Waterloo, in an afternoon

Saturday saw Martyn, Bill, Steve, Nick and myself joining up at Martyn's to refight Waterloo using the Command and Colours Napoleonics rules using the Grande Battles additional rules.

All the terrain and figures were provided by our host Martyn, all are 28mm scale from his own collection.

Nick and I would play the Anglo-allies, me on the right holding Hougoumont while Nick took the left from La Haye Sainte. 

Bill commanded the French left, Martyn the centre and Steve the right. Steve and I also took on the c-in-c role determining where the command cards would be played.

It's difficult to keep track of everything in a large multi-player game like this, but initial attacks against Hougoumont were fended off while the French did an initial bombardment in the centre, but the follow-up infantry attacks were seen off. The French then built a five battery massed battery in the centre forcing the Anglo-allies to retreat from the ridge.

The Prussians then arrived on our left and after some initial success with the cavalry screen routing their opposite French numbers somewhat stalled while the Young Guard took Papelotte farm and had to be ejected.

The old Guard were committed against La Haye Sainte and the French made a decisive push to the west of Hougamont, but after some tough fighting their final victory token was taken and the battered and bloodied Anglo-allies took the day.

A brilliant days gaming in excellent company. 

I'm now tempted to get a giant hex mat of my own to use my own Hundred Days Campaign collection for some Command and Colours figure gaming.

Apologies that there are not too many photographs, I was just having such a good time to remember to take many.

Longstreet with Lee

 

Back in 2016 I moved to Madison, Wisconsin and shortly after Lee moved to Sydney Australia, so it did not look like we would get a game in any time soon. But after nearly six years we finally sat down across a games table.

Since ew last met we've both been growing our ACW collections, I've got both Union and Confederates while Lee has quite a large collection of Confederates.

I'd initially suggested we used the Pickett's Charge rules, but as we were meeting at the club it made more sense to play Longstreet as we would be able to play in two to three hours on a smaller table.

As Lee had not played them before I picked a couple of roughly equal forces of five units of foot and a battery of guns.

The Outflanking scenario makes a good starting point.

Randomizing the roles, Lee would be the attacker.

We had a great couple of hours too and fro catching up from the missing years. A great game that was an eventual victory to the Confederates.

More of Lee's photos below.

Hopefully, it will not be six years before the next one.

The Battle of Jenkins Turnpike, 1864

I've added a few new units to the American Civil War collection over the past few weeks so it was about time they saw some action.

This past Tuesday morning I hosted a game using the Pickett's Charge rules for Martyn using the collection. 

I was searching for some scenarios on line, but struggled to find anything, so just worked up a couple of one thousand point forces using the guide at the back of the rules. 

Martyn chose the Confederates and I took the Union.

The Confederates were off to a good start taking the initiative for several turns and preventing my Union forces from getting jump on them. Soon a mass of grey coated troops well screened by skirmishers were taking their toll on my line.

On my left my troops holding the elbow of the wall were forced back in disarray and the brigade commander on that side dithered for far too long and the Confederates were able to capitalize on this.

The calamity on my left was some what balanced on my right, the regiment of Zouaves supported by a unit of skirmishers on my right really held there own against the much greater number of Confederates supported by a screen of skirmishers. 

Eventually the, Union commanders were able to get their reserves into place and the line was steadied.

After about four hours play it was time to wrap up, although neither side had had any brigades broken, the Union forces had lost a battery and two regiments of foot while the Confederates had plenty of casualties spread across their units but has lost no units, we called a win for the Sesesh! 

54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment

 

A new unit musters for my Union forces with the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment the second African-American regiment in the Union forces and made more famous in the 1989 film Glory.

All the figures come from the American Civil War Union Infantry 1861-65 set of plastics, and I've assembled the infantry in this unit at right shoulder shift, the African-American heads are from the supplementary set available.

The pair of standards are from Flags of War.

American Civil War horse holders

When I started this year's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge I had planned to grow my American Civil War collection, but in conjunction with growing the Napoleonic collection too. Well, that has not happened and I have really been getting into slapping paint on the ACW collection, including purchasing and painting new units, well that's not going to help reduce the lead pile!

This post sees a pair of Perry Miniatures horse holders to support the dismounted cavalry that I painted four years ago, tardy!

The Union horses and holder are painted in a more uniform scheme than the Confederate ones, but both are lovely sets, although being metal figures from the Perry's do take quite a bit of cleaning up. 

Looking what's on the paint table, you can expect much more American Civil War in the near future, another order has gone into North Star, and the Napoleonics look like they will be waiting a while.

4th Maine Infantry Regiment

 Because of previous rules sets played, my collection of Union troops for the American Civil War contains quite a lot of stands of troops, but not a lot of command stands. As I'm now playing mainly Pickett's Charge or Longstreet I need to get some more command painted, but don't need that many infantry.

So, this entry looks like a small unit representing the 4th Maine Infantry Regiment, but once some of the surplus stands already in the collection are added it will be fielded at a more normal six to ten stand strength.

All the figures come from the American Civil War Union Infantry 1861-65 set of plastics, and I've assembled these infantry in this unit at right shoulder shift.

The pair standards are from GMB Designs.

Looks like a made a bit of a mess of basing though, that guy with the red neckerchief seems to be wandering off to his left, the sergeants need to get that sorted!