Pikeman's Lament 30 Years War Game at Ed M's

I got together with fellow Bloggers Ed M and Mark D (click their names to see their blogs) for a game of Pikeman's Lament that Ed was hosting for Mark and I. Both Mark and I are relatively new to playing the rules and Ed wanted to polish up his hosting skills for the rules. 

As you can see, Ed hosts a beautiful game. The scenario was a meeting engagement in the 30 Years War with mirror forces (for ease of teaching the rules). Mark and I both got up to speed fairly quickly. Mark's ran afoul of the dice in shooting and I in activation throughout the game. It started off with me blasting one of Mark's cavalry units with musketry, then mark did the same to my pike block. Mark followed this up with an aggressive push from his pike drawing my gallopers into charge range, which they failed to resist and went into the pike to their detriment. 

The following turns I got some activation dice (finally) and shot up mark's Dragoons and turned his flank threatening his pike with caracole and musketry which it wasn't well prepared to defend against without his dragoons. I also did a number on his commanded shot with my own commanded shot and musketeers. 

This was a fun game. It's definitely a bit of beer and pretzels. General dice matters as much as tactics and strategy that's for sure. Have a game then pop off to the pub as the Brits would say. Thanks for the fun afternoon to both of my fellow Northern Conspirators and bloggers.

Iron Cross Game - Kampfgrouppe Counter Attack Scenario

I'm running an Iron Cross game at our club's September game night. This game was a play test of the scenario to insure the September game went smoothly. I adapted the "Kampfgrouppe Counter Attack" scenario from Brigade Games "Skirmish Campaigns Normandy '44 - Monty's EPSOM' campaign book. I stayed true to the map and scenario objectives, but I scaled up the order of battle slightly and removed the variable attachments in favor of pre-selected ones of my own choosing. 

Byron and Bob were the British defenders. Their plan was straight forward. They put one section of their advance platoon in each building and would react to the German's initial advance.  The Brits had two platoons of infantry, a 6 pounder AT gun, a Vickers MMG and a depleted armor platoon of a Firefly, a Sherman 1 (75mm) and a Humber armored car.

 

Rob and Ralph were the attacking Germans. The scenario calls for SS, but I substituted my Wehrmacht Panzer Grenadiers instead having no SS troops in my collection. 

The germans had two well-armed infantry platoons with MG-42 MMGs attached, a headquarters command with a section of 8cm mortars, a 7.5 cm Infantry gun and a full platoon of assault gun tanks: two Hetzers and a Stug IIIg.

Initially Ralph pressed his command up towards the orchard separating his jump-off area from the ruined farmhouse. With him a single Hetzer for support and the Stug III in reserve. The mortar FO positioned itself in the hedge line.

Rob's German right flank with his MG-42 deployed (mostly hidden from view) with three sections of infantry preparing to assault the white farmhouse. Rob's Hetzer starts shelling the center ruined building initially.

In response to the initial German advance, Byron brings in the British Firefly and tries to get off a surprise round into Rob's Hetzer. Unfortunately the round didn't hit home and Rob's Hetzer returned fire and hit home with a non-penetrating hit. Still it was enough to stun Byron's crew and over a couple of turns the Hetzer was able to blow up the Firefly.  Not all lemons for the British, Bob was able over two turns to take out Ralph's mortar F.O. with sustained fire from his Vickers MMG.

Progressing on into the mid-game, Ralph advanced one section into the orchard. This drew significant fire from the British pushing the German squad back out of site to recover. A significant outcome of this exchange was the British brought up two more of their sections on the right side of the battlefield. Meanwhile Rob's assault on the white farmhouse on the left, along with help from Ralph's Hetzer drove Bob out of it and allowed Rob to occupy the abandoned building.

As Rob's assault and Ralph's support of it became clear, the British were attempting to respond by bringing up their Sherman I and also trying to shift their infantry left to defend the white farmhouse. Meanwhile Rob's Hetzer and MMG beat up the defenders of the middle rubbled house. Bob vacated that section and replaced it with fresh defenders. 

The last turn ended up with a 'weird' clumping of activation chits coming out of the bag. The British loaded up early on activations and were able to re-take the white farmhouse easily eliminating Rob's occupying German section. In the second half of the turn the chits came out all German and Ralph's massed force was able to both put enough fire on the farmhouse to eliminate occupying British section and just be able to occupy the farmhouse themselves before the end of the turn. Result: German victory.

I'm looking forward to running this again at game night this month. There's a lot of options for both sides to win the battle.

28mm Roman Mounted Officers

These are six mounted Roman officers that I've recently completed. Four are mounted to be used with my Hannibal at the Gates Republican Roman army and two will be used with the Saga Age of Hannibal rules. In all honesty I probably could have mounted them all the same way and used any for either set of rules as all are on two inch circular bases. 

These are Old Glory figures. Usually Old Glory figures have good facial expressions, but several of these figures have very rough facial features. Either the casting is too soft, or they were sculpted to look quite ape-like. Either way I've done my best to make them look as human as possible considering the sculpts.

These two will be used for Saga Age of Hannibal. I'm particularly happy with how the fur came out on the cape. This was done with several different applications of various shades of GW Contrast paints. Quick, easy and looks great.

 

 

 

 

 

Two of the Hannibal at the Gates figures.

The final two figures.

2021 Basing & Re-Basing Part 6 - Napoleonic French Cavalry

More progress on the 2021 Re-Basing project. These two units of French Napoleonic cavalry were purchased on 2020 and kept in their original shipping boxes for my move to my new home. Now that I can laser-cut bases, I've mounted them up for use with my Electronic Brigadier rules as well as for use with my friend Charlie's rules, Napoleon's Rules of War.  Both of these were Ebay purchases from one of the usual suspects from China.

This unit of Hussars didn't fare very well in shipping to me originally, and suffered additional damage in the move. Nearly all of the riders were knocked off the horses. Several of the pelise coats were also dislodged and there was a lot of chipped paint - mostly the black areas. It's obvious that these are primed black and any black areas are simply left in primer. They've been re-glued and retouched as well as based up. Even with the repairs, it's a sharp looking unit.

The chasseurs fared much better during shipping and the move. Minimal touch-ups were required although I did have to re-glue on the standard. The way the figure is holding it I'm expecting this to be a problem in the future. Next time it gets knocked off I think I'll replace the standard's shaft with something long enough to have two points of contact on the model for strength.

Eight more bases in the 're-based' totals for 2021.

2021 Basing & Re-Basing Part 5 - Macedonian Phalanx #2 & 3

Six more bases of Macedonian pike phalanx. These are also from a large Ebay purchase I made last year. I got into a bit of a groove on these next six stands, finally figuring out an efficient way to loose the figure from the metal bases they were originally mounted on. These are now based up as a pike wing and a smaller two-stand pike division for Hannibal at the gates.  

 

The silver shields wing. These came with plain silver shields. I added homemade Macedonian star transfers to them.

 

The brown-coat division. These all have leather armor instead of linen. I particularly like that a few of the pikemen are wearing soft hats instead of helmets. Definitely a second-rate unit.

Not much more to say on these. I'm happy to have them tabletop ready.

Re-canting GW Contrast Paints

Anyone who has EVER used a wash or paint made by Games Workshop knows how criminally bad the Citadel paint pots are. They don't close properly, fall over, get completely gunked up with dried on paint and often cause you to waste more of the product in them than you get to use. It's almost like they're designed to cause you to waste the paint in them so you'll have to buy more sooner.

I've been amassing a nearly complete set of GW Contrast paints recently. At over $7.00 a pot, that's an investment I don't want to keep in the crappy GW paint pots. 

Per the advice of several on-line and YouTube 'experts', I picked up some generic dropper bottles and small funnels off of Amazon. Fifty of each totaled about $15. If I save two pots worth of paint with this project I'm at break even. Also the convenience of dropper bottles will save me time at the painting table as well and will make using these paints in my airbrush a LOT easier. 

To re-cant the collection of bottles shown above took me about two hours. Not an insignificant amount of time. I had to be careful to fully mix each pot before re-canting. I also added agitators to every dropper bottle while I was at it. Here you can see the contrast paints in their new dropper bottles. My washes are also re-canted, but not shown.

One saving grace is that the labels on the GW pots are put on with a glue that does enable re-using of the labels. By carefully peeling them off they're easily re-applied to the new dropper bottles. Time will tell, but my initial impression is that the labels seem like they'll stick permanently to their new containers. If they don't, a quick wrap with clear tape will solve that problem.

I think the only thing left to do is for me to make up a good sample chart of the colors. The names, aren't very recognizable to a historical miniatures painter, so I'll need a chart.

1-48 Tactic Games - Part 2

I've hosted two more 1-48 Tactics games this week. The first one was for my friends George and Dave. Dave arrived before George and we played a quick game with him running the British and me running the Germans. Dave beat me with a head-shot at the end. 

George arrived and he and Dave played three games. Dave came out ahead 2-1. Both players picked up the rules quickly and play was fast-paced.

 

The second session was Rob and Ralph. Both players played cautiously, with Rob using suppression fire and opportunity fire liberally. This caused this game to be quite a chess match. In the end some of the 'random spray fire' from suppression took out Ralph's last soldier for the win. This is a 'long shot' scenario requiring a single D-6 roll of 6 on two successive turns.

28mm Finnish Specialists

I'm heading to Adler Hobby this weekend to play some Bolt Action Firefight. I thought it would be fun to take some of my newly painted Finnish up and get them on the table. After looking over the Firefight PDF, I realized that I really wanted a medium machine gun and/or a sniper. I also didn't have a particularly great officer figure painted up. 

Rummaging through my Finnish lead I found everything I needed: one Maxim machine gun team, a charismatic officer and a sniper with observer assistant. All of the figures are Warlord miniatures. I tossed them on the painting table and got them done. Nothing fancy as time was of the essence. I primed them in Panzer gray, then gave them a quick coat of Basillicum Gray contrast paint for the coats and Black Templar contrast paint for the dark grey pants. The rest of the work was done using traditional paints. Once done I gave the coats some highlights with neutral gray just to make them pop a bit more. I painted all six of these figures while watching some of my club mates play a game of Saga age of Hannibal over Zoom. What a GREAT evening. About two and a half hours to paint up all six figures with maybe another twenty minutes to base them up.

The Maxim MG with it's ski bipod. I've chosen to leave the skis on the bipod as I don't think they took them off in the summer, preferring the 'float' the skis gave over muddy and marshy ground. These figures are for the Lapland war, so I've based them on spring/summer bases.

The sniper and his observer assistant. Nothing fancy, just good solid figures from Warlord. The sniper I believe would be using the excellent Mosin-Nagant rifle - still considered one of the most accurate rifles of the war.

  

Finally, the officer. He's carrying a pistol. It looks like a revolver, but I'd expect he'd more likely be carrying a Lahti L-35 semi-automatic pistol. The only likely revolver would be a Russian Nagant M1895 - a trophy from the Winter war? 

I like this figure a lot with his fur-collared overcoat. I was tempted to paint it in black leather - possibly a gift from a German officer during the Continuation war, but I didn't want him to look too German. In the end I opted for good old grey wool. Period photographs show a lot of the Finnish officers wearing these.

Six figures to add to the 2021 painting totals.

2021 Basing & Re-Basing Part 4 - Macedonian Phalanx #1

More re-basing. This unit is four bases of pike phalanx mounted up for Hannibal at the Gates. I purchased these figures as part of a larger lot which will eventually make up ten or eleven bases. The original painter based them on individual metal bases. Each figure was glued on with some sort of nasty industrial construction adhesive. Removing the figures from the original bases is proving to be quite difficult and tiresome. Still I must press onward. This is the first of most likely three updates that will include figures from this purchase. 

Counting this as four stands re-based....although it should count for a lot more considering the amount of work it took!

2021 Basing & Re-Basing Part 3 - 28mm Finnish WWII

The third installment of the 2021 Basing and Re-Basing series consists of figures that I've painted for my 28mm Finnish Continuation War & Lapland War army. These are mostly Warlord figures with some Artisan figures mixed in. For rules these will likely be used in Iron Cross, Bolt Action, 1-48 Tactics and Chain of Command games. For WWII Skirmish our club is all over the map as far as rules go. Thank goodness none of these rule sets have much in the way of requirements for basing. 

The Boffors 37mm AT gun was a staple for the Finns starting with the Winter War. Due to shortages they continued to use these throughout the conflict. Ineffective against anything much heavier than a T-26, the Finns still found them useful. I'll also be including additional German-supplied AT guns later on in the construction of this army. I modified the sitting loader figure by putting an ammunition crate under his behind instead of trying to cram him onto the gun's trails. 

The LMG gunner and his assistant. This figure is carrying the Lahti-Saloranta M/26 LMG. It's a nice touch that Warlord includes this figure in their Finnish infantry pack instead of a generic MG-34/42. Cheers to them for that. I can always supplement the LMGs in this force with German figures from my dead lead collection as the Finns received plenty of helmets, webbing, canteens, etc. from the Germans during the Continuation war. A figure unique like this one is much harder to come by.

The Lieutenant and his runner/assistant. The Finnish junior officers preferred the rifle to an SMG, unlike other armies. SMG gunners were considered to be 'assault' role soldiers. These two figures are place holders for now, and will likely end up being regular riflemen as the force continues to evolve. I'm sure I can find a figure with an appropriate uniform and hat down the road.

 

 

Infantry squad number one. Lapland and Continuation war Finnish squads had 2-3 SMGs with the balance being riflemen. I'm including one rifleman with a Molotov Cocktail in each of these squads. This squads figure comes from the Warlord Finnish Infantry boxed set. Ideally I will eventually want to find a rifleman waving to be the NCO in each squad, but for now the SMG gunner to the right will do as the NCO for this squad.

 

Infantry squad number two. Another SMG figure that sure looks like he's the NCO. I might just have to roll with this, we'll see. The Molotov Cocktail rifleman is a re-purposed French resistance fighter. Based on period photos, regulation headgear wasn't strictly enforced and uniforms in the field often were improvised. He'll do just fine for me.

 

Next up in the re-basing project are over 180 Macedonian pikemen that I purchased on Ebay. That update may be a while further down the road before it's ready to publish. For now this will be the final installment of the re-basing updates. Hopefully my next post will me more games, or newly-painted figures.