Some sneaky Sardinians

Sneaky because somehow they managed to jump into the painting queue without being planned for. Since I ordered the cavalry from Lancashire Games I've been thinking that it probably wouldn't take me too long to get them painted. I could probably just sneak them in before I get into the Craig's figures without setting myself back too much. And I was right. Three evenings' work, which included having to repaint their greatcoats because I painted them dark blue instead of blue-grey.

The Granatieri di Sardegna

The Cacciatori di Sardegna

Artillery in campaign dress.

The Sardinians - eager to make their mark in the Crimea

The figures are not actually Sardinians. They are French from the long-since revamped Lancashire Games range which I acquired second hand. But the uniforms are practically identical in cut to the French. I had seen an image of the Sardinian Grenadiers with epaulettes, so went with that. My understanding is that the ordinary line had no shoulder decorations. I don't know if the Cacciatori even went to the Crimea, but I like the green epaulettes, so as far as I'm concerned, they were there!

So why didn't I just paint them as French? Well I have French for the Franco-Prussian War to pant in blue coats and red trousers, and I have World War One French to paint in blue coats and red trousers, so I just felt like something different would look nice in the cabinets.

OK, I better go and paint what I was meant to paint this week.

Nate

Great Northern War game and rules updates

Last night I played a solo game set in the Great Northern War. I rolled up scenario 25 in the one Hour Wargames book, which is infiltration. This consists of a lone unit of red force (the Russians) having to hold off four units of Blue Force (the Swedes) until reinforcements arrive. For their part the Swedes had to get 2 units off the north-west corner of the table via the road. The Swedes rolled up 3 infantry and 1 cavalry unit, the Russians got 4 infantry, 1 gun and a Dragoon unit.
My camera battery died so I thought I might try using the ipad to take photos. This is the main reason why the photos below are so bad. I shan't be using that option again.

Starting shot. The Rostovski regiment alone on the hill, surrounded by Swedes.

Things as they were in Turn 6. The Vasterbotten regiment is chasing down the remains of the Rostovski regiment while the other three units of Swedes head for the north. The Uppland regiment has responsibility for taking out the Ingermanlandski regiment in the north, and suffers hideous casualties on the way in. The rest of the Russian force has just arrived in the South (edge nearest the camera).

The Russians are outnumbered but holding on grimly.

A bitter battle ended - the Uppland regiment broken.

The Vasterbotten Regiment finally wipes out the Rostovski, only to find itself surrounded.

I forgot to check the rules and allowed the Swedes to escape off the northern table edge without using the road, thereby winning the game. I had already packed up when I reread the scenario conditions and realised that they needed to use the road. In hindsight I think they would have made it, but only just, taking the Russians on the road in the flank.

Playing the game made me realise that there were some things missing from the rules, which I've since updated. The first is that the rules for marching weren't in the GNW rules, not that it affected the game as the deployment of the Russians hindered any chance of marching, but I have now added them in.

Second, what to do about artillery if attacked in hand to hand. For all of the OHW rules I have amended artillery. Now artillery cannot be charged frontally if it has a friendly unit within 10 cm. Secondly, I've changed the charge restrictions from not being able to charge 'if the opposing unit has more bases', to 'if the opposing unit has more hits remaining'. This means the single element of the artillery won't always be outnumbered. Finally, for artillery that is caught in hand to hand combat, it is automatically destroyed. No need to worry about how it fights back etc. I think this balances artillery out - keep them supported and they should manage to avoid hand to hand combat which will annihilate them. Leave them out on heir own and they may be able to shoot up the opposition so that they can't charge, but their flanks will be exposed. I'll have to have a test and see how this plays out.

Finally, I've amended the combat outcome rules so that they make sense. Essentially a combat ends when a unit is destroyed or forced to withdraw because it loses a base. If neither of these conditions apply, the combat goes into the next player's turn, and the charged unit may turn to its flank if necessary.

All of the OHW rules have now been updated with these amendments.

Nate

Happenings

So in the most recent mail-out from Caliver Books I find out that the first shipment of the Great Northern War Compendium was damaged and so it will be another couple of weeks before they get the new shipment, meaning another three weeks before I see it. This can't be helped, but as a person with no sense of delayed gratification, it makes me very itchy indeed!

The ship carrying the GNW Compendium leaving the US...

I have consoled myself by ordering a few figures from Irregular Miniatures, which have nothing to do with the projects in 'accumulation year'. These are adding to existing projects. Now I had been seriously thinking about getting armies for the 30 Years War, and right up until yesterday afternoon, such was the plan. Then I changed my mind (of course) at the last moment, and decided that what I really wanted was some Polish winged hussars, because, well, you know, they look cool. It made good sense at this point to make a Saxon-Polish force for the Great Northern War. I already had some left-over Russians so a Saxon cavalry regiment, a Polish dragoon regiment, a Saxon infantry regiment and artillery are already in place. I've filled this out so that there will also be a unit of Polish Winged Hussars (because, you know, they look cool), 3 more infantry units and a dismounted dragoon regiment. A perfect size force for my One Hour Wargames rules, which will now need a bit of adapting to account for this new army.

Did I or did I not say that they look cool?

A Polish Dragoon as they would have appeared at Klissow looks very much like a Russian Dragoon in kartuz.
I love easy conversions!

I also ordered some Crimean Russian Hussars and artillery to finish off my Crimean armies, and from Lancashire Games I'm looking to get some Sardinian cavalry to join the two Sardinian infantry regiments and artillery I still need to paint up.

No, no, no! SardinIANS! And they didn't wear armour.

I haven't ignored accumulation year totally. I've just ordered a couple of Ospreys for the French and Indian War:

Accumulation year has plans to purchase French and British regulars for this conflict, along with terrain, but after buying all the stuff in this post, accumulation year has run out of money again.

Nate

A few more painted commission figures

Here is the last of the batch of figures sent to me by Geoff: 2 Perry Korean figures, 7 Native Americans and a young Boudicca.

Young Boudicca. A slim figure, and not the easiest face to paint.

Korean command figures. Geoff will add the standard when the figure gets to him.

The first of the Blue Moon Native Americans. I was so happy with the final skin tone I almost didn't feel like painting the rest of the figures. The photos make them look darker than they appear on the table.

This guy is my favourite.

The skin tone was achieved by using Vallejo saddle brown as a base and then mixing in more and more flat flesh for highlights. When that was finished they looked a bit light, so I made a glaze of Vallejo cavalry brown and washed the figures in it. I'm very happy with the final look.

I now have Craig's 15mm Flames of War Herman Goring Division unit to paint, but tonight I might have a break from painting.

Nate

New Rules Pages

I've just created new pages on the blog that contain various rules variants. The first five of them are adaptations of One Hour Wargames for the Great Northern War, Crimean War, War of the Triple Alliance, Franco-Prussian War and Napoleonic Wars. All of them contain my simple command variation and base removal. There are little bits inserted here and there designed to reflect the different aspects of warfare in the various conflicts, hopefully without unbalancing the system too far.

A French Revolutionary game - all units based as in the rules.

Action in the Crimea

The sides line up in Livonia - GNW action from last year

Prepared for battle - the FPW is a project in progress

As is the War of the triple Alliance

The other ruleset is Eagle Rampant for the Gallic Wars. This was the final variant of Lion Rampant I settled on for Caesar in Gaul, before writing a variant of the Punic Wars for Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy.

One of the things about any rules that I write or adapt is that they invariably reflect the figures collection that I have to hand. They don't aim to encompass all possibilities for any period - as they are for my amusement, they really don't need to. My brief for games that I like to play is pretty straight forward. They can't be too complicated - I want to play the game not the rules. I don't want them to drag on - 1 to 2 hours is my favoured resolution time. They have to give a challenging game on a smallish scale - my pocket projects are all about a dozen units or less per side. One Hour Wargames fits the bill for all three criteria, although there are aspects that I have to add in - command and base removal for instance - because they fit with my 'idea' of a wargame.

When I have accumulated the figures and playtested the rules, I'll put the FoW variant for the Indo-Pakistani War up here. I can't imagine Battlefront will be too interested in such an obscure period despite having all of the vehicles and figures necessary.

All of the rules are intended to be 'live'. I will put any amendments I make as a I play into them so that they are up to date with what I am playing. Please feel free to use them, link to them and add and delete things as you see fit. If they are your cup of tea, I hope you enjoy them. If not, maybe you'll get some ideas from them.

Nate

Delivery from Australia

On the doorstep when I got home was this delivery from Dan, all the way from across the ditch:

I had contacted him last month to ask him to look out for any cheap Muskets and Tomahawks at CanCon that he could pick up for me. He didn't see any, but then said that he didn't think he would get around to getting his own up and running, and did I want them? In return, I could send him the old Warhammer 40K second edition rules. As this was a bit of a one sided deal, I've also offered to paint his Samurai buntai for Ronin.

So what arrived? The rules and cards, French Wilderness, Indian and British Wilderness forces from North Star, and a Last of the Mohicans pack from Warlord (I think). Also in there are some Three Musketeers figures from the Brigade Games range for use with En Garde. They were a surprise. Very, very cool, especially as I was reading about the battle of Rocroi last night and thinking about French figures for the Thirty Years War. Admittedly I was thinking One Hour Wargames pocket project, but I'm not going to quibble!

The French and Indian War has always been a bit of a favourite of mine, and I'm keen to add a couple of regular units to these Wilderness forces, along with some civilians. This year is officially accumulation year, where I forsake any great advance on my own projects, paint for other people, and build up my collections to paint from next year onwards. The French and Indian War is pretty high up on that project list, after 1588, Ronin and my mid-war German Flames of War army I will probably start painting these guys, so I should get to them later this year.

Thanks Dan!

Nate

24 zombies in 24 hours

OK, I admit I didn't paint 24 zombies in 24 hours, but I did finish them all off within that space of time, and here I am posting about the last dozen. The first were in yesterday's blog post.

I decided to photograph them against a green background, as I figured the camera was focusing on the ground detail rather than the figures. I don't know whether it helped a lot.

I've just started the last 10 figures tonight, I hope to have them finished by early next week.

Nate