Brother against Brother at Carnage

Here are some photos from the Brother against Brother game I ran at the Carnage convention this past weekend. The scenario was a skirmish level game on a portion of the Gettysburg terrain, specificly the Rose Woods and the Wheatfield, areas where the 5th New Hampshire Volunteers saw action and where their commander, Colonel Cross was mortally wounded. The terrain, and having Colonel Cross and some squads from the 5th New Hampshire are where the historical portion of the scenario ends. Of course you cannot represent the action in this large of a portion of the Gettysburg battlefield in skirmish scale, but the terrain makes for a great backdrop for a scenario game. Thanks goes to my friend Byron for some of the better photos.

This was a close fought game with possession of the wheatfield and the Rose woods, both of the major objectives of the scenario, being split between the Union and Confederate teams. With the objectives split 50/50 the battle came down to casualty counts where the Confederates achieved a minor victory, eliminating one more Union squad than they lost. Everyone had fun and I was very fortunate to have a table of skilled and very sportsmanlike players. Everyone learned the rules by turn 2, and things went smoothly from there on.

Carnage is a mixed convention with historical miniatures, fantasy/science fiction miniatures, board gaming, card gaming and role playing games all at the same convention, each with their own halls or areas. The Carnage staff go to great lengths to provide assistance for the game masters and run a very good convention. I ran this game as part of the "Centuries of Conflict" themed historical period, which this year was the 19h Century. Next year will be the 20th century, and I have to decide if I'm going to do a Blue Max WWI Air-to-Air combat game or a WWII eastern front battle.

I'm also including a close-up of the Devil's Den terrain piece I made for the game. It's made with gaps between the stones to allow the single-figure skirmish stands to fit between or on top of the rocks as well as on the hill slope. In the Wheatfield photo you can also see the 25mm rail fences I made for the game using my laser cutter. The fences were designed to assemble quickly as I needed to make 14 feet of fences in a couple of hours for the game. I'm considering offering them as my first wargaming product as a new endevor to add to my radio control airplane products. If and when I do I'll post a link here.

Carnage 11 Convention Coming Up!

Our friends in nearby Fairlee Vermont are running their mixed gaming convention, Carnage, for the 11th year this November 7-9 at the Lake Morey Resort. The Northern Conspiracy's own Byron Champlin will again this year be coordinating the Centuries of Conflict event at Carnage. This year's theme will feature wargames from all theaters of warfare during the 19th century and many of the games will be run by fellow Northern Conspirators. There's a lot more information about Carnage and Centuries of Conflict in the Carnage Events Listing PDF.

My game for Centuries of Conflict will be my first 25mm ACW game hosted at a convention using the Brother against Brother skirmish rules. It's going to be a skirmish level game loosely based on the fighting that happened in the Rose Woods and the Wheatfield during the second day of Gettysburg during which Colonel Cross of the 5th NH Volunteers (the 'fighting' 5th) was mortally wounded. Although the numbers of men at the actual battle are not appropriate for a skirmish game, I'm going to stylize the historical event and create my skirmish game using the same terrain. I'm hoping it will be a fun game.

Lazun's Legion Hussars

These figures that were painted by my uncle are the showpiece of the my French AWI figures - he really did a wonderful job on these. The hussars of Lazun's legion performed scouting and reconnaissance functions for the French forces on the march as well as seeing action at Gloucester Point during the Yorktown campaign (along side the marines I showed in my August 29th entry), mixing it up with Tarleton's legion (poorly mimiced as Tarringgon's cavalry if you watched Mel Gibson's The Patriot).

All of my cavalry are based on 3"x3" stands to accommodate the large figures. I use two figures on stands for skirmish formation cavalry and three figures for cavalry in formed order (line). Since the Lazun Legion Hussars routed Tarleton's cavalry in the action at Gloucester point, I based these figures using formed order, as skirmishers in Volley and Bayonet wouldn't be able to impose their will on other cavalry. I have some British dragoons that can pose as Tarleton's force in a pinch, but I hope to paint up a proper unit to represent his force in the future. Once I paint up a proper Tarleton force, I can put on the hypothetical alternative history Yorktown battle I've been thinking about.

Royal Deux-Ponts Infantry Regiment

This is another of the French Infantry units that I acquired, indirectly from my Uncle's collection. I believe this unit represents German soldiers in French service of the Royal Deux-Ponts Infantry regiment, which was French line regiment number 92, actually comprised of German soldiers raised by the duc de Deux-Ponts. These stands are comprised of only fusilier figures and would represent either the entire regiment, or just the four fusilier battalions of the regiment, depending on the scale of the battle they're used in.

According to Mollo's Uniforms of the American Revolution in Color, this regiment accounted for itself quite well at the battle of Yorktown, leading the storming party into the British fortifications.

This unit features a beautiful hand-painted flag and a very animated officer, which was painted with a very 'German' look to him, mustache and all! OK, I guess he looks very 'French' too.

Regiment de Viennois

This is the first of two French Line Infantry units that were painted by my Uncle. As I didn't paint these figures, most of what I know about them is purely a guess on my part. From what I can determine this unit can represent the Regiment de Viennois which was comprised at least partially of Chasseurs for which the uniform and facing colors seem to match nicely.

The flag is hand painted on lead foil, and closely resembles the flag of the Soissonois Infantry regiment, although the colors are slightly reversed. The Soissonois regiment also wore uniforms faced in red, although to the best of my knowledge they retained their bearskin caps throughout most of, if not all of their time in North America. Still in a pinch I wouldn't hesitate to press this unit into service as the Soissonois regiment.

I'm very impressed at these figures, which were painted about a decade ago by my uncle as they exceed anything I have painted myself. The amazing thing about this is my Uncle's technique and skill has continued to advance well past that shown on these figures while my own painting techniques have seemed to 'peaked'. I'm quite happy to have been able to get these units into my collection.

Enter the French

This is the first of hopefully four or five posts showing the French in my AWI figure collection. All of the French figures were painted by my uncle Ralph, who in addition to being a fantastic painter has also been a mentor to me in wargaming since he got me started the hobby. Ralph painted these figures over a decade ago and at some point decided he wasn't going to finish the army and he sold/traded/gave them to a mutual friend of ours. I obtained them from that friend in a trade for a large collection of 20mm ACW figures as I was switching scales to 15mm. Since I didn't buy or paint these figures, I'm unsure of their manufacturer.

This is a mounted French general, and a single stand of French Marines. The marines are based, as all my French infantry are, on linear bases, but with a more dense figure population than stands from all other countries. I did this to represent the fact that the French didn't adopt the loose 2-rank formations that the British, German and Americans did. I should have put them on deeper massed bases but this didn't look right. I'll still allow them all of the V&B factors for infantry Brigades, I just didn't like the look of the deeper bases.

The French marines fought in several skirmishes along side Lazun's Legion at Gloucester Point during the Yorktown campaign. Although they fought in smaller formations than this stand represents in some scales of V&B, I can use this stand at lower (Wing scale and lower) scales or I can use it at the higher scales to represent a unit of converged marines for 'what if' games. I actually have a good idea for an alternate Yorktown game that I'm planning on using them for in this role.

Mare Nostrum

Mare Nostrum was a one-day ancients campaign game run at our wargaming club this past weekend by our current president, Mike Coppinger. The rules were something he's modified from another similar game he and other club members have played in the past. The campaign was centered around the Mediterranean sea during the Punic Wars. We fought five rounds of tabletop games generated by the campaign rules using DBA to fight the battles.

The major factions were Rome, Carthage and the independent countries of Greece, Numidia, etc. I played using Helenistic Greek army. Although I began the campaign as an independent, I was enrolled as a Carthaginian ally to even up the number of players in each faction. Considering my performance, I think Carthage would have been better served with me as an enemy than an ally!

This was a great day of gaming with good friends. The day was definitely won by Rome, as all of the Roman players did very well, including the winner, Jason Bostwick who did a masterful job of pulling off his first win of the day against me, 4-3, sealing the coup-de-grace with a mutual destruction attack on one of my units using the proverbial 'buttocks of death' move which destroyed his and my units at the same time!

Mike Coppinger has provided some excellent photos of the games, players and scores on his Picasa site, including a good photo of the souvenir DBA ruler designed and sponsered by Michael Bailey (thanks Michael!). I'd like to thank Mike and everyone who participated for a great day of gaming!

For those who noticed I took some time off from my Wargaming blog, I apologize. I've been re-energized by a recent trip to Historicon and should have plenty to post in the upcoming months.

Volley & Bayonet: Road To Glory

Frank Chadwick has published Volley & Bayonet: Road to Glory, i.e. version two of his Volley & Bayonet rule set. I use V&B for all of my AWI games and like it very much. V&B Road to Glory looks like it will be a EXCELLENT revision of an already great rule set. The booklet is well illustrated and contains plenty of photos, diagrams, the well-indexed rule set and plenty of scenarios with orders of battles and maps.

Volley & Bayonet: Road to Glory can be ordered directly from the author at his website: Test of Battle Games I'll be sure to write up a short review of the new version of the rules after I get a chance to run a few AWI games using them.

Where have I been?

I'm sorry for not posting in a while. I've been wargaming, but my blog has been neglected. I'll return to posting photos of my AWI figures as soon as possible. Next up to show are some great French figures in my collection painted by my Uncle that have found their way into my collection through a mutual friend of ours.

Until then, here's a video of another one of my projects. A flying 1/48 scale P47d Thunderbolt. Weighs 4.5 grams (about the same as two paper clips):



More photos are available on my R/C page here: http://pease1.sr.unh.edu/aew/rc/classroom/P47d/

Carnage Convention '07

Here are photos of my Freeman's Farm game as I hosted it at the Carnage '07 Convention as part or the Northern Conspiracy's participation in the Centuries of Conflict, 18th century theme games. I didn't win any prized for beauty, as my convention games are built for portability and gaming enjoyment, but everyone had a great time.

This was a re-play of the test game I hosted last month at our club's game night. The game night game saw the British thoroughly demolishing the Americans in good order well before the German right flank even reached the table. In this re-fight, the Americans drew first blood and kept the pressure on the 'Thin Red Line' throughout the game returning the earlier damage in spades. This go-around was a complete American victory. I'll put this scenario down as 'wargame balanced'. Another one I can pull out knowing I've got the forces balanced just about right. One of the great things about Volley&Bayonet is that you can fight a battle of this size, with gamers new to the rules, in under 3 hours. We played this scenario to completion, at Carnage, with 3 people who hadn't ever played V&B before and finished the game in three hours. About an hour into the game everyone was running their own tables and playing the game pretty much un-assisted by the GM.

Congratulations and thanks are due to everyone who participated in the Centuries of Conflict, supporting this great continuation of our old Tricon Convention. Next year's theme will be 19th Century: Napoleonics, American Civil War and the like. For many more beautiful photos of the wargames from Carnage, please see the Northern Conspiracy events page for the convention.