Grand Manner - Metal Shuttered Shop

I was lucky enough to get an order into Grand Manner when they had their free shipping offer and also before the recent price rises (which is pushing their stuff almost out of reach).

I picked up one of the WWII 28mm Carentan-05 metal shuttered shops:



I am planning to use this for both WW1 and WW2 so I should get a decent amount of use out of it.  As you can see from the slideshow it is nicely detailed with removable roofs and floor (in the two storey section).

Wargames Weekend: Blunte's Captain

Last weekend Lenin popped over for another visit and we managed to get a few games in. The first was a 28mm Peninsular game using my expanded Front Rank figure collection and the Too Fat Lardies' Sharp Practice rules.

The scenario was adapted from the Lardies' scenario booklet, the Compleat Fondler both to cope with the smaller number of figures available and my need to move it into my own pseudo Sharpe world.

This was a purely light infantry action with the French advancing across the table and hoping to push through the British force. The British were handicapped with the somewhat inept senior officer and whilst he was in command the French managed to make some headway. A small French unit managed to keep Lt. Blunte and the 95th Rifles occupied on one flank whilst the main French force advanced on the other.

Fortunately for the Brits Captain Smalls managed to catch a French volley and was badly wounded allowing Lt. Blunte to take command. He leapt into action and the British fortunes were transformed with the French advance petering out.

Once again Sharp Practice proved to be an entertaining set of rules and gave an excellent game.

Wargames Weekend: Muerte in Merida

Our third game was a great opportunity to get my Grand Manner Spanish terrain out with some of my Anglian Miniatures figures along with a chance to try an adaptation of the Lardies Through the Mud and the Blood rules.

I played to type as the Nationalists but this time in defence. The Legion had captured Merida and the Republicans, reinforced by Asaltos from Madrid, decided to try taking it back.

My main challenge was holding the large town wall with only three sections. Things started well but the Asaltos penetrated the perimeter before one of my sections managed to reach it (one of the challenges of the card driven system with a small number of Big Men). It was at this stage that we found the modifier for moving attackers in melee (defender loses 2 dice per attackers dice of movement) which resulted in my section being routed.


The Asaltos went on to attack the next unit in the flank routing it also. As a result my big men spent most of their time removing shock points in order to turn the around. Eventually I managed to rally the units but they lost the firefight with the Republicans and the latter were victorious.

What was apparent was that Mud & Blood does not easily translate to periods with smaller unit sizes. I also plan to query that pesky melee modifier on the Lardies discussion group.

Grand Manner Spanish Church

I have been looking at adding the church from Grand Manner to my Spanish village for a while now. I eventually decided to take the plunge and ordered one. As usual the service was excellent and the building arrived about a week later and I am really pleased with it.

The church comes in four separate sections, the L shaped ground floor, the flat roof with bell tower and two roofs.You can se sure this will be appearing on the table at the first available opportunity!

Grand Manner 28mm Manor House

I've been looking around for buildings to use for my planned 1938 and Operation Sealion games but haven't been having much luck. Then I remembered that Grand Manner had a manor house in their WWII Carentan range. I had looked at it previously for earlier period games as it's described as a 16th/17th Century stone manor house; however, I think it looks more like 18th Century but, in any case, it looked pretty usable. I popped an order in just under two weeks ago (which, when you remember it's hand painted is pretty rapid turnaround) and it arrived this morning:

Grand Manner Manor House

I know it's pretty pricey but, I hope you'll agree, it is a lovely model and nicely painted too. Plus the service I have received from Grand Manner has always been excellent.

Grand Manner Latin/Hispanic Buildings

I decided to pick up a couple of Grand Manner resin buildings for use with my Peninsular and SCW figures. Given my limited painting skills I opted to get the painted to a "wargames standard". Here are the results (with a couple of Front Rank figures included for scale):

Grand Manner Latin/Hispanic Buildings

I reckon they're pretty nice!