Hundred Years War: English (5)

Yesterday saw a dozen English long-bowmen finished. As previously they are made up from the Perry Miniatures English Army 1415-1429 box and are a delight to paint.

Unlike the previous three batches, I've done these in more neutral tones, they could either represent lower status units, or, if I want to field larger units get mixed in with the existing troops.

From the original two boxes, I've only got six of the Men at Arms left to paint so it was fortuitous yesterday that deliveries arrived from both Warbases and Perry Miniatures. I immediately set around sorting out a couple of the custom bases and you can see the effect in these pictures.

The movement trays I ordered are an 80mm x 60mm with rounded corners, the one for the foot has six irregularly spaced holes for 20mm rounds while the one for the horse has three 20mm x 45mm spaced rectangles for the Reneda bases that I mount my cavalry on.

The delivery from the Perrys contained 15 mounted French Men at Arms, I cleaned up a few, here is how the movement trays shall look with cavalry on them.

I've already started using some of the stakes from the box set on a few of the movement trays so that I can show the bowmen deployed behind their defences.

More shots of the long-bowmen out of their movement trays.

Hundred Years War: English (4)

Taking advantage of the long Thanksgiving weekend I've made good progress on the Hundred Years War English that I started back on Agincourt day. The painting rate on these has been good and I've had a return of 42 figures in 28 days, a rate that I don't think I've maintained all year.

All figures are from the English Army 1415-1429 box and are as ever a delight to paint. Assembly can be a bit of a pain, a lot of the scabbards are really hard to remove from the sprue and the fine haft of the war-hammer has broken on a couple of occasions for me.

 

There are a nice mix of figures in Jupons allowing you to add a bit of colour to that mass of steel. I also added a few Orle on these, they seem to fit some of the helmets better than others, so a touch of trial and error.

The standard bearer carries the colour of Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham that is supplied on the painting guide. The paper is a bit thick for using as a standard and may get replaced with something more dynamic at a later date.

There are another dozen archers on the painting table being highlighted and another six Men at Arms to do then I'm out, here's hoping those French Men at Arms arrive from the UK soon.

American Civil War: Union (15)

It's been about ten weeks since the Union forces received any reinforcements, but this week I put the finishing touches to a battery of Union 3" Rifles.

These are all put together from the Perry Miniatures American Civil War Artillery set and it's a bargain at twenty quid for eighteen crew, three guns and three limbers.

I had a calamity when priming, the tin of Rustoleum Grey Primer did what can only be described as 'splurged' and covered the guns and crews with a later of claggy gunk. I tried to clean as much off as possible with an old toothbrush but some remains that you mat be able to make out in some of the pictures. 

The guns are painted from a base-coat of Vallejo Russian Uniform WWII that I think gives a good olive colour when highlighted up. The crewmen are painted pretty much the same as ever, base-coat, wash and highlights.

A battery of Confederate artillery has just been primed - without the drama attendant with the Union ones!

Patrolling in strength

Last Thursday saw us playing Chain of Command using the 'Cocing up Mud & Blood' amendments from the summer special, plus some of the modifications James and I used in our own Bois De Caures campaign games.

The Bosche commanded by Drew consisted of a Senior Leader commanding four sections each of a Junior Leader, 8 Riflemen and 3 Bombers.

The Poilu commanded by Bruce consisted of a Senior Leader commanding 4 sections of a Junior Leader and D6+6 troops. For the French if an even number was rolled the unit had a VB launcher, 1/3 (rounded down) of the troops were bombers. When rolling for the French on the "Bad Things Happen" chart all rolls are at -2 making the French very difficult to shift.

We would play the modified Patrol scenario. Bruce had two points and added a Sniper. Drew had 8 points and added a MG/08, an Adjutant, a Pre-game Barrage with Feurwaltz.

Both sides started with a Force Morale of 8, definitely Advantage Les Poilus with their special rule.

The Germans had a very aggressive Patrol Phase and were able to get a couple of Jump-off Points well over the half way mark while the French were rather pegged back and only able to get a couple of theirs anywhere near their redoubts.

Fate swung back to the French though when Drew made the first Command Roll of the game turning up treble-sixes and ending the turn, cancelling the bombardment effect immediately.

The initial German push stalled when effective fire from the right-hand redoubt knocked over the  Unteroffizier leading one of the sections but the perfidious Hun replied by deploying their Maxim and raking the redoubt with a deadly fire.

With VB grenades falling all around the Maxim kept up its deadly hail and the French had to commit the Lieutenant to shore up morale among the troops.

Spurred on by the Leutnant and Obergefreiter seized the initiative and made a dash through a gap in the French defences, with the French Lieutenant already committed it was difficult to direct the reserves and the Bosche were able to break through the line and claim victory.

It was all over rather quickly, with a very light casualty count for such an engagement.

A few more shots from the game.

Hundred Years War: English (3)

Work continues on the Hundred Years War English, a little slower pace of late as I had a a few days with a client in Minneapolis, MN last week and the past weekend Victoria and I had a fantastic get-away in Duluth, IA.

This week sees another dozen English archers added to the force and a commander painted long ago reconditioned.

A few years ago I painted the Martin Schwartz figure that was given away a few years ago. He really is a bit too late but lovely figure. The sword had broken off and he was looking a bit tatty so I replaced the sword with one of the Perry plastic ones and touched up the paintwork.

The main effort was spent on a dozen archers using green and gold as the main colours.

I'm getting pretty close to finishing these first tow boxes of Perry Miniatures Agincout English so I ordered some of their mounted French Men at Arms only to find out that the plastic mounted Men at Arms shall be out soon. 

I hope to have some more foot Men at Arms and archers ready over the Thanksgiving long weekend.

Rebel shenanigans

I've been a while getting this report out, what can I say but I've been busy :)

The first Thursday in November Bruce, Drew and Seth came over for another game in our Sharp Practice American Civil War series. Drew and Seth played the Confederates while Bruce and I the Union.

Having played some rather large games of late we went back to basics with a standard 1863 force each and played the Escort scenario with the Confederates doing escort duty.

The Confederates bolstered the core force with another unit of Skirmishers, while the Union added a Lvl2 with a group of 8 Infantry and a Lvl1 with a group of 8 skirmishers.

It's been rather a long time since we played and the detail may be  bit sketchy. The Confederates threw the least advantageous of their two entry points but did get three free moves and were soon striding manfully (without shoes) across the table.

The Confederates pushed their main body with the wagon up the flank furthest from the Union troops while the remainder of their force attempted to smooth their passage and keep the Federals at bay.

The Union forces did get quite an good starting position and were soon deploying troops to cut off the Confederate advance. Some nifty shooting by the Confederates did take down the leader of one of the Union skirmisher units rushing to block them and the other Union skirmishers had a bad roll on the shooting random event table and were restricted to close range fire.

The game developed with the escort pushing well up the table and the Union troops overwhelming the Confederates with both fire and bayonet, could the column make it off the table before the their morale collapsed. In a word, no, the escorting troops column was right at the edge of the table when the Confederate morale collapsed to zero, a minor victory to the Union tonight.

More pictures from the game, as usual, thanks for Drew for taking the additional shots.