Hurrah, Boys, Hurrah!

Using our home-brewed ACW variant on Iron Ivan's This Very Ground, a fairly large game was played this past Saturday at the Hamilton Road Games Group. Andy, Kevin, Martin, and Rob took the role of the generals of the Federal armies, while Bear and I defended the honour of the Confederacy. The boys in grey were defending a fortified position from an assault by the Union with about twice as many troops and 2 extra cannon. It was tougher on both sides than you'd think.

The centre battery in the redoubt.

Two large units of Zouaves advance.

The defenders wait for the command to fire.

Martin and Rob prepare to move further.

The Union moved in, as they had to since they were the attackers. Since our artillery took a long time to load and our infantry took longer still, Bear and I held our fire or only fired half volleys on the advancing Yanks. Because of the fortifications, our troops could only be hit on a "1" on a d10; the usual required value is a "5." Many of the first rank units were pretty chewed up, but there were a number of ranks. The Yanks crossed the open plowed fields (represented by some sort of chenille cloth Andy got at a store) and still caused some casualties among our dug-in Rebs - lucky shots. The story is pretty straight forward: Blue-coats advance, Grey-coats fire, Blue-coats die and are replaced by the next rank of units. One of Martin's units (or was it Kevin's?) was reduced to two figures by the time it reached the fortifications and STILL it never broke. (Tough New Englanders, I imagine.) Bear and I had the best shooting when it came to hitting officers. According to our rules, when a unit takes casualties, a d10 is rolled. If the resulting number is equal to or less than the number of casualties taken, one of the casualties is the unit officer. (Two casualties? The officer is hit on a "1" or a "2".) Union officers and first sergeants were dropping like flies! Still the blue wave came on.

A birds-eye view of the Union advance. The green bingo chips mean the unit as been activated
and has moved or shot or both.

The 114th New York enters the fray. I liked the light blue uniforms so I painted them that way.

Andy's Zouaves are a more generic colour and I don't know which regiment is represented.

Union artillery - privately moulded figures and gun.

The Reb gunners take aim at the 114th.

Eventually the Union tide broke on the redoubt and the infantry came over the wall at the cannon crews. All three guns were knocked out of action in two turns. An assault against infantry on Bear's side of the fortifications was thrown back. Rob was running a small section of Bredan's 1st US Sharpshooters with their special rifles and they had picked off more than a few of Bear's troops. I had one reserve company with I moved up to the wall in the hope of enfilading the advancing Federals, but to little or no avail. We called the game as a Union victory although a bloody one. They had breached the wall in three and possibly four places, making our position untenable. I know there will be more games with this set although we may have to look at the canister rules and the cannon range rules. I might help if I were more familiar with the variant rules we've done up. Still it was a fun game - admitted to by all present - and that is why we play, isn't it?

Union batteries in support of the assault
Privately moulded figures on the left, Perry Miniatures on the right.
Perry Miniatures plastic Zouaves in the front.

The fortifications, the bivouac, and the reserves

The business end of the central battery

The Union Commander - looking unworried

The brave defenders - Perry plastics

The 114th (or what's left of them) take the battery!
Rob's sharpshooters are hiding behind the handy tape measure in the background.

"Double canister and no swabbing!"
I wish!

Kevin moves his victorious Zouaves into the redoubt.

Union infantry come over the wall despite the best efforts of the defenders.

Another view of the defenders on my end of the line.
Green chips - activated; blue chips - weapons fired and reloading.
Four chips means your entire unit is reloading. Three means you can still fire up to ¼
of your figures in what's called "fire at will" in the rules. 

Another Union unit approaches the still contested wall.

"Hurrah, boys, hurrah!"
Kevin's Zouaves come over the fortifications.

Andy's brigade advances in proper order - two companies of skirmishers out front,
four companies in open order behind. The standard is primarily for show, but the mounted
officer has a morale use.

"I'll be in my tent. Y'all wake me when the war is over."
A decent close-up of one of Andy's Perry Miniatures artillerymen who agreed to pose for the photograph.

In the Bleak Midwinter, take 2

There's still more to share. The original post was getting too long, so I did "historicals" and "what-if historicals" in the first and I'll do the more imaginative stuff in this one.

From our Imigi-nations campaign, Freedonian horse artillery
(Frying Pan & Blanket Wayne's Legion artillerists)

Freedonian Marines (FP&B AWI British Guards)

Freedonian militia battalion "Gummo"
All the militia battalions are named for the Marx Brothers. I think the next one will be "Cheeto", the least known and cheesiest brother.

Three stands from Colonel Pepper's Dragoons, a mercenary unit based on the cover of the Beatles' "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." My daughter insisted I paint four of the troopers in the colours of the Beatles uniforms from the cover. (Figures are some Russian plastics in 1/72)

Freedonian Dragoon Regiment Scungili (three stands of FP&B's best)
Fine Italian horsemen. Don't laugh! A lot of the Italian cavalry was first class.

Reaper Miniatures space marine of some sort. I liked how he looked even if his weapon is the size of a refrigerator.

A dwarf king from an unknown manufacturer. He'd been sitting around for a  LONG time.

Reaper's rather gruesome undertaker/grave digger.

A Sci-fi accountant with lots of paper documents. Sorta dates the figure, doesn't it?

Games Workshop dwarf miner/prospector. I thought the jeweller's loup was funny.

A werewolf either Rob or I had painted a long time ago. I found him in a box with his right arm and tail broken off.
So he's a "renovated" figure.

GW undead cavalry jazzed up with some extra and less GW-undead looking weapons, shields, and helmet.

Pendragon 10mm galoglaich/galloglasses for Warmaster fantasy or historical

GW's Warmaster 10mm Chaos troops from some northern country
Maybe Timmons? (Eh, Martin?)

Epic scale Orc vehicles for GW's Epic Space Marine game. I still like it and I ran into these things at a swap meet.

I painted these "Temple Dogs" from Reaper at Rob's prompting. He asked for them in a style that made them look like they were carved from jade. I think the photo doesn't look quite right;
they look more "jade-y" in person.

Not fantasy, just forgotten. Aztec Otomi warriors from Tin Soldier. These sat languishing in a box for along time until Martin and I began to play DBR with has an Aztec list. So I rebased them and began to finish what was unpainted.

Tin Soldier's Aztec warrior priests. These can be quite colourful figures!

Tin Soldier's Aztec warriors with two-handed Macuahuitl - basically a club with sharpened obsidian on the edges. Horrible against skin and cotton fibre armour but almost useless against metal armour.
Still nice figures though.

All for now. I hope to have more AAR's soon.

In The Bleak Midwinter

 In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, 
 earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; 
 snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, 
 in the bleak midwinter, long ago.

     I'm going to show some of my recently painted figures. These were not done since the beginning of the year or even since the Christmas holidays. Some go rather further back, but since it's bitterly cold (-9°C, feels like -17°C) and rather snow covered outside, I was in the mood to photograph a few things  I've enjoyed painting. Some are historical, some fantasy and Sci-fi, some are semi-historical.

A 75mm PaK50 anti-tank gun from an unknown maker. I decided to paint the crew as
late War SS gunners with the "pea" pattern designed to destroy my eyesight and sanity.

Andy said this was extra to his needs so I received it from him. The gun model had no instructions,
so I had to intuit the entire thing. I think it worked out. The crew are all on separate bases should casualties occur.

"The Business End"

The gun kit included two identical gun commander figures. I painted the upper one in Wehrmacht cammo
and the lower one in SS cammo.

FoW King Tiger in 15mm. I like the miniatures, but I don't care for the game.

A Russian BA-6 in the service of the Spanish Republic for Spanish Civil War.
It's a Zvezda model which almost snapped together although some of the parts almost snapped in half at times.
Oh, but the price! Less than $5!

For my Shako War of 1812 project, the 17th US regular Infantry. This is the outfit I reenact in better weather.
They were on the far end of the supply chain and so got uniforms of various colours.
At Frenchtown, they were in tan or brown.

Canadian artillery for the Fenian Raid project. I wanted to find a way to include Canadian/British troops in the American Civil War games, so I decided to paint up troops for the Fenian Raids of 1866. Irish nationalist from the US attempted to invade Canada and hold it hostage until Great Britain gave Ireland its independence. It was a fiasco.

Front and back view of a Fenian standard bearer, with the banner in English and Irish Gaelic.

15mm ACW Confederate Zouaves - the Louisiana Tigers/Louisiana Special Battalion.
The Confederacy didn't go in much for Zouaves, but these fellows -recruited from among the
Irish toughs in New Orleans- were an exception. The uniforms probably didn't hold up too long. 

Gallic warrior - Wargames Factory plastic multi-pose figure

Irish pike command stand in 15mm for DBR - pikes and chieftain by Essex, bagpiper by Minfigs.
I enjoy playing the army of the Great O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, although I usually get beat up with them.

Gripping Beast 25mm Arthurians for my wife's army in our Warhammer Ancients battles.

15mm Late Roman Auxila for DBA (Freikorp 15s, I think)

15mm Late Roman Legionaries for DBA (guessing Freikorp 14s)

More Late Roman Legio - as above.

I'm going to split this blog in half at this point. More to come in the area of Fantasy, Sci-fi, and Imagi-nations.

Board games abound - 4 January 2014

When we gathered on the first Saturday of January of the new year, our time was limited because of a number of factors. So we postponed the scheduled Warhammer Ancients game (which the historical section of the group had planned) and went with board games of various types.

A few of us played a hand of "Cheating Moth." This is a card game where cheating is not only tolerated but encouraged! There are rules for catching cheaters but only one player -the one who holds the "guard bug" may catch the cheaters. It's simple and a lot of fun.

Bear throws down a card while Katie looks bemused. I was holding the "guard bug" (the green card on the table) but I only caught Bear cheating once... once out of his FOUR times he confessed to.

Derek sets up a game of "Last Night of the World", a zombie apocalypse board game. This drew a lot of attention so you see (from left) Tyler, Derek, Katie, Bear, and Rob. I don't do zombie games; I find them - for lack of a better term - "icky." Besides which, I've worked in high school and I've seen enough zombies.

Beth plays "Pokemon Monopoly" with one of our youngest members. There are so many variants of Monopoly these days. The original game seems to be an excellent way to take up an entire weekend AND destroy your family. I saw a magazine article years ago where a group played Monopoly on the streets of Atlantic City, NJ, using the streets on which the game was based. They rolled huge dice - the size of packing crates - and ran around the city for a few days.

After the camera was put away, I ended up playing "Ticket to Ride", a railroad building game based on the map of North America in the early 20th Century. Each player gets "tickets" and attempts to complete the route outlined. For example, you might have to build your route from Chicago to New Orleans or Los Angeles to Sante Fe. Each completed route earns you points, some more than others. The biggie seems to be Montreal to Vancouver although the New York-San Francisco run might be bigger, if such a ticket exists! At another table, some folks broke out the Star Fleet "Heroclix" type game. I think I'd like to try that one sometime.

We've had a lot of snow here in Southwestern Ontario and more is coming today. I'm not sure what we're playing this week, but if time and duty (and weather) allow, I hope to be part of it.

If you're in the vicinity of London, Ontario, most any Saturday, stop by the Crouch Branch Library on Hamilton Road between 10am and 4pm (more or less) and see what the games group is up to that week! With the exception of some holiday weekends, someone is usually there. We meet in the large meeting room unless the library needs it for an activity, then there's a smaller room we meet in.