American Civil War: Confederates (13)

It's been April since I painted any Confederate reinforcements, but this week sees the first half of a box of Perry Miniatures American Civil War Confederate Infantry completed.

I assembled the majority of these while in vacation, so some of them are already veterans of both the Bull Run and Gettysburg battlefields, well at least they were in the car when we visited.

While painting these I tried to do a majority in butternut uniforms. My recipe for this is about a 50:50 mix of Flat Earth and German Camo Beige highlighted up by adding a small amount each time of Iraqi Sand.

The additional greys are an assortment of Luftwaffe Unifom, Basalt Grey and Neutral Gery, again just a couple of highlights on these.

The officers coat is French Mirage Blue and the browns you see on the trousers and blankets are typically starting from a base coat of Flat Earth or Chocolate Brown. The few blues are Medium Blue.

Everything is done in my usual style, small batches of four figures, basecoat, wash (Army Painter Strong Tone) then two or three highlights. The flesh is picked out with Army Painter Flesh Tone then everything is brown-lined using Windsor & Newton Peat Brown ink. It's all a bit rough, but I like the effect and you can get a unit together in quite a short amount of time.

The figures are all mounted on 20mm Renedra bases and then mounted on Warbases Regimental trays, mainly for Sharp Practice, but I do have about enough stuff done now to start playing some Longstreet games.  As more gets done I plan to have a go at Over the Malvern Hills, but quite a bit of painting before then.

A few of the individuals:

Confederate officer

Confederate officer. Rear view

Assembled using arms from the Union skirmisher frame

Maximillian 1934: Death Match

Thursday saw another game of Maximilian 1934 in the gaming room. Only myself and Drew were able to make it this week so we played a Death Match with each of us having two $1000 vehicles.

Drew again ran Red Bess, a jalopy with a pintle MG, extra armour (1pt each F&R, L&R) and armoured engine, he also upgraded the driver to be both driving and gunnery '3'. Alongside this he used the newly painted Black Death a jalopy with two light cannon, extra armour to the front and the driver upgraded to be both driving and gunnery '3'.

I decided to use my two 1st Corps vintage speedsters. Firstly Sand Piper a buggy armed with three fixed machine guns and with the crew upgraded to driver skill 3 and gunnery skill 4. This was teamed with Green Nasty a jalopy armed with a pair of pintle mounted machine guns and a pintle mounted light cannon, an armoured engine and additional side armour complete the ensemble. Green Nasty does not appear in any photos of the game, but can be seen here.

Game 1 was a short and brutal affair, some deadly shooting by Sand Piper saw Red Bess with a dead driver in the second turn of the game. A couple of turns later Black Death had been cornered and dispatched. We lined them up again!

The second game was much more involved. Both sides were a lot more cagey and the initial shooting was nowhere near so deadly. Red Bess and Sand Piper paired off again and were chiselling lumps off of each other. To avoid a collision Sand Piper slammed on the breaks, Red Bess missed the fate roll and in the ensuing head-on Sand Pipers driver was killed and Red Bess immobilised!

The wide turning circle of Black Death meant that Green Nasty had the initial advantage, but the lack of driver skill soon showed and Green Nasty had rolled a couple of times trying to make tight turns to keep inside Black Death.

Every so often Black Death would swoop by hammering cannon rounds into the stricken vehicle and Green Nasties engine and steering were shot up, but Black Death was taking mounting damage whenever Green Nasty could reply. Finally, Black Death succumbed and Green Nasty was the last car standing, although probably on its side at the time.

A good couple of games again, but long vehicles like Black Death do seem heavily penalised in this sort of scenario, I also think it would have benefit from more players.

Those Frenchmen and Dutchmen are at it again

Last Saturday Drew came over to mine and we played a couple of games with the War of the Spanish Succession collection using the Maurice rules. It was over a week ago and I've slept since then so the details may be a bit vague.

As usual, Drew took the French and Bavarians and used a force of something like:

2 Elite horse

6 Regular horse

1 Elite foot

4 Regular foot

3 Artillery

National Advantage: Cavaliers

I used the Anglo-Dutch with if I recall a force of:

1 Elite horse

2 Regular horse

2 Conscript horse

2 Elite foot

5 Regular foot

2 Conscript foot

2 Artillery

National Advantage: Lethal Volleys

French and Bavarian foot prepare for the onslaught

We set up the first game, Drew would be the attacker so added an extra unit of foot. This one was pretty much over by the time we had played through the first deck.

Drew pushed up his left flank horse while I advanced with the foot to face his foot and horse. 

Game 1 French deployment

Stuck in front of the lethal volleys of the Anglo-Dutch foot the French and Bavarians soon withered. Many an heroic cavalry charge wash thrown in and pushed off.

All the bravery in the world was unable to break through the volleys of the Dutchmen

French horse managed to get onto the flank of the Dutch foot, but the French army morale collapsed before they could capitalise on it. 

As this had only taken about an hour we lined the forces up again and had at it. Again Drew would play the attacker.

This time the Anglo-Dutch deployed in the same fashion as they had before, while the French and their allies took a new tack. They put all of their horse en-masse on their left flank and made much more use of their artillery to bombard the Anglo-Dutch foot from a distance.

French foot in the centre

As the Dutch horse on the left flank had no opposing numbers I pushed them up the battlefield to hopefully draw French reinforcements. This was not to be, and as you can see from the image below the Anglo-Dutch horse on my right were heavily outnumbered.

This is only three quarters of the French horse against my few Dutch horsemen, there is another pair of units behind these!

 The Dutch infantry did get moving into the centre and some very fortunate card usage was able to prevent the sledge hammer that fell on my right from breaking through immediately, although eventually all the horse on that flank were routed.

French foot

Refusing their right flank the Anglo-Dutch infantry advanced on their opposite numbers and the Lethal Volleys soon did their work although at the end of the game it was much closer and the French route to the objective was open and it would have been theirs if their morale had not collapsed.

Dutch horse advance on the French right flank

All the figures are from Baccus 6mm and were painted by myself.

A few more shots from the game

American Civil War: Union (14)

I've had a break from painting ACW these past month and have been working on the Maximillian 1934 collection, but these chaps have been 'on deck' for a while. Indeed five of the horses have been painted for a couple of months at least.

This week I finished off the last three horses then made a start on the riders, giving them a speed-paint of base-coat, wash and two or three highlights to get them done. They are a bit rough, but make a nice addition of a second group of horsemen for our Sharp Practice games set in the American Civil War.

All are from the Perry Miniature ACW Cavalry set.

Here are a few close ups of some of the individuals.

The guidon is from Warflag, printed off at my local Office Depot.

All the figures are mounted on Renedra 20mm x 45mm cavalry bases.