Merry Christmas...and looking forward to 2012!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all my blogging friends! It's been a great first year

of blogging and I can say that I have met a lot of wonderful, like minded individuals. It's always great to see

what other wargamers are painting and playing. Well one of  my big projects for 2012 will be to paint more 28mm ACW figures. I am planning on running a small 28mm "Johnny Reb" game at Nashcon this year and am using that as an excuse to get crackin' on these guys! What is your project for 2012?

My lead pile...I had to spread them out on the table to see what was left to paint. Each bag represents
a 20 or 25 man unit. These are all 28mm Dixon figures. I can purchase these at my local gaming store, and it's
nice not to have to use mail order. Support your local gaming store!

28mm Dixon CSA sharpshooters. This is a unit I have finished already. I like the distinct look
of the Dixon figs. These Rebs are defending a Perry plastic building.

The Battle of Eckmuhl 1809 - 15mm Napoleonic Game

The Battle of Eckmuhl 1809 -

We are playing the scenario from Dave Brown's "General de Brigade" volume 1 scenario book. We aren't

using GDB, but my own homespun version of big battalion DBX style rules. If I ever find the time I will post the rules here on the blog! The battle is pretty straight forward in that a smaller, attacking, elite French

division is trying to capture two villages and a wooded hill that are held by a larger Austrian division. Oh, and the French don't have any cavalry! These pictures represent the first few turns of the game. I'll be posting more pictures soon!

Here is a Wikipedia link for more information on the battle:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Eckm%C3%BChl

Austrian infantry defending Ober Laichling. These are old Heritage/Empire figures and
Architectural Heritage buildings.

An overview of the battleflied: The village Ober Laichling is to the left, and Unter Laichling is to the right.
These two villages are the objectives of the attacking French, as well as the wooded hill to the top right
and the breastwork to the top left. 

Austrian Infantry defending Unter Laichling.

The elite 10th Legere have been repulsed from Unter Laichling. We use cotton balls
to represent "shaken" morale status.

The Austrians holding the wooded ridge. The commanader decided to move off the ridge and support
the fight for the villages!

French line infantry moving from the area around Unter Laichling to support the
attack on Ober Laichling. 18mm Old Glory figures.

Th fight for Ober Laichling - The French have captured a section of the village. The French
are old true 15mm Naismith figures....some of my favorite figs!

The Austrian counter-attack! All of my 15mm Napoleonic figures are for
the 1809 Danube campaign.

The Bavarians - marching to the sound of the guns! They will show up in
a few turns to help their French allies.

The scenario book - great scenarios!

More 28mm War of the Roses

The War of the Roses has been the flavor of the last month or so. We've gotten in a couple Medieval Tactica WOR games and  I'm currently painting another 24 man unit of Perry longbow men. The Perry sculpts are

some of the most realistic and well proportioned figs on the market (lead or plastic). The plastic figures

do feel a little "light" in the hand and need a little getting used to. I mounted them on metal bases to give them a little more heft! I suspect that they will be a little fragile too,and have told my kids to be "gentle"....a few years ago they put some major devastation on some of my old GW plastic figs! 

Here's a shot of my paint splattered painting area! I keep an old piece of wood on an old  desk.
This let's me cut and paint away with no worries of doing any serious damage! It's nice to have a
permanent painting area so that I can just leave current projects set up and get back to them when I have time.

This will be a 24 man Lancastrian archer unit. I like to prime white and then work with washes and highlighting.

A view of our last WOR game in progress! I like fairly big units and most infantry units are 24 - 32 figures strong. This fight is going N -S instead of our typical W-E.

A unit of peasants crossing the bridge. These are the local folks and have decided to get involved in the battle!
The players had some fun with this since I let them roll to see if/who the peasants would join. In order to get the peasants
to join their cause they had to roll against each other and if they won 3 times they got the unit!

My favorite rules for the period. I think Tactica and Medieval Tactica
are Arty Conliffe's best work! 

28mm War of the Roses

I finally finished painting my first unit of Perry Miniatures 28mm War of the Roses plastic figures. It took me forever to cut, glue and assemble the two boxes, but I like how the first longbow unit turned out. I have another longbow unit on the painting table, and then a unit of billmen. I'm still not used to how light a stand of plastic figures feel. There is still something comforting about 1lb of lead in your hand! I took these pictures

outside, away from the shadows of my gaming room, and I really like the natural light. 

A 24 figure unit of longbowmen. I generally prefer Tactica Medieval, but I'm still planning
on giving Warlord Game's "Hail Casear" a try in the near future.

An old OOP Wargames Foundry cog that I'm painting and rigging. I'm looking
for a way to get the ship into a scenario! I'll post some more pics of the cog when it's finished.

The Headless Horseman rides again!

I've always enjoyed Folklore and have tried at times to find ways to combine it with gaming, so I painted these 28mm Westwind figures for some "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" games! The game basically plays as a typical miniatures skirmish game, but with a few RPG elements. Each player takes a character figure (Ichabod Crane, etc.) and a few henchmen and has their own victory objectives. Some of these goals might have to do with taking out other characters, killing the horseman, or solving a mystery or two! As far as the Headless Horseman is concerned, I make a secret die roll at the start of the game to determine if he is either purely fictional, totally real, or is just being portrayed by a character to scare the town,.... or a combination thereof! Here are some pictures:

 

The villagers come out to see what the ruckus is all about!



The Headless Horseman rides again!

Another view of the Horseman - that old Hessian!

The Headless Horseman with unlucky soul's head!

The Sleepy Hollow town militia comes out for a look!

These are quite versitile figures and could work for a few periods,

The rules I'm using! Good stuff! Happy Halloween everybody!

Link to Westwind's Sleepy Hollow "Gothic Horror Range" figures:

 http://www.westwindproductions.co.uk/catalog/index.php?cPath=2_20

Perry War of the Roses plastics

I had some free time this weekend, so I decided to start work on my plastic, Perry, War of the Roses figures. The figures are amazing, but I knew I was in for a job when I opened the box. Sometimes I think I would just rather pay more for lead figures then to have to fight with the super-glue and X-acto knife! But anyway, I had a good time of it because I moved from my normal work area, to the family room so I could watch college football on Saturday (go Noles!) and the NFL on Sunday (go Titans)! I was able to get all 80 figures cut, glued and  assembled by Sunday afternoon. I did like how I was able to customize each figure. I also glued each figure to a card base, since I like to have a larger sized base to hold when I'm painting. I divided up the figures into a 32 man polearm unit and two 24 man archer units. They will be getting primed black here in the near future.

Working on the figures. I have them grouped into their units here. Some are already mouted
to a card painting base. My arch-nemesis, Super Glue, is also pictured.

Another shot of my weekend project.

A painted 28mm Front Rank knight unit from the game we are currently playing.

A different view of the same mounted unit.

An overview of the battle.

28mm War of the Roses - Hail Caesar

My friend Titch, international gamer extraordinaire, attended Salute 2011 in London this Spring. I asked him to get me a copy of Hail Caesar and a couple boxes of plastic Perry WOR figures. He succeeded in his mission! I had originally intended to use HC for future 28mm Roman & Celt armies, but after doing a little reading of the rules, and looking at some pictures of a WOR game Rick Priestly posted on the HC yahoo groups site, I think I just might have a go at playing a WOR game using these rules. I'm sure I'll get around to it sometime, and I'll be sure to post some pics and a battle report. I'm actually pretty excited about these rules and figures and can't wait to get started clipping and gluing! We are definitely entering another "golden age" of miniatures gaming with lots of great plastic figures coming out (Perry, Warlord Games, Mantic, etc), and some fantastic new rules too from all the ex-GW guys!

I was browsing YouTube looking for videos of Salute 2011 and just stumbled upon a video with my friend Titch in it. You might remember him from the DBA game post a while back. Yes, he's the loud American gamer in the Old Glory T-shirt! Way to go Titch...now get busy painting the rest of your War of the Roses figures so we can play that massive game we've been talking about!

Link to the Salute video:

http://youtu.be/RRUoyvDqSNQ

28mm War of the Roses

28mm War of the Roses game. I just set this up and we will be playing soon. Here are some pictures!

The local townsfolk...they are debating about getting involved in the fight. Most of these figures are old
Wargames Foundry Perry figures. I'll let the players roll some dice to determine what these guys will do!

Old Glory wounded figues hurt in the initial pre-battle skirmishing!

A light unit of horse moves toward the bridge.

The line of battle. We are using "Medieval Tactica" by Arty Conliffe (with a few house modifications). These are a great set of rules for the period. I just picked up a copy of "Hail Ceasar" and am looking forward to trying them.

Mounted Knights in reserve. These are Old Glory figures.

Skirmishers advance!

Line of battle - mostly Front Rank figures.

Lord Wenlock - painted for the massive Tewkesbury game Titch and are are planning to run soon at a Con near you!

Burgundian pikemen

These are old Grenadier figures I picked up years ago at the Sword of the Phoenix in Atlanta, GA.

An overview of the battle....mostly skirmishing will occur on this side of the table.

Another view of the battle....this will be where most of the heavy fighting will occur. The "hot spot" is caused by the sun coming through the window in my gaming room, but it makes for a great "sunrise" shot!

15mm DBA

My good friend, Titch W., rolled into town recently for a visit and some gaming. We hit the local gaming store first - Wargames, Inc., and then played two DBA games. Here are some pictures of the games and Titch's nicely painted 15mm armies.

Titch unpacking his figs. I like his travel set-up in the tackle-box.

A Carthaginian elephant. I really enjoy this army because of the
diversity of troop types available. Nice paint job!

A roman element of "artillery". Some more nicely painted 15mm DBA
figures from the brush work of Titch.

The Roman initial set-up. I played the Romans and Titch played the Carthaginians in the first game. He
provided all the figures and we used my terrain.

Titch's Carthaginian DBA army deployed for battle.

Almost crunch time!

A decisive turn in the battle! The elephant and spears broke the center of the
Roman line. It was actually a close game but I lost the game by 1 element!

A shot of the second game we played - Romans vs Scythians. This game turned out to be
a quick Scythian victory. The light horse armies usually win or lose BIG!

A close up of Titch's Scythians. We had a lot of fun with the games and we are
definitely both looking forward to a rematch!