28mm 'Hungarian' Austrian Napoleonic Fusiliers

The first of two (or more) Hungarian units for my Austrian army. Again these are figures purchased from ebay merchant ppsbay_com and re-based for Charlie's rules, Napoleon's Rules of War. I'm experimenting a bit with my basing for this rule set. There is a bit more open space on the stands than on my AWI figures so I've added more rocks, grass tufts and brush clumps to compensate. This particular stand I may have gone a bit overboard on the rocks.

28mm Austrian Napoleonic Grenadiers

This is a unit of 28mm Austrian grenadiers I purchased from one of my new favorite figure sellers on ebay, ppsbay_com.  Their figures are well painted, shaded and black-lined where appropriate and available for a fair price. Their shipping is reasonably quick and the figures are extremely well packaged. I'm probably going to augment this unit with a second one in the future to make up a full regiment. This will be another unit for my friend Charlie's homebrew rules, Napoleon's Rules of War.

Hannibal at the Gates Play Test

Last night we got together to play test my uncle's new ancients rules, Hannibal at the Gates.  These are based on similar mechanics to his Renaissance period rules Nexus that the club enjoys greatly. This was also the unveiling of both a large Roman and large Carthaginian army that he's mostly painted in the past year - a herculean effort for sure. As you can see from the photos, the terrain and figures are both gorgeous.

The rules play well being based on a known-good system. We found a few minor tweaks that Ralph will be considering but for the most part a fun, fast-paced, and reasonably historical game. Good stuff!

Below are two YouTube videos of the tabletop. Sorry for the crummy video quality - my still camera has poor video capabilities.

28mm Austrian Napoleonic Hussars

This a unit of Austrian Hussars I purchased off of Ebay from the very prolific Dragon Painting Service. I've purchased 15mm figures before from them and have always been happy with the quality of the figures and the price. Their 28mm offerings are of even higher quality, but come with a commensurately larger price. While I can afford to buy their 15mm figures in volume, 28mm figures from them will be only as a special occasion purchase. In this case I had some extra pin money from some consulting work I did using my laser engraver.

I've re-based these gorgeous figures for my friend Charlie's rules, Napoleon's Rules of War. They'll be one of the key units in the Austrian advanced corps I'm planning on building.

25mm/28mm Carthaginian Bolt Shooters

This is a Field of Glory battle group of two Carthaginian bolt shooters and crew. I picked these up from Magister Militum mostly on a lark as a 'secret weapon' for our upcoming First Punic Wars campaign. In truth I don't expect to keep them much of a secret, and they're probably going to be of dubious military value. Still they'll add variety to the troops available, were a very affordable choice with such a low figure and base count and were quite quick to paint up. Plus who knows, they might be fun on the tabletop.

The Magister Militum figures are more on the 'True 25mm' side of the scale, but I hope since they're all in a single battle group they'll blend in well enough with the rest of my army which is primarily Old Glory figures which tend to be on the 28mm side of the range. The bolt shooter models themselves were a bit fiddly to assemble, and ended up a bit janky in alignment. Still I'd rather leave them on tilt than attempt to straighten them out and risk breaking the glue bonds on them.

Field of Glory basing, which follows WRG/DBA/DBM convention, calls for artillery to be on a 60mm wide by 80mm deep base. With only 2 figures and one model to fill that vast void I opted to toss everything including the kitchen sink at these as far as basing materials goes. I even have the chaps sitting among some spring flowers.....it could happen. Next up are some re-basing projects, and more Carthaginians.

April 2013 Game Night

Last night our club got together for our monthly game night. I played in Ralph's Swashbuckler game that we play tested earlier in the week. With a full compliment of eight players the game was even more fun. At points players were standing among piles of thrown chairs, beaten repeatedly with thrown mugs and spatoons and we had a few good old fashioned run throughs with the sabre. We switched characters between games but d'Artagnan seemed to be in the middle of the trouble every game. One game he ran through one of the Cardinal's guards in one running lunge, another game he got that favor returned. In the final game he was among the fray in a hail storm of flying furniture and glassware.

Playing this game reminded me how much fun we had with the original board game back in the 80s. I'm excited about it enough I'm seriously considering doing something similar by adapting the rules for Samurai warfare. During playing of the game and the play test I thought I remembered someone from our club doing this back in the 80s but when I looked up the rules he used, Samurai Blades, it wasn't a Yaquinto game. I'll have to pick his brain about what he did next time I see him.

The other game last night was Phil's WWII Air Combat game using the new beautiful Axis & Allies Angels 20 pre-painted planes and rules. Phil's scenario was centered around the Cactus Air Force's missions from Henderson field and included scratch built islands and used Axis & Allies War at Sea ships. With the ships and islands at a smaller scale than the planes the game had a 'birds eye view' look that I think worked quite well. The Japanese were able to bomb Henderson field but the Americans insured that they didn't return their planes to the Emperor for re-use. 

Swashbuckler Skirmish

Four of us got together tonight at my uncle's house to play test a game he's been working on for the past few months. The rule set is from the Yaquinto board game Swashbuckler. The figures are soft plastic Three Musketeers figures that are 1/12 scale - or 'doll house' scale. The scale board and some of the furniture are scratch built, the balance are bargain items from the doll house section of the local craft store.

We played the board game Swashbuckler extensively when it came out back in the 80s. With these great miniatures and model tavern it's even more fun. Ralph has four king's guards and of course Athos, Porthos, Aramis and d'Artagnan. We play tested the basic rules in a four man free-for-all mostly but also played one game with two guards vs. two of the musketeers.

This miniatures version has all the great stuff from the board game: thrown mugs, toppled tables and pulled rugs. Toss in a chandelier swing or two and some good old sword plan and hilarious fun is sure to ensue. This play test was just in time for Friday's club game night where the game will be unveiled.

28mm Austrian Cuirassiers

This is the first of what will probably be many units of 28mm Austrian Napoleonic figures I will be adding to my collection. These are based for my friend Charlie's fast play Napoleonic rules titled Napoleon's Rules of War. We've been play testing these rules for a while as followers of this blog have probably noticed. So far most of the figure collections in the club focuses around the Peninsula war - French and British. One club member also has an extensive Prussian figure collection. To add to the mix I thought Austrians seemed an interesting choice. Charlie is also working on an Austrian army to augment his British and French.

This unit is an Ebay purchase from a private seller. They're nothing special as far as the paint job quality, but plenty passable to put on the table and I got them for a great price. I also have several units coming from a couple of the more well known commercial painting houses that offer their wares on Ebay. I don't plan on fielding many cuirassiers in my force, but these were such a good deal and came as a unit of eight figures - exactly the right number for one full unit in Napoleon's Rules of War. I couldn't pass them up.

Laser Cut Skirmish Movement Trays

I've been working with my friend Gordon from Adler Hobby on making some new products for him to have available at his booth at the upcoming Huzzah! wargaming convention in Portland, Maine. I've already made up more of the terrain bases Gordon and I designed last year. This year Gordon wanted to add some movement trays to the selection. These trays are designed for use in skirmish games, particularly Bolt Action from Warlord Games.

The trays include wooden bases for each figure, but are also designed to fit standard hardware store fender washers which are popular with the local gamers as bases. The washers allow a magnet-lined box to transport figures safely. This tray assortment contains four different shapes. Two of them have holes aligned such that a LMG crew and loader can be located in line with each other. I will also be making multi-packs of each shape for people who have a preference for one particular shape. After the Huzzah! convention you may order these directly from Adler Hobby and I may also have them available through my laser business website if there is interest.

Another Shameless Plug - SOLD!

Update - these have SOLD! 

I'm selling some 28mm ACW figures I bought from a clubmate. They've been sitting un-based on a shelf in my painting room for 4 years. I figure if I haven't based them in four years, I probably don't need them.

Union unit in firing line poses. Front rank shooting, rear rank loading: http://www.ebay.com/itm/321099434211?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

Confederate unit in firing line poses. Front rank shooting, rear rank loading or at rest: http://www.ebay.com/itm/321099435773?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

There are more photos in each of the auctions. Very reasonable starting and buy now prices.

Thanks for looking.
AJ