Conquest of Italy Ancients Campaign Day

This past Saturday my friend Mike hosted our club's game day. The event was 'Conquest of Italy' - a one day ancients campaign set in the period near the First Punic War prior to Rome's dominance on the Italian peninsula. This year we broke from tradition and replaced our normal 15mm armies with 28mm figures that several members have been painting and collecting for the club's home brew rules, Marathon to Marius. Members providing armies were Bob, Charlie, Phil, Mike, Ralph and myself. I brought three Carthaginian armies and one Roman army. Each player picked a region and an army to control. I chose Rome since I hadn't yet used my Roman figures in a game. Two other players chose to use my Carthaginian figures. I was quite happy to get to play one of my games against one of those players.

The format was five rounds of DBA games with match-ups controlled by the campaign map. I ended up fighting my first game against Bob, who also was using a Roman army. Bob beat me soundly, 4-1. Because I was the aggressor, Bob retained his freedom, but I wasn't required to be his vassal due to him being the defender. Still not a very good start for me, squandering a campaign turn where I was lucky enough to be the aggressor. Also shown below is a photo of the other first round games.

Round two I faced Charlie and his Macedonian model army representing Phyrrus of Epirus. Thanks to Bob's generousity I was able to have an early enough campaign move to still be an aggressor in this turn. Charlie's pike put it to my Romans scoring an early kill on one of my legion stands. I followed this up by isolating one of his skirmish stands, and then getting a bit lucky when his advance took his general stand just a touch too close to some rough terrain. I was able to flank it with a velite stand, and due to the terrain factors I was able to kill his general securing the win. Charlie played well all day including this game. I got lucky that the terrain saved me as Charlie was out playing me up to that point. Since I was the attacker, Charlie was now my vassal, and his past and future successes, were also successes for me. Photos of other round two games are below.

Round three I faced Michael who was pushing one of my early Carthaginian armies. Michael is a very skilled DBA player. Michael used his post-deployment element switches well and positioned his warband Gauls right where they would cause me the most trouble. He played everything correctly and I just got very lucky on my combat rolls and won thanks to General Dice. Michael was now my vassal, and thanks to his previous and successive successes, I profited heavily in victory points from my fortunate dice rolls in this game. More round three photos below.

Round four I chose Earl as my opponent. I wasn't keen on attacking a fellow Roman, but Earl was the only potential opponent available to me that had vassals. Since consolidating the empire was the primary goal I attacked Earl. Roman vs. Roman battles in DBA often come down to whomever gets the first kill can then use that extra stand to flank the opponent's battle line. This is what happened in this game. I was able to score an early lucky kill on a stand and from there  I could whittle away at Earl's flank securing the win. At the end of the round I had firm command of all players as seen below. Unfortunately the very next campaign turn Charlie drew the rebellion chip and peeled off his portion of my empire as an independent state.

 

Round five I played new member prospect, Matt. Matt hadn't ever played DBA before. In keeping with what seems to be a club tradition, Matt kicked my ass in short order. We're not sure why, but new DBA players in our club always seem to do well.  The battle between Matt and I ended up coming down to single combat between his general and mine, both cavalry units, in the sand dunes. With so many negative factors this was a true Thunderdome moment. Two stands enter, one stand leaves. In this case it was Matt's general that was victorious. There are some more photos of other round five games below.

After the fifth and final round the national organization chart and scores are shown below. Thanks to a lot of luck on my part, and excellent play all day long by Charlie, Michael and Earl, my fourth turn win and score was able to carry me through round five for the win.

And here is a photograph of all of the participants taken by Mike. Not shown are Dick and Ralph who both had to leave early.

28mm Roman Cavalry

These are two units of Roman cavalry that I've painted up quickly for use in our club's game day next weekend. My friend Mike is running a one day campaign and I pledged bringing three Carthaginian and one Roman army. For my Roman army I needed to complete the cavalry for my two in-process legions, the red legion and the white legion. It should be obvious from the shields on these which legion each unit is for.

The figures are, as usual, from Old Glory. When you are a member of their club you get 40% off the price of the figures making them my go-to choice for anything they carry. Sure there are a few figure manufacturers that make slightly nicer figures, but with the discount considered those 'better' figures cost three to four times as much as these. That makes Old Glory the perennial champion in the 'bang for the buck' catagory. Plus I like the O.G. figures. They paint up well and the lines are extensive enough that I seldom want for anything. I also like that their packs always contain an assortment of poses.

Since they're mounted, I'm counting these six figures as twelve in my painting total count, mostly because I paint the horses separately then glue on the riders. Next up on the painting table, thirty Austrian Napoleonic grenzers, and a bunch of AWI re-basing. The latter may not make it to the blog.

Napoleonic Austrian Artillery

These are two sections of 6lb guns and a section of 12lb guns for my Austrian Napoleonic collection. The figures and the gun models are Old Glory figures. Considering the exposure of the faces the bicorne hats provide, I chose to go 'full monty' on the faces with eyebrows, whites and pupils as well as a two-tone layered skin tone and lips. After putting my usual wash on the figures a good portion of my hard work ended up obscured. Lesson learned. Either fully detail the faces OR wash them. Not both.

Still I'm very happy with the units and how they came out. I'm probably due for another set just like this only with 9lb and 12lb guns. That would give me a full battery of each.

Next up an emergency job - painting 6 Roman cavalry for club game day that's coming up in two weeks. Nothing like a deadline to motivate!

More Recent Ebay Purchases

I've been a bit behind in posting some recent Ebay acquisitions. This is a unit of Napoleonic French 4th Hussars that I purchased from Dragon Painting Service as a consolation to myself for breaking a tooth, which will require several long sessions in the Dentist chair to permanently. I bought these after the first visit then the Dentist gave me the bad news. Honestly, I'd rather not have the figures and have my original tooth. Getting old it what it is I guess....

This is a Warlord Games Tiger that came painted and weathered. The sale price on Ebay was less than the price of the unpainted model at the local store, even with shipping. Quite the bargain. I actually like that it's in earlier gray paint scheme. This will allow me to use it for mid-war and late war.

Next up, some figures I actually painted myself, Austrian Napoleonic artillery.

Northern Conspiracy September 2015 Game Night

Last Friday evening I attended our club's September game night. I played in Charlie's 28mm Napoleon's Rules of War game for the battle of Abensburg - April 20th 1809. I commanded the Bavarian right wing with Randy commanding the Left wing. Opposite us were John and Bob commanding the Austrians.

The scenario had the Austrians defending a hill spanned by two woods trying to protect two roads exiting off their central rear table edge. Randy and I came up with a simple plan, 'Hey diddle diddle, straight up the middle'. We hit the Austrians hard and fast in the center while delaying on our flanks.

The bum rush tactic worked like a charm early, but the Austrians, having central lines, stabilized the situation by stuffing an entire reserve brigade into the center as the first line failed. This worked nicely. In the woods to my right, Bob's Jagers and fresh infantry halted my attack there.

As we called the game it was still up in the air. This game could easily have serviced 8-10 people, so it took the four of us a while to get all our troops in action. Charlie has been continuing to improve his rules. Most of his recent changes were nice improvements. I look forward to the next game.

Other games offered that I didn't play in were Phil's 1941 Pacific WWII air game, and Ed's Skirmish Napoleonic game using his house-modified Brother against Brother rules. Sorry I didn't get more photos of these since I was so busy pushing all that fine Bavarian lead in Charlie's game.

28mm British WWII Tommies

These are twenty WWII "Tommies" - late war British infantry that I've recently finished painting up. The figures are from West Wind's 'Berlin or Bust' range purchased through Old Glory using my discount card. As such they were quite a good value for the money. The figures are nicely sculpted and seem accurately equipped. The twenty figures will make up two ten-man squads, each with an NCO with an SMG (Thompson or Sten), a Bren gunner and 8 riflemen. Below are close-up photos of all of the figures in each squad.

 I've put white rocks on the base of each Bren gunner and red rocks on the base of each NCO with SMG. This is for easier tabletop identification for those with questionable close-up eyesight.

Here are some close ups of the backs of several of the figures in various kit.

EB AWI at The 6th Annual Hobby Bunker Game Day

This past Saturday I ran my Electronic Brigadier Freemen's Farm scenario at the Hobby Bunker's 6th annual game day. The game day was held in the Hobby Bunker's gaming area which contained six separate gaming tables. The Hobby Bunker is appropriately named. Being in a basement retail space, my cell phone WiFi hotspot didn't have a solid signal. The Hobby Bunker's house WiFi worked fairly well sometimes, but had occasional 'hiccups' which caused the tablets fits. The players were all very understanding, and considering the networking issues, we still managed to play 20 turns and play the game to a firm conclusion.

This battle was a case of two 18th century armies deploying at different rates. The Americans got their lines set up quickly, the crown forces came in a bit more piecemeal. The Americans got a lot of early two on one firefights which they took well advantage of. Casualties early in the game were three for two in favor of the rebels. By the time the British pressed the issue withe the bayonet the damage was done. Victimized were the British 20th and 9th foot plus the British and Hessian grenadiers. The cost for the Americans, the 2nd and 4th New York with the 2nd New Hampshire in reserve in bad shape but remaining on the battlefield under the watchful eye of General Poor. The final statistics are shown below:

British Forces Army cohesion: 82.1% Total Casualties: 418 / 3709 (11.3%) 4 units dispersed 1 shaken units

American Forces Army cohesion: 84.1% Total Casualties: 269 / 3740 (7.2%) 2 units dispersed 1 shaken units

Thanks to all the players for hanging in there with the network problems. I had a great time running the game, and from the smiles in the photos it looks like everyone had fun playing despite the slight technical issues.

Adam has a write up of the game on his Fencing Frog blog with more photos.

The state of the battlefield at the end of the game with all the gaming materials cleared: