Stop the presses!

It was bound to happen sooner or later – I’m actually done with a project!

Some time ago I started to paint first batch of 6mm Napoleonic French with the intention to run a test game with General De Brigade rules. Object of my interest was one of the smallest scenarios in first scenario book for abovementioned ruleset - Hilaire's  assault on Laichling villages during battle of Ekmuhl. At the time it seemed like a relatively quick job - eleven batalions for the French, ten battalions and some cavalry for the Austrian, three batteries of artillery. How long would it take to paint up those figures? I expected to be done in six or seven weeks, at the most.

Well... those six to seven weeks turned out to be closer to five years, but who's counting, right? The important thing is that I am done - all figures are painted and based, bases are flocked, flags are mounted.

Below is the first batch of pictures - eight battalions of French Line infantry, ready for action.

 

 

First look at 6mm European buildings from Total Battle Miniatures

I won't say that it's my New Year resolution, but I do hope to be more active here than I was last year. At the same time I'm a strong believer in putting the bar as low as possible (nice way to avoid disappointments), so my goal at the moment is to double the number of posts per year.

OK, with the solemn declarations out of the way, let's get to the business of the day. Sometime in 2011 a relatively new company, Total Battle Miniatures, came to my attention. Their rapidly expanding product lineup consists of terrain pieces in all main scales, but I was especially interested in their 6mm European buildings. They seemed perfect for my General de Brigade project, so a couple of weeks ago I've grabbed the entire lot and here they are.

The first picture shows the smaller buildings in "of the shelf" state. I haven't done anything with them yet. The second picture shows the larger buildings with first coat of white primer already applied.

Why white primer, you ask? Well, the guys from Total Battle Miniatures were kind enough to include a little tutorial describing their painting method with the buildings they sent to me. Their approach is to first paint the buildings white and then follow up with washes of the subsequent colors. If one is to draw conclusions from the pictures of painted buildings at their site, the end result is very subtle and realistic. Since I liked that look, I decided to skip my usual hatchet job consisting of black basecoat and old-fashioned drybrushing once-over and give their method a shot. Results of this experiment will of course be posted here in due time.

In any case, based on my impression of those very nice miniatures, Total Battle Miniatures is a very welcome addition to the relatively small group of manufacturers of 6mm terrain. The buildings I've got are of the high quality I've previously only seen in products from Timecast Models.

WAB raiding season - game 1

What better way to start 2012 than with a game. And since I was finally ready with the terrain required for the first scenario of our long planned WAB campaign, it was the logical choice for today's entertainment.
Couple of words about the campaign itself. It's taken from "Age of Arthur" supplement for Warhammer and consists of a series of battles that, depending on results in last engagement, are selected from a batch of fifteen scenarios in the book. The resulting campaign is linear, but varied and the fact that scenarios are connected gives much better "feeling" than one-off games we run until now.

The scenario

Initial scenario in the campaign is an opposed river crossing. A slight twist in deployment is provided by period-typical single combat between champions of the opposing sides. In our case it didn't make much difference (except for the quite enjoyable fact that H. had to witness his champion being butchered by my hero :-), but if finished quickly, it can make things little more difficult for the attacking side.

In any case, by the time preliminary pleasantries were finished, Saxons had their army ready for a push across the river. The bridge allowed only for passage of units with single figure width, so he choose to ignore it. River itself was difficult terrain (movement reduced by 50 percent), except in the middle where a ford was located and provided normal passage.

Setup

Neither H. nor I spent any time on painting... eh, I mean recruiting since our last game, so it was the gathering of usual suspects all over again. H. placed his chief and his merry band of butchers in the middle with clear intention of punching a hole straight through the middle of my line. He was supported by his light cavalry unit from behind. On both sides of the cavalry he deployed his three units of warriors. His archers opposed mine near the bridge.

My deployment was anything but innovative. My milites got their orders to oppose initial Saxon cavalry charge and beat back any incursions by Saxon warbands. My pedes were deployed near the bridge - I intended to get them into position near the river, form shieldwall and hope for the best. Mounted commanipulares were kept in second line as reserve. The only sneakiness in my initial setup was the fact that I placed my light cavalry on the road leading to the bridge. My intention was from the start to deploy them into march column as soon as possible and thereby threat H. with a move across the bridge and against his flank.

The battle

Since my champion won the single combat, I had the advantage of moving first. My infantry moved toward the river, light cavalry deployed into march column and some innefective shooting was done by skirmishers. H. followed his apparent plan and released his cavalry, with infantry moving in support. One of his warbands was placed to counter my light cavalry, which was just fine with me, as long as they weren't participating in the assault across the river.

Single combat… ending with victory for defenders of civilization. :-P

Both armies march toward each other.

In second turn we had the expected clash of Saxon cavalry and my milites. The results were both expected and a little surprising. The expected part was that my infantry held (those extra points for ranks will decide the result as long as casualties among infantry are kept at reasonable level). What surprised both me and H. was that his chief not only failed to cause any casualties, but also broke and drew the other cavalry unit into ignominious flight. Even though he rallied two turns later, he was out of the picture for the rest of the game, while the light cavalry unit unceremoniously left the field of battle altogether.

One can only wonder what his followers among infantry thought of this display of dubious behavior, but all warbands continued with their advance regardless of their leader's cowardly behavior (hey, my blogg, my prerogative for slander of the enemy:-). The foremost warband smashed into my victorious milites, routed them in two turns and managed not only to stop my subsequent cavalry charge, but were winning the melee that followed. Remaining unit of Saxon warriors moved in support and were met by my peasants with shields and crudely fashioned spears. The result of that fight was another surprise - my peasants pretty much bitch-slapped Saxon warriors and stopped them in their tracks.

Saxon warbands try to save the day…

…but get stuck.

By then we reached the end of sixth and final turn of the game and it was all over but the weeping for the Saxons. Their victory condition was to have two or more units (not engaged in combat) on the other side of the river by the end of the game; they had none. Their king was however still breathing, which meant that my success was only of minor nature. In next game, the Saxons will try at it again, but at a different ford.

Musings after the battle

The one thing of interest is that this was our first game with Warhammer 2.0 rules. I can't say that I am very happy with that "newish" second edition.

First of all, the language used in the rulebook is quite infuriating - I don't need a narrative and motivation of the rules in the rulebook itself, just give me the rules in clear and unambiguous manner.

Second, the new edition is incompatible with "Age of Arthur" supplement on at least one count - rules for warbands are formatted differently and we had to double-check with the original version for which rules were applicable to Saxons. No biggie, but a bit confusing.

Also, since H. didn't have time to read the second edition yet, we skipped most of the "novelities", such as giving up ground and disengagements. The only new rule I insisted on applying (for egoistic reasons ) was the fact that marching columns don't have to stop when they are within 8'' from the enemy. To be honest though, I really can't see how this rule can be used effectively when units, especially cavalry units, are in march columns. Even with movement rate of 24'' my light cavalry wouldn't even have cleared the bridge, if I decided to move it.

In any case, it was quite enjoyable game, finished in little over four hours including the setup and after game-cleanup. Nice start of 2012, hopefully I will have more to write about really soon.

Book Review

Battle Tactics of the American Civil War by Paddy Griffith

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Ok, first of the bat - if you don't know your American Civil War, THIS IS NOT THE BOOK TO START WITH. Instead, find McPherson's 'Battle Cry For Freedom' or Shelby's superb three volume narrative of the conflict.

This little volume deals with something very specific - it's an attempt to answer the ever raging (trust me, in certain circles, this is not an uderstatement) question wheter American Civil War was the last war of Napoleonic times or first of modern wars? All main aspects of armed combat during ACW are examined and evaluated on their own and a final analysis of the conflict is presented in the last part of the book. It is up to each and every reader to agree or disagree with author's conclusions (chances are they will make your blood rush faster, if you don't), but the entire book is very well thought out and author's ideas cannot be dismissed out of hand.

The thing is though that, regardless of author's apparent knowledge, his ideas don't feel 'fleshed out' - the book is simply too short to be able to convincingly tackle the topic. Those who know the topic of discussion will understand Griffith's logic without any problems, but then they will also already be familiar with the argument he's making. Those who are new to the topic of this book, will propably be left with more questions than answers after reading this book. Also, I can't help but feel that Nosworthy's 'Crucible of Courage', which attempts to achieve exactly same thing as Griffith in this volume, is much better spent time if you're genuinly interested in deeper understanding of American Civil War from more "technical" perspective.



View all my reviews

C4 Open 2011

Just a quick post with a link to pictures I've taken at this year's C4 Open exhibition. You can find the best of them in a gallery I've created at Facebook, click here to go to it.

Breakout From Fort Donelson

Last Sunday I had opportunity to run another ACW game with slightly tweaked "They Couldn't Hit an Elephant" ruleset from Too Fat Lardies. This time around I picked another scenario from Caliver Books' excellent scenario set "Heartland". Called "Break-out at Fort Donelson", the scenario deals with general Pillow's breakout attempt from... well, Fort Donelson.

At first glance, the scenario I selected is that it is pretty straightforward affair - a rather superior Objective of Confederates is to smash through a Union line deployed on high ground and open an escape route for the troops in the fort. In other words, a typical slugger match with numerical advantage of rebels counter-balanced by strong defensive position of the lads on the Union side. I also believe that this scenario is quite good for learning a new ruleset – limited number of troops, with one side pretty much stationary and few regiments in brigades that are on the attacking side.

The twist in this one is provided by terrain and weather - both of them were pretty rotten, which translated into drastically reduced visibility. As things turned out, this fact was the deciding factor in our game.

Initial setup
As Union commander, I decided to take maximum advantage of the terrain and deployed my two brigades on the heights that separated rebels from their goal. Feeling generous toward myself, I also allowed myself to place one dummy blind on my exposed right flank in an attempt to disguise my numerical weakness.
H.'s deployment was hampered by scenario deployment instructions - three of his six brigades had to start from behind the field works. Remaining brigades could enter the battlefield from pretty much anywhere on his side of the gaming area.

Union deployment before at the start of the game

The game
To be perfectly honest, I may just as well admit that our game was pretty much over by the time we deployed our blinds. Right at the start, H. made correct observation that the reduced visibility and a fatal flaw in dispositions of my blinds gave him a perfect opportunity to turn left flank. He decided to focus his effort on this one spot and aided by fortunate draw of cards managed to reach his main objective - the road - in four rounds. Once that position was reached, the rest of the game was a formality. His brigades were now in perfect position for a devastating assault on my flank, while I didn’t even had a proper chance to deploy from my blinds.

Union line outmanovered

Actually a bit mentally paralyzed by this sudden turn of events, I scrambled to save something out of the looming disaster. I managed to deploy the brigade on my left flank before H’s. hammer fell, sending at the same time desperate instructions for my other brigade to march double-quick toward my exposed flank. However, even before it had a chance to start moving, the Confederate assault did strike the vulnerable end of my line, with predictable results. One of my regiments was pushed back after a hard fight. Their retreat exposed in turn the flank of the regiment to their right. It was struck almost immediately by another rebel unit, promptly routed before the onslaught and causing further confusion among the Union soldiers of the regiment that was forced out of line in previous round. With two of my eight regiments routed and my line on the verge of being swept away, I decided to accept the fact that I was in hopeless position and called it a day.

Union troops pinned down by diversionary rebel attack

Rebel brigade preparing for assault uphill

They’re running, boys… they’re running!

Confederates reach the ridge, aka “wow, entire picture is in focus, did I finally learn how to use my camera?”

Musings after the game
This time around, I have a mixed bag of things that I feel needs to be adressed. Let's start with the good stuff - when the "They Couldn't Hit an Elephant" works, it works very, very well. I was especially impressed by the nasty little engagement that developed between the two regiments that H. sent to pin the Union brigade to the left of my line and my artillery battery that covered that part of my front. The brief firefight that developed did feel like something taken from Shelby's narrative. The assault that decided the day also had the right feel to it - I especially appreciated the fact that one of highly probable outcomes of direct assaults (in TCHAE they are called 'decisive combat) is possibility of defender breaking and running away before contact is achieved (apparently, bayonet assaults were pretty common in ACW, but melees were quite rare). In other words, the combat model of the ruleset is very nice and has a period-specific "flavor".

As for the bad, well... is anybody surprised when I say 'Coffee Break' card? Outcome of our game was dictated by two factors. First of them was the reduced visibility (caused by the weather and difficult terrain) - H. took full opportunity of it to outflank my position. There is no argument against this from me, in fact I find it a rather realistic effect of the environmental conditions dictated by the scenario. The second factor was however far less entertaining - by pure chance, H. managed to draw his blinds card thrice in the four opening rounds of the game, while I failed to draw mine every single time. This unlucky sequence of events put me at a disadvantage I had no hope to recover from, because of the simple fact that, as far as I understand, voluntary deployment of troops in "They Couldn't Hit an Elephant" is allowed only when ones Blind card is drawn. In other words, during those four opening rounds I was pretty much a sitting duck. If my interpretation of the rules is correct, then an unlucky card draw sequence of the kind that I experienced can upset balance of even most carefully planned game. All sorts of argument can be made in defence of such events, but the fact remains that ‘Coffee Break’ card is a game mechanism that can defeat a player all on its own. When that happens, it can cause a bit of frustration.

To be fair, I have to admit that in regard of my bad luck with ‘Coffee Break’ card, I may have made things worse with my tweaks to the ruleset. In an attempt to alleviate the sometimes dramatic effect of 'Coffee Break' card, I play with two of them in my deck. The irony here is that having two of those cards in a deck consisting otherwise of only the Blinds cards for both sides actually reduces the chance of both Blinds cards being drawn in same turn from 66 percent to 50 percent. So the lesson for the future is to have only one 'Coffee Break' card as long as all troops are under blinds.

GHQ Terrain PART 2 – Basic Hexes

Let me start by clarifying a couple of things. First of all, stuff I intend to cover here is pretty basic and familiar to anyone who's been wargaming for a while. Second, the way I handle GHQ hexes isn't the only way to do it, nor is it the right way to do it, it's just the way I do it. When I decided to use those hexes, my goal was to get functional and flexible terrain setup, quickly and with minimum fuss. Thus the techniques I use are really very simple. If you think that there are better ways or could give me some advice about how to improve my results, any comments are appreciated.

OK, with that out of the way, let's move on. Basic hexes are just that -basic plain, probably green terrain. 1/2 inch thick tiles are perfect for that type of hexes and you will need a whole bunch of those. I would say that two packs, total of 48 hexes, is pretty good amount for basic setup.
Besides the tiles, you'll need following materials:

• Paint - don't bother with the expensive, artistic stuff. Find a DIY shop and grab a good sized jar of acrylic wall paint. It's much cheaper and it's thick, so it protects the hex pretty well.
• Sand - in my opinion, texture of expanded polystyrene is pretty unattractive, so I prefer to cover my hexes with sand. I got mine from pet shop, 5 kg of sand intended for the bottom of an aquarium, which is enough to cover thousands of hexes.
• Flock - since I wanted to have green, grassy hexes (standard for wargaming terrain), I needed flock and a lot of it. Stay clear from the stuff from Nine Force Gale and Warpainter, their small jars of flock are very nice, but they are insanely overpriced. GHQ provides its own brand of flock, but it's a bit hard to find in Europe, so the simplest solution is to find a model railroad shop and get as large bags of flock as possible from one of the major producers. Faller, Woodland Scenics or Noch will probably work equally well and big bags of flock from one of them is probably the cheapest alternative short of making flock from scratch (and who would want do that).
• PVA glue - common white glue, commonly available in DIY shops. Grab a big bottle, you'll need it.
• At least one medium sized flat brush - the kind with synthetic bristles, normally used for wall painting.

And here's how I do my basic tiles:

1. Paint the tile with wall paint.
2. Cover the hex with sand, wait for couple of seconds so that the sand sticks to the wet paint. Next, pour the excess sand back into its container. Leave for at least couple of hours for the paint to dry.
3. Since the sand I use is orange-red, I have to paint the tile again to get more suitable base color. If you use more naturally colored sand, you may want to skip this step.
4. Once the paint is dry (again), I next flock the top of the tile. Pour some PVA glue into a container, add some water (normally I go for 3 parts glue and 2 parts water) and mix it together. Cover the part of the hex that is to be flocked with the glue/water mix and cover it with flock. Wait for couple of seconds and pour excess flock back into its container. Let the glue dry completely.
5. Paint over the flock with mixture of glue and water again. This will harden the flock and fix it to the surface of the tile. At that stage I also sprinkle the hex with another shade of flock in an irregular pattern to break up the monotony of same color, but it's a question of personal taste and can be skipped. Once again, leave the tiles to try.

Main stages of basic tile “production”

Some final thoughts... If I had to do it all over again, I would have painted sides of the hexes in color that is as close as possible to the color of the flock. Why? Well, for some unexplainable reason GHQ doesn't bother to cut their hexes precisely, with the end result being that the hexes don't align perfectly. This means that once the tiles are set up on the table, there are gaps between them. As can be seen in the pictures I've posted before, those gaps are quite visible when the paint on the sides is of different color than the flock. I believe that this rather unaesthetic visual effect can be reduced if the paint on the sides of the hexes is of same color as the flock.

Also, in case you haven't already figured it out on your own, working with one tile at a time isn't very efficient. I usually work with one pack of tiles at the time, one step at the time.