Small 28mm Bahnhof (Train Station) WIP

My uncle has been wanting a small train station for his 28mm Bolt Action tables. He has some good track and a train, and what European town doesn't have a train station? This past Sunday we got together and designed one in the CAD system and cut the parts on the laser. These are the in-progress shots of the shell made from the parts straight off the laser with just glue added. Hopefully with some paint and roof texture this will make a fine addition to his table.

We aimed for a small village station. Buildings in 28mm tend to dominate the table even when on the small side. This village station has room for a ticket booth and some sitting area, and doors to the street, train platform and loading platform. The train platform has a cantilevered roof to shield passengers from the elements. The building will eventually be painted in a stucco finish and there are faux stone corner block details that will be glued on after the stucco finish is applied. Both my uncle and I are quite happy with the model so far. I'm excited enough about it I plan to make one for myself and obtain some track and a train.

28mm Large Residence - WIP #2

Here are some more WIP shots of my 28mm European large residence for WWI and WWII skirmish gaming. I've added roof tiles using vacuform plastic sheet. I've painted them to represent slate roofing, which looks ok. I could have painted them as red clay tiles, but I was afraid that would have given the building too much of a Mediterranean feel which I didn't want. I've added window 'lights' (the inner frames for the individual panes) and smaller chimney liners which seem to be very characteristic of European multi-level dwellings. There's some photos at the bottom showing how the building opens up to allow access for figures.

Still on the to-do list is creating suitable front and back doors, painting the shutter hinge hardware in where the laser marks are, and working on the rear lean-to shed/outhouse. It's also possible I may add a walled front yard with some grass similar to what Matashiki did with his. I also need to do at least one more pass of dry-brushing to bring out more detail. The last pass will probably with higher contrast colors in a more random pattern to mimic the effect Matashiki got with his finished building.

Black Powder - Freeman's Farm Game (2)

Today was our monthly Black Powder game day at Adler Hobby. After playing a bunch of fun games I felt it was time for me to pay the group back and run a game. I decided to run my Freeman's Farm game which I've run two other times recently. I already had it boxed up and I knew it was fairly balanced. Our normal day for Black Powder is the first Sunday of the month, but with tomorrow being the Super Bowl we opted for a Saturday this month. The four players were Gordon and Eric as the Americans and Newcomer Dan and Myself as the British.

Both sides had quite a bit of difficulty getting their armies to deploy. My wing had considerable trouble thanks to Morgan's light brigade pestering me from some dense woods. Dan's German mercenaries and British regulars had considerable trouble dislodging Poore's brigade from the Freeman farmhouse.

As the battle progressed the Americans deftly silenced two of the British light batteries with small arms fire and then started whittling away at the British and German battalions. After 8 or so turns Dan and I agreed that the Americans had the field well in hand. With our commands significantly weakened and without artillery the British left the field to the Americans. Well played by both Eric and Gordon.

I've now run this game three times with a major British victory, a major American victory and a virtual draw. It's always good when a scenario ends up showing good balance with victories achievable by both sides. Hopefully I can keep this scenario to be available to run again on another day when we have 6 players.

Gordon posted a bunch more photos of the game on his picasa site here (see the last 9 photos in the gallery).

BP Freeman's Farm & Northern Conspiracy Game Night

Last Friday night I ran my Black Powder Freeman's Farm game at our club's game night. We're still learning the rules so we made a couple mistakes but still ended up with a fun game. This was a very closely fought game for the entire night. At the end the British force saw the German flanking force exhausted while the Americans had Poore's brigade becoming very close to exhaustion due to suffering several lost units. All but a draw I called this one a narrow British victory as I felt that they had a slightly better position. It wouldn't have been inconceivable that a few more turns could have easily seen the tide turn towards the American's cause. Photos here are in roughly chronological order.

We had two other great games at game night. New pledge member Gordon ran his modified Axis & Allies War At Sea game with a Mediterranean 1940 hypothetical scenario and Earl ran his popular Brother Against Brother ACW game with it's beautiful terrain. Reports from both games were that they were very enjoyable. I was too busy running my game to spend a lot of time watching either game but took the snapshots below of them in progress.

Also Andre was present and received the Sportsman of the Year trophy that the club elected him to receive at our November business meeting. Congratulations Andre!

Black Powder - Freeman's Farm Game

Tonight we played the Freeman's Farm Black Powder game that I set up earlier in the week. I had initially intended on playing the game verbatim from the book, but with extra players expected I expanded the scenario with some creative alternative history. I put Von Breymann's brigade for the British on a faster timetable for their arrival and for the Americans I engaged Patterson's brigade in the battle when historically they remained on Bemis heights. This gave me what I thought would be a good 6-person game. My friends George and Byron played the British While Chris, Charlie and Mike played the Americans. We had one last minute cancellation so Byron and George let me as GM push Von Breymann's flanking force. By the time they arrived the game was mostly running smoothly so I was able to have a little fun pushing troops and answering only the occasional question about rules, etc.

The British had GREAT command rolls in their first few turns and entered the game at almost a dead run crossing the stream and setting up the beginning of some good battle lines. About two-thirds of the way through deploying their lines they had some commanders start to falter and issue only partial commands, but nothing that seriously hampered them.

The Americans were not as fortunate and trickled on at a much more leisurely pace. In the photo above you can see the British mostly deployed while Poor's brigade in the east (top of the photo) are still marching on and Learned's brigade in the west (bottom of the photo) are also bottled up a bit on the road by the British Indians and Canadian loyalists.

Things stabilized and entered into a general engagement after that. Dearborn's regiment held up the British advance in the Farmhouse while Poor's brigade with good support started to soften up Hamilton's (British) brigade. In the west Fraser's (British) brigade was fairing better against Learned's brigade with Patterson's brigade rushing into the middle of the battlefield to plug a gap caused by Poor's brigade's slow deployment. (See below two photos)

As the battle rolled on Learned's brigade finally collapsed in the west but Patterson was able to fill the void left in the American lines due to some of the mounting casualties on some of Fraser's units. Just after the left photo below was taken Poor's brigade finished off Hamilton's brigade collapsing it. With only one unit lost Poor turned it's attention to the German attack on the eastern flank. (see photo below right.

We ended up calling the game around 11:45. We probably had 3-4 more turns to come to a clear conclusion, but as GM if I were to call it I'd say the British had a slight advantage. Although Hamilton's command was collapsed, his two-gun battery could still continue to punish the Americans and Fraser and Von Breymann's brigades were still quite strong. Poor's brigade was fairly strong as was Patterson's but the American commands were of lower quality and Patterson's command was fairly small.

This was a very fun game to run and everyone played well and picked up the Black Powder rules fairly quickly. Some liked the rules a lot more than they expected to which was a fun surprise. With the outcome so close to a draw the big winner was everyone for having fun!

Black Powder Game - Freeman's Farm Set Up

I'm hosting my first Black Powder game on Friday. Since it's my first time I'm using the Freeman's Farm scenario from the rule book with very few changes. I'm going to be out gaming tomorrow night so I had to set everything up tonight in preparation for the game. Below are a few photos of the tabletop and a couple of photos of some table tent reference cards I made to help us keep track of what the different status markers mean.

Black Powder Napoleonics (2) & FOW League Prizes

Today I got to play another great Black Powder game at Adler hobby hosted by the guys from the Boston Trained Bands. The scenario was from the 1813 Leipzig campaign and featured a Prussian attack on Wartemburg which was defended by Wartemburg infantry and cavalry supported by a brigade of French Infantry which I was able to command. The photo above shows an early turn with the Prussians rushing over a pontoon bridge advancing on a remote village outside Wartemburg. In the foreground you can see the outskirts of Westphalia proper with my French brigade taking up positions on a dike overlooking a stream which is between my troops and the Prussian advance.

Below left is the village being assaulted by the Prussians who had great success early knocking out half of the defending Wartemburgers. The right photo shows the other brigade of Prussians advancing towards the stream and dike with one brave battalion of French advancing out to meet their march columns to hopefully force them to deploy. The tactic had limited success early, but eventually with help from a second French battalion was able to stop the advance on this wing.

Left photo is a close up of the advancing Prussian column - beautifully painted figures! Right photo below is the last advance units of the Prussian force being met by our reserve cavalry and one of my infantry units who were able to rally to the center after repulsing the Prussians on the left flank. This was a great game which could easily have gone either way. The more Black Powder I play the more I think that it lends itself to larger games where the additional units can help average out the large swings in both combat and break checks (morale). With only a few units a couple bad rolls can sink you, but with more units things tend to even themselves out a bit more.

Below is a photograph of me receiving TWO prizes from December's Flames of War league at Adler Hobby. I was lucky enough to win the monthly random draw and also won the sportsman award (thanks much to those who nominated me). Each of these awards gives a blister as a prize (or equivalent credit towards larger boxed sets). I chose as my prize two Wirbelwind AA tanks to add to my late-war German force which I'll be fielding in Adler's upcoming late war league starting sometime in late February or early March. Battlefront generously sponsors the leagues at Adler with great prize support, which is icing on the cake when you add to it that you get a lot of GREAT gaming while you play in the leagues.

7YW Black Powder @ Adler Hobby

This past Sunday was our monthly Black Powder game day at Adler Hobby. The end goal is for the participants to use Black Powder to play 28mm Napoleonic games. While everyone is painting up their forces we're playing games using different people's figure collections for whatever historical period matches the figure collection we're using.

This month's game was hosted by Adam using his 15mm Seven Years War (7YW) Prussian and Austrian armies. For a learning game Adam was asked to come up with a smaller scenario. Adam designed a supply train raid scenario with a smaller Prussian brigade and a relief column of Prussian cavalry opposed by a raiding force of a larger brigade of Austrians. The Prussians were tasked with escaping off the far end of the table with as many of their supply wagons as possible. The Austrian goal was to capture the train by attacking it.

We were able to play two games. We opted to keep our sides for both games and after a day of gaming each team had one win. I'd say that's pretty balanced. The first three photos are from the first game, an Austrian victory:

These last two photos are from the second game, a Prussian victory.

Black Powder Napoleonics

Sunday I played in an invitation-only Black Powder Napoleonics game at Adler Hobby. I was able to renew some friendships with some of the members of the Boston Trained Bands wargaming club who are participating in the Black Powder games at Adler Hobby. I pushed two small brigades of infantry, one composed of Confederation of the Rhine troops and one of Bavarians.

When I saw the size of the game I thought there would be no way we'd get very far with so many troops and so few players, but the rules are definitely 'fast play' and easy to learn. With an occasional hiccup I was playing fairly competently by the third turn with the help of the excellent instruction of the other players. The other thing that allows Black Powder games to play quickly is STUFF DIES. STUFF DIES VERY QUICKLY. If you engage a unit and it's in a disadvantaged situation it's quite likely that it will be eliminated wholesale. Although this is a lower-level game in terms of organization, the way units are removed has a slightly higher scale feel to it.

All in all I left the game with a very positive view of the rule set despite losing three of my five units early in the game at the hands of a devastating set of cavalry charges. It was a fun game with easy to learn rules and good natured opponents that kept things fun. The rules are meant to be low-stress, high-fun and not overly complex or serious. Competition players need not apply.