Royal Artillery 25 lb. Battery

This is a British Royal Artillery 25 lb. artillery battery with staff team and quad tractors to tow it. They are painted up for use with my mid war British armor force but are also viable candidates for use with the new Flames of War Hellfire and Back early war desert book which I'll probably be forming up a force for using my Crusader tanks.

The figures guns and vehicles are all Battlefront brand models. These are my first non-tank bases for the desert so I'm not entirely sure I like my basing scheme yet. I may add some other coloring and or some dead grass clumps at some point in the future.

Northern Conspiracy Game Night - August 2011

Last Friday night I was able to attend our monthly club game night. I played in an excellent war of 1812 game run by my friend Mark using Volley & Bayonet rules. Mark ran this game using the wing scale optional rules which really give V&B a different flavor. He also had several interesting scenario-specific rules. When I say I played, I actually helped two of my guests with the rules as neither had played Volley & Bayonet before. Both of them did great and the British eeked out a win, although the Americans made a strong push during the middle of the battle. Had they not run out of steam things would have gone a lot differently. Both sides played very well and the game was a lot of fun.

The other two games were a Ruso-Turkish War (1877) game also using Volley & Bayonet and a WWII Americans vs Vichi French in Morocco game using Battlefront rules. There are a couple of photos of each below and more can be found on our club's photo gallery.

New England Aviation Museum

 During our recent vacation we also visited the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks Connecticut. The museum has a good collection starting with a Wright Brothers original engine and ending with artifacts from the Apollo space missions. They have an extensive collection of WWII and helicopter artifacts including a complete B-29, B-25, P-47, Corsair, Hellcat and another Hellcat currently under restoration. Their WWI exhibit includes two replicas (Fokker Dr-I and Sikorsky S-16) and an original Hispano Suisa V-8 which was uset to power the SPAD fighters flown by the Lafayette Escadrille. Lori and I enjoyed a wonderful day at the Museum and I highly recommend it to any WWI, WWII or aviation history enthusiasts.

Old Sturbridge Village - AWI Buildings

Old Sturbridge Village is a living history community / museum located in western Massachusetts. It serves to educate and preserve the way of life in 1850s America. As such there are several buildings in their collection that are ripe fruit for the picking when it comes to modeling buildings of the American Revolutionary War. My lovely wife and I visited there on holiday this past week and included in this post are some photos of some of the buildings that would be appropriate to model for the AWI. To the left the collection's 'small house'.

 Quaker meeting house (church).

 Above rural farmhouse, barn and out building. Note the natural unpainted wood siding. To the left corn drying shed for the same farm.

Large family home. This one might be a bit too 'modern' for AWI due mostly to its size.

 Tin smith's shop.

Lumber mill.

Napoleonic Campaign Games

 Last night we played three battles in a Napoleonic campaign that my friend Charlie ran. The campaign was centered around the peninsular / Waterloo campaign with a French force trying to eliminate a Prussian and a British force each about 2/3rs of its size. The photo of the left is the first battle to make it to nightfall on the first day. Since it started late in the afternoon the British (lower army) and French (upper army) both established their lines right as darkness fell on the battlefield. Off screen towards the bottom of the picture is Waterloo.

The next battle was the battle of Ohain which started mid-day with a smaller French corps (top army) against a larger Prussian armeekorps. A few hours later the French received reinforcements in the form of a cavalry corps. The photo on the left is a few turns into the game after both armies had settled into their engagement deployment. On the right their locations at the conclusion of the night turn. 

The last battle to start was the Wavre battle. This was the largest battle which started with a French Corps facing off against a larger Prussian armeekorps. During the battle which started at 07:00 and ended at 19:00, both sides received steady reinforcements. The French in the form of an additional corps each of infantry and cavalry. The Prussians received an additional Prussian armeekorps and just before nightfall a British infantry corps with some attached cavalry arrived. The photo to the left shows the early action with the French pressing to gain the Prussian side of the stream with both sides doing a bit of  'pinwheel of death' maneuvering. The photos below show action late in the day just before the British reinforcements arrived.

The campaign produced a good evening of gaming but at the conclusion the French decided that the uneven odds were too much to overcome so we called the campaign at this point with hopes to take another swing at it at a later time.

Skirmish Movement Trays

My friend Gordon is working on a WWI in Africa skirmish game in 28mm. He has figures individually mounted on fender washers and wanted some movement trays made to match the washer bases. These are two samples I worked up last night. They're staggered formation echelon right and echelon left. They're made to work with Gordon's bases, but the plywood cut outs pictured below on the left could be used for figure bases instead of the washers as well.

These will need to be slightly modified. I got a little over zealous when I was doing the copy-and-paste for the individual figures and ended up with 12-man units instead of 10-man. I'll drop two holes and make up a few more for Gordon with 10 holes in them.

If I receive interest in these I may list them for sale on my website. I can also do custom unit sizes, shapes and base sizes. Just email me to ask.

More Prussian Napoleonics

We're starting up an 1815 peninsular campaign. When the Prussian commander, Ed, asked if I would be willing to be 2iC for the Prussian army I jumped at the chance to get to use my new Prussian army on the tabletop. When Ed and I divided up the OB we found that between us we were still short some troops. Since most of the shortcomings were due to my army being built around the Dennewitz OB, and not the 1815 organization, I decided to fill in some of the gaps. These are more of GAJO's grade 7 painted Napoleonic figures.

Included are a bunch of artillery stands: Heavy, field and horse (denoted with 3, 2 and 1 crew respectively) and three stands of Landwehr infantry. I'm still short a few stands of Reserve infantry, but GAJO was out of these so I'll most likely have to paint my own down the road. Until then I may borrow a couple of stands from another club mate.

Also while I was ordering I picked up one unit of French Empress Dragoons for my French guard.