catching up: early Autumn 2016

While I haven't posted recently, I've not been neglecting my wargaming entirely. :-)

Black Powder AWI at Army of Central Maryland

I recently ran a Revolutionary War game at the local club using the Black Powder ruleset; I'll soon have a post about that and some related games I'm planning.


A few weeks before that, I also ran a Rev War Black Powder game at a friend's house, mostly as a trial and to gain familiarity with the rules.

Black Powder AWI at Peter's

Before that, I've played a good deal of Advanced Squad Leader (three games in a month, which is kind of a record for me),

ASL with Gorkowski

ASL with Fortenberry

ASL with Frum

 played Red Poppies: Ypres Campaign with the designer,

Gorkowski explains my cruel but inevitable defeat.

 played Star Wars: Armada with my best friend while his teenaged son refereed (with lots of heavy sighs at our adult ineptitude),

Star Wars:Armada with Peter

played a British Grenadier scenario of Frayser's Farm,

Burgoyne's British let loose a volley.

and refought the battle of Vendôme with Bruce Weigle's excellent 1871 rules at the author's house.

Another of Bruce's incredible battlefields.

I also took a day off work last week and had a full weekend at Fall In. I played four different games: two Carnage & Glory games set in the Polish Commonwealth (17th century),

My Russian nobles about to kick Polish husaria ass!

one medieval game with Bob Bryant's new small-battle Clans and Companies rules, and a final Carnage & Glory game set in the American Revolution. I had several other games on my list to try to get into, but none of them panned out, alas. I also did a bit of shopping for an upcoming project.

I'll try to arrange for a few posts to summarize these exploits and get a few more photos up. Needless to say, I've also been continuing to read and learn about the 1777 Philadelphia campaign and to enlarge my Rev War research library.

I've also expanded my board wargame library a bit and taken up two new sports, curling and German longsword fencing. So, it's not like I've been sitting on my duff. :-)

Catching Up: Late Summer 2016

Sur Dynasty forces sweep towards the Mughal army. (Author)

Nearly two months later and while the summer feels like it's dragged on forever, the end is in sight!

I was able to got to Historicon this year for the first time in forever. I had a blast, playing a Carnage & Glory scenario of the battle of Camden run by David Bonk and Bob McCaskill, an Et Sans Resultat scenario of the battle of Vitebsk run by the author, David Ensteness, and a Pike & Shotte game (Providence at Panipat, a battle in 16th century India) run by John Shirey.

Punic War battle in Triumph! WAR. (Author)

I also played in two mini-tournaments of Triumph! WAR, the new ancient/medieval wargame from the Washington Grand Company. One campaign was set in the First Crusade, the other in the Punic Wars.

I did a good deal of shopping, met up with a few old (and new) friends, and generally had a good time. Now that I know it's not as hard to get to or as difficult to navigate as I thought, I will be back more often.

I've made it to two more game days with the DC Conscripts, the local ASL club. In one I got in a couple of scenarios from the late Ian Daglish's Scotland the Brave scenario pack (StB8 The Lost Platoon, StB3 Seaforth Objective, and StB2 Cameronian Crossing). At the other, Stephen Frum gently and politely hammered me into the ground as we played BoF4 About his Shadowy Sides.

Americans (left) advance toward the British (right). (Author)

And I did get a little Rev War miniature gaming in; Mr Invisible and I made it up to Games and Stuff in Glen Burnie to meet some of the local Marines (British Rev War, not modern USMC :-) for a playing of the battle of Bemis Heights with British Grenadier. Mr I. faced off more or less opposite me, he commanding the American right and center and me the British center and left. I bloodied the nose of one of his militia brigades as it thrust forward, but we Brits had to give up a great deal of the ground to find a position safe enough to defend, and I'm not sure we would have been able to hold on, as the American left was setting up to give us a walloping blow on our weak right side.

In other Rev War news, I've been reading away and taking copious notes, and I hope to have another couple of posts on Project 1777 available shortly. One of the surprises at Historicon for me was picking up the range of Rick Priestley's new games (Black Powder, Pike & Shotte, and Hail Caesar) after, I admit, poo-pooing them for some time. They're not the most simulation-y or period-tailored sets of rules in the world, but they are fairly easy to learn and provide both a simple framework and enough widgets to hang on it that I'm impressed by what I have seen of the period supplements. I enjoyed the one P&S game that I played, and I look forward to trying out several more scenarios with these rule sets. I think their breadth of scope and shallow learning curve will make them popular among my friends who like military history and enjoy playing games but who are not rules junkies or interested in/prepared to learn more complex games with many more moving parts and details to keep track of and consider.

Army painting: DBA IV/13 continued

So, with colours picked out, it was time to start slapping them on. I like to put down the main body colours (usually uniforms or other clothing) first, secondary body colours next, weapons after that, then faces/hands, with details and touch-up coming last.

Here's everyone with the first colour on:

And then everyone with two:

And a photo of my lovely (handsome) assistant:

Then weapons and shields got painted, and work on hands and faces began.

Army painting: DBA IV/13a

I don't seem to be finding much time to post, but I've been busy nonetheless. I've had a few chances to get together with friends for table games, but my wargame hobby time has mostly been of the painting variety.

Painting is a task I don't much enjoy. I do get a sense of accomplishment, and a bit of pleasure, when the lads are all done and dusted, but I don't have the talent or pleasure in the process that some of my friends do, so it's often a rushed process, trying to get a small portion of my huge lead mountain ready to play. This especially happens in the spring and autumn, when the big East Coast HMGS cons come around (I rarely go to the summer one), and I sprint to try to finish a couple of DBA armies in time for tournaments.

This year I had two on the table, and one appears to be almost done, nearly a week before the event, with the second well underway. Most unusual.

In this case, I'm painting a Medieval German army (IV/13) for Alan Ferrency's Holy Roman Empire pyramid tourney. Here's the list:

1x 3Kn//4Bd(Gen), 2x 4Cb, 2x 4Sp, 2x 4Bd, 2x 2Ps, 3x 7Hd or 4Bd or 3Cb

It's an unusual variant; most IV/13 armies have a healthy dose of Knights, but this one has only one Knight, and that optional. It's nominally a IV/13a list, but one of the mandatory four Kn in that list has become a Cb and three others have permanently dismounted as Bd. (Interestingly, the General is also allowed to dismount, which he is not in the original army list.) The final Kn has joined the original 2 Ax or Sp or Pk in becoming 3 Hd or Bd or Cb. It's a list that was going to be heavy foot for the most part in any case, but now it can filed six Bd or five Cb where before it could have fielded no more than one Cb and at most four Bd. Curious.

That curious composition meant I had to raid other armies in the painting box. Fortunately, I had two Medieval Scandinavian armies on hand (both from the same "I sell ugly armies cheap" packager on Fanaticus), so I had pillaging material. Goodness knows I'll have to do some sorting later to make sure I have a "proper" IV/13 army and the ability to paint up a Kalmar Union or Swedish army for my GF, affectionately known as Fröken Sverige. :-)

I took far too many snaps as I was going along, so I won't bore you with them all here, but you can go to my Fotki account and see them. For now, let's just have a shot of them at start, assembled (crossbows in hands) and basecoated with black gesso.

It's an odd mixture of manufacturers. I have no idea where the knights are from (they were partly painted already); I don't like them much, but there are only three of them, one element. The spear and crossbow are definitely Essex, with the pluses and minuses that come with Essex (portly and with crappy bases, but nicely sculpted and good detail). The handgunners look like they could be Minifig. The blade are nice figures with good detail and lovely animation; I think the fellows who will be appearing later in white and red are different to the fellows who will be in yellow and blue, but I'm not sure.

Besides prepping the figures, I had to prep my palette. I fiddled around a little on the Internet, using the information that my fellows were supposed to represent Hannover. In the end, since Hannover existed int he period in question only as a city (the Electorate, and later Kingdom, of Hanover didn't exist until the 18th century), I assumed that they were troops of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg and chose for all the knights and blades colours that would match that realm: red and white for Brunswick (Braunschweig) and yellow and blue for Lüneburg. The crossbows and spears would have colours from some of the cities of the region, perhaps representing burgher militias or professionals hired by those towns, and got assigned blue and grey. The two stands of handgunners, I figured, would be top-quality professionals hired by the general, so they too got red and white liveries.

Next: Paint goes on!