Latest Napoleonic paint work - March 2020

Sadie, our dog, wondering why we're home so much.

I wish I could say I painted all of these figures during the "social distancing" time here in Ontario, but that'd be a lie. It's all been part of a project to  co some completion of my Napoleonics troops for Artie Conliffe's Shako, my favourite set of rules for the Napoleonic Wars. Most of the infantry units are set for nine figures and that makes them look a bit anemic. So I decided to try doubling the size to eighteen and putting them on a base with a designation on the back, in order to tell one unit from another by sight... rather than putting the name on the bottom of the stand or depending on facing colours to tell one unit from another. What I have here is the bulk of my work after finishing my wife's Italian army. I continued with my French allies, the Confederation of the Rhine, and the Kingdom of Sweden. Now I'll go on to the Russians, Prussians, and finally the Austrian - my favourite army. The Turks and the British will wait a bit.

A French legere battalion - light infantry who were actually more like line
with a superiority complex.

The battalion of Italian Marines of the Royal Guard
My wife liked how the Italians looked and then she discovered they were good troops!

Grenadiers of the Imperial Guard - the Old Guard

Chasseurs of the Imperial Guard - also the Old Guard

The Svea Lifgarde - Swedish guard troops

Lifregiment grenadiers  - Swedish grenadier unit

Lifgrenadier regiment - more Swedish grenadiers
(Swedish uniforms are wild and fun to study.)

Prussian Garde-regiment zu Fuss (Regiment #8)

Prussian Horse Artillery Battery
(In Shako, artillery is easy to figure out: Horse battery - 2 crew figures,
Foot battery - 3 figures, heavy battery (12# and up) - 4 figures)

Prussian 11th Reserve Infantry Regiment
No flags were issued to reserve or Landwehr regiments,
which did not stop them from finding flags and banners.
(I was given these figures by a friend who was moving to Hawaii years ago and 
they've been bounced around quite a bit over time. Many bayonets were lost.)

A Russian infantry regiment
I'm not sure what unit this is.

The Russian unit's flag, done mostly free-hand by myself.

More Russians! Not in overcoat this time.

Hungarian regiment #51 - Splenyi - Austrian Empire
Raised in Transylvania, the unit was called the Legion Infernale by the French.

Austrian Jägers - the "Grey Devils"

I haven't listed the manufacturers of the figures since I have been mixing various figures in a unit. Right now, I'm reaching back into figures bought or received long ago to fill out units.

Hot Lead Instead

Hot Lead, the premier gaming convention of Southwest Ontario, has been cancelled due to the present COVID-19 situation. It was the right thing to do and I compliment James on his decision, which came before the provincial mandate to suspend most group/crowd activities. Beth and I were going to go so we were disappointed even while fully supporting the decision. NEXT YEAR IN STRATFORD!
With that in mind, my daughter challenged me to a game of Kings of War using our 10mm WarMaster figures. We've done this before, especially since Katie's 25mm Elf army is still in the process of being painted. We used the second version of the rules since we're not yet familiar with the third. For the game, we use centimeters in place of inches. It works for us. So on Sunday, we hit the table.
We rolled for terrain and all the rolls were negative - no hills, no trees, no rivers - so it was some meadow somewhere in the world of fantasy. The Elves fielded lots and lots of bow-armed troops, both horse and foot, and a bunch of spear-armed infantry with one bolt thrower, some chariots, a mage, and a general. My Kings of Men army had two "hordes" of pikes , one of halbreds, a horde of berserkers, a horde of knights, some troops (smallest units) of mounted scouts and arquibusiers, two siege guns (which are really howitzers), a mage, the Captain, and my giant, Tiny.

Elven long spears horde, using GW WarMaster figures

Chariots, bowmen, and horse archers.

 

A regiment of long spears

More chariots and some horse archers.
The horse archers need to be wider than deep, but I don't feel like
unbasing them and chopping up the stands,

The Elven mage, riding a whirlwind. I really like the figure.
The swirly die means that the mage had a battle cat with him.

My horde of human pikes and a troop of arquibusiers
Pendrakon and Old Glory Miniatures from the 30 Years War and
English Civil War offerings.

GW WarMaster Empire halbrediers done up as the Black Company
from Glen Cook's series.
I think Croaker, Silent, and Goblin would be proud.

Tiny the giant pointing out the enemy to two troops of mounted scouts.
I use GW WM pistoliers as the scouts. Tiny is a 25mm Highlander.

The pikes again with the human mage and a howitzer to the rear.

Knights ---- flag stands from four different regiments. GW figures.

Berserkers!
Minifigs 10mm ECW Highlanders used as berserkers.
I didn't feel like digging for Chaos foot or barbarians.

I won the toss and made Katie move first. We were both out of range of each other except for my howitzers, who were not effective in general. I made the mistake - one I almost always make - of not being aggressive against a missile-heavy army. (If you spend less time in the rain, you don't get as wet... as it were.) She hacked up my berserkers early and our smaller units paid the price of being on the field. Tiny fought two units of Elven cavalry, destroying the first and being destroyed by the second. The Black Company and the two pike blocks suffered from missile weapons, but soldiered on. My knights exchanged charge and counter-charge with Katie's long spears until some flanking units hit them.
In the end I conceded the game since all I had left was the knights, the artillery, and some odd-ball stuff. I often loose to Katie and to my son, Robb and his dwarves, as well, but playing the game is fun, no matter what the out-come... although winning once in a while is nice.

Elven Knights vs. Mounted scouts? You can guess the outcome at any distance.

Human knights vs. Elven long spears.
We fought back and forth for a while until Katie's flanking troops entered the fray.

Human pikes vs. Elven chariots and flanking longspears.
Yeah, it was a mess.

Then a guest arrived. Katie's junior cat, Maeve, jumped up on the table at the end of the game and sat down on a unit of Elven bows. I suppose we were not paying enough attention to the death kitty. So she took matters into her own hands. (Paws?)

"So where can I sit?"

Maeve lays hands on the Elven prince.

Maeve HATES bolt throwers. She always attacks the Elven artillery.
None of us knows why.

"Why you clean up? Leave pointy thing for me to sit on, Hooman!"

Maeve and the Elven mage stare each other down.

Katie thought an over-head view was necessary.

Some Elves hide under the cat's coat.

For those interested in playing in 10mm, I recommend the ranges from Pendrakon - ancients, Medievals, SYW, ECW, 30YW, and fantasy. There's more than enough there. Also, Napoleonics, WWI & WWII, moderns, sci-fi. I recommend them almost anything you'd want to do up for a 10mm KoW army... including tanks! (Look under WWI or the Interwar/Spanish Civil War for some weird rolling stock.)

All in all not a bad way to spend a "social distance" Sunday afternoon!

Traveller Between Christmas and New Year's

    Since I've a few days off over the time between Christmas and New Year's Day, our gang was able to get a Traveller game in. It had been an unconsciously long since our last session, but that didn't seem to faze the crowd. Some new player joined the gang and some of the old crew made new characters to challenge themselves more.
    The one character everyone enjoyed being around was "Crazy", played by my daughter, Katie. This character was a noble (sort of) but had at least four or five personalities, one of which was a child, another was catatonic, while a third was a berserk fighter. Katie didn't kill her off but put her "on furlough", to return at another date after she travels with some relatives who want to help her.
     Katie introduced a new Darrian character.
     Nia came with a deserter from the Imperial Intelligence service.
    Jesse came up with a noble who squandered his inheritance and had to "disappear" since the family was not at all pleased. I rolled for an out-of-wedlock child somewhere, but the dice said "No."
     Beth continued to play her medical doctor/chemist who might be a Zhodani... but no one is sure.
     Tyler resumed his play as a pirate with a hyper-intelligent monkey (who can't speak) and a constant barrel of rum.
     Tyler's son, Thomas, played a Vargr infantry Trooper. Thomas started very young and this character will be fleshed out by Thomas and his dad now that he's of an age where he can understand RPG's. (He already understands rocket-propelled grenades.)
    Ken plays a home-brewed character called a "Quendi", a sort of "space elf" in the Tolkien-esque tradition rather than the shoe-maker's helper tradition.
     DJ leads the intrepid crew as a retired Imperial Marine Force Commander, all aboard the corsair Dark Iguana.
     The NPC's include Vasil, the engineer, Yogi and Boo-Boo, both Ursa combat veterans, hired to handle heavy weapons, and Karl, the human who transferred his consciousness into the ship's computer system. He can enter an android body if he wishes, but then he's out of contact with the ship's systems. I have to be careful that this doesn't break the game. DJ doesn't really trust Karl.

Beth took all these pictures...

A panoramic view of the kitchen/dining room area where we play our games.
Dinner is usually included since we often play on Sunday afternoon.
This game: sweet-and-sour meatballs over rice. 

Nia holds the good luck charm, Maeve.
Your humble blogger is at the end of the table.

Ken, Thomas, Tyler, and DJ

Maeve is a "dice-goblin" and tries to steal dice of all types.

{"Hey, nobody's lookin'! I can be stealing 20-siders!"}

No! The cat cannot have a character! Not even an Aslan!

The game included hiding from search drones, spitting back at cyberattacks on the ship's computer, disguising part of the crew as EMS and sneaking aboard an opposing ship to lift some computer hardware, and finally recovering a piece of interesting equipment from a derelict battle cruiser and "returning" it to the Imperial Navy - with some decision making help from two platoons of Marines and a atmospheric frigate.

Another panoramic view of the crowd... all but Beth.

Christmas Day Tussle - Kings of War

    It's almost a tradition for my daughter, Katie and I to have a game on Christmas Day or Boxing Day. This year it was Christmas Day with my son, Robb acting as rules source/referee and while he and Beth cooked our non-traditional Christmas dinner - Teriyaki Salmon and a vegetable stir-fry with rice. (Say what you will, Traditionalists, it was delicious!)
    Katie and I fielded Elves and Kings of Men in 10mm for Kings of War, a game set we all enjoy. Katie's 25mm army is still in the process of being painted and the Warmaster armies are available and adaptable. We use metric measure rather than Imperial, measuring in centimeters rather than inches. It works just fine for 10mm figs! There are a few other small adaptations we make as well. We even used the KoW 3rd edition, since the Uncharted Empires book arrived on Christmas Eve.
     After set up, I took the first move and it didn't take long to get into pike range. Robb advised me to make some interesting unit choices; I'd never taken Kings of Men berzerkers before. Katie conscripted assistance from her cat, Maeve, who insisted on smacking around a bolt thrower or dice when ever she could! We played a scenario called "Loot."

KoM knights and mounted scouts with a wizard on the far left.

A horde of pikes with muskets to left and right.
"The Captain" is in command.
A lot of the figures are from my collection of English Civil War/Thirty Years War
troops in 10mm (Either Pendrakon or Old Glory)

On the far right flank, behind a hill, a cannon, a troop of  musketmen,
a regiment of berzerkers (actually Galloglaich), and Tiny, the giant in his 10mm form.
(Old Glory, Pendrakon, and a GW giant)

Elves in opposition.
I don't know the Elf list very well, but I know it includes heavy cavalry, bows,
spears (there was a horde), and bolt throwers.

More Elven cavalry.
The stand turned sideways is light horse archers. GW's Warmaster originally mounted
all cavalry 2 wide by 2 deep. For KoW, 4 wide by 1 deep would be better, but I'm too lazy
to rip figures off the stands just now.

Elven bows and cavalry moving so fast the camera couldn't catch the action.

A 15mm "grasshopper gun" in service as a howitzer or siege artillery.

Elf spear horde vs. Mannish pike horde and shot

Elf cavalry caught the mounted scouts and destroyed them.
I almost always arm the scouts with "black powder" weapons.
3rd edition makes no distinction between pistols or carbines like 2nd edition.

From the Elvish side.
The Elf magic user rides a windstorm.
The small dice indicate casualties,

As Tiny and the berserkers advance against the Elvish cavalry, the muskets and cannon
hang back... because you can't move and shoot with black powder weapons!

{"I'm gonna get that bolt thrower yet! You'll see!}

Elves charge out of the forest. Believe it or not, the muskets held on.

The knights advance tentatively with the wizard on the flank.
Charging a spear phalanx is suicide since their formation nullifies
the cavalry's Thunderous Charge bonuses.

In a maneuver Robb said he'd never seen, the berserkers and Tiny charge downhill
 against an Elven hero, with Tiny taking the flank.
It was not pretty.
The dime coin is an improvised loot counter.

Spears and pikes mix it up. The spears got hurt.

As the musketeers hold on against the cavalry, the pikes wheel to flank the cavalry
and tear them up.

   After that flanking movement came, Katie conceded the game and I was declared the winner. I don't win often so this was a Christmas surprise.

"The Captain" (GW)
I use a different, less armoured figure in 25mm 

The human wizard whom I call Dermot the Inevitable (GW)

Tiny
Note the cringing figure on the ground behind his left foot.
A nice and very whimsical GW figure

 

The Elven Magic User (GW)
The whirlwind is a nice touch.

{"Where'd them fig'gers go?"}