Church build continued

Further progress on the Spanish church, and the tall slim building for the town.

From the front

And the back

You might notice in the background is one of my completed buildings. I've been making sure that they can fit together with the new buildings in a town. To the right of this picture is the tavern, the bare bones of which are finished, but I've run out of tiling sheets, so it is a few steps behind.

The black on the church is not because it caught fire. I spray painted the interior of the tower and the windows black, as I won't be able to get a brush into those places.
After taking this photo I went back to the roof on the church tower and tried tidying it up.  It's definitely been the most challenging part of the build so far.

 Also on today's terrain building list was wallpapering my ruined 1/32 WWI house. I went online and found some Victorian wallpaper designs and chose one, which I then copy and pasted into publisher, making a full sheet of the pattern and printed it off.

You can see a few British Tommies in what remains of the structure. Three units of 6 figures can probably occupy this position. I will probably make a second one sometime in the future.

Craig's next box of toys to be painted arrived today, and I need to hurry up and get his Successors finished, so I'll try and finish the church and house tomorrow.

Nate

Towards a complete Spanish Town

In terms of terrain I've always largely made my own. and been satisfied with a relatively limited selection of versatile buildings, trees etc. But there are some interesting scenarios in the Scenarios for all Ages book involving sieges, forlorn hopes and urban battles that could do with a decent number of buildings to be constructed. As The Spanish Succession is my 'big battle' period, I've decided to try and create an effective urban environment for that era. So Spanish buildings are my current construction project. Last week I built 2 houses with porches, one of which featured in my last game. Today I began a church, a tavern, and a smaller townhouse, and plan to add to these as time goes by.
Here is the church under construction:

The inspiration for this building comes from Paul Darnell's Touching History book. Tomorrow I'll be adding decoration and the roof, although I need to order some more Spanish pantiles before I complete the tower.

Nate

The Spanish Flank Attack continued

After heading back to work today I decided to come home and play a few more turns of the game. It took about an hour and it was all over. This time I remembered to take a few more photos.

As the Old Yellows screen the Austrians in the farm the Spanish horse press forward in the centre, battering back the Jorger Dragoons.

The Jorger Dragoons sat just behind the infantry line - note that the Spanish horse do not have much in the way of support in this photo.

In a brave act of craziness, the Starhemberg regiment charged the Spanish artillery. Surprisingly they managed to reach it and rout it, opening the road north. This is not a manoeuvre that a general should rely on, but with the artillery being virtually unsupported it was a desperate gamble that paid off.

At the same time St Amant's regiment were keeping the Old Blues occupied, so that they could not offer support  to the artillery.

The Spanish horse decide to charge the Jorger Dragoons again, with Mohito-Borracho urging them on. If they can rout the Austrians then the Confederate army will be split and the Spanish can deal with them in detail.

Except the Dragoons win the combat against the odds. The Spanish fall back within range of the Catalonian Guards who pour in a close range volley. In the hailstorm Mohito-Borracho falls!

With the close range volleys weakening them, the Spanish horse are assaulted again by the Jorger Dragoons. It all proves too much and they break.

In hot pursuit the Jorger Dragoons cut down the fleeing Spaniards

This leaves the Jorger Dragoons slightly exposed as the Spanish line straightens.

The O'Mahoney Dragoons take the opportunity to charge the Austrians, holding all the advantages

But the Jorger Dragoons have their blood up and send the Spaniards into a rout. The pursuit runs them down, and all of a sudden the Spanish flank attack is in trouble.

With all of the Spanish infantry screened it is time for the Confederates to pack up and march off.

The cards enable the Osnabruck regiment to slink out of the farm and march down the road pretty much unharrassed. The Jorger Dragoons fall back to a point where they can counterattack any attempt by the Spanish infantry to interrupt the withdrawal. St Amant and Starhemberg continue to whittle down the Old Blues until the rest of the army escapes. Confederate victory!

 Just a couple of small changes to the rules from this playtest. I was really pleased with how they played. The real test was if they rewarded correct tactics, and they did. The destruction of the Spanish horse due to them over-extending themselves and the success of combined arms in seeing them off worked just as it should. I think that the percentages and modifiers are about right for shooting and combat, although I did reduce the threshold for grapeshot to cause damage.

In this final photo the Old Blues defend a farm against the St Amant regiment. The house is a new farm building that I built this week.

This week I plan to start construction on a few more Spanish buildings so that I can put together a full town for some urban combat.

Nate

The Spanish make a flank attack Part 1

With something approaching normality on the horizon whereby I return to work next week, I thought I would try and sneak in a small game before hand. Deciding that I wanted to try out the changes that I'd made to the Featherstone-Style Marlburian rules, I picked a scenario from Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargames book at random. It turned out the result was Flank Attack (1). I'd already set out a table by using Millsy's terrain cards, and it so happened that the terrain fit perfectly with this scenario.

The background is that the Spanish have managed to outflank the Confederate position, forcing a withdrawal on lines of communication. Most of the army has escaped, but the last brigade under General Garigliano has had it's movement blocked by a Spanish force under General Tortellini. At the same time, the rest of the Spanish force under General Mohito-Borracho is moving towards Tortellini's position and arriving on the flank of the Confederate column.

The action begins at this point:

The Confederate column under Garigliano and his Dutch subordinate Van Driver.

The Spanish moved on from the right, the O'Mahoney dragoons with orders to move around the flank and take the Confederate lie in the rear. However, the Austrian artillery was able to unlimber and poor two shots into the dragoons to deter them.
Van Driver ordered the Jorger Dragoons to charge the Spanish horse and hold them up while the infantry got into position to assault the farm held by Tortellini and the 'Old Blues'.

Here the O'Mahoney Dragoons turn away from the cannon fire at the bottom right of the picture. Right centre the results of the first charge by the Jorger Dragoons can be seen. In the distance on the left the Starhemberg regiment and St Amant regiment prepare to attack Tortellini's position.

Having performed their role the Jorger Dragoons pull back into the Confederate line. The O' Mahoney dragoons can be seen moving into reserve behind the Spanish flanking attack. Starhemberg has moved within musketry range of the Spanish artillery - is this a firefight his men can win?

The victory conditions are to get at least 3 units off the table, so taking the farm and removing the artillery is essential. Can the desperate Germans and Dutch do it? Or will the Spanish score a resounding victory? Stay tuned.

Nate

Shiny new figures

Over the weekend I managed to finish off a number of figures, most of them intended for Mortal Gods.

Skeleton archers for the forces of Hades - when I get the Mythic supplement.

Two Athenians doing what Athenians do best - talking.

A Spartan camp - not sure what I'll use this for in the game, but it is very cool.

They do look very relaxed

'Bring out your dead!'

Mythical heroes! Atalanta, Heracles, Perseus and Medea

 I have a group of Black Tree figures that I am going to use for Jason and the Argonauts.

Not Mortal Gods - but the Orc cavalry finally arrive

The Orcs are the mantic resin Gore Riders. The resin is shit to glue together, and I had pretty much binned them as the heads were tiny compared to GW Orcs. But then I took a bit of time to reglue them and replace the heads with GW Orc heads. If you look closely the tiny hands and feet look absurd alongside the huge heads, but at gaming distance they actually look really good! The Orcs will really benefit from having a heavy cavalry unit.

I spent a bit of time gluing together Pike and shot figures last night. My biggest complaint about the Warlord Games sprues is the lack of hats and helmet options. As I'm looking at a 30 Years War imagi-nations setting, all those knitted Monmouth and Montero caps are a total waste of space. So I ended up sculpting hats out of green stuff. I've ordered metal pikemen for one of the regiments, as my helmet sculpting skills were woefully lacking. And what is the deal with only having two sets of arms for three pike figures? I hope Warlord think about re-engineering their pike and shot infantry sprues in the near future.

The green stuffed hats.

I plan to expand the armies for this project  - but I'll be using the Imperialist box for my infantry, not the generic one.

Now I need to finish Craig's Successors before his next project arrives - Wild West Exodus figures, which I'm quite looking forward to as something different.

Nate

Sorting some shade for the Spartans

These Persians are no pussies! Just because they dress like colour blind residents of Carnaby St c.1966 does not make them any less deadly. Their arrows can block out the sun... hence the title of this post.

The force features some cavalry, which will be an interesting addition to the Mortal Gods gaming experience.

A bit of a closer look with the Persian Chief of Warriors in the foreground.

 The miniatures are a mix. The cavalry are Warlord Games, the rank and file Crusaders Miniatures, and the heroes are from Footsore Miniatures. A pack of Crusader Spearmen and one of Archers gave me the figures to assemble 2 bases of Sparabara, 2 of Archers and 1 of Spearmen.

The best view of the Persians is from the side so that you can see all of the stripes, zig-zags and dots on them.

More close ups

An army of fashion victims - but hopefully not Hoplite victims.

I really like the Persians. They get a bad rap due to them being the bad guys in the Western tradition, but we are lucky enough to live in times where the historic record is being seen with a bit more balance. I'm awed by Cyrus (the Great, not Billy Ray or Miley), and I wish we knew more about him.
I'm just waiting on the Persian Cards to be back in stock at Footsore, so I can order them and get these guys into battle.

On the painting tray at the moment are a mix of Ancients - some generals for Craig's Successor army, some casualties and vignettes, and some Skeleton warriors for Mortal Gods Mythic.

Nate

Digging into the Ancients pile

Painting over the last few days has seen me finish off Craig's 'blob' of pikemen for his successor army, and move onto some Gauls.

The red phalanx completed

A closer shot. LBMS shield transfers, looking very nice.

The red and blues phalanxes. Only the purples to go.

 Gauls are a tricky proposition. They can be overworked and look to busy, or underworked and not look like Celts at all. Either way, they can be quite consuming, so I was looking for some speed painting techniques with these guys.

The shields are the Warlord Games decals. Quite a nice selection.

Zooming out to see some of the other figures

I'm not a great fan of the guys that are bent right over. It may be a dynamic pose, but there's too many of them on the sprue.

 I went back and looked at some Peter Dennis battle scenes with Gauls in them, and saw that his technique was to take a lighter colour as the base and do a check pattern in a darker shade over the top to give the impression of plaid. So that is what I did with these figures. The flesh is Gulliman contrast, which I cannot rate highly enough, and all shading is done with washes. In the end these 15 figures took 2 painting evenings, but the first evening also saw me finishing the successors, so I'm really pleased with the speed painting experiment.

When I based up the Gauls I also rebased some Romans for the Rule Britannia rules.

12 figures to the maniple

Ready to conquer

So the first two units for Rule Britannia are ready to go, although these aren't my priority at the moment. Currently the painting tray has 18 Achaemenid Persians on it for Mortal Gods. I'm listening to Dan Carlin's King of Kings Hardcore History podcast at the moment when I go walking, and I'm loving the way he tackles Herodotus. Expect some games from Ancient Greece soon.

Nate