Continental Line

This is a unit of figures that I purchased from a gentleman named "kendobear" on ebay.  They appear to be Old Glory figures and are nicely painted. I couldn't resist picking these up as there were exactly fifteen figures which means I could base them up as two massed and one skirmish stand. I'm feeling like these would do well as PA or MA state troops as well as continentals. I'm mostly showing these here as filler as I just returned from a week's holiday at Acadia National Park and didn't do a lick of wargaming-related activities while I was there.

My total contribution towards the completion of this unit was to re-base the figures to 3" Volley & Bayonet basing convention. 

July Game Night 2012

Last night I attend our club's July game night. We had three great games hosted. I played in a French Wars of Religion Renaissance game using a set of home-brew rules written by my uncle called 'Nexus'. More information about Nexus can be found on his website here.

The game was a French attack on an Imperialist defended bridge. The game had the French advancing through three defiles lengthwise on the table. The Imperialsts played well including good use of their forlorn hope in one of the woods separating the approaches and an aggressive pike charge as the French closed. Wonderful figures, beautiful teddy bear fur terrain and a set of good fast play rules. Can't ask for much more in a wargaming evening.

The second game was a 28mm Seven Years War game using the rules "Ancien Regime".

The third game was a 15mm American Civil War game using Fire & Fury rules.

Escarpements

Sorry I haven't been posting much. I've been down with a nasty sinus infection. This is a pair of escarpments I bought recently. They're the GaleForce9 'Battlefield in a Box' offering. The only thing I did was add some meadow glen mix turf to the hill sides. The box set comes with two kinds of static grass, but I prefer to use the turf mix I use on all my miniatures instead. The small packets that came with these were stirred into my big mix canister.

Not much to say about these. They're a good value in my opinion. They come ready to use, or with a few minutes time can be dressed up a bit further as shown here. They're appropriate for both 15mm and 28mm scale games and can be used for any gaming period. Sorry about taking the photographs on my gaudy indoor-outdoor carpet. It's the best I could do on short notice.

Fistful of Lead - Old West Gun Fight (2)

Last Saturday a bunch of us gathered at Adler Hobby to celebrate their anniversary with an EPIC Old West gunfight game using the Fistful of Lead rules.  I'll refrain from coming up with a write up as is the case with most western gunfight games the action was fast, furious and completely chaotic....i.e. tons of fun.

My Mexican 'Banditos' did ok. Three died, three lived and they gave about as good as they got. Six Gun Sancho put a pistol into the gut of two enemies in hand-to-hand combat sending them to 'Boot Hill' only to be gunned down by a distant rifle man with a bullet between the eyes. Pancho Pete got a kill, and kept Hacienda Hosé alive like he always seems to do. The two unnamed men of the crew suffered the fate of a red shirt crew member of the Enterprise. It's never good to be an un-named character in such a drama.

 Congratulations go to Don Piro for winning the door prize of a bottle of Tequila....er Whiskey. Don was my fellow Mexican in crime and standing back to back in the middle of the street we put many of the 'Gringos' in their place....the ground.

Renaissance Game (2)

Last  Friday night we got together at my Uncle's house to play test a Renaissance game that he'll be running at this month's club game night. The game uses Ralph's own rules 'Nexus' which can be downloaded from his website, Cruel Old Campaigners (look in the "War Game Rules" section). The game is set in the wars of religion period and pits a larger French/Spanish force against a smaller, but higher quality defending Imperialist force using Ralph's beautiful figures and terrain. We got several fun turns in and this will be a fun game to play at game night. I'm looking forward to it!

Western Gunfight Banditos - TNT Template

Here is the completed Resporado Gang figures. They've been tinted with a wash, based and flocked. Ready to start gunning down anyone in between them and the tequila!

Also for Saturday's game I made up a Gatling Gun / TNT template at Gordon's request. This is made to the exact size of the template in the "Fistful of Lead" rule book.

Western Gunfight Banditos - WIP

These are the work progress (WIP) shots of my Mexican 'banditos' for a western gunfight skirmish game that Adler Hobby will be having for their upcoming anniversary.  So far these are just block painted. After they dry overnight I'll gloss coat them and give them a good sepia tone wash. Once that is dry i can go over the figures and do final highlighting and basing. Hopefully I'll get it all done by Saturday since that is when the game is!

 I'm calling my squad the "Reposado Gang" which seems appropriate considering their origins. These two figures are the possible squad leaders. On the left the best fighter of the bunch wields two pistols so is appropriately named "Six Gun Sancho". On the right is "Hacienda Hosé". Hosé is wealthy and cunning. He isn't in it for the loot, he's in it for the adventure.

 Next up are "Tequila Thomas" on the left and "Pancho Pete" on the right. Pete is a dead-eye shot and Hacienda Hosé's right-hand man. Pete keeps Hosé out of trouble....most of the time.

Rustled up from the local bar are the last hands in the crew. I haven't thought of clever names for them yet. By the time I've finished painting them I'll have something fun to say about them.

600 Point FOW Tourney at Adler Hobby

Saturday I played in a small 600-point early war Flames of War tournament that is part of the New England regional FOW qualifier series. The series has many New England stores hosting a day of gaming at their store. Saturday was Adler Hobby's turn. I'm not much of a competitive gamer, but I thought I'd show up to support the store and the series. I played 600 points worth of my Australian kangaroo tanks. Not much of a 'tournament' list, but it's what I had available. There were four of us playing, myself and 3 visitors from other areas. My first opponent was Phil (shown above) playing Italian armor. Phil's nine M13/40 tanks made short work of my three M13/40 tanks and 5 M11/39 tanks and 3 Bren carriers.  Phil was the eventual tournament winner.

My second opponent was Mike playing French armor comprised of three Somua S-35 tanks and four Hotchkiss H-39 long gun tanks. The Soumua were nigh-impossible for my tanks to kill but I did manage to kill one and one Hotchkiss, but other than that Mike made easy work of my lighter tanks. It didn't help that by turn three nine of my 11 combat vehicles were bogged down. Yes I rolled 9 of 11 bog rolls of a '1' by turn 3. Phil was gracious about my bad luck and was the eventual winner of the sportsman award, which he deserved for listening to my complaints about bad dice for a whole game without showing any visible sign of irritation. I'm sure I wasn't very pleasant to be around although I did try to put on my best manners during the bad dice run.

My last game was against Temis (sorry for clipping your face in the photo!). Temis played British infantry with two platoons of 2 pounder AT guns, a platoon of A11 Matilda infantry tanks and a platoon of infantry. Since nothing I had could even scratch the paint on a Matilda I attempted to kill everything else in Temis' list. I managed to destroy the infantry platoon and one platoon of AT guns, but my assault on the final platoon of AT guns went horribly wrong with one of my final 2 tanks bogging to basically end the game with a loss.

All three visitors for the tournament were great guys to game with. They all had a MUCH firmer grasp on the rules than I did and were helpful and understanding in bringing me up to speed on when I didn't know the rules well enough. I would like to thank all of them for their great sportsmanship. I went 0-3 for the day, which is about what I expected from my 'fun to play' kangaroo tank list. Mostly I think I'm more suited to casual fun games than tournament games. I'm not sure I'll ever be the 'qualify for the nationals' type of guy.

ACW Naval Game

My friend George had a few of us over for the inaugural game in his new wargaming 'clubhouse' - a purpose built shed for wargaming. This game was specifically for those people who helped George set up the shed - wiring, insulating, adding storage lofts, etc. The game was the first play test in what I hope is many to come ACW naval games using a set of fast play rules that George has created. The rules don't as of yet have a name, but one suggestion was "Broadsides, Valor and Death", abbreviated "BVD".

The game functions on a grid system and allows for movement between grid intersection points using diagonal or orthogonal movement. Combat allows for several classes of ACW ships: wooden, 'tin' clad and ironclad. There are many small nuances that make it a fun game...sort of a DBA for ACW naval. The rules were easy to play and for a first play had surprisingly few problems. With some tweaks I think they'll provide us many fun games in the future.

The scenario required the union players: George, Ed and myself press through a blocking Confederate force of Charlie, Mike and Ralph. The Confederates controlled some blocking forts on a set of river islands. George spear headed the Union attack past the forts and blocking Confederate ships. Although this proved disastrous for his ships, it did cause the Confederates to pull back a large portion of their ships to defend their moored boats. The remaining advance Confederate boats slugged it out with the Union but eventually things turned  and the Union were able to press past the forts and whittle down the Confederate navy. The victory was quite Pyrrhic with the Confederates losing 9 ships, but the Union only having their two weakest wooden boats left at the end of the battle. All in all everyone had a great time and it was a perfect way to break in George's new clubhouse.