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Author Topic: On This Day in History: The 'Battle' of Fishguard 1797  (Read 2766 times)

Offline Jemima Fawr

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    • Jemima Fawr's Miniature Wargames Blog
On This Day in History: The 'Battle' of Fishguard 1797
« on: February 24, 2020, 04:37:37 PM »
Today marks the 223rd anniversary of the surrender, on 24th February 1797 of the last invasion of Great Britain.  In reality the 'battle' was a near-bloodless comic opera... So of course we HAD to wargame it...  :D

http://www.jemimafawr.co.uk/2020/02/24/on-this-day-in-history-the-battle-of-fishguard-1797/







Suffering from insomnia?  Too much excitement in your life?  Jemima Fawr's Miniature Wargames Blog might be just the solution you've been looking for: www.jemimafawr.co.uk

Offline has.been

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 8236
Re: On This Day in History: The 'Battle' of Fishguard 1797
« Reply #1 on: February 24, 2020, 06:06:04 PM »
fascinating stuff, thanks for posting.
Some years ago a friend introduced me to the basic facts.
He  wanted to wargame it, but never did. The lack of a
proper battle does not prevent wargaming it.
I see a few (Trent) French looting a farmhouse, and being surprised
by Militia & locals (also Trent miniatures). have the French drunk too
much liberated wine? Will their (drunken?) shooting hit a Welsh woman
& enrage the locals? Will the Militia forget to tell the French that they
only have enough powder for three shots? etc. etc.

Offline Jemima Fawr

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Re: On This Day in History: The 'Battle' of Fishguard 1797
« Reply #2 on: February 24, 2020, 06:22:19 PM »
fascinating stuff, thanks for posting.
Some years ago a friend introduced me to the basic facts.
He  wanted to wargame it, but never did. The lack of a
proper battle does not prevent wargaming it.
I see a few (Trent) French looting a farmhouse, and being surprised
by Militia & locals (also Trent miniatures). have the French drunk too
much liberated wine? Will their (drunken?) shooting hit a Welsh woman
& enrage the locals? Will the Militia forget to tell the French that they
only have enough powder for three shots? etc. etc.
Yes, there is plenty of fun to be had with the silliness!  :)

In fact those French troops were made from Warlord plastic figures.  The civvies were a mix of converted Redoubt FIW figures and Perry 'New York Rioters'.  We didn't actually have any Trent Miniatures. :)

Offline has.been

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 8236
Re: On This Day in History: The 'Battle' of Fishguard 1797
« Reply #3 on: February 24, 2020, 08:42:47 PM »
But Trent are so nice & quirky.
I have been secretly squirrelling away some, OK a lot, of his Irish Rebellion figures.

Offline Jemima Fawr

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Re: On This Day in History: The 'Battle' of Fishguard 1797
« Reply #4 on: February 24, 2020, 09:39:31 PM »
Yes they are indeed and they've now produced Jemima and friends, but we didn't know they existed when we did this project. :)

Offline has.been

  • Galactic Brain
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Re: On This Day in History: The 'Battle' of Fishguard 1797
« Reply #5 on: February 25, 2020, 06:11:10 PM »
Frustrating, isn't it, when that kind of thing happens.
I took about a year to get around to scratch building a WW1 German gun,
for our East Africa (Askari) games, only to have BPM announce, that month,
they now did one!!!!!!!

Offline Jemima Fawr

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    • Jemima Fawr's Miniature Wargames Blog
Re: On This Day in History: The 'Battle' of Fishguard 1797
« Reply #6 on: February 25, 2020, 07:08:49 PM »
Oh god yes.  My friend Martin did a hell of a job converting Perry plastic French Hussars into Yeomanry and then two years later, Perry did plastic Light Dragoons with all the correct kit (breeches, etc) for Yeomanry...  >:(

Offline Roo

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 628
Re: On This Day in History: The 'Battle' of Fishguard 1797
« Reply #7 on: February 25, 2020, 09:29:46 PM »
Saw this game at Penarth a few years back and spent a long long time enjoying what every good war game should offer an absolute feast for the eyes...true class.

Roo

Offline Jemima Fawr

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Re: On This Day in History: The 'Battle' of Fishguard 1797
« Reply #8 on: February 25, 2020, 10:15:44 PM »
Saw this game at Penarth a few years back and spent a long long time enjoying what every good war game should offer an absolute feast for the eyes...true class.

Roo
Cheers Roo!  Yes, the 'problem' we had with it was that so many people wanted to talk about it that we didn't have time to play!  ::)

Offline Roo

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 628
Re: On This Day in History: The 'Battle' of Fishguard 1797
« Reply #9 on: February 25, 2020, 10:25:22 PM »
Yep yep yep I was one of those...guilty as charged. 

Offline Baron von Wreckedoften

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 860
Re: On This Day in History: The 'Battle' of Fishguard 1797
« Reply #10 on: March 02, 2020, 03:39:00 PM »
have the French drunk too much liberated wine?

Lest anyone make the mistake of sneering at the idea of Welsh wines (other than "England didn't really win, they just scored more points than us on the day!"), may I share the benefits of a salutory lesson I received whilst working in Wales some years ago?  I made a joke about something being "as rare as Welsh wine" only to be quietly sat down and given a history lesson about how viniculture (nothing to do with the actor-cum-footballer-cum-thug named Jones) was brought to Wales by the Romans, died out during the Middle Ages, but was resurrected in the 1970s and now has 22 vineyards producing around a quarter of a million bottles a year - some of them rather delicious, I might add!
No plan survives first contact with the dice.

Offline Jemima Fawr

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Re: On This Day in History: The 'Battle' of Fishguard 1797
« Reply #11 on: March 02, 2020, 06:07:20 PM »
Lest anyone make the mistake of sneering at the idea of Welsh wines (other than "England didn't really win, they just scored more points than us on the day!"), may I share the benefits of a salutory lesson I received whilst working in Wales some years ago?  I made a joke about something being "as rare as Welsh wine" only to be quietly sat down and given a history lesson about how viniculture (nothing to do with the actor-cum-footballer-cum-thug named Jones) was brought to Wales by the Romans, died out during the Middle Ages, but was resurrected in the 1970s and now has 22 vineyards producing around a quarter of a million bottles a year - some of them rather delicious, I might add!
One of them was started by friends of mine only recently and bottled its first batch last year.  And bloody good it is too!  They even do a very nice red, which I thought was impossible in these climes: http://springhollowvineyard.co.uk/

Oddly enough, during the 19th Century there were vineyards covering the southern slopes of the escarpment just north of Cardiff, where Castell Coch is.

Offline Baron von Wreckedoften

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 860
Re: On This Day in History: The 'Battle' of Fishguard 1797
« Reply #12 on: March 12, 2020, 11:52:10 AM »
I gather there are some nice whiskys made in Wales, too.

A l'eau, c'est l'heure!

Offline Jemima Fawr

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Re: On This Day in History: The 'Battle' of Fishguard 1797
« Reply #13 on: March 12, 2020, 01:38:45 PM »
I gather there are some nice whiskys made in Wales, too.

A l'eau, c'est l'heure!
Yes, Penderyn is remarkably good, though bloody expensive.  I'd never tried it, so signed up for a tasting 'masterclass' with Penderyn at the local food festival two years ago, to find that there were only two other people doing it... The measures were therefore quite generous and we tried about half a dozen, only for the local doctor to turn up and apologise for being late... The bloke running it asked if we'd like to start again...

 :D ;D :o o_o lol

My wife and father eventually came to see where the hell I'd got to, only to find me hammered (on all of a fiver)...