A Spanish Treat

this past Sunday  our gaming group got together and enjoyed some Carlist wars using Field of Battle(unmodified).

I Scratch build all the terrain over the last few years, and Dave Hoyt supplied the marvelous Miniatures. Perry and Blaze Away miniatures are the manufacturers.

Dave ran the Carlist forces solo, while Jon and I ran the Isabelinos.   Jon had the 2nd and 4rd(cavalry) brigades on the right flank, and I had the 1st and 4th(international) brigade on the left flank, in the town.

the international brigade(British expedition plus french foreign legion) reinforced by a battalion of the  1st brigade secured the bulk of the town early.  one of the British battalions hastily rushed down the main street into an artillery  barrage and was routed, but quickly recovered.  they cleared the way to the British rifles to pin down the artillery and ultimately were responsible for its demise.

Meanwhile the right flank started out good for the Isabelinos, but quickly started to spiral out of control.  the other half of my 1st brigade was badly mauled. and Jon lost 2 of the 3 battalions in his infantry brigade, with only the guard remaining.  only the cavalry held their own.

fortunately while that happened, the international brigade finally broke through in the town, flanking the crack Carlist brigade and routing them. although it took rather more flank engagements then I was expecting to do so. one of Dave's crack battalions took 3 flank attacks before routing.

All in all a good game was had by all.  the game wrapped up in about 2.5-3 hours.

I also had my Warbases delivered  as well as an extension of  the current commission i'm working on.  expect to see some Fife and drum militia on the blog in the not so distant future.

Commonwealth of Polhynov Guard Haiduks

Gwardia Hajduk Regiment with command in the fore.

Last night I finished off the Guard Haiduk regiment that has been sitting on my desk  for a few weeks.  these are for my imagination the Commonwealth of Polhynov(or Rzechczypospolita na Polhynow in Polish). the figures are, as with all my other eastern renaissance, TAG miniatures.

Gwardia Hajduk command close up.

The Guard Haiduks use heavy Bardische axes, and as such are treated as a pike unit in Maurice. we have not used any pike units yet, so it should be an interesting change.


TAG figures are always fun to paint. I made the flags my self, and here is a look at them unfurled:

Regimental standard on top, Hetman's Standard on the bottom.

the flags symbols are historical.  The golden eagle is from a standard from a 16th century 'Przemysl district" standard.  the white eagle is Jan Sobieski's crest (1680s) which I have co-opted as the Mielczewski Family/Commonwealth Crest.  the coloured fields are of my own concoction.

the Polhynov standard system is similar to the British napoleonic system, each regiment has a Hetnman's Standard(kings colours) and a regimental standard(regimental colours).

i do plan 2 regiments of 24 cavalry ultimately, for anyone wondering why a polish-based army is so cavalry-light.  the regiment of Husaria(heavy cavalry) will be Front Rank French WSS horse grenadiers, and the light cavalry regiment will use Eureka Polish Uhlans from the 28mm SYW Saxon

Now that these are done, the Polhynov forces can take to the field this Friday, when i get together with friends Martin, Dave, Dan and Jon to play a big game of imaginations Maurice.

Commission: Foundry Argonauts, Heracles, and Zetes

Last night and this morning I worked on a group of 10 figures as part of an ongoing commission. This group was comprised of 8 Argonauts, Heracles, and Zetes, made by Foundry.

4 Argonauts in helmets

4 Argonauts without helmets.
Maybe veterans or officers.

Heracles & Zetes

These figures were a lot of fun to paint. Aside form the fact that I have not painted ancients in years(and even then only Romans), they are lovely figures. Although with all the bronze trim on the armour, they can be time consuming.  The way I paint usually requires me to undercoat any metallic with white, so that it starts very bright. Since the rest of the armour is  medium/dark grey, highlighted then black washed,  I have to both edge in white, THEN the bronze colour, and then give it a wash. so in effect I have to do all the bronze edging twice.  Fortunately I enjoy the occasional fiddly work.  especailly when it's so very different from anything I'm currently painting. After all, Variety is the spice of life!


also, I'm about 22 hits away from having 100,000 hits in under 4 years since I started the blog(4 years on May 29th).  I'd celebrate by having some sort of contest or something, but I don't really have the funds to pull that off.  maybe by the time I hit 200,000 hits I'll have gotten a brake and be able to.

ACW Buildings for Martin

At out last game day Martin gave me a pair of buildings to base up for him. It seems I have convinced him that buildings look good with bases.

 The church was painted presumably by martin(or possibly bought painted). the clap board manor was painted by me earlier in the year. both buildings are made by Hovels.

The fences, gravestones and raven/crow are all Renedra plastic offerings. trees are Woodland Scenics.

I had wanted to make the buildings easily removable for storage, but hovels are cast in one piece, and are either solid castings or hollow with extremely irregular inside edges making it hard to do so.  i may revisit them at a later date to see what else i can do.

The next commission: IHMN+

I've now started a 2nd commission form the same gentlemen who commissioned me to paint the 'In Her Majesty's Name' figures i painted in March.

This time there is a total of 70 figures, including an IHMN Dragon Tong,  Foundry Argonauts, Empress mid 1800s naval crew, Conan figrues, and some Hinterland female sailors.

from left to right:  Dragon Lord(Reaper Minis),
Dragon lady, Master Wu-jen, Yeti

last night I finish off and photographed the 15 figures that make up the Dragon Tong.

Dragon Warrior, Tong henchmen

These figures were generally a joy to paint. the Dragon lady. and Dragon lord have a wonderful amount of detail, although the Dragon lady's face make her look like the most manly looking Asian woman I've ever seen. the patterns on the Dragon lady and Lord's robes are freehand.

2 Tong Henchmen, 2 Boxers

4 Tong henchmen (unknown manufacturer)

next to be panted in this commission are teh 10 figures that make up Argonauts from foundry. These should be done in the next day or 2. Also  either tonight or tomorrow morning I have a couple of  buildings, suitable for AWI, 1812 or ACW that, I've based for my friend Martin.

2nd CoC Game

I GMed (co-GMed, as it turned out, with Dave Hoyt) a CoC game for a few friends yesterday afternoon.  this game was a slightly more moderate game in terms of forces used then the last(more infantry, less support).

this games was again early war french Vs German. the table was 8x6, but of course the way the patrol phase worked out the game was actually played on only a portion of the table.  I corrected a few mistakes in the way the rules played out versus the first game  earlier last week.

French Platoon :
LT(senior leader)
Platoon sergeant(junior leader)
 VB rifle grenadier squad(4 + junior leader)
3x  infantry squads(10 + junior leader)
25mm AT gun
60mm mortar
Hotchkiss MMG
Hotchkiss H-39

German Platoon:
LT(senior leader)
Feldwebel(senior leader)
5cm mortar
3x  infantry squads(9 + junior leader)
Pak 36 AT gun

MG34 MMG
Pzkpfw 38(t)

As in the first battle, the Germans opened up with a charge, led by the Feldwebel, on a full french squad in heavy cover. despite this, the Germans prevailed and took possession of the graveyard. the feldwebel was badly wounded and shipped off to the rear areas for treatment.  a few phases later the remainder of the squad would be routed by concentrated fire from the VBs and another infantry squad that had taken up residence in the church.

The game was relatively uneventful for teh next while. after the bloody melee, both sides took up residence in hte buildings for cover, and protection against the mortars and VBs. the german 38(t) entered teh board and shot up some french infantry.

\Finally the lull broke The french got 3 phases in a row.  during the first phase the french opened fire on a building across the street, and killed 6! only 8 were alive inside the building, and the remaining shock routed the squad.  during the course of the next 2 rounds, the french continued the above average rolling, and cut down a full German squad in another building.  

The french player then opted to use his 1 chain of command dice to end the turn, forcing the french to role morale for the 2 broken squads.  the German player opted to use his lone chain of command dice to ignore one force morale test, but despite this, he was left with only 2 command dice to roll, a tank, a 5cm mortar team, and a single squad of 2 infantry(who had been rallied from the squad that opened the game with the melee). he still had the MG team and an AT team off board, as well as his LT. we called the game, with the Germans effectively neutralized.

This game ran faster then the previous one.  We started around 12:30 and were done shortly after 3:30.  the french luck at the end was phenomenal. Up until that point the loses had been about equal and neither side had seen much gain.

The next game won't be fore a bit, as we are probably playing imaginations in 2 weeks.  this works well as it give Martin time to get some Soviets painted.  I'd like to do a bit of Operation Barbarossa.

Our Intro to COC: an AAR

last night my friend Dan and I got together. we began the evening by doing a tiny bit of painting, and then we migrated to the dining room for a small introductory game of Chain of Command.

 Dan played French, and I played German, using Rich's 1940 army lists.  we both had a platoon of 2 squads, with approximately 10 levels of support(effectively 3 support teams and a tank). We went about the patrol phase, got our jump off points set u and then begun the game.

Most of the first few phases were simply used to get the majority of out troops on the table.  one notable action was me charging a full German squad around the corner into a full squad of sand.  the Frenchies beat me 6 kills to 5 and my squad fell back. at the beginning of the next turn, Dan would charge back around the building at my squad, and kill it. my 38(t) then came on hte table and broke the remainder of the charging french.

On the other side of the table, Dan deployed his troops directly into the building, and surrounding courtyard, while his hotchkiss MMG deployed to the hedge directly across the street.. i deployed my 2nd squad into hte feild, along with  my 50mm mortar team.  across teh raod behind teh hedge i deployed my 75mm infantry gun and my tripoded MG34. teh next few turns ended up with a haevy exchange of fire between the 2 forces.  eventually i broke his MG team(which his paltoon LT was attached to) and used a chain if command dice to end the turn, sending his LT routing off table. I'm mean.

a few phases later, I managed to wear kill the 2 remnants of the french close combat squad, and soon after that I broke one team of Dan's 2nd squad in the house, and the game ended.

this was our first game, and although Dan and I are familiar with too fat Lardies rules, it did take quite a while. we looked everything up.  it also didn't help that although both Dan and i could hit, we could not have any effect to save our lives. this seemed to draw out the game artificially. in the advanced rules they have a suggestion to make tanks more bloody, basically add a +1 to penetrate for all tanks for all tank. after a few more games, if the trend follows, i may do the same thing with the effect for infantry combat.

I'm also not thrilled with the differentiation in tanks speeds. on open ground/road, going "flat out" is about 1 inches per d6 per speed class.  if that's all, why bother having speed classes?  I'm considering making these a little more differentiated. doubling the increase would mean that fast tanks are only going 12" faster than infantry at full out. which is not exactly speedy. but it still gives the feel of fast tanks going actually fast.


still, I have to give it a few more tries before making a decisions about changes and the like. I like a lot of the mechanisms though.

Hotlead AAR and New goodies

Hotlead wrapped up last Sunday.  it was a good con this year. according the the Con Chairman's AAR, the con saw a rise in games to 70, from about 55ish last year. the Bring and Buy did around 18000 in sales, which means the Con's cut of 1800 will be donated to charities(Scouts and cadet groups in the con's region.).  Sunday as especially surprising.  I've never seen a convention so busy  on a Sunday!  here is a link for Jame's Manto's AAR for more detailed breakdown and pics!

Martin making a deal while i give James(behind the camera)
2 thumbs up!

  I went up with J&M miniatures and helped out at the booth most of the weekend.  they also had a good weekend from the looks of it.   James and Martin attribute it to being present all 3 days, and having a better selection of merchandise.

Overhead view of my Con Game: The battle of Kulm.

My napoleonic game went quite well.  despite the previous table users taking up about half my setup period taking down there, and the resulting late start. we finished the game in 2.5 hours.  pretty good, considering the game involved 600 infantry 128 cavalry and 27 guns on the table with 8 players.  the Russians/Austrians won but just barely. i was a little bit worried initially as the french took a beating initially, but they came back to almost even up the army morale chits before finally succumbing to the allied onslaught.  Thanks go out to Mike Garner and Jon Holmes for helping me GM the game. the pics below are courtesy of Mike Garner, as I completely forgot to take pictures(as usual)

 

finally my favourite part, the spoils.  as seen below i picked up a great deal of terrain as the majority of  purchases over the weekend(all 28mm where aplicable). I bought  from 4ground an ECW/renaissance Cottage and shop, a Saxon/Medieval dwelling, a water cart, and 3 packs of walls. I also picked up anther box of Perry Napoleonic Russians(still need one more to finish off the 26th division)  a box of Wargames factory Viking Huscarls, and a copy of Dux Britnarium.  I also picked up a broken resin bridge for really cheap, and finally took delivery of an army group north KV with 3 turrets to make KV1/40, /42, and KV2.  this was bought 3 years ago, but has been sitting in our friends basement ever since.  There is also a bag of loose GW LOTR miniatures. 5 metal war riders including Sharku, and 25 odd metal dwarf warriors and bowman. Not pictured are the Xwing purchases of the  Imperial aces box, an Awing, a TIE advanced, and a HWK-290.

 the 4ground walls seem like they are expensive, but these 3 packs got me enough walls to do an 18x18" walled area with 2 gates, and even  destroyed wall ends if I so choose.  I paid 40 dollars for them, and the closest comparable product is something like Acheson Creations wattle and timber set which is a 12x9 area for the same price. and they are rather nice walls too.

close up of 4ground wall corners which are really nice.

Incidentally, I have some 28mm TAG Iraqis for sale that I did not sell at Hotlead.  there are 4 groups of 8 iraqi regulars, 2 groups of 8 republican guard(in the 3 tone camo)1 group of 4 snipers and command,  and 4 groups of 8 fedayeen. I'm selling these at $40USD per group of 8 + shipping. if you are  interested  email me at crucible_orc*AT*sympatico*DOT*ca