Hundred Years War: French (20)

Chum Tony sent me some spare Claymore Castings figures that he had and I've painted them up to add to the ranks of Frenchmen that I've been working on.

From what I can tell they are all from the OT17, OT18 and OT19 English Billmen packs. I did not have weapons for them so they have all been re-purposed as spearmen using 50mm spears from Northstar

The figures are very nicely sculpted and are quite slight so fit in well with the Perry Miniatures that make up the bulk of my Hundred Years War collection.

The Claymore range is a based on the earlier Hundred Years War so the equipment is a little early for my Agincourt era games, but I think that it's unlikely that a town armoury would throw anything useful away that could be used to repel the English raiders.

WWII Soviets reboot (6)

While I was at the Partizan show I picked up one of the recently remastered Soviet T-70 tanks from the chaps at 1st Corps to support my Soviet horde

It's a lovely clean kit that takes very little preparation, I washed mine in soapy water and gave it a light going over with a needle file in the few places where it needed a little flash removing.

The whole thing was given a base coat of Rustoleum Camouflage Beige and then blocked in with Vallejo Russian Green. The tracks and exhausts were base-coated in a rusty mix of Saddle Brown, Black and Gunmetal Grey then the whole thing was covered in Army Painter Strong Tone.

Once dried I re-applied the base-coats then did a couple of highlights on the Russian Green by adding successively more Iraqi Sand to each layer and the exhausts and tracks were also highlighted.

I then set about making it filthy with some Tamiya weathering kits, mainly a mud stuck, then mud, dark sand and light sand weathering powders. Then adding water to a rust powder and leaving some rusty bits.

So, a nice clean model that I have made filthy!

Battle of Vimeiro 1808 using Command and Colours

I thought it would be good to spend a day with long time gaming buddy Steve when I was back in the UK and he is usually free in the week so we planned a game on the Monday I was 'oop norf'.

Steve has been a big fan of using the Command and Colours Napoleonic set as a figure game on a custom hex mat from Deep Cut Studio. 

Steve has long had a large collection of French, Russians and Austrians in 15mm but the Peninsular British are a new addition to his collection, some only having been completed before the game.

Steve had setup the game before we arrived using the Battle of Vimeiro scenario.

At the outset it was just Steve, Nick and myself but others were due to arrive as the game progressed. Nick took the French, myself the British & Portuguese, while Steve jollied things along.

Early successes for the British saw the French thinned out considerably in the centre, but they were pushing up on our left flank, capturing the objective on our left flank.

Tim arrived and joined with Nick playing the French as the action progressed in all sectors of the battlefield.

Things were looking decidedly dicey on our left with the British and Portuguese on that flank pushed back and under heavy attack. We continued to consolidate our position in the center hoping to move against the French left and were in an good position when we were joined by Martyn and broke for lunch. 

Martyn declared for 'Team France' and Steve joined me in leading the British.

Soon the hammer was falling on our right around the town of Vimeiro with the strong French forces on that flank committed while the push continued against the British and Portuguese on our left.

On and on came the French in a relentless attack and soon we would lose at the start of the next turn, but a counter attack on our left captured the objective and both sides had one point of morale left each.

A British battalion on the right that had been reduced to one stand, rallied back up to three countered against a similar sized unit of Frenchmen, in a do or die moment we broke the French unit and took of the last morale counter. Victory to Wellington, but only just!

I enjoyed it so much I've ordered myself a copy myself from the P500

Deep Dish Lard Day!

The chaps from Chitown Wargames are running a Deep Dish Lard day at Noble Knight Games on Saturday 12th October.

"Wanted to give everyone a heads up that Lard America Midwest will be hosting the first ever "Deep Dish Lard" at Noble Knight Games in Fitchburg, Wisconsin on Saturday, October 12th. Gaming will be from 10 AM to 6 PM, current plan is for two blocks of games beginning at 10 AM and 2 PM.

We hope local Lardies will be able to join us, we are still working on a game schedule but there will be CoC, CoC: DMZ, WaT and SP from early musings. As soon as we have a concrete game schedule it will be shared here or on the Lard America Facebook Page

If you are interested in possibly running a game let me know via email at wharding91@gmail.com."

I hope to be running a WWII game using my Burma campaign collection that has not been out of the boxes since we moved here.

What I did on my holidays - The Other Partizan 2019

Victoria and I had originally planned to visit the UK back in May, but with one thing and another the fates conspired to mess that up and we could not make it. But, we booked again in August and with great serendipity our fortnight in the UK coincided with 'The Other Partizan' at the Newark Showground.

Chum Martin picked Victoria and I up on the Sunday and drove us over to Newark for the event. The cost of entry was refreshing after the expensive shows I attend in the US, just £5.00 each to get in, including this years show figure, Karl Marx.

I knew that as I'd not seen a lot of my UK gaming buddies for a couple of years that I would be spending a lot of the day catching up I had pre-ordered most of the stuff I intended to purchase, so in preparation picked up one of the great cotton tote bags that they are producing for the show to hold my stash.

First chat of the day was with Mr Partizan himself, Laurence, then it was off to look at some games. Simon had his great Mancetter game on, as ever the table was groaning under the weight of all the figures and Simon had on a natty shirt, some things don't change.

Mancetta 61CE

  Pretty much right next to Simon was Steve with his lovely Chatterton’s Hill American Revolution game, you'll note Steve is wearing one of the natty shirts that Martin did for us at Salute 2015.

Chatterton’s Hill

Chatterton’s Hill

Chatterton’s Hill

While chatting to Steve, the other Steve and Aly showed up, as did Matt and his new wife Kozue who I'd not met before along with James. It was turning out a busy day! I also had a chance to talk to Wayne and Dan.

Mindful that I'd been here an hour already and had some orders to pick up I popped over to see Rich of Too Fat Lardies to pick up my hard copy of Blitzkrieg 1940. Rich was running a great looking game pitting Dutch defenders against FallschirmJager, who appeared to be having rather a tough time of it. Rich was sporting a very fetching snowflake badge!

Netherlands 1940

Rich Clark

Old mate Mick from our WAB days has also been playing Chain of Command a lot so it was great to catch up with him, not seen him in many years.

I also popped over to see the nice chaps at Warbases to pick up my order, Victoria also had an order to pick up and I suspect presents for me have been stashed away. On the way we bumped into Bob, Janice and James which was a nice surprise as I had not expected to see them.

All this chatting is thirsty work so we took a break in the cafe with Steve, Matt, Kozue and James, also taking the opportunity to say Hi to Jasmin and John.

Some very old gaming friends (well we are now all old) were running a Peleliu 1944 game using I Ain't Been Shot Mum which looked great. I spent a lot of time watching the game chatting to Tim, Barry and Dave.

Peleliu 1944

Dave Wilson

 Then over to the Northstar stand to pick up another order, mainly the lovely new WWII Senegalese, and had a good chat with James, also bumping into Jeremy, Rich and Tony from the Marauders. We stayed here quite a while so also got to chat with Trev and Stephen.

It's all rather a blur but I think I bumped into top chum Tom around this time too also Richard and Sammi.

Rather lovely Gaslands mat from Cigar box.

 I circled back to First Corps to see Simon and Mick pick up another pre-order and rand into my chauffeur Martin coming the other way.

Chauffeur and minder Martin!

 Penultimate stop of the day was at Great Escape Games where I had a chat with Mark and picked up on of the few things I had not pre-ordered, a copy of Seven Days to the River Rhine along with some counters, had a nice chat with Mark and Stuart.

James had also finished his family duties so we got a chance to catch up and exchange the ritual gify of Fornum & Mason Turkish Delight.

James arrived rather late

It was about time for a wrap and I remembered that I needed to pick up some more Renedra bases, whoops, out of readies and they don't take credit cards, had to borrow a tenner off Victoria!

So on to the loot:

• Tote bag
• Karl Marx
• Seven Days to the River Rhine
• Warsaw Pact Tokens
• NATO Tokens
• Blitzkreig 1940
• 12 Crusader Miniatures WWII Germans
• 56 Crusader Miniatures WWII Senegalese
• 1 Crusader Miniatures 25mm AT gun
• 4 First Corps German tank commanders
• 6 First Corps Soviet tank commanders
• 5 First Corps Soviet tank riders
• 1 First Corps T-70
• 8 First Corps Soviet casualties
• 8 First Corps German casualties
• Warbases workshop
• Warbases lean-tos
• Warbases railings (gate short)
• Warbases 5-bar gates
• 4 Warbases horses
• 4 Warbases dogs

I do miss my UK gaming buddies and the UK Wargames shows. I think the US would benefit from more events like Partizan, but I doubt it would support the traders.

Apologies if I forgot to name check everybody, writing this after getting back to the US and the jet-lag is making it all a blur...

The Battle of Oak Meadow - 1864

Yesterday we met up at Noble Knight Games to play a American Civil War game using Sharp Practice.  

The fictitious battle of Battle of Oak Meadow wan an engagement scenario, both sides comprised of two each of their basic 1864 forces with the Confederates adding a Lvl 2 and two groups of cavalry and the Union adding a Lvl 2 and two groups of cavalry and a Lvl 1 and a medium gun. Each side would also have two deployment points, one for each of their base forces.

As the forces were so large both sides started at +4 Force Morale and we used the blank card in the deck with the following rules:

If it was the first card drawn the blank counts as a Tiffin.

If drawn in a sequence of Command cards it breaks the sequence.

The card has no other effect.

Kevin and John would command the Union forces while Phil, Bruce and Seth commanded the Confederates.

A side objective of the game allowed a bonus for escorting civilians from the battlefield, while points could also be gained for torching buildings on the enemy side of the table.

Both sides were soon in action and brisk firefights between skirmishers were soon taking place in the woodlands on each flank of the battle.

One of the first casualties of the first Union volley of the game was Mollie, a civilian that the Confederates had been escorting from the battlefield!

Late to the fray the Union horse forded Deer Creek and were soon advancing through the marshy ground on the Confederate right flank.

Meanwhile in the centre the Confederate line was being shattered by the controlled Union volleys supported by the artillery piece.

Having had their line broken in the centre the Confederate morale collapsed when a Union sergeant leading a group of infantry was detached to support the struggling Union skirmishers in the wood and instead took on the Confederates at bayonet point clearing them out and securing that flank.

The subsequent Force Morale tests saw the Confederates recognised their exposed position and start an organised withdrawal before the battle became a rout.

A major victory to the Union forces although a reporter and photographer from "La Presse" recorded the death of Molly by a Union minnie and the subsequent fall-out tempered the victory slightly.

As always Sharp Practice gives a great narrative game and even with six players does not get bogged down.

Hope to be able to report on more games after I get back from the UK later in the month.