Battle of Praeneste (Part II)

Yesterday Charlie and I got together to finish up the battle of Praeneste that's been sitting on my gaming table half completed since before my surgery. Charlie did a good job of finishing off the Romans continuing his good play and very hot dice. In this session Charlie was able to kill six (6) more Roman battle groups while I managed to kill a Carthaginian elephant. Thank goodness they break when only one is killed or I would have been skunked for the day.

Charlie, Mike and I will get together soon to play out some more board game moves and get another tabletop game set up. So far this system has made for some very good tabletop games.

Below you can see the aftermath. Roman dead on the left, Carthaginian on the right.

December 2012 Game Night

Last Friday our club got together for our December game night. These are a treat because we only have them when there is a Friday between Christmas and New Years Day that doesn't interfere with either holiday. Three games were run. Here are some photo's of Phil's 15mm ACW game of the battle of Antietam's sunken road action for the 150th anniversary of the year of the battle.

 Next up was Ed's 6mm 'Armies at Lutzen' 30 Years War game. This is what Ed calls a 'Battle Management' game putting the players in the role of wing commanders rather than unit commanders. Stress is put on having units in and out of combat to manage fatigue, etc. The figures don't show up well in these photos but each stand was a tiny diorama depicting unit shapes and formations.

I played in Ralph's 28mm WWII game which used Frank Chadwick's 'Men Under Fire' rules.  This game featured a German defense of a town and train against an attacking American force of infantry and limited armor support. This was a good game where the Americans destroyed us with a flank attack with their armor with the Germans not having any of their anti-tank assets in the right place to stop it.

All I Want For Christmas Is GAMING!

Last Friday I got together for some pre-Christmas gaming with my good friends Mike, Josh and Scott and a new friend Alex who I've met before but only gamed with for one short game. We all got some time off from work to get in some long overdue board gaming.

We started out with an all-vs-the game spaceship rescue game which I forget the name of. We went 1 and 1 against that game. After that we broke out Endeavor as my choice. I proceeded to stink up the joint coming in I think dead last. After that Josh (or was it Scott?) picked Power grid which Mike was able to win beating me out on a tie breaker having the same number of cities but beating me handily on cash holdings. We finished up with a game of Small World, which I thought I was doing poorly in, but ended up second to Scott by a couple of points.

I've never had so much fun getting my ass kicked all day. We always have fun gaming as a group. Hopefully we can pull off another day of gaming soon. This session might possibly get documented over on Scott's blog, Settlers of Dune, but don't hold your breath - he's a bit behind on updating it.

Walken In A Winter Wonderland

I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year - or alternative holidays that you and your family may celebrate.

I'll be on shut down from work the week between Christmas and New Years day. During that week I have a lot of gaming planned. Look for a flurry of blog activity over the next two weeks or so.

AJ

15mm AWI Game

Last Friday night we got together at my friend George's house to play some wing scale AWI using Volley & Bayonet. George has recently finished construction on his wargame shed he calls 'the clubhouse' and it's quite a nice place to game.

The game was a return to wing scale V&B for Revolutionary War battles. Since it was George's first game in this scale in a few years we felt our way through the game and had a pleasant time. My friend Mike had some very nice sharpshooters which did quite a nice job of obliterating my force - see the dead on the windowsill. It was mostly an action of attrition as once he had done his damage my remaining force was able to kill his sharpshooters and push into the vacated woods only to be sent packing by another American regiment.

Wing scale V&B works nicely. I promised to put on one of my scenarios for George at an upcoming game night sometime this spring - probably April. I think it might just be time to revisit Monmouth courthouse again. That is one of my favorite scenarios for AWI V&B.

28mm Numidian Light Cavalry

This is the first of several 28mm units that I'm painting up for an upcoming First Punic War campaign that a few of my wargame club friends and I will be partaking of next year. Several of our group have 28mm hoplites that have been gathering dust. With our recent increase in enthusiasm for the Field of Glory (FOG) ancients rules they have decided to re-base for FOG. Not having any 28mm ancient figures I thought I would contribute to the effort by filling in some of the missing battle groups needed for the campaign.

This is the first of those battle groups - a six (6) stand unit of Numidian light cavalry. The figures are from Old Glory and were nice clean sculpts with good animation. My only minor complaint is the galloping horses are too long to fit on a 40mm deep base. This required me to mount this unit on 50mm deep bases. Even with the enlarged base depth I still had to trim the galloping horse bases about 5mm. Spears and javelins are 1/64" steel 'piano' wire sharpened to a point and then dulled for safety. Each is glued into a hole through the figures hand insuring a secure grip. I hope they will last a nice long time.

The shields that come with the figures are all the domed shields. I chose to replace half of these with flat round shields I made on my laser engraver. I'm more used to seeing Numidian shields feature hide-covered flat shields than domed ones. Both types shields were adorned with hand-painted decorations: hide patterns for the flat shields and appropriate symbols for the domed shields.

This is the second unit I've shaded with the Army Painter Quick Shade product. This time I diluted the quick shade 3 parts quick shade to one part mineral spirits. I very much liked the results and will continue to use this ratio until my can of quick shade thickens up a bit more from evaporation.

A Swarthy Crew (2)

This is another thirteen man pirate crew to hopefully allow me to man a second boat in our club's pirate games. This will allow me to bring a guest to the next game once I finish painting and rigging my second boat. These are old glory figures that I painted myself. These are the first figures I've shaded with the Army Painter quick shade. I hedged my bets and thinned the quick shade 50/50 with mineral spirits in fear that the shading would be too dark. Next time I think I'll go with two parts quick shade and one part thinner. Still the effect was controllable and produced the desired results.

Bay Pirates

I know you're asking yourself, "what the heck is a bay pirate?". Well one you buy off of Ebay of course! This is a mix of Old Glory and Foundry pirates I purchased from a private seller on two separate Ebay auctions. They appear as if they were painted using the Army Painter dip method. The painter used nice light base colors which worked quite well with the Army Painter quick shade. All I did was to re-base them all to match my other pirates.

Next up is another unit of pirates. The next unit is one that I've painted up myself. Between these and the one I've just finished I think I have plenty of crews for our next big pirate game.

Hannibal's Veteran African Spearmen

These three units of veteran African spearmen will form the core of my Carthaginian army's main battle line. When facing a Roman opponent these are the units that turn Roman legions into fleeing masses. These figures were all painted by commission by the Field of Glory Painting Service.  I found working with them to be a complete pleasure. They are based in the UK and their level of communication and service is excellent. With a few emails I was able to select unit color choices and pose compositions. After a final price was agreed upon they added in a free gift of the Hannibal command stand which is VERY impressive and a much welcomed addition to my army.

As you can see the figures are well painted with good detailed shading on the shields and figures. The colors are spot on as far as matching what I requested. I asked for more muted earthy versions of red, blue and green and what was delivered was exactly what I wanted. The best part is the figures were competitive with regards to pricing when compared to other commercial vendors. The added benefit of using this service is you get to choose unit sizes, colors and poses. I'd put the figures on a solid 7+ on the GAJO scale and the command stand easily rates an 8.

I wouldn't hesitate to use this painting service again. In fact I might be ordering some Spanish large and small shield cavalry from them soon to complete my Carthaginian army. With quality like this it's hard to justify painting the figures myself.

American Continentals

This is a unit of generic American Continental infantry that I purchased from Ebay from one of my favorite sellers, 'kendobear'. They came based for another rule set, so I've re-based them for Volley & Bayonet to match my other figures. Since this was an 18 figure unit I was able to make a formed unit of two stands and two skirmish stands. The figure selection lent itself nicely to this basing as there were just enough figures in light infantry hats to make the skirmish stands look the part.

The flag is from warflag.com. I chose a generic flag for the unit to stay safe. I expect this unit to play many roles and didn't want the flag to limit the units usefulness.

Napoleonic French Dragoons

This is four brigades of French dragoons. The figures are another Ebay purchase from a private seller. I've of course re-based these for use with Volley & Bayonet on 2/3 sized stands like all of my other Napoleonic figures. These were a great deal and I needed a couple more brigades of Dragoons. I wasn't really in need of FOUR brigades, but it's hard to buy less than a dozen 15mm painted cavalry on Ebay. I'm sure I'll be able to put the extra two stands to work at some point. Who can't use an extra division of dragoons now and then?

'Spanish' Slingers

These were purchased from the same EbayUK private seller as the previous javelin-armed unit. These were labeled 'Spanish' but I think they could easily pass for just about anything, including Balearic slingers owing to the fact that a majority of them are carrying shields. The shields will also give me the option of fielding these as 'protected' skirmishers should I wish to. Again these were a good value for your average tabletop quality paint job.

Spanish Javelin Skirmishers

This is the first of two Spanish skirmish units I purchased from a private seller on EbayUK. I purchased these because the helmets looked right for what I expected Spanish to look like and they were already based. I did re-terrain the bases to match my own bases as the came simply painted with green paint. These are simply painted, but were very affordable. They will give me the option of fielding a lot of light troops should I wish to try to force a Roman opponent into fighting on a densely terrained table.

It never hurts to have a few more bases of skirmishers for your ancient battles.