Spanish Caetrati Light Infantry

This is another unit purchased from Dragon Painting Service on Ebay. This unit is a Spanish Caetrati light infantry unit. Their stock number on this item is "EXRM026". The Carthaginian list requires that you have at least one light infantry unit. This unit fit the bill, was good looking and affordable, especially when I combined shipping with the Hoplites that I posted yesterday. This was another 'make an offer' purchase, although the cost per figure was about the same as the Hoplites, so not quite as good of a deal considering the much simpler paint jobs. Still quite a bargain and another required battle group for my Carthaginian army completed.

Mercenary Greek Hoplites

This is a unit of Greek Hoplites that I purchased from the Ebay merchant Dragon Painting Service. This is their stock number "XYGR002". I used the Ebay feature 'make an offer' and purchased this unit for $64.00 plus shipping which is only a touch over $2.00 per figure for beautifully painted figures with hand painted shields and magnetic bases. This was a steal if there ever was one from the larger painting services.

This unit will become part of the core of offensive spear units in the Carthaginian army I'm building up for Field of Glory. With a core of offensive spears this army will be a good match for my Mid-Republican Roman and Seleucid armies. In our recent 2nd Punic war campaign I've gained a healthy respect for the Carthaginian army....enough respect to want one of my own!

Australian Bofors AA Battery

This is a two-gun Bofors AA battery I purchased from a private seller on Ebay about a month ago. With my pending surgery I've become quite behind posting purchases lately. During my recovery I plan to make up for lost time and clear the backlog. Expect to see a post a day for a week or more as I catch up. There will be plenty for EVERYONE this upcoming week: 15mm, 28mm, Napoleonic, AWI, Ancients, Pirates and WWII.  Mostly purchased items but towards the end I hope to have a few of my own painted units posted.

This is an Australian AA battery, but will also serve dual purpose as part of my desert rats force when needed. The only complaint is I have to do some touch up on the gun barrels where they got bent in shipping and the paint chipped off. Other than that they're marvelously painted and match my basing quite closely. I did add some Silfor grass clumps to better match my units, but besides that they're as I received them.

Bolt Action Demo at Adler Hobbies

Yesterday my uncle and I attended a Bolt Action demo game and tutorial at Adler Hobby.  The demo game was run by Chris Rett, with players each taking a turn as either the Americans or Germans. It was a great way to learn the rules, which Chris expertly taught to each player. Between these and the Under Fire rules I've also been exposed to recently it looks like I have a lot of great 28mm WWII gaming in my future.

On a personal note, I have surgery tomorrow. I didn't get any extra blog posts queued up, so this blog will be dark until I return. See you soon.

-AJ

Battle of Praeneste (Part I)

Last Friday night we started the next battle in our ongoing 2nd Punic War campaign. This battle is the Battle of Praeneste. As a strange coincidence the game was on October 12th, which happened to be both my birthday, and the birthday of the Carthaginian commander, Charlie. What are the odds? To celebrate my lovely wife, Lori, had a special cake made to celebrate the day. She pinched an ancients photo from my blog. Unfortunately for me she's on Charlie's side and picked some Carthaginian Celtiberian infantry. Still it was good cake. Our campaign GM, Mike also brought a delicious Alden Merril lemon cake. There was much goodie eating during breaks.

Before the game we had some show-and-tell. Mike did some re-basing work on some 28mm hoplites that he's working on for our next ancients campaign after we finish this one. Charlie brought some of his yet-to-be-rebased hoplites as well. I had some unpainted Numidian cavalry from Old Glory that will be added to the collection for the campaign. Doing the games in 28mm will allow us to use my whole large table with each 'MU' in the game being 1.5 inches. It should look quite grand!

For the game, the terrain was hilly, due to the location of the battle. Charlie picked the minimum number of terrain pieces for his very cavalry-heavy force. I picked the maximum number of terrain pieces as I wanted something to anchor my lines on. As fortune would have it this battle, some of the terrain pieces actually ended up in the middle of the battlefield. After deployment our plan was to anchor our lines on two terrain pieces and flank with our cavalry. If possible we'd race a medium or light foot unit into the rough hill on the Carthaginian side of the battlefield.


As it worked out, it looked like the Roman plan was a solid one, but as is often said, no plan survives contact with the enemy. Mike was able to skillfully push a Velite unit to the rough hill as desired, despite pressure from the horde of Spanish and local Italian cavalry swinging around the left flank. Our medium Italian infantry thought it too dangerous and held their ground in the broken ground on our left flank. On the right we were able to score a lucky rout of the only Carthaginian light infantry, but from there on fortunes favored the bold, meaning the Carthaginians. As we broke for the evening the Carthaginians definitely have the upper hand, but there may still be time for the Romans to turn their fortunes. It will take a strong run of good luck and smart tactical decisions to do so though.

On a personal note, some of you may have noticed the blog posts have slowed down lately. I'm dealing with a ruptured disk in my back and have surgery planned for next week. During my recovery time the blog may go dark. I have saved up some painted and re-based figures, which if I can get them photographed, I may be able to time-release post here. If not I will be back some time in December.

Men Under Fire Play Test

Last Friday night we got together at my uncle's house to play our first game using Frank Chadwick's "Men Under Fire" WWII skirmish rules. Ralph's tabletop and figures were both beautiful and my first impression of the rules is that defensive fire from deployed medium and light machine guns is horrifically potent. That said a properly prepared offence with it's own crew-served weapons did seem to be effective in the attack. I think more playing will also hone our skills on offence. Personally I will be painting up British 'Tommies' and German Luftwaffe ground forces for 28mm WWII skirmish. Hopefully I can get dual use of the figures with Frank's rules and the Warlord Miniatures 'Bolt Action' rules which seem to be gathering steam in the local area.

ACW Naval Game (2)

Last Friday evening we got together at my friend George's house to play another session of the ACW Naval rules he's working on. This time the models we used were brought along by club member Peter - mostly the beautiful Thoroughbred 1:600 "Ironclads" line.

The game featured a mixed union fleet of 3 ironclads, three 'tin' clads and three wooden rams breaking a blockade of six Confederate 'tin' clad (cotton clad also couts as tin in the rules) rams and several batteries of shore guns.

New to this game were the first try at ramming rules which with some in-game changes worked quite well. There was also a refinement of the movement rules which was another good improvement.

I really think George has something with these rules. They're quite possibly the next big thing - fast play ACW naval rules. Sort of a 'DBA for the Mississippi'.

Play Testing VB&G RTG Wing Scale Napoleonics

Today Ed hosted a play test of a Napoleonic wing scale variant to Volley & Bayonet Road to Glory that a few of our club members are working on. We're going to be getting together for a large game in the future and today was the first step in steaming out the wrinkles in the rules. This was part game and part design session but 100% fun. It's always good when you can get together with your friends, talk a little history, tactics and play a game.

I've received good feedback on my short videos on my last post. I have included some additional video 'raw footage' of our test session. Obviously I'm not much of a videographer. Hopefully with practice I will improve. Until then enjoy these for what they are.

First Pirate Game

Last Saturday our club got together to play the first of what we hope will be many future pirate games. All I can say is WOW! the whole club really came together to put on a great game. Every player was responsible for their own boat and pirate crews, several players provided custom made Islands, several players got together to write and run the rules and I provided laser-cut boat kits for several of the players.

The only way to describe this game is 'epic'. It was loud, raucous, chaotic, interesting and most of all good fun all day long. The top pirate award went to Ross, but there were several pirates in the running. I was in the middle tier after peeking at first place for a short while. Tangling with the local militia on one last island left me with a short crew and I limped into port looking for more crew while my competitors were looting and stealing their way to victory.

 Here are a few short videos I took at the game. They give a flavor of the game even better than the photos above.

If you're a member of the Black Poweder New England Yahoo group (or would like to Join) you can view more photos of the game by following this link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BlackpowderNE/photos/album/401298881/pic/list?mode=slide&order=ordinal&start=1&count=20&dir=asc

Finished Pirate Sloop

Tomorrow is our club's first pirate game. A large number of people in the club are building pirate boats that fit on rolling stands that allow us to use the whole room, without having to crawl on the floor. The stands keep the boats three feet off the floor, and with islands and ports also being the same height, the illusion of sea level being about waist high is complete.

Since the game is tomorrow of course I just finished my boat tonight. My masts and rigging are removable for storage and my sloop comfortably accommodates a full crew of ten smelly scurvy-ridden privateers. The game is shaping up to look like a lot of good beer & pretzels fun.