Confederate limber

As I'm getting near the end of the first and biggest part of the ACW project the laziness kicks in.
I needed to finish this model quickly so I took the most simple solution and got rid of two horses and a rider. Now I want to concentrate on some more regiments before another period takes over my main interest. The fact that I'm finalizing an order of mini's for a new project (why do you always start a new project with the only mini's you don't own) does not help with the focus unfortunately. It will be a real challenge to get the two Brigades done over the next three months or so but so far I'm still enjoying the painting and confident I can make it.
The limber is from Perry miniatures and more pictures can be found in the ACW Gallery.

Confederate dismounted cavalry

Finished another small distraction from my main goal of two reb brigades in Hood's division; dismounted cavalry. When I did a cavalry unit a couple of weeks back I soon realized it would be convenient if I could dismount them as well. So this is a generic unit to have some fun with in our TSS games. I don't think a unit of ten cav is very useful in Guns at Gettysburg so I might increase the unit size in the future as I think the foundry confederate cavalry are among the best figures money can buy.
Six of the figures are from the Perry dismounted cavalry pack. The officer is from Steve Barber and has a Foundry mini on the same base. Horse holder also from Perry miniatures.

I've added these pictures and a few more shots from different angles in the ACW Gallery

Confederate Command

Painting up Generals probably is the most enjoyable part of painting an army if you ask me. Picking your models, trying out vignettes and different compositions and make an effort to make them stand out a little.
This whole process took a while as I tried many combinations and compositions. In the end though I ended up with probably the most boring result. Just round bases to make them different from the rest of the army and no large large vignettes with a ministory that I had in mind originally. Good and handy for gaming is what I thought. And while they are just what I need for gaming they are not as handy as I would like. Due to the flagpoles you need to take careful attention when picking them up. Will probably lose them on the battlefield in a clumsy attempt to move them around. But anyway. They are finished and waiting for a first game now.

Since I'm painting the Georgians in Hood's division they could represent Hood, Benning, Anderson and Law but I did not pick the exact figures for them. They all have beards anyway so I might try to make some additional strap on fake beards as seen in the famous movie :-)
These will act as a Maj. General, two Brig. Generals and I already posted the Artillery commander seen in the picture.

Minis are a mix of Redoubt, Foundry and Perry. The standing flagbearer is a Redoubt ragged rebel with a Steve Barber head. So yes, you can mix them. Flags GMB with the exception of the first flagdude entering the army, the Georgia State flag.

More detailed pictures are in the slowly growing ACW Gallery

Crossing the Sambre, General de Brigade AAR

With our complete group painting ACW at the moment RobP decided to distract us all from the period and organized a Napoleonic game using General de Brigade rules last saturday.  For the last years we played Sharp Practice (variants) for most of our gaming so this is a significant change from what we usually do. From a skirmish like setting to a couple of brigades on the table and a whole new approach on how to use troups etc.

While the group was expecting lots of difficulties with the new rules the really cool part was that it actually quite easy to learn. OK, you will have to go through some of the basics a couple of times but we picked it up quickly and got to play more turns than we thought beforehand. We definitely liked it and it acknowledged our choices in rules: Toofatlardies for skirmish, quick two man games and to get started in a period. Then building the armies up to brigade level for GdB or any of the rules based on GdB. Works for most periods since both sets cover almost all the major conflicts.

The game:
Rob sent us detailed orders and OOB a couple of days before the battle. In Dutch so I will do a very, very simplified version as I don't feel like translating today: The French had to march across the table to reach Brussels while the Allied basically had to stop them. Unaware of the opposing sides objectives we started the day by deploying the armies and giving the orders to the Generals de Brigades. The Allied forces made the decision to take and hold the farm with one Brigade which in the end proved a fatal mistake as the French columns neglected the farm and went straight at the Prussians in the center. Once the Brunswickers got their new orders to engage it was too late, the Prussians were being pushed back and losing their nerve. The Allied cavalry Brigade got orders to engage and threaten the right flank but got stuck in difficult terrain the overall C&C (who was that?) mistakenly took for a perfect hill to do some cavalry charging.  We had a great day trying out the game mechanics and discussing the new possibilities this brings. I think we had about 1100 points a side and played a 2x2,4m board. The distraction worked well as I am now planning the next army after the two ACW Brigades are done after the summer. Down to two choices but I have some time to decide with which I start.

You missed a good one Mister Suchet..
All the pics of the day exported to Photobucket

Prussian casualty markers, count the tufts...

One of the things that annoys me most when playing a game is the amount of gaming material that progressively enters the carefully laid out battlefield. Dices, casualty rings, rulebooks, cans of beer, you name it. Mostly in a horrendous colour to make sure it will get notified and providing a perfect view of the losses of a unit.

In order to prevent this our houserules state that you are not allowed to place any rulebook, glass of wine or other objects that not belong there on the table. This works pretty well and provides an excellent starting point for the next step to clean up the table from unnecessary clutter: painted casualty markers.

Luckily I had already painted two for my Prussians who are giving battle next Saturday, but they were unbased as I could not decide on how to do this. I did not want to paint numbers on it and thought of painting small stripes on the sides of the bases. But in a recent discussion with one of the group we realized the solution did not have to be complicated at all. Why not use tufts? we do it anyway.


All the Prussians are four on a base so I put one, two and three tufts at the different sides. The side pointing at the unit tells us how many casualties the unit has. Easy but effective I guess. Another advantage is that you can even create some generic markers without a casualty figure that you can use for any period. Just paint a base and put some tufts on. Good as starting point if you don't want to paint a marker for every unit and it will always beat a pink die or yellow casualty cap.

So, more things on the to-do list and in the meantime  it still will be dice. Any koopclub volunteer to make 20 or so generic ones ;-) ?

Minis from Calpe Miniatures