The Greate Civile Warre Campaign - The Battle on the Black Moore .

 

So 'S' came round for our first ECW game . I deployed first , my force was 2 Trained Foote , 2 Raw Horse and one Veteran Horse . Simon drew cards that gave him 2 Trained Foote, 1 Raw Foote, 1 Veteran Foote (The King's Lifeguard ?) , but all his 3 units of Horse were Raw !.

My deployment , I was feeling somewhat intimidated being out numbered by his Foote.

'S's line up, he was bothered by the fact that his Horse was poor .

He advanced boldly and both sides started a firefight , I advanced my Horse on my left to counter his.

'S' put King Charles at the head of one of his Squadrons of Horse and charged mine - broke it and caused another unit of Horse to rout and he pursued both off the table ! 

My Lord Fairfax charge a unit of Royalist Horse and beat it but my Foote now unsupported on their left and out flanked were rolled up and fled ! . Fairfax left the field with his Regiment of Horse just as the King returned from the pursuit to find his enemies had fled ! , a glorious victory for the Royalist cause and he could continue his march . Fairfax retired to try and gather his scattered Army and fight again. A rather quick game but the rules worked well and we are both looking forwars to the next one .

Ye Greate Civile Warre Campaign.

The King raises his Standard at the towne of Scarbourgh and amasses his forces before marching across the country to reach and lift the Siege of Chester. This will be a series of games played between myself and my wargaming comrade 'S', we will be using Wofun 28mm figures and  a set of rules by Andy Callan (free rules from Wofun)

King Charles the First and his escort  (played by 'S'). The Royalists find their line of march blocked by the enemy and they are forced to deploy.

My own alto ego , having intercepted the King's army I am going to deploy my forces to block his progress.

The table laid out ready for the game. The blue dice delineate the deployment area for the Royalists and the red for the forces of Parliament. A fairly neutral set up a few hills on either flank and some marshy ground near the sheep pens on the Parliament right ..The forces will be chosen with the drawing of cards to find the troop types which adds a degree of uncertainty to the Generals . Hopefully the game will be played out on 'S's next visit .

 

 

Pennies from heaven.

Having bought a load of MDF bases because I couldn't find my stash of pennies,  guess what I've found!

 

Fortunes of War.

 

I decided to make a couple of 'Fortune of War' markers for my games. Here is the Prussian one , the marker is 2D metal , . At the start of the game both sides roll a D6 and put it on the marker, the points can be used to add too and alter dice rolls during the game - +1 to add a point to a dice score or pay for a reroll . The Prussian General has rather poor luck with only a 1 !

The French General however has scored a 6 and will use these to his advantage in the forthcoming game.

A glimpse from the past .

 

Found on Facebook were it is doing the rounds , from an era when boys (and perhaps the better sort of girls) were encouraged to mess about with molten metal - I notice he has had the foresight to use a tray under the melting pot , but the lack of PPE is alarming!

Free shooters.

To appose the Prussian Jaeger I've got these Francs tireurs done, again Irregular Miniatures.

They are actually a mixture of figures , the Officer is from the ACW range and the riflemen are Garibaldi figures from the Italian War of Independence . The Francs tireurs seem to wear a mixture of uniforms so these are ideal for them , I'll be getting the other half of the unit with my next order.

 

Messing about with sprues.

 

As a change from the intensive painting of O.S. figures , I decided to glue up some figures from some sprues that have been around for ages .One of the problems with the RCW era 'Back of Beyond' is that Copplestone do very nice mounted Mongolian Cavalry BUT no dismounted figures for them ! .I suppose the argument is that they rarely dismounted but even so to have some would be handy .

I read somewhere that somebody had suggested combining Fireforge 28mm Steppe Warriors Infantry and Wargames Atlantic WWI Russian Infantry , using the bodies and heads from the Steppe Warriors and the arms with rifles from the Atlantic box . 

Rather than ordering a box of each I purchased a couple of the Fireforge sprues (4 figures per sprue) and one of the Atlantic Russians (7 figures (?) BUT lots of rifle carrying arms) . The figures match up quite well - some of the poses are a bit strange as you often get with these separate arms figures and the hats look a bit Medieval , but overall I'm quite pleased with the results .

I also found in my clearing up the above WW2 German sniper (in resin) which I think was a free give - away promotional figure , so I've glued him up as well.

I've even got them undercoated - for some strange reason the undercoat has come out glossy ?! . I hope to get them painted up after my holidays .

 

A look back 10 years ago.

 I was looking back through my blog and wondered what I was up to 10 years ago - and came up with this ! . I was deeply into the Italian Wars of Independence , I need to get these figures back onto the tabletop again ....

Wednesday, 9 September 2015

Piedmontese Lancers .

My next order from Irregular arrive at the weekend comprising of 2 squadrons of Lancers and a gun, crew and limber/team . Spurred on I painted up the first of the Lancer units .

They are the Lancieri Di Novara , I've decided to go a bit more cavalry heavy with the Piedmontese force and as I haven't got any lancers in my Unification of Italy project they were an obvious choice . Just to make things a bit more interesting they had their shako covered with a 'yellow' waterproof cover . Irregular figures are not the most detailed but they do paint up quickly and at 'wargaming table distance' (about 3' ish) they look as good as any other manufacturer .

A bit of a Paintfest !

 

Been rather busy painting the last week and to my surprise managed to get my second unit of Prussian infantry done and varnished up. The problem with the Prussians is there are only small differences in the uniform between regiments which don't really show up in Shiny Toy Soldier mode , so I have painted their backpacks a different colour brown to distinguish them from the others. The figures are of course Irregular Miniatures. 

Is Big Brother watching me ?!

I've just noticed the viewing figures of my blog - I have about 100 followers and have usually got 80-90 views which I have always thought was fair seeing the number of interested people and the articles I put up . I've never publicised my blog and have always been gratified if anybody comments or clicks to view it . However this last week or so I have noticed the views have shot through the roof ! , Topping off with over a 1000 views on the post on the Prussian Uhlans , now I suspect there must be some sort of BOT looking on !? - are there certain words which trigger the interest ? or is Big Brother genuinely interested in small glossy toy soldiers ? (click on photo to enlarge) 

PS just checked back over 2 years and find all the viewing figures have mysteriously grown !!?? 

 

Wargaming humour No.48

 

Found on the Interweb , I would say my own wife is tactfully tolerant of my hobby . 

Prussian Uhlans .

 

Pleased to say I've got my first unit of Cavalry done , they are of course Prussian Uhlans.

I had to do a conversion for an Officer, I cut the lance away , drilled out the hand and glued in a flattened pin for a sword . Uhlans must be my favorite Prussian Cavalry , coming up next some French Hussars .