Pre-Challenge: 15mm Terrain

Hello hello all!

While the gaming blogosphere has been abuzz with clearing the decks before the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge starts, things have been a bit quiet here. It hasn't been the most productive few weeks, but I have been pootling away and kept up with a game every week or so.

With Chain of Command as the ruleset of choice and 15mm the most popular scale, I felt it would be good to sort out some terrain before the challenge starts. Years of hoarding meant I had plenty of supplies for a few hedges:



And a few more....

...and more:

A total of 7 feet of hedge using Woodland Scenics clump foliage and under bushes and small scale in various shades with some small tree armatures. All based on giant craft lolly sticks built up with wood filler. Plus a foot or so of 10mm dry stone walling from Hovels.

But wait, that's not it! I also based up some 'Hallmark' low walls from Timecast. Really nice prepainted pieces at a fair price, though a bit unstable to use out of the box. So they went on lolly sticks too, got a wash or two to tie them closer to the farmhouse and got some groundwork to finish them off.

The farmhouse itself is from 4Ground. I'll go back at some point to tidy up the burnt edges and grubby it up a little. I've also got the threshing barn and stables built and ready for the table.

Some good fortune with the size of the giant lolly sticks plus a bit of head scratching meant I managed to get them to fit snugly either straight or at right angles by clipping the ends to a 90 degree (ish) corner.

All in all, a fairly good start at the terrain, I can also borrow a few bits from the 28mm collection. But realistically, I could probably do with two or three times the length of hedge for a 6'x4' board, including some of the dreaded bocage. But that can wait until spring now.

The other recent focus has been on preparing for the Challenge, which started this morning. This weighty sack of lead that turned up the other week from Empress' SCW range certainly kept me busy. In the end, I only managed to prep  a third of it!



Oh, one more thing - my brother Gharak has picked up the brushes again after an 18 month hiatus. Welcome back bro! Check out his blog if you're interested in Pulpy stuff - he's rather a good painter. 

Sharp Practice - Encounter in the Peninsula

Samulus came over for a game yesterday and I whipped out an old favourite of mine: 28mm Napoleonic Peninsular War using slightly modified Sharp Practice rules. I've built up a fair amount of terrain for rural Spain and could field British against Spanish, though the latter were intended as allies rather than antagonists. So I was making do without any French, and did have to knock up some cards for the activation deck. 

As this was Samulus' first game, and my first of Sharp Practice for over a year, I kept it simple. A meeting engagement with small, balanced infantry forces. Each force had four units led by one Grade 3, one Grade 2 and two Grade one leaders. Of the units, one was  Light infantry, one 'Good' grade infantry and one 'Poor' infantry, though I shuffled around the leaders across each force. The objective was simple - small forces encounter each other in a rural region and to retain the field both aim to take and hold three defensible positions conveniently placed across the centre of the table.

Game start, and the colourful Spanish Blinds face off against the British in the opposite corner. The objectives were the farmhouse, church and walled wheat field. 

A couple of turns passed and I had rotten luck with the activation deck, with my Blinds activation only coming out once in three turns. This limited my movement and kept me in my starting corner while Samulus' Brits bounded across the table. On turn three, the Blinds were all spotted and the gloves came off. My infantry were exposed, with the well led, Good infantry in the centre took three volleys without getting chance to respond, leaving them in a bad way. The second unit safely made it to the wheatfield. 

The British put out a withering fire, forcing back the battered line infantry, by now on the verge of quitting the field. The Spanish in the wheatfield fare much better so I chose to push the poor Militia unit into the field aswell to take advantage if the cover. Things aren't looking good for the Spanish. 

I managed to rally my Centre, while the Lights took shelter in the wooded terrain to their left. 

These exchanges continued, with the most notable and surprising even being a large unit of British infantry charging battered Spanish line, who managed to repel and break them. Superior quality and command and some luck with the dice was telling. 

Meanwhile, the Militia finally make it to a position to put the 95th Rifles under fire. While they weren't that effective on the day, I do find Rifles can be  a pain, with a long range and accurate fire. 

The Spanish centre eventually broke the British to their front and sent their greatcoated light infantry off in search of the third objective. But in their state they faced no real chance of shifting the fresh Highlanders who held the Church. The Line in the wheatfield were in an exchange of attrition, as were the Militia and Rifles. The balance had shifted.

The field at game end, turn 8. Each side holds one objective, the walled field for me, and the Church for the Brits, while the third is neglected by both. Each side has taken a roughly similar level of casualties and neither of us had any great prospects of shifting the other. A draw, it seems! 

Once more, I enjoyed Sharp Practice. It had a nice level of complexity, with some attempt to model the fog of war using blinds and random activations. But it isn't too random, as units whose command card hasn't been drawn are able to take limited actions on the 'Tiffin' (or end turn card - bless the Lardies and their terminology). It does a perfectly good job of making a fun game with twists and turns, which feels right for the era and plays in two to two and a half hours. 

As I packed down, Samulus and I discussed what scale of clash the game is representing: 1:1 or up to each unit representing a company or two. This triggered by the fact each unit is modelled with their Colours, which they obviously wouldn't be in a skirmish like this. I remain content with keeping such things undefined as long as the game is fun, feels right and looks good. And they do look good carrying their Colours, if I do say so myself. 

Hopefully we'll get chance for another game soon, perhaps with some cavalry and artillery to mix things up. 

British Foot Artillery, and a cunning transportation solution

Another week, and another photo of my British Napoleonics, this time a battery of the Royal Foot Artillery:

Miniatures are Victrix plastics, with Architects of War hedges filling the background and Hovels ltd atrillery emplacments. These were a bargain and painted up brilliantly but have yet to see the tabletop. The smoke is the best material we've found to date, the lining of Perry Miniatures blisters. This is much, much more natural-looking than cotton wool. Progress on Napoleonics has stalled as I worked on the WWII project, but I hope to put some time in soon.

I'm also often trying to find an 'optimum' solution for tranposrting figs. I've got a Figures in Comfort case that I love, but they are a bit too pricey to have enough to hold all of my various forces. So, for plastics and odd scales I've been experimenting. Here's the solution for my 28mm Napoleonic British:

So, top left to bottom right we have 95th Rifles, KGL light dragoons, Royal Foot Artillery, 28th North Gloucestershire Light, 28th North Gloucestershire centre, two unpainted units of redcoats, and finally the 42nd 'Black Watch'. Since I took the photo the painted 42nd have doubled, and the Rifles have been finished. Redocats next, when I can bring myself to it!

It is a standard A4 box file, lined on the bottom with sticky-backed steel sheet (I got mine from Principles of War). The troops are then based on Gale Force 9 magentic bases. The Colours are just short enough to fit in. The magnets are strong enough to rank the models up, they don't move as long as you don't shake the box too vigourosly. The only ones I would be worries about would be my Perry metal cavalry.

Gaming weekend, Battle Report

Just back from a long weekend with my brother, where we itnended to get some solid gaming in while the womenfolk knitted and gossipped. Unfortunately, fate was against us, with a two hour delay on the trains on Friday writing off any gaming then, and my brother coming down with something which although mild, was an unwanted distraction.

Still, we rolled out the 10mm WWII for two games using Baptism of Fire. Mostly, we were chuffed to both be using fully painted forces of the first time in an age. And they did both look mighty spiffing, if I do say so myself. I've added a few photos of the first game below - British attackers aiming to break through the German position.

The assault begins

The markers are for defensive hidden deployment of troops and defenses, as well as D6 dummy markers. Smoke and flames is for morale statue (one for suppressed, two for pinned) - these were from my initial bombardment.

Shermans crest the hill

The terrain is mostly scratch built, with Hovels Ltd farm buildings, which painted up nicely. Note the table has moved - kicked out for dinner to be served! A substantial benefit to being able to play on 2' by 4'.

Panzer IV knocks out the Firefly's turret

Enough said really - the Brit armour is in a fix, having lost their main firepower.

Endgame

We called it a wrap, with by brother unable to stop the start of a tide of Tommies flooding past his right flank. Although the Brits were losing the tank battle, they had succeeded at holding back the German centre for long enough to start acheiving their objective in numbers.


Lessons learned:
- The rules play well, but a turn takes 30 - 40 minutes or so and are very interactive so require a lot of attention.
- As we've only played a few times, and the rulebook design does leave quite a lot to be desired, there is a lot of rulebook flicking to slow things down.
- Bring plenty of transport - infantry is slow to maneuver on such a large board.
-Never underestimate the panic a single 2" mortar can cause with a good barrage.
- Armour is strong, but goes down fast to the heaviest guns, or is impossible to beat from others. We may need to tweak the armour rules to prevent armoured one-upmanship forcing us both to always bring some major AT firepower at the expense of everything else. The next game highlighted this perfectly, when the Tiger I showed itself...
- Fully painted figs and terrain are hughely rewarding

We also made a short trip to Triples on Saturday, to stock on on supplies and inspiration. More on that later!

Delayed, but finally!

Well, I've been a poor blogger. It's a week since my last post and I've still not posted the pics of the Light Dragoons I mentioned many weeks ago. In the meantime, I've had my first visitors (welcome!). To make amends, after enjoying the lovely weather this afternoon I set up a board and some terrain backdrops to photograph my 28mm Naps, which I intend to post up over the coming week. 

So, first up, the 1st Kings' German Legion Light Dragoons 9th Light Dragoons:

With limited reference material, I had to be a bit imaginative on the command's uniforms, so they may be inaccurate. Even more so, we've been collecting Peninsular forces and these Perrys are intended for the Waterloo campaign. However, I disregarded this, mostly because I prefer the shakos to tarletons and the range of poses is superior from Perry compared to say Front Rank. In my defence, I'm not too fussy about getting everything exact, after all, I'm out to have fun and enjoy painting and gaming, rather than fret over uniform details. After taking this shot, I also noticed a slightly bent sword in the second rank, frustrating!

Oh, the buildings and walls are from Hovels. I highly recommend this UK-based company, they sell a number of ranges and although perhaps not as fine as other manufacturuers, they are solid pieces, very reasonably priced with excellent service.