First ACW Electronic Brigadier Game - Last game of 2024

We held our monthly game night this past Friday. It doesn't always work out that we can have December game night due to the holidays, but this year it did. The game I ran was a scenario converted from the "Caldwell Clears the Wheatfield" scenario from Volume 2 of the Fire and Fury Regimental Scenarios book. This scenario is quite well designed, and I look forward to using other scenarios from these excellent books in future games. 

For the Confederates, we had Rob and new-to-Electronic Brigadier player John. On the attacking Union side, Veteran players Phil, Kevin and Byron.

The obligation to attack is on Caldwell's 1st division shown here in the foreground. They must drive the surging Confederates from the Wheat field, oat field and back through the woods behind both. Although the Union have a significant advantage in numbers, there are some challenges bringing everything to bear in a coordinated attack. In our play test, Ed M did this marvelously, but also had the benefit of sole command of all of the Union forces.

Here about mid-game Byron's attack has carved a significant hole in the Confederate line, driving one of the Georgian regiments back. While Rob tries to rally them, John denies flank in the center preventing Byron from following up. John also brings in a large South Carolinian regiment from his reserve just in time.  As seen Phil's large green Pennsylvanian regiment charges through the Oat Field (left in the open) but was subsequently repulsed. John's follow-up counterattack driving the green regiment back over the artillery. At game conclusion John captured one section of guns on the road. 

Byron and Kevin conducted one final coordinated attack on the Confederate right flank. This attack included some fresh reinforcements from Kevin's command. Unfortunately for the Union, the defending Georgians had just enough punch left in their defensive fire to force a firefight from most of the smaller attacking units, breaking up the attack and allowing the larger Georgia regiment to turn the one regiment that made it into close combat away.

A well played affair by both sides with one charge in particular being a very fortunate roll of the virtual dice in the melee resolution. The plucky confederate defenders turning a larger Union unit away with a roll of 97 (out of 100) vs a roll of 12. Anything less than this and I'm sure the union would have broken a second hole in the Confederate line securing a much different outcome!  Next time I'll run this scenario will be Saturday Morning at the Mayhem convention during the Saturday morning session.

Two 15mm Sherman Calliope T34 Tanks

These are two 3D-printed 15mm Sherman Calliope tanks. I needed something to track available artillery missions for my O-Group Americans and these seemed the treat for that purpose. 

The files were free from a 1:200 scale armor pack which required I scale the models up, but they still look fantastic at 15mm (1:100). 

Turrets are magnetized. Decals are by Battlefront Miniatures. 

Not much else to say. 15mm vehicles in OD green go pretty fast on the painting table. These took longer to print than they did to paint. I'm loving my 3D printer for filling in such gaps in my collection as needed. Nothing like 'always available' inventory when you need it.

Two 15mm Built-Up-Areas for Napoleonic through WWII Gaming

I made up these two 15mm BUAs primarily for use with the 'O' Group WWII rules. They can as easily be used for any 15mm gaming from Napoleonics through WWII. 

The farmhouse and stable were resin pieces pulled from my 'dead lead' box. I believe I purchased these about 20 years ago. The walls I 3D printed. All pieces were painted and glued to a custom laser-cut base. A trough and wagon were added. I think the trough was from Musket Miniatures and the wagon might be Essex. 

The small house and outhouse may look familiar to regular readers of this blog. This is a reduced scale of the "Small Italian Farmhouse" that I printed and painted in 28mm scale a few posts back. The outhouse was a free STL file and the walls come from the same STL pack that the house comes from. Coincidentally, these are the same walls that I used above in the farm complex.

 

Both pieces are designed to have some open space to accommodate a few stands of 15mm figures. Here's an 'action shot' of the farmhouse being garrisoned by some US infantry.

I'm counting these as two 'terrain/misc' in my annual painting totals.

15mm 3D-Printed Greyhound M-8 Armored Cars

Last Thursday I realized that I needed an M8 Armored car for my American force in an 'O' Group game I was hosting the following night. On my lunch hour I started the 3D printer on these three. An hour at the painting table after work finished them up. Liquid at noon, table ready after dinner. Bob's your uncle!

Three 15mm figures to this year's totals.

 

15mm WWII Americans for 'O' Group

I purchased these figures on Ebay recently to complete my US infantry for 'O' Group.  My collection is primarily based, and was originally intended for Flames of War. In Flames of War a US platoon is the force shown: seven infantry stands and a small base bazooka team. For 'O' group this is two three-stand platoons, an extra infantry team and a bazooka support section, usually deployed in two or three section teams. 

 

These came fairly well painted. I did some touch-ups due to damage in shipping, added some additional details to the helmets and webbing and gave the bases a spruce up with static grass to hide some questionable basing choices. 

 

 

I'll count these only as 'purchased 15mm figures'. The touch-up work wasn't significant enough to warrant credit on my annual totals. 

First .STL Files Created - Markers for 'O' Group

There are .STL files for 'O' Group markers available for sale, but they appear to be made for resin filament 3D printers. Because of this the markings on them seem a bit 'chunky' to me for 15mm figures. Since I have a resin printer, I thought I'd take this as an opportunity to spend some time learning Fusion 360 and design some for resin 3D printers. 

This is the suppression/pinning tracking triangle that is unique to 'O' Group. I've sized it so it will not only work with large and medium bases, but also small bases (not shown). 

My printer can print twenty (20) of these at a time, directly on the build plate. I've finally dialed in the printer well enough that 'elephant foot' isn't much of an issue for things such as these. 

 

 

 

Order and Company Order markers are also just now finished. I'll continue on the rest of the lesser-used markers later this week. I'll count this as one 'terrain/misc' created.

15mm WWII Recent Acquisitions

 I'm still fleshing out my 15mm American WWII force for Blitzkrieg Commander 4. Here you see some recent purchases. These include some American Ranger infantry and heavy weapons, two M-16 Motor gun carriage halftracks, five Shermans and four German Stug assault guns.

These figures took a real beating in shipping. The infantry probably was the best off with only a gun here or there broken off. I did some touch up painting on some of the heavy weapons and added grass flock to the barren brown bases. This was a planned 'to-do' when I bought them. My intention was to get them to more closely match my other American infantry.

The Rangers came complete with bazooka teams, command, 80mm mortars and .30-cal air-cooled MG teams. A nice complete force.

The M-16 motor gun carriage halftracks took the most damage of any of the vehicles. Both gun assemblies including crew were broken off. Fenders were irreparably broken and there was chipped paint everywhere. I repaired and re-painted what I could and left the irreparable portions broken and painted them up as bare metal 'battle damage'. The save makes them tabletop ready. Nothing to be super proud of, but serviceable.

 

The Sherman tanks are well painted. Three had their barrels broken off in shipping. I glued then back on and that was about it.

The Stug III tanks were by far the most well painted. Three of the four barrels were broken. Two at the 'snout' and one mid barrel. The former were relatively easy to repair with minimal visual impact. The latter, not so much. I did my best. 

These Stugs pretty much finish up my German force for Blitzkrieg commander.

My entire American force in 15mm.

15mm WWII American 57mm Anti-Tank Guns

Recently our club has become re-interested in 15mm due to the recent printing of the Blitzkrieg Commander 4. I had a significant collection from my Flames of War days, but a much smaller American force. I was able to pick up some needed units from Ebay. One glaring empty spot in my collection was American anti-tank guns. Ebay provided me no relief, so I ended up having to purchase this pack from battlefront miniatures and paint it up myself.

I haven't painted 15mm figures in a long time. Since then my eyes have become a lot older. I think I did an acceptable job on these, but I wouldn't say that I enjoyed painting them as much as I enjoy painting 28mm these days. Twelve 15mm to the painting totals for the year.

Blitzkrieg Commander - American Figures - Ebay Purchases and Re-basing

With my previous post showing the new German infantry in my collection, here are some Americans I also recently purchased from Ebay. This group required re-basing and also in some cases repair and re-painting.  Included are two 105mm artillery guns, two .50 cal heavy machine guns, a platoon of infantry with a commander and a command jeep. 

The /50 cal machine guns were based in the same brown gravel as some of the Germans from the previous post. The 'bushes' were just clumps of railroad ballast glued into strange clumps, painted black and dry brushed white. I GUESS they were supposed to be rock walls? I painted them dark green, then flocked them with blended turf. Now they look like proper foliage. The bases re-turfed with static grass.  After all this work I ended up having too many .50 cal guns so these were gifted to my friend Phil.

The 105mm artillery guns are both broken off the stands and the infantry was poorly painted. The guns were painted in a single color. I gave them a black wash and some highlighting. I gave the crews some touch ups, re-terrained the bases with static grass, tufts and foliage clumps and permanently attached the guns. I'm not sure that I 'needed' these, but the came with the rest of the figures, so I am happy to have them. 

The infantry and Jeep just needed to have their basses grassed and tufts added. The uniforms are a bit too vivid, but that's not something I'm willing to address. They're perfectly fine for my table!

These infantry I purchased in a separate lot and they're good to go out of the box. Included are infantry, command stands, bazooka stands and four .50 cal machine guns. The latter are why I gave the other two .50 cal MGs to my friend Phil.  This group contains a single 57mm anti-tank gun. I'd like to get another one or two to round out the force.

I'm also short on infantry compared to my Germans. I'll be keeping my eye out for a couple more platoons of GIs, or maybe even some airborne.

Also purchased with this group, four .30-cal machine gun teams, another command stand and another bazooka team.

Finally vehicles included with these 'lots' and one group of tank-destroyers purchased separately. I haven't touched these yet. They need some minor repairs and weathering, but are pretty close to tabletop ready. They include plenty of half tracks to mount up the infantry as armored infantry. That might also explain the copious amount of .50 caliber MGs. 

About the only thing that's missing here would be some sort of half-track anti-aircraft vehicle.

Return to 15mm WWII - Blitzkrieg Commander 4 - Ebay Purchases and Re-basing

Recently my friend John has got me interested in 15mm WWII by introducing me to Blitzkrieg Commander 4th edition by Pendraken Miniatures. In the past I've played a lot of Flames of War, but eventually got out of it as it was more played as a competitive rule set than for general multi-person historical battles. Having sold off a lot of my armies, I was in the position to have to get some late-war German Infantry to go with the late-war German tanks and Kradschutzen platoons that I still had.  

The group of infantry shown to the left I acquired on Ebay, and they match my existing collection's basing quite closely. I didn't think I needed to do anything to them to put them straight onto the table.

That solved my infantry problem, but I was still short support weapons, heavy machine guns (tripod mounted MG-34/42), mortars and especially some Pak-40 anti-tank guns. I picked up an additional three smaller auctions but those figures needed some re-basing to be used with the rest of my collection.

Here are the two Pak-40 anti-tank guns. The guns themselves were nicely painted, but the figures needed some touch-ups here and there. Also the basing was very crude. It was simply sand painted brown and dry-brushed. There were craters where there were empty holes in the pre-made bases. I filled the holes, and re-based with static grass, tufts and foliage clumps.

This 37mm Anti-Aircraft gun was based in just sand, but in an emplacement. The sand looked appropriate in the dugout, but I added bushes and static grass to the outside.

Here are the tripod-mounted MG-34/42 stands. A couple of these were missing the actual weapon, it having previously broken off. I replaced them from my spared box and repainted. The figures also needed some touch-ups. The bases had the same dark brown sand basing. Re-based with static grass, foliage clumps and grass tufts as well. The front three stands look like they may have originally been painted by the GAJO miniatures service.

Mortars. Although these all look like 81mm mortar models, the two different figure manufacturers make the rear two stands tubes look a lot smaller. I could possibly use this to call the front stands 100mm mortars I guess. Similarly to the MGs the front three stands look like they might be GAJO-painted minis. Same re-basing was required here. 

The rest of these figures are of my existing collection of vehicles and dismounted crews for the motorcycle and kubelwagon teams. Many of these have been featured earlier on this blog.