he is from. The Gloss finish is perfect for this line.

 

Next come the two Sapeurs (Sappers). First thing you notice is that these two sport a fine beard. It was compulsory for all Sappers to grow a beard in the French Army (for a long time you had to have a moustache in the British Army). Plus Sappers wore the grenadier uniform. On both upper sleeves they have the crossed axe and grenade badge, the symbol of the Sapeur. These strong men with fine facial hair marched together and close to the band and Standard bearer. A corporal and four privates where chosen from a Grenadier battalion to become Sapeurs. Here they are marching with their Axe (issued to all Sapeurs) over their right shoulder and their Charleville Musket over their left shoulder. Wear bearskin cap with red plume.  The coat is dark blue with dark blue collar, white lapels and red turnbacks. They also wear white gauntlets that reach their elbows plus a long white apron that goes from their waist to half way down their shins. They wear red and gold epaulettes. On their backs they carry a calfskin knapsack with a rolled great coat on the top. They also carry an ammunition pouch as well as their infantry Saber and bayonet scabbard. A Bicorn is folded and tied to the Knapsack. They have white cross belts with brass grenades and buckles. They also wear black boots with white gaiters. Again the gloss finish is perfect and look very authentic.

The two Sergeants wear a very similar uniform as the Standard bearer. However they sport a fine moustache. They also carry their Charleville musket but this time they have their left arm folded across it and it is in an upright position with bayonet attached. They have their Sergeant stripes on their left upper sleeve. They wear red and gold epaulettes. Wear bearskin cap with red plume. They are wearing dark blue coat with dark blue collar, white lapels, red cuffs with white flaps, red turnbacks and pocket piping. White waist coat with brass buttons and white breaches. White crossbelts. On their backs is the standard issue calfskin Knapsack with a rolled up great coat on top. Below the Knapsack is an ammunition pouch\box. Their Bicorn het is also folded flat against the Knapsack. Again they have the Infantry Saber and bayonet scabbard attached to their belt. Black boots and white gaiters. Two fine French grenadier sergeants you'll be proud to own.

Finally we have the two drummers. These two wear the standard Bearskin cap with red plume. They also sport a well groomed moustache. The coat is dark blue with dark blue collar, white lapels, red cuffs with white cuff flaps, red turnbacks. Mixed red and gold epaulettes. White waistcoat with gilt buttons. They have black boots and white gaiters. On their backs is a calf skin Knapsack with rolled great coat on top, white straps. Bicorn folded and tied to knapsack. White crossbelt. Infantry Saber scabbard attached to belt. The drum is brass with blue hoops bearing white grenades. White cords and sling. White drum carriage with brass stick holder and grenade. White apron.  Black boots with white gaiters. Black drum sticks. Two fine drummers and round of this set beautifully.

More examples of superb sets.
 



I'll admit that I'd probably never have bought this set as old style gloss finish soldiers didn't appeal to me. However I'm now a convert. They appeal in a different way to the modern looking matt finish soldiers out there. They arouse a nostalgic feeling the others don't and in away when in their presentation box give them an authentic look, like you're looking at a set of toy soldiers from a hundred years ago or more. This makes them special and as I said appeal in a different way to the highly detailed, perfectly sculptured modern figures. That's not to say these don't look great and they are very well sculpted. Never thought I'd feel this way to be honest. So this set has added a whole new area for me to get excited about! I said at the start I couldn't have picked a better set to review after the two Thomas Gunn reviews. A set that shows off the brilliance of the gloss finish toy soldiers, in all their old fashioned glory. I can't think of any Toy Soldier collector or anyone interested in the Napoleonic Wars that wouldn't beam from ear to ear if they received this set as a birthday or Christmas present! The set retails at £129.76. Worth every penny!

I hope we can continue to review Tradition of London excellent range in the future. If so I can't wait for the next parcel to arrive from Tradition of London!
 

Tradition of London Click Here..

 



Sailing to Victory on the Seas of Glory

First from Ares, there was Wings of War which later became Wings of Glory.  If you know either previous incarnation of this game, you will have some idea of what to expect in Sails of Glory.  Moving from aerial dogfights in WWI, this game's subtitle spells out the shift back in time to the Napoleonic Wars and that time of British naval supremacy typified by the phrase "the Nelson touch".

So, it's lashings of rum and lashings with the cat o' nine tails,

hard 'a starboard, avast ye lubbers and "Every man expects!"

- sorry, got carried away there!

With Sails of Glory, Glory's the key word for me, as this is truly a glorious production from first catching sight of the evocative box artwork of a naval engagement at its climax: ships with billowing sails, wreathed in the smoke of thundering close-range broadsides.  Unlike its WWI counterpart, which began purely with cards representing the planes and only later did exquisitely painted models follow, Sails of Glory lures us immediately with four detailed and superbly painted warships.  These are on display through the clear protective cover, as they nestle in their moulded hollows that form part of the large plastic insert that holds all the game contents.

The box in all its Glory

Delving further into the box, you encounter a host of other quality components.  First of all, each ship comes with its own ship card with a full colour picture of the ship and its stats and an oblong plastic base into which fits a deep blue base card with bow, stern and full broadside firing arcs marked in grey, over which fits a plastic overlay that both protects the card and contains a hole into which the ship's locating peg fits.  It is simple, elegant, practical details like this that give the game its finished look of polished quality.

Having said that, there have been a few complaints that, though the ships' hulls, decks and masts [the latter a curious yellow] are beautifully painted, the spars [like the sails themselves] are left a plain white.  For me this was a minor detail, but if you're a miniatures aficionado it may irritate more and you may wish to paint those details.  Not being a dab hand with any sort of brush, I have been happy to let mine remain as received.

 Each ship also comes with its own individual deck of manoeuvre cards, a Ship Mat and its own Ships Log, both in very sturdy cardboard and attractively designed and coloured - more about these later.  Rounding out the package are a Wind Gauge, two separate Wind Indicators, one for each player, some terrain in the form of four full-colour islands and six reefs, two cardstock measuring sticks and shed-loads of damage markers and action markers.

The final essential item to mention is the rule book.  At approximately 27 cm x 15 cm, it is a curious size, with just over 60 pages that at first sight might seem surprisingly long.  However, DO NOT BE PUT OFF - these rules cater for both the absolute beginner to the player wanting a fairly detailed and accurate depiction of naval warfare in the Age of Sail with miniatures. Consequently they are divided into 4 sections:- Basic, Standard, Advanced and Optional.  Basic really couldn't get more ... er, well basic!  Despite taking up 16 pages of the rules, they are very simple, introducing four Phases : Planning, Movement, Combat, Damage and Reloading. 

So, why such length? Mainly because of the wealth of illustrative photographs to make each simple point abundantly clear. 

BASIC RULES

Planning

Though the terminology is suitably nautical, with words like Running, Reaching, Beating and Taken Aback introduced, understanding and determining which applies to your ship at that particular moment couldn't be easier. As mentioned earlier, each ship sits on a base card that indicates firing arcs, but the card is also edged in three different colours: red, orange and green.  Just line up the Attitude indicator with the central mast of your ship and look at which colour the indicator crosses.  In the Basic rules, you then choose a Manoeuvre card from the ship's individual deck of cards depending on what colour the Attitude Indicator passed through on the edge of the card.

Movement

Generally, you will place the Manoeuvre card in front of the ship and advance your ship until its stern touches the tip of the movement line on the card.  Sometimes [when your ship is Taken Aback], you will have to align the card with the stern of the ship and then follow the same procedure.  The only other thing to consider is whether two ships might collide.  If there is that potential, then a simple rule determines which ship moves first and then the other ship is moved until its base is in contact with the first ship.  Surprisingly neither ship takes any damage for colliding!  That really is it for Movement and Combat is even easier. 

Combat

Each side of the ship has a Loaded marker face down in its Broadside box and can fire once after Movement, if there is an enemy ship in range.  Use the measuring stick, which for this simplest level of the game refers purely to short or long range. Make sure there's nothing in the way - sorry you can't fire through your own ships or islands [what a surprise!].  Choose randomly from the appropriate lettered pile of damage markers [either A or B in the Basic game - they are also distinguished by colour, so it's really easy when setting up the game and the current strength of the ship firing tells you how many markers to draw. Allocate the damage to the enemy and, if the ships are close enough, there will be a round of Musketry fire following exactly the same process, but drawing from the pile of E markers.                     And REMEMBER  - all firing is simultaneous. 

Finally, turn the Loaded marker face up to show that you have fired this turn.

RELOADING

The last action of each turn is first to take any facedown Loaded marker from the Reloading box and move it back into its Broadside box.

Then move any face-up Loaded marker from the Broadside box, turn it face down and move it into the Reloading box.

You now know all that is necessary for playing the game at its simplest level and frankly the next stage Standard Rules add so little more that I would be tempted to say that most players will add these in immediately.

But, before moving on to this next stage, there is probably one question those of you reading this review are asking.  Where are these different markers for each ship placed?  Well that's where each ship's combined Ship Mat and Ship Log come in.

Below is a photo of such a combined display set up for the first turn of a Standard level game to begin.

The Ship Log seen here is for HMS Terpsichore and is made up of the three interlocking sections which sit inside the Ship Mat frame.  The top row is where you place damage markers allocated to the hull of your ship and the bottom row is for damage markers allocated to crew of your ship.  When either of those rows is full of damage markers, a ship surrenders and is removed from game play.  When one side has lost all its ships, the other side has won.  To quote that ubiquitous meerkat :

"SIMPLES!"

STANDARD  RULES

So, what does this next level add.  Instead of planning one Manoeuvre card each turn, you start the game by planning Turn 1 and Turn 2's Manoeuvre cards putting them into the slots on the Ship Mat.  On Turn 1, turn up the first planned  Manoeuvre card, carry it out. move the 2nd card into its slot still face down and plan your next  Manoeuvre card to go into the second slot.

Which Manoeuvre card can be chosen will depend on the ship's Veer capacity [the number in the photo next to the wheel symbol].

Remember collisions , well now two friendly ships colliding do damage to each other.  Strangely an enemy ship and a friendly ship colliding don't do any damage.  Weird, that's one minor point I don't understand.  For me, it's House Rule time - an enemy ship and a friendly ship colliding do damage each other.

In Combat, ship's can now choose between three different types of ammunition: Ball, Chain and Grape.  If you know your Hornblower novels [or more youthful players may know the TV series], one type's for the hull, one's for the sails and one's for the crew.  Each time you reload you can choose whichever of the three you like.  The final addition is that if your cannons fire directly through the bow or the stern of the enemy ship, then additional damage tokens are drawn.

Again, that's it!  I think you can see why my advice is just jump straight in with the Standard rules.

And so we come to the real meat of the rules...

ADVANCED RULES

Even here the physical length of the rules is only 6 more pages!  The most significant area of change is in Planning.  To the simple plotting of two manoeuvre cards is added the planning of crew actions and this is where the other 210 markers start to make an appearance in the game..  On the Ship Mat there are 4 spaces for placing concealed action markers.  As your ship takes hits on the Crew that number of actions will decrease.  A list of some of those actions will give you a flavour of what is introduced.  Raise/Lower sails, Pump Water, Load Left/Right Broadside, Reload Left/Right Broadside, Musketry Fire, Repair Damaged Rudder, Extinguish Fire etc.

All of these introduce new elements.  First of all the icons on the Damage markers at last play a part and, as you can imagine from some of the actions mentioned in the previous paragraph, damage now can be very specific: the mast may be broken, the rudder shot away, fire breaks out or the ship begins to let in water.  As the situation becomes tense, can you afford to load the guns or must you concentrate on putting out the fire first.

Next sailing your ship becomes more complex, as the Raise or Lower Sail actions introduce the fact that on the Manoeuvre card you choose, there are three different possible lengths of movement for your ship depending on whether your sails are set at Full, Battle or Backing.  On your Ship Mat you will now have a Sail Status marker to move along to show just how your sails are set.

That brief description gives you the gist of the these Advanced rules, but how you put them into effect does take considerable careful reading of these very compact additional rules.  For some, they may be a step too far and, if so, just go back happily to the Standard level of rules.  For others they will be just the extra depth required and hugely enhance the feel of this game.

If, like me, they are what you want, then a worthwhile bit of pimping your game is worth the time and effort.  At this level of the game your Ship Mat and Log can get fairly crowded and I'd strongly recommend making individual plywood templates to glue each Ship mat onto.  That way you can easily pick them up and put them on one side when you've completed your planning or added current new damage markers and not risk disastrous dislocation of the layout.

As you can see in the picture below a simple oblong of plywood, sanded and varnished is all you need to glue your display onto.

The final section of the rules are the Optional ones.  What I like about these are that they aren't just a final level of complexity.  Some can be used in conjunction with all three levels of rules.  Indeed, the very first Optional rule is just such a one: Let The Men Drink, this uses the Grog counter.  All it does is let you cancel a damage marker once in the game.  I'm sure those of you so inclined can make up an addition to this rule that forces you to swig something appropriate! [Do I hear some of you wanting this to be allowed to happen more than once in the game?  Or is it just my wishful thinking!]

Similarly, an Entanglement rule can replace the collision rule at any level of the game, as do Continuous Fire and First Broadside, with virtually no cost in effort.  However, a few provide substantial and significant new additions;  among these are Boarding and the use of Terrain.  The latter will allow you to use the reefs and shoals that come with the game, but if you want the full benefit which is the introduction of Coastal Batteries, then for a little more money you'll need to buy the Coastal batteries and terrain expansion.

Last but not least are the four generic scenarios [plus one solitaire], perhaps the weakest element in the package, as they are very straightforward.  Nonetheless, they do give you the typical main naval encounters.  Their titles are self-explanatory: In Shallow Waters, Force The Blockade, Against The Outpost and Supplies Are Coming.

Just in case you are left in any doubt, this game totally gets my thumbs up.  It is real value for money whatever your chosen level of play.  Excellent as an introductory level game and engrossing if you do want depth.  I have only one proviso.  As the game comes, you can only play two ships on a side,  so, only small engagements and fairly generic ones.  In one way this is no problem, as there are many additional ships that you can buy, but a single player would still be hard pressed to manage more than three ships, particularly if you are using the Advanced rules. 

For larger battles, I think the cardboard world of say Flying Colours has to be turned to, but for accessibility, feel and atmosphere and detail too, if you want it, this is my choice. 



[Voices echo eerily:  Now where's that Grog counter?.......Can't find a cat o' nine tails anywhere.....Where's that little guy with an eye-patch?...........Mind the - SPLASH!]
 

 

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