Samnite Linnen Legion

These figures represent a portion of the Samnite 'linen legion'. The linen legion, is mentioned in Livy and is reported to have been comprised of religious purists. The white of their tunics and shields and the silvering of their arms and armor were because white and silver were colors that symbolized this religious purity. As part of a larger Samnite army these figures would be part of the elite portion of the army. As mercenaries in my Roman, Carthaginian or Pyrrhic armies they'll represent a half-legion or division of soldiers and skirmishers. Later on if I paint up a full Samnite army I would add the spear line to these units to complete the legion. Like my previous Samnite unit, these are Old Glory figures with Aventine shields.

 

Also painted with these figures were three additional Campanian hoplite figures to round out a third unit as part of an upcoming re-basing effort for a previously painted unit. These figures will receive their matte varnish as part of the re-basing process.

With these three, this is another 24 figures added to this year's painting totals. The frigid weather this winter has had a positive influence on my painting, that's for sure.

Northern Conspiracy - Game Day February 2016

Yesterday, our new club president Charlie organized the first game day of the year. The event was a one-day campaign re-creating the opening moves of the 1809 War of the Fifth Coalition. Organizing this game day was a herculean effort by Charlie aided by Ed, Ralph, Bob and me by bringing a significant portion of the troops. In addition to organizing the campaign and writing the rules, Charlie brought over half of the Austrian forces to the game - hundreds of figures.



The day started out with a brief overview of Charlie's rules, Napoleon's Rules of War.

This was followed by some map moves, mostly pre-planned prior to the game day which resulted in four separate, but simultaneous battles being fought. Pictured here, the French high command, Ralph and Ed, conferencing.

After the initial map moves, the games could begin. Each would be considered a sizable game, but as a whole, an epic offering with over 500 28mm figures involved over 36 feet of tables, and over 20 players.

I had more than my hands full just playing on my own table. There we inflicted many more casualties than we sustained, but didn't break through the French lines, which was our objective. Elsewhere across the room similar outcomes were happening on each table. My personal thanks to Earl, who took many of the early day photos while he was waiting for his command to arrive onto a table. You can even see the rare photo of me below left moving my troops, thanks to Earl.

NROW Play Test #5 at Ralph's

Last Friday we all got together for the final play test of Napoleon's Rules of War before our club's February Game day. With a lot on the line, representation from both the French and Austrian teams was high enough to require some turn coats for the play test. Below, pictured on the left, the Austrians, Ed, Bob, Ralph and George, on the right the French Mark D., Earl, Rob and Byron.

Charlie is down to the finer tuning points for the scenario and rules. The new combat mechanism seems to be working nicely. There were some discussions about how to attack with poorer quality troops, and if larger battalions needed some adjusting to better represent the advantages of their size. Other than that things seem to be working nicely. 

For the game, the tabletop was dominated by a walled farm. I put my command, a larger Austrian regiment, into the village, while supporting the open center with my artillery battery behind a wall I shared with Ralph's infantry. On the left both sides attempted to advance, but both sides retreated after heavy losses from enemy short range artillery fire. On the far left George repulsed one charge attempt made by Mark.

In the center, Earl did a good job of putting hits on my troops in the town, eventually causing me to have to back out of some of the buildings. My one attempt at charging his troops to chase them away ended up a miserable failure with my troops routing back to their rear.

On the Austrian right, Bob and Ed used their combined arms of Bob's artillery and Ed's cavalry to square up the French, bombard their squares and eventually out flank the French cavalry routing it. After that our cavalry was mostly trapped behind French lines.

We called the game when the time got late and the snow started to fall. No decision on this battle, but plenty of great feedback about the rules that Charlie can use to tune things for game day.

28mm Austrian Grenzers

These are two units of Austrian grenzers. They're an entire bag of Old Glory figures which comes with two of each command, officer and standard bearer figures and 24 regular figures. I've since ordered and received six more of the specialty figures to be able to use these figures as four three-stand units, appropriate for both Charlies Napoleon's Rules of War rules as well as my Electronic Brigadier rules.

28mm Napoleonic Officers

These are six mounted Austrian officers that I painted. They come from Old Glory's Austrian personality pack. Posed in this council of war grouping they look particularly Austrian to me, with no consensus of opinion and even one indifferent chap on the left. These have been based up as two higher command stands and two single regimental command stands. These were particularly quick to paint as Austrian officer uniforms tend to be relatively simple and most of these were wearing great coats which reduced the amount of detail painting required quite a bit.

The four mounted French officers below I purchased pre-painted off of Ebay. I figured they fit in best here with the Austrians I painted myself rather than posting them separately. I'll count all of these mounted officer figures as two figures per in my painted and purchased counts since they're mounted.

28mm Samnite 'Colorful' Legion

Despite having one of the most productive months at the painting table this past January, this blog hasn't shown it. It's been VERY cold and snowy here. Since I take my photographs outside with natural light, the to-be-photographed lead has been piling up. Today we got a small window of warm-ish weather so out I went to clear the photography queue. I'll be posting units over the next few days, mostly in order of how excited I am about the units. So here's the cream of the crop, a 28mm Samnite 'colorful' legion. These are based for Hanibal at the Gates and would actually represent a half legion, or a 'division' in HATG terms. Eventually if I ever plan to field these as part of a complete Samnite army I'll paint the other half legion. For now these will be used as mercenaries in my Carthaginian, Phyrric or Roman armies as needed.

The figures are Old Glory from their Italian Wars ancients line. I've added the characteristic Samnite shields which I ordered from Crusader Miniatures. An aside about Crusader Miniatures, their customer service I found to be excellent, even ordering directly from the United States. I'm putting these down in the painting totals as 25 figures. I painted one extra musician (not shown) which will be used in an upcoming re-basing effort.

The figures are comprised of three stands of peltasts, classified as 'soldiers' in HATG and three stands of psoli classified as 'foot skirmishers'. I've mixed in plenty of striped tunics and wildly colorful shields and helmet decorations to represent a Samnite colorful legion as opposed to the Samnite linen legion. The latter will be the subject of a future painting project which is currently on the table.

NROW Play Test #4 at Charlie's

Last night a group of us got together at Charlie's gaming loft to continue our testing of his Naploeonics rule set, Naploeon's Rules of War. Pictured to the left, the French contingent, Ed, Ralph, Byron and Robert. On the Austrian side were Charlie, Peter Bob and me.

Charlie has made some good improvements, streamlining the close combat procedures. We found a few places where the +/- factors need to be tweaked a little, but the new procedures are a huge improvement both in speed and ease of play.

For the game Charlie picked two similar sized forces withe the French being higher quality than the Austrians. Given that knowledge of course the Austrians decided this is a perfect time to attack! Bob led our assault on the right flank. On the left the French turned our flank with a regiment of curiassers while  launching their own assault against a position we had on a hill. My job was to assault through a gap in two hills. You can see the one attempt I made below to the right.

Both Ed and I had some difficulty assaulting each other. There were some wild dice across the board with a lot of snake-eyes to boxcars rolls going each way. Most of the column assaults were repulsed and costly, but eventually the French brought up their reinforcements before we did and my command was all but eliminated at the cost of only one French infantry battalion. On the right, Bob was more successful but not enough to call the game anything but a solid French win.

Below, to the left 'before' - the high water mark of my Austrian attack. To the right the 'after' a hole in the line where my regiment once was.