Electronic Brigadier - Freeman's Farm Play Test for Huzzah! Game

Friday I had some friends over to play test my game for the upcoming Huzzah! convention. This is a variant of my Freeman's Farm game. I've split the America command up into smaller brigades to make it more convention friendly and to speed play. I had an all veteran crew so we got right to playing. Ralph, Ed and Bob as the Americans, George, Rob and myself as the British. As I was running the game and playing, photos and this write up will be somewhat sparse. Please see Ed's amazing write up of the game over on his blog, Ed M's Wargame Meanderings.

I commanded the British center brigade - solid line troops. Opposite of me Ed sent out his militia hoping to get some volleys in. Beside them the American 3 lb. battery pulled up. I jumped out and sent the militia to the rear with the 9th Foot, who ultimately paid the price for that aggression, eventually failing to out-trade musket volleys with Ed's New York troops. My other unit likewise ended up not well deployed and on the poor side of some two-fer-one shooting.

On my left, George's German brigade did well, sending one New York unit back with a flank charge, then setting up a firing line with a good reserve. Eventually his first line began to falter, but he had a second line to follow up had we had enough time. Unfortunately my command would falter before his second line would see action.

On my Right, Rob and I coordinated attacks in the center well, but the Americans held there. On the right flank Dearborn's Lights danced around to the British rear before Rob deployed his end line brigade into skirmsh formation allowing him to match Dearborn's moves. From there a series of charges by each eventually saw Dearborn's lights withdrawing to the American woods, albeit in good order.


End result of the battle: Major American victory. The American players played well and in the end that bore fruit. Well done.

Gull Wing Z-95 Nashta Pup Conversion

Since acquiring a Hounds Tooth for my X-wing scum forces I've wanted to paint up a matching Z-95 for the Nastha Pup escape craft. There are some good tutorials on how to do it but I wanted to do something a bit different. It was my thinking that if a ship were to be carried in a hanger it would need folding wings. I wanted my pup to be gull-winged.

To accomplish this I used a jeweler's saw to under cut each wing at the root and bent them down, closing the newly-created saw kerf with some plastic cement. Then I added some winglets made from plastic card to complete the effect. I've re-painted it in my interpretation of the pup's color scheme. I left off the top beak 'teeth'. Even though the card art shows them, I didn't like the look of them on such a small model. This mod and re-paint took a couple of hours, but I feel it was well worth the time.

Here are some comparison shots with a stock Z-95 matching the one I modified to make the pup.

More X-Wing 2.0

This post is out of order and a couple weeks late. A couple of weeks ago Rob, Ralph and I got together for some more X-wing 2.0. I brought two variants of a Scum list with Fen Rau and a Quad tractor array tug. The version I played against Rob added a a Mist Hunter and the escape craft with Lando in it to coordinate the whole bunch. This is a true 4-ship scum salad list. Rob was flying an Imperial tie salad. I only got a couple of tractors off with the tug, but the Mist Hunter did the load carrying tossing around both damage and stress in equal qualities.

Against Ralph, I swapped out the shuttle and the Mist Hunter for Talonbane Cobra in a Khiraxz fighter and a second tug. Aces and spacetugs I called it. Ralph used excellent range management to neutralize the tugs taking them out easily with Wedge and his wing men. I got Wedge's shields down but that was about it. Talonbane got out guessed by Ralph's flanking ties and died soon after crossing a rock. At time all I had left was Fen Rau and Ralph's list was in tact with the exception of Wedge's shields.

 

Even accepting that I got vastly out played in the second game, I found the first list to be superior in utility and ease of play. I'm still too much of a rookie to play an all-aces list. One ace and some 'beef' as they're calling it these days I think is more my style.  Maybe just all 'beef' would be even better until my skills improve. Still, there's a Star Viper I just modded and re-painted so.....

Northern Conspiracy April 2019 Game Night

Last Friday was our club's monthly game night. I played in Charile's Napoleon's Rules of War game. Charlie and I played the Austrians defending a hill top against Davout's superior attacking French corps commanded by Bob and Ralph.

The French quality and tactical limitations of the situation were telling. On my flank Ralph's French had their way with the Austrians winning every melee and a majority of the firefights. On the other flank I think Charlie did a bit better. At the end of the game the dead figures box contained hordes of dead Austrians and precious few French. Well played by Ralph and Bob.

President Dick kept up the Saga momentum by hosting a four-player game of Saga featuring his Vikings. Veteran Saga players Michael and Mike helped get Kevin and Paul some Saga time under their belts in preparation for this fall's upcoming Saga big game day.

Mark who authors the My Brave Fusiliers Blog ran a large and beautiful AWI Cowpens / Guilford Courthouse game. You can read more about his game on his blog.

I'd like to thank all three game masters for hosting another trio of awesome games for the club.

30-minute Star Viper Mod and Re-paint

I don't really like the way the stock FFG Star Viper model looks straight out of the package. To me the ship looks a bit to passive. I saw someone modify theirs to sweep the wings back and I wanted to give that a go. The article had a complex procedure of disassembling the model, re-shaping parts, removing glue and re-assembling. I just forced the wings back and hit each with a drop of super glue. Done in 60 seconds.

The stock white star viper is good for the ace Guri, but I wanted to have a second one with a different look in order to distinguish the two. This one I went for a bronze look with a simple sepia ink wash all over, then re-painted the highlights appropriately with orange and yellow. I followed this up by highlighting the guns with some steel dry brushing and a final liberal application of wear and tear with two colors using the torn sponge method. Total time 30 minutes...and well worth it I think!

Recently Painted Figures and Terrain

I like to take my photographs outside on an overcast day. Winter and early spring here in New Hampshire haven't been kind to going outside to photograph toy soldiers. Spring has finally sprung, so here are a few items that got finished this spring. First up eight hearthguard for my Russian Princdoms Saga army. These are meant to represent the Samogitian Nobles and carry two-handed axes classified as 'heavy weapons' in Saga. These are Gripping beast figures. I modified them by replacing the axe handles with steel wire requiring some fancy drill work in the hands and axe heads to get everything assembled.

Two incendiary pigs to be used with my Eastern Princes army when using it to play Warlord Games fantasy rules "Warlords of Erehwon".

Final addition to convert my Eastern Princes to Warlords of Erehwon - a Cyclops toy purchased from Amazon pre-painted. Required minimal touch up and basing. I'll count this as one 'Terrain/Misc' in the painting totals.

Warlord Games 28mm Stone Bridge - I've given this one my lead shot treatment to make it a bit heavier, then painted with liberal dry brushing, two color stone work and some muddy wheel tracks to make it lived in. Nice easy terrain piece and looks great on the tabletop.

Total effort in this post: Ten 28mm painted figures and two terrain/misc items.

Saga Day 3

This past Sunday, my friend Mike and I hosted another one of our Saga Days to help introduce new players to the game. We invited a mix of veterans and new players so each newer player had an on-table 'coach' as their opponent. I set up three Saga battlefields on my main table and a fourth on some fold-up tables in my game room. Eight players plus Mike and I as hosts. We had a mix of Viking, Crusades and Age of Arthur armies present. Good times were had by all. We tried the first four scenarios from the recently published book of battles, one for each game.  Photos and a short video for your enjoyment are included below.