Best game in ages!

Last night Keith and I had a great game of Civil War Battles. It was an unusal club night in that we were the only attendees from our room which is unusual as we normally turn out 5 or 6 regulars. The rest of the club was well attended and throughout the evening several popped in to have a look at what was going on.

This was the first time Keith had played CWB using the pre-game sequence and we had a real blast with it. We rolled off for who played Union or Reb with Keith taking the blue bellies. It was also the first time either of us had used cavalry (rude not too having painted them up this week). Keith had two units of raw cavalry and I had 1 unit of veteran.

Despite me putting more dice into being the attacker, Keith won out beating me by 1. I coped well with the lates/lost sequence only losing half a dozen bases and two units out aside as reinforcements. On the events section there were a few swings in fortune. Most interesting was Keith winning the cavalry event meaning he could put one of his cavalry units in any scenary piece of the table. Which he promptly did, placing one of his units in a wood behind my lines and very close to the farm objective. This had dire consequences for my Corps general who was now the closest target. First turn of the game the dismounted cavalry opened up and popped my general between the eyes.

The performance of the dismounted cavalry was a theme as both sides units performed very well. Maybe too well, with them being able to ignore the first hits against them and moving through scenary without penalty.

The game swung backwards and forwards with Keiths inital attack against the farm objective being beaten back and then coming on again to take the farm by games end. The 'far' objective was the rocky hill which I managed to hold up until the game end when a brave veteran brigade finally succumbed to concentrated artillery fire and the Union infantry advance that ground onwards.

We played from around 8pm finishing at about 12.30am, mainly due to chatting and shooting the breeze. The game countdown after 8 turns was still on 7 which was a result of me rolling lots of 1's and 2's, meaning that my boys were always going to struggle to hold the objectives. The final result was 120 points to Keith 25 points to me. Which is a 'War won' result for Keith.

So a sound thrashing for the rebs and a defeat that would take some time to recover from. Fortunatley the Union are reknowned for tardiness in following up success so the Confederacy will live to fight another day!

John B came into to watch the final turns and was unsuprised to see my lack of battlefield success. I think he was intrigued enough to want a game so I will sort one out as soon as possible. I had to leave my stuff at the club due to the late hour though so it wont be this week.

No photos as I forgot to take the box brownie. I used a new cloth that I painted on roads and sprayed in various greens and browns. Looked very nice. The cloth itself was the green felt sold buy S&A Scenics

www.scenics.co.uk

with templates for the woods made out of the left overs from cutting the cloth down to 6'x3'.

No painting yesterday. I may try and get some done today but in all likelihood tomorrow will be the next brush time as Lisa is out at a health spa.

More soon....

Day 7

This is my last post for the big push. Seven days of intense painting have seen me score a grand total of 309 points. Today I got through the unfinished Ashigaru plus a unit of 18 Samurai and 18 Ronin. I have painted 6 units for Battles in the Age of War which considering I had been worrying about isn't too bad in my book. If I had another week like this one I could be playing a 500 point game the week after!

The Samurai by Peter Pig really are very nice and for a novice painter of Sengoku period miniatures they have proven remarkably easy with one or too bits of artistic licence here and there. From three feet away they really do look the business. I may do a group shot of all of the figures painted in the last seven days tomorrow or else over the weekend.

Still waiting on Neil Thomas' Ancient and Medieval Wargaming which is no bad thing as it will surely distract me somewhat when it does come. Should find out tonight whether or not I can make Warfare at the end of the month to place my pre Christmas Peter Pig order.

Today: 60 Total for the Week: 309

Day 6

Nearly finished another unit of Armoured Ashigaru today but spent some time organising the figures into units ot see what I had. I have prepped a unit of Samurai and a unit of Ronin. I am missing a couple of bits but basically have everything I need for the moment. I would really like an Ikko Ikki army but that may be a new year purchase possibly at Vapnartak in York.

I have been web trawling for some info on Samurai. I am unsure how uniform armys and clans were. Was there massed uniformity throughout an army or just within a clan? I said before that I am aiming for historically inspired as opposed to historically accurate so I guess in the end it doesn't really matter but I would like to know for my own peace of mind. I have drawn a blank so far.

So nothing added to the total today, but I anticipated a good 40-50 points tomorrow!

More soon....

Plastics

Something has been gnawing away at me for some time and that is plastic figures. I am not talking about the super dooper, new fangled, latest wargames craze totake over the known world releases by the Perry twins or Warlord. I am on about Airfix, Hat and the like.

A mate of mine has been collecting plastic armies (filled out with the very occasional metal 20mm figure) for years. Thats Martyn by the way who you can see in previous posts. He gave up on mainstream metal years ago when a 25mm figure reached 80p. Then there was a very nice website years ago by I think a bloke called Steve Burt. Lots of interesting content on ACW, WW2 and other bits all played out using vast hordes of plastic. Thats not to mention

http://www.willwarweb.blogspot.com/

which if ever anyone needed inspiration to have a go at plastic then this is it.

Oh and an article in a Slingshot last year (maybe the year before) by Graham Evans on trying out the rules in Neil Thomas' Ancient and Medeival Wargaming book using 20mm plastic figures.

Now I have played and painted with 15mm Peter Pig for several years almost exclusively. Call me a fanboy but the RFCM rules and PP figures have covered everything I have needed or wanted for some time. But I have had a festering thought that a bit of diversity keeps the mind and soul fresh. So I have ordered Neils book. I have had a look for Grahams article but I think it may have been thrown out (heresy I know). I have perused

http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/

I will speak to Martyn to see if he has any spares. I seem to remember on the Society of Ancients website something about a show demo using plastics letting you have a go at being Alexander or Hannibal. More investigation required there. Maybe Graham will help me?

To be honest I have always been put off by Ancients. Full of literate bookish gaming snobs. Not my words but I partially agree. DBM and the like have always seemed like too much hard work. So this maybe the thing I am looking for to break me in gently.

Then maybe, just maybe I will by a couple of boxes and have at it. Probably go for Macedonians or some such. I have a large unpainted mound of Peter Pig Romans and Germans that I got very cheap off Ebay last year. Maybe Punic Wars. I wil have to see once I've got the book. From research it looks a bit like DBA where there are near set army lists of a certain number of units so hopefully if I do dive in it wont be much of an outlay. Plus there is a greta model shop close by in Stoke on Trent that sell lots of figures.

No promises or deadlines. But it may be a nice little sideline.

Anyway back to the big push!

Pictures

Can anyone help? Why is it that some pictures I upload can be clicked on to enlarge whilst others can't.? Very frustrating because some of the pictures aren't too clear unless blown up.

Answers on a postcard please.

And another thing...COW

I am a member of Wargames Developments and thoroughly enjoy The Nuggett detailing their activities particularly at COW (Conference of Wargamers for those in hte know). I am seriousley contemplating going to COW next year. Been meaning to for some time to be honest. Expensive at over £200 but it does sound the place to be if you want cutting edge gaming and thought provoking discussion. As a somewhat shy type though, I am told all of the single rooms are already allocated and I would have to share with a stranger. Now I've got nothing to hide you understand but not since my backpacking trips as a teenager have I shared a room with a complete stranger and I have some reservations about inflicitng my ablutions with anyone but my wife and closest of muckers.

Pretty sure I will bite the bullet. I could always take a tent I suppose!

Forgot to do my running total. I have not included the fencing I made in my weekly total but have added it onto my yearly figure.

Today: 24 Total for the Week: 249

Day 5

Day 5 and a bit of a slow down on figure output. Only 24 Armoured Ashigaru today, but htey do have considerably more detail on them and I think I went a bit around the houses to get them done. I decided to spray them white to start as I wanted as bright a red on them as possible. I then painted the whole figure red before blacking in the armour and scabbards and the like. By the time I had done it did dawn on me that black would have been a good starting point as there was very little red left .

My Samurai armies are intended to be generic representative of the period as opposed to historically tied to any particular faction. As a result I will have an army with a red theme and an army with a blue theme. A bit simplistic but hey its my ball and I'll play how want ok? My initial aim is to have two 500 point armies as per the Battles in the Age of War Rulebook. Then I will look to build these up to 800 point armies and eventually finishing by having enough figures to play all of the scenarios in the book.

Here is todays effort. Still on the sticks and waiting for the dip.

The unit based but still awaiting dip. That will have to be tomorrow now. I think they look rather nice.

Some shots of the Confederate cavakry now in various stages. Here we see them on their bases with either a light grey or kommando khaki painted straight onto metal.

A bit of detailing follows with some given light blue trousers, various shades of brown for hats belts and the like and some metal for the carbines or swords.

Finally they get some Army Painter Strong tone painted on. This is a dark brown varnish as opposed to my normal dark tone which is very dark brown, nearly black. I think it gives the Rebs more of a subtle look. Nice!


A random picture of my favourite colour paint at the moment. Coat d'Arms can be a bit hit and miss with some of the colours somewhat weak in their coverage. This Barbarian leather however is fantastic, particularly when washed with army painter. Get some...you wont regret it! On another related point I have lost count of the number of different shades of brown I have in my considerable paint collection.

Here are the Bloody Barons markers that I finished the basing on today. I think there is a unit of Household troops in there as well. On the shelf in the background are the AWI troops I posted a couple of days ago and behind them some of the 17 feet of snake fencing I have been building over the last few days. Matchsticks glued on top of one another ad infinitum. Been meaning to do some for ages with a bag of a thousand matchsticks I bought years ago. Sorted out now for CWB and Washingtons Army games.

The above picture shows my Bloody Barons basing which is just a mixture of various shades of green and brown flock with some budgie grit for good measure sprinkled over PVA glue. No messing around with polyfilla or the like. Looks very nice for very little effort. Samurai, Civil War Battles and Washington army are getting my usual brown flock followed by patches of static grass. Simples.

More soon!