Another Unimog

 Along with the dodgy British truck conversion, Tim produced another Unimog command bus for me from his never ending box of 'high quality merchandise' .

A lovely Roco model in this rather fetching paint scheme. While levering it off its old base a spare wheel fell off, but fortunately no other damage was sustained. 

I couldn't for the life of me work out where it had come from, there wasn't an obvious locating lug. In the end I just stuck it back on between the rear wheels and tow bar in the end. Of course what I should have done was find out the location from my other Unimog, but it didn't occur to me at the time. 

I pondered very much what colour to paint it. Grey or sand? I've already got more sandy command vehicles than grey ones, but I've already got a grey Unimog, so sandy it was. I essentially just refreshed the original paintjob, using VJ Dark Ochre as a base with some red/brown disruptive.

The cab tilt I did in mid khaki. I was also very undecided whether to mark it up as an ambulance, but in the end I went with a plain vehicle as my need for command vehicles is greater than my need for ambulances.

If I need more ambulances I'll take a leaf from Graham Evans book and just make up a temporary Red Cross label to to stick on the roof.

Otherwise it just got a drybrush as it has such exquisite detail, a drybrush picks it up well. I didn't bother with an ink wash, but I was pleased that I'd managed to preserve Tims custom made  number plate decals (just visible in this and the preceding photo). 

WRG 1925 to 50 (neu) Part 4. Encounter at Livry

 I was reminded by a recent post from Heretical Wargaming which set up Lt Turnbulls stand at Neuville-au-Plein on 6th June 1944, about the excellent tactical  scenarios provided by 'Fireball Forward'. 

I had a brief flurry of enthusiasm for these rules a few years ago as a sort of Squad Leader/Crossfire crossover. Although I lost interest in the rules, the scenarios are very good (many are based on Squad Leader) and are typically pitched a level up from the Skirmish Campaigns scenarios at company+ engagements, so similar to IABSM or whatever. I thought the smaller scenarios would work rather well for WRG games. 

Along with the scenarios provided in the FF rulebook, I'd also bought the Villiers Bocage supplement, which covers Operation Perch, 7th Armoured Divisions ill fated attack towards Villiers Bocage in Normandy in July 1944. 

Welcome to Livry! This is a tiny 2' x 3' table, oriented pretty much as real life. Left is northwest, right is southeast. For ease I'll just call them west and east. The road to Villiers Bocage runs East-West through the buildings. 

The fields are mostly bounded by hedgerows, proper Bocage stuff so they block LOS at ground level, are significant obstacles to movement etc. Although it is hard to make out, the road leading into Livry as far as the crossroads is bounded by a normal hedge on the south side, so concealment for infantry but not an obstacle or LOS block. 

There are a couple of small orchards and building clusters. I'm going to use a ground scale of 6" = 100m for this, so the battlefield is about 400m x 600m.

Lurking in the vicinity of Livry are these chaps from the Panzer Lehr Escort Company. Two panzergrenadier sections each with a pair of the rifle/MG42 groups. Each section has a single panzerfaust. There is also a platoon HQ, a Panzerschrek team and as a variable attachment, a tripod MG42 team. 

There is a towed Pak 40 with a tracked tow (I'm using a Kettenkrad!) and a "Detachment commander". 

Fireball Forward is very big on Squad Leader type section and leader morale ratings, a concept alien to WRG. In the supplied scenario the German infantry are pretty average, but the CO is the best leader as you can get, a proper 'Lt Stahler' (SL fans know who I mean). 

So, for this scenario I'm treating the CO as  Company Command element, which gives +2 morale to everyone within 200m. I've got a few thoughts about how to deal with elite and green troops too, but that is for future games! 

The wicked Germans have ambushed the leading elements of 7th AD and knocked out a Cromwell, leaving a burning wreck on the road. Yes I know it's a Sherman, but I only have three Cromwells.... Anyway, the worried tankers have summoned some infantry to clear the pesky AT gun away. 

And here come the Desert Rats. A troop of Cromwells from 8th KRIH and an infantry platoon from The Rifle Brigade. There is also a chap in a jeep with a radio.

Who can call upon these with his radio, a troop of 25pdrs. In the base scenario there is only one fire mission, so in WRG terms I put these guys in 'General Support' which seriously restricts their opportunity to fire on-call fires and also restricts the number of pre-planned fires to three. Hopefully that will avoid unbalancing things too much, and it means we finally get to try out the artillery rules, which are quite detailed. 'Bill' has extensively rewritten the artillery rules and a jolly good read they are too. 

This is a tiny game but the British don't have a CC element ( I deliberately didn't give them one as 7th AD were distinctly 'sticky' in Normany), so I wrote a plan instead. My scribbles are reproduced above. I do like a plan, it reminds me playing of Spearhead. 

The orders to the tanks and infantry are pretty simple, clear the village and orchards going left flanking. The more complex orders are the artillery ones - for a battery in GS I'm allowed three pre registered targets, so I picked the crossroads and both orchards as suitable terrain features.

I also get to do three pre planned shoots with a GS battery, so I opted for a rolling barrage of three linear concentrations of ground burst HE. There are lots of mission types in the new rules, as well as a nice variety or ammo selections (ground burst, airburst, shrapnel as well as smoke), you can even opt to mix smoke in with the HE barrage to create some obscuration rather than a pure HE barrage.

Anyway, I went with a linear concentration as with a four gun battery it produces a beaten zone 200m wide and 100m deep. As a rolling barrage it advances at 100m per turn, so three rounds of fire starting on turn 2 and centered on that hedgerow northeast of the village should carry my chaps forwards nicely.

After the British wrote their orders, the Germans get to set up. Most of the guys get to set up dug in, but if the AT gun wants to be dug in, it has to set up within LOS of the wreck. I moved the wreck to the crossroads, and dug the gun in 150m down the road. In defilade from the front. but able to cover the fields either side of the Hedgerow. I spent a lot of time on the AT gun placement as it is quite important. The only other sensible spot is the southern Hedgerow, but that is very exposed. 

Otherwise I put the two infantry sections dug along the hedgerows on the right, one behind the other and with panzerfaust teams covering the road. The SFMG42 and Panzerschreck team covered the large open field to the left, and also had a partly obscured LOS over the low hedge to the fields in the northwest. The HQ and detachment leader dug in behind the line, and the AT gun tow set up ready to move and hide in the eastern orchard. 

These guys were all dug in so unlikely to move, but I always had the option to shift the second section around if needed as the HQ was in close proximity. 

The British opening move was uneventful. The tanks and infantry rolled up to the convenient hedgerow, and the tanks sprayed the hedge on the far side of the field with suppressive fire as they moved up. This was ineffective. The Germans lay low.

On turn 2, things began to hot up. The first round of the barrage landed and was quite impressive! Sadly although it looked good, it only managed to suppress one German team. The British infantry hopped over the hedge (which took their whole turn) while the Cromwells continued to rain suppressive HE and MG fire down on the opposite hedgerow.

The combination of the suppressions and obscuration by the barrage made it very hard for the Germans spot anything. So the barrage had actually worked in providing cover for the infantry. 

Turn 3 the British line advanced behind the barrage which rolled onto the next German line. This was far more effective and a number of German units were neutralised ( a more serious state than suppression) and one of the buildings was destroyed. I learned a long time ago that unfortified buildings in WRG are a bad place to be. I also discovered on re-reading the rules that along with a beaten zone, artillery barrages have a 'danger zone' around the main beaten zone, which duly spread even more unpleasantness among the defenders.

The Cromwells moved up to support the British infantry who had advanced 100m across the field, but were careful to stay more than 50m from the German trenches.  Suppressive fire managed to suppress one of the German teams.

It was now or never and the German opened up. The SFMG42 suppressed one Cromwell, and the Panzerschrek team rolled a mighty 6 and hit another! Sadly it failed to knock it out.

More devastating were the 'suppressed' German infantry, who didn't have any great problems acquiring the British infantry in front of them now the barrage had passed over, and then proceeded to mow down three teams with MG42 fire. The casualties can be seen scattered in front of the Cromwells.

Woops! Perhaps I should have combat moved across the field and then assault moved to within range of the MGs, but I didn't want to lose the barrage.. Oh well, too late now. 

Naturally the British infantry rolled a '2' for their reaction test and they promptly halted and went to ground. The Cromwells were unphased however and a rain of HE blew one of the German infantry teams to pieces. The 2" mortar managed to spot the other one and suppressed it. Meanwhile the barrage rolled on, spreading neutralisations left, right and centre and came very close to knocking out the Pak 40! Fortunately for the Germans it was just neutralised, but the church in Livry was demolished by shells.

The surviving German team fired its one and only panzerfaust at one of the Cromwells. It scored a hit but failed to penetrate.

The Panzerschrek team made no mistake however, and got a bead on another Cromwell, hit it and blew it apart. Ouch!

Now it was the turn of the Cromwells to fail their reaction test. "Withdraw from located elements within 200m" . The last German infantry team was still suppressed by the 2" mortar, but they breathed a sigh of relief as the tanks backed up. They didn't realise that the FOO had spotted them and called down a concentration on their position...

Shells rained down on the German positions, neutralising most of the Germans. The stonk however missed the Germans outside the town, and the Panzerschrek rolled another 6 to hit....

And managed to hit and destroy another Cromwell. The tankers morale failed and it was game over at that point. Who needs Pak 40s when you have Panzerschrecks rolling sixes? 

And what a scene of devastation was left with shattered buildings, blazing tank wrecks and casualties scattered around the fields and hedgerows.

Iron Cross 1st class for these guys, still holding the line. 

That was actually really good fun, and I'm glad I got to try out the artillery even though it is a bit overpowered for a platoon size scenario! In such a small game, luck played a big part, and the ability of the Panzerschrek to throw sixes was uncanny. I should probably have given the British either a command element or a reserve infantry platoon, but hey ho.

I'm not convinced I'm going to play many more of these scenarios using WRG, but doing these tactical games has re-kindled my interest in some smaller scale actions, and I'd like to try out some of the 'forgotten' Fireball Forward scenarios with something a bit easier to manage that uses a grid. Possibly Shaun Travers 'Advancing Companies' or Norm Smiths 'Tigers at Minsk'. In any case, it has been fun trying these old/new rules out and I think I've given them a fair going over. 

Fall Blau, another run through

 We were casting around for something to do, and another run through of Catastrophe Games 'Fall Blau' seemed in order. Avid readers will recall our great victory in the last game, amassing no less than 30 VP (27 required) and taking Astrakhan in the Caucasus. I won't overly rehash the game info, you can read about it here: https://catastrophegames.net/campaign-fall-blau/ but essentially this is the 1942 invasion of the Caucasus covering July through to the end of October at three turns a month. The game uses an abstract point to point area movement system, each area being unlocked as a 'campaign' in an expanding sequence as you advance deep into Russia.

Previous game report here: https://tgamesweplay.blogspot.com/2025/05/fall-blau-by-decision-games.html I had incorrectly attributed this title to Decision Games before.

Variety in each play through is via the Armies the players are allocated, which are drawn as cards. Last time we had Italian 8th Army, German 17th Army and German 4th Panzer Army. The 8th and 17th were mountain warfare specialists.

This time we drew an all-German force, 2nd, 6th and 1st Panzer Armies. Each commander had special characteristics - Von Salmuth (2nd)  was good against counterattacks, Paulus (6th) whistled up extra supply and Kleist (1PA) could recce upcoming event cards. 2nd and 6th Army were also city warfare specialists, while 1st Panzer had the usual panzer trick of getting double hits on 6 in combat and being able to manouvre against two Soviet armies in a turn instead of one.

Given the Army specialisms, we were going to be relying on special event cards to take on the stronger mountain areas and would probably have to focus more on city busting - which meant Schwerpunkt Stalingrad instead of Astrakhan.

Sorry about the in-game photos, there is a lot going on and the screen display is lousy. We relied on Tim for a lot of verbal description of what is happening. John, Jerry and I were the players for this one, and as we had two infantry and one panzer army, we followed the same broad scheme of tactical manouvre as last time - we used Kleist panzers to manouvre one or two Soviet armies into position, then rearranged the front for the powerful infantry armies to attack them.

Early in the game the areas aren't very well defended and aren't worth many VPs, so we focussed on opening up the road net to expand our operational options.

We managed to capture Rostov fairly early, This was a tough fight and it left us very low on supply as we'd done a lot of manouvre up to that point. After losses sustained and to rebuild our supplies we were forced to mainly halt for two turns (iirc we reorganised four of the armies over two turns). This at least allowed us to build up some decent event cards, and we also drew both(!) 'Major Soviet Counterattack' cards, which Von Salmuth fended of at some cost. At least they were out of the deck.

At maximum supply, albeit not full strength, we pushed into the Caucasus and managed to capture Maikop (or Grozny? I can't recall) burning our fortuitously acquired mountain troops in the mountains. The far Caucasus was looking increasingly out of reach though given the attack and supply restrictions. I t had been so much easier with our two mountain armies in the previous game.

Time for Drag Nach Stalingrad. We took on the fortress at Kalach, the most heavily defended area we had encountered so far and which makes an automatic counterattack when activated. This managed to reduce 1st Panzer Army to 1SP! We were forced to commit both 2nd and 6th Armies along with the Luftwaffe to reduce it, but finally the Russian defenders were crushed and the road to Stalingrad was open.

That seemed a good time to break for the night.

The following evening was mainly the Battle for Stalingrad. We had to make up scads of victory points to even come close to winning our best bet was to pick up the 4 and 5VP areas of Stalingrad Centre and Volga Riverbank. 

We'd attacked Stalingrad in the previous game and knew that ideally you had to take Mamyan Curgev before attacking the Centre. In a very timely fashion the Luftwaffe and Assault Pioneers turned up and we ground our way into the city. As October wore on, even Dora the rail gun turned up and we were able to capture the centre of Stalingrad, but only by throwing in Italians and Hungarians to reinforce our depleted formations.

 Finally on the very last turn of October we actually captured the Volga river bank for another 5 VPs! Unfortunately we had a total of 25VP and needed 27 to win. We had two more areas we could attack (Elista and Stavropol) each worth 1VP, but sadly after capturing Stalingrad we only had Kleists shattered 1st Panzer Army left.  Throwing in 3rd Panzer Division, Kleist amazingly managed to capture Elista against the odds giving us 26VP but sadly the Germans ran out of puff out at that point and the Soviet winter counter offensive started with the Germans just short of victory.

Agh, pipped at the post! Rather like Market Garden, the operation was 90% successful.... That was a very different game to last time, it felt like a real challenge and those are always fun to play. Unlike the previous game, we had tons of supplies but our forces were perennially under strength as losses were so heavy. The supply situation was probably so good as we'd not pushed far into the Caucasus, but we came so close to a win. There were a couple of turns where we were perhaps a bit more cautious than we needed to. If only we'd attacked Stavropol earlier... well, we didn't. Time for an unpleasant chat with the Fuhrer.

What a great game, very entertaining and good value for money. Tim says this is the ninth time he's played it.

It is all a question of bridges....

 Rather like lorries, you can never have too many bridges. I was musing to John A recently that I wished I had three arched girder bridges rather than just two, so I could do Arnhem, Nijmegen and Grave bridges properly in the highly likely event that I run yet another Arnhem operational game. Sadly now that Leven have apparently ceased production, I couldn't simply buy another one. 

And lo and behold, John produced this. Originally it was some sort of game piece (a Monopoly variant perhaps?). I stupidly didn't take a photo of its original form, but it was mounted on a tipping base and had a  big question mark moulded into its road bed.

I cut it off its base and covered over the question mark. Sprayed the whole thing grey then picked out the shadows in black and gave it a light drybrush to pick out the highlights.

And it goes very nicely with my Leven bridges. It is a similar height to the arched bridge, but a similar length to the Bailey Bridge. Either way, it will work fine with my typical terrain layouts, so a  good addition and much more sturdy than a resin bridge. 

Two player Dominion of the Spear

 John A was interested in the possibilites presented by Dominion of the Spear after helping playtest 'Alexander the Brief'. We'd already discussed some options around  deployment and management of reserves. For this weeks Tuesday  game he presented a two player variant!

The mods aren't enormous, but change the game a fair bit - there are players on each side and the initiative roll determines who is the active player. The activate player (only) can initiate combat in one or more sectors. Reserves use fixed sectors and cannot stack, although there is a separate 'reserve phase' at the end of each turn turn when players can shuffle their reserves one square either way. He has also  borrowed my re-roll rule for notable commanders from Alexander the Brief. 

First up was Johns version of Carrhae. Jerry and I were one player team, Tim and Simon the other. Parthians have 3x Horse Archers, 1 x Elite Armoured Cataphract and 1 x melee infantry. Crassus has 3 x Armoured Legionaries and 1 x Ferocious Gallic Cavalry.

Jerry took the lead for our team, and Simon the lead for the other. Things not going too well for Crassus here, down one Legionary and the Gauls. 

The Romans battle back. John had made up a virtual battle set in Powerpoint using Tom Mouats Mapsymbs military symbols font, so we could easily play remotely over a shared screen.

Parthians get the upper hand again.

And having outflanked the Romans, down went another Legion and Crassus ended with his head on a stick. We had a bit of a discussion about outflanking, John thought the free attack was sufficient bonus, but I went through some of the combat modifiers, how the outflanking bonus changes those and we reinstated it.

We swapped sides and did that one again, and the Parthians lost this time. It is all down to the initial wave of horse archers, against whom the Legionaries are even and the Gauls do have an advantage, but if the Parthians roll a lot of sixes, they shoot the Romans down before they can make contact.

Next up was a hypothetical - Julius Caesers planned campaign in Parthia (he was assassinated before this happened). Same Parthians as before, but this time Caesar had a Republican Roman Army, with 2 x armoured Legionary, 2 x Auxilia (melee infantry) and 1 x Cavalry (no bonuses). Caesar was rated as a notable General, so could re-roll one combat in his turn.

I took JC for this one and was defending. The army was a tricky one to deploy, a conservative deployment would have put a Legionary in the centre, auxilia on the wings and the other Legion and Cavalry in reserve to await developments.

But I went with the bold deployment, Legionaries up front, cavalry on the right (I'd completely forgotten they were regular, not ferocious). I put one Auxilia in each corner as they can reinforce frontally or diagonally. It will look nice and symmetrical on the mosaic as well.

And the bold deployment paid off. We trounced the Parthian front line, although JC had to re-roll one combat to finish off the Cataphracts. Wit their centre broken, it was all over for the Parthians - I  managed to roll the initiative, made the centre flanking attack and re-rolled the result to ensure a win. Game over.

We did have a chat at that point about how powerful the re-roll option is, and for lesser Generals than Alexander, JC or Napoleon, just one or two re-rolls per game might be more appropriate. The 'rally' option in the Pike and Shot set is effectively a re-roll, and you only get one of those in the standard rules. 

We set it up again, I took the Parthians and Tim the Romans. Funnily enough the Romans set up in exactly the same deployment (well mirror image, but you know what I mean). Perhaps this will be known as the Caesarian Deployment in future?

I just went boring with the Parthians. Horse Archers up front and Cataphracts in reserve. I stuck the infantry out of the way, they can shuffle over once the Cataphracts are committed.

Well, that sort of worked.... after some bashing, we'd killed a Legionary and the Roman cavalry but lost two horse archers. We'd got some good matchups now though - Cataphracts vs Auxilia and Horse Archers vs Auxilia, big advantages to us. I won't say anything about our levy infantry vs the Legionaries in the centre.... 

The Cataphracts duly routed the Auxilia opposite, and the Horse Archers finished off the other Auxilia. Head on a stick time for Caesar.

That worked really well - it was still very quick, we played four games in just over an hour, but the opposed aspect was good fun. Very much 'mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be corrected' as Von Moltke the Elder would have it. There isn't any reason why you can't play standard Dominion of the Spear as an opposed game of course, and I think that would be rather good fun. 

 I'm not 100% convinced about the all-or-nothing initiative roll, but it is Johns game so I'll go with it. An alternative might be, initiative winner picks one or two sectors, loser picks zero or one. On a draw, both sides pick zero or one, scenario attack goes first.

We also had a chat about what John's ideas for a Horse and Musket variant based on the Ancient set although to a large extent that has been trumped by the publication of various eighteenth century sets already. 

I have been to... the Archaelogical Museum of Naples

 On our trip to Naples back in May, one place I was determined to visit was the Archaelogical Museum, which is just to the northwest of the old city centre. Many of the best pieces retrieved from Pompeii and Herculaeum ended up here, and the Farnese collection was once a 'must see' for aristos on the Grand European Tour.

The building is enormous and packed with stuff. You could easily spend all day here. It was also packed with school groups and other visitors, but the size of the building absorbed them. 

Augustus, presumably when he was a bit younger.

This is Balbo, prefect of Herculaneum. There were quite a few statues of him, retrieved from the wreckage of Herculaneum.

And some absolutely stunning frescos.

I really liked this one as it just showed everyday life. Roman art of this period has a very distinctive style. 

Very exciting, Roman wargames figures! Romans vs Barbarians, these are maybe 60mm figures?

This is Socrates, not someone whose bust I can recall seeing before.

Euripedes. Some of these busts are Roman copies of the Greek originals.

A Vestel Virgin.

Xeno.

And Hippocrates.

This rather larger bust in the 'Gallery of Emperors' is good old Julius Caeser.

And here is Athena without her lance.

This massive statue is known as the 'Farnese Bull' and it is just gobsmacking. It is hard to capture it's sheer size in a photograph. 

It is just enormous, and packed with all sorts of little details. Just incredible.

Heracles resting after his labours. 

And I really liked this (one of a pair) - "The Kneeling Barbarian". Presumably the platform displayed some sort of loot at one point. He is beautifully sculpted in mixed materials, and complete with trousers, barbarian moustache etc. He looks just like one of the figures from the Revell 20mm Gallic Warriors box. 

A rather fine "Mounted Warrior" who could grace any wargames table. 

And one of the centrepieces of the museum, "The Tyrannicides" - depicting the start of the Greek Republic after the overthrow of the monarchy. 

The original statue was cast in bronze around 514 BC but was stolen by the Persians, so a later version was made in 477BC and this is a Roman copy made of the original in marble at around 50AD. The statue is interesting in tracing the development of Greek art as the musculature is so well detailed, but the faces of the two heroes are quite primitive.

Neptune (?) with a cornucopia and a Sea Dragon.

Anyway, having run around the statues, it was time to head up the stairs to meet Alexander the Great and Darius at Issus.

Only to be confronted with this! Agh!!! The mosiac is lying on the floor behind that tatty plastic window being restored, and the museum hadn't even bothered to put a proper picture of it up in its place. If you  look through the aparture it is on the floor in bits surrounded by consevators with trowels. 

Well, there is one of the endlessly reproduced snippets. This is clearly the horse furniture the Newline figure is based on. 

And Darius looking a bit anxious. At least I've painted his hat the right colour. 

I was really disappointed about that, the Alexander mosaic is one of the most famous in the world, and it was just out of reach. The museum is fairly notorious for closing exhibits, removing them etc at short notice. Just my luck.

The other mosaics were just stunning though.

I'm used to just seeing fairly crude floor mosaics made with larger tiles, but these were just amazing and made from tiny chips of stone.

This one looks like a painting.

As does this one.

This dog is a bit cruder though.

Hippos, Crocodiles etc. I am always rather drawn to naive representations of "wild beasts". 

There were lots of other galleries stuffed with things, including this rather grand picture gallery.

Interior walls from the "Villa of Postumo" in Pompeii. There was a whole section of Pompeii domestic artefects.

And this rather grand 1/100th scale model of the (ruined) town.

Down in the basement was an excellent Egyptian collection, and rather less crowded than the museum in Cairo.

I was very taken with these archaic statues, dating from around 4,500 years ago.

Burial figures and their container.

The museum cafe offered, among other things, Pompeii Cake - supposedly based on a recovered recipe. It was quite doughy bread packed with nuts and dried fruit, but I don't imagine the Romans had a great deal of icing sugar to sprinkle over the top originally!

My wife is a big lover of art history, and we discovered that there was one of the very few paintings by Artemisia Gentilesci on display at the Church of Santa Chiara. Well, four trips later we finally managed to get there when it was actually open, and discovered it wasn't in the church at all but the monastery museum around the corner.

The monastery cloisters were absolutely exquisite, covered in painted tiles.

And tranquil gardens (with orange and lemon trees).

The garden was lined with benches covered in hand painted tiles depicting historical or mythical scenes. As with some of the Roman frescoes in the museum, many just depicted ordinary life. 

And the cloister walls were covered in frescos.

As were the ceilings.

The site had been heavily bombed in the war, but the nearby Greek ruins had survived and there was an extensive section of excavations. This is a Greek sauna.

And we did finally get to see Artemesia Gentilesci's 'Mary Magdalene'. Well worth all the trouble.

I was also very taken by this 14th century bible in the monastery library.

And this astonishing Nativity diorama! The Neapolitans are very big on both model figures (typically religious, historical or celebrity) and many of the churches featured large dioramas on a range of subjects. 

Anyway, despite the absence of Alexander, they were both very enjoyable places to visit and I'd recommend both if you should every find yourself in Naples.