That's it. Done. After a year of painting ACW I have enough troops ready for a decent game and it's time to move on to different projects. I will definitely return to the ACW in a couple of months or so.
The skirmisher are a mix of Foundry/Perry and the casualties are Sash and Saber. The casualty using the -count the tufts- system is Steve Barber I think.
All ACW stuff can be found in the gallery. Need to find a different place for this soon as apple decided to drop the mobile me galleries in iCloud. Idiots.
Recently I played a game with Marc and I took the opportunity to take a couple of pictures of some of the excellent things he works on. He painted an impressive battery to shoot my rebs off the table.
Steve Barber miniatures again this time. With these painted the second Brigade is now finished as well. Only a couple of skirmishers and some casualties to go before I stop painting ACW for a (little) while.
I've sorted out a Viking warband for SAGA yesterday and they are in front of the painting queue for now. But first vacation so no posts here for the next two weeks or so.
Couple of pictures of the 7th AD Battlefront box painted back in 2008. I played two or three games but was bored with them pretty quick. Lot of tanks and little infantry.
After weeks I finally got inspiration again and started some painting. Next week, some fresh troops will arrive...
OK, I'm not much of a celebrator on this blog and I've got my Oprah moment a couple of months ago but this one I could not resist. So thanks to all who pressed the follow button and all other readers out there for visiting this site...
Last Saturday I visited Crisis in Antwerp. As always the show was well organized, there were plenty interesting traders and some nice demo games.
Lazy as I am I stored my camera in Jake's bag in the morning to take it out again at the end of the day when we got home. So without permission I steal two pictures from the man on the right here:
The man is Sidney Rounwood of Roundwood's World, a blog with some truly exceptional work from which I get lots of inspiration. His show report with the pictures is here and his blog on the TFL game (best participation game) here. It was a real pleasure to meet you Sidney.
My favorite demo game: 1830 Leipzig by Team für historische Simulationen
As usual we bought a lot of stuff which we hopefully will use at any given time. Many (rule)books were taken back home as well as some nice new figures. They even convinced me to buy some 10mm packs for grand scale games..I'm not sure about that but we'll see. Also some Hurons from Galloping Major which I will definitely paint soon. SAGA was a no brainer, there is a real hype around that game and my Viking warband is ready to be painted. The SAGA demo game was disappointing though from a visual perspective, a real small table with clutter all over and I would not have given it any attention if not everybody is so enthusiastic about this. The game itself looks very interesting though and I look forward playing them.
Many more interesting things but you will see those here in the near future. No large new project for me for a while. I will focus on several smaller ones picking the one I feel doing at that time. So Winter War Finns, F&I, Vikings and WWII are amongst the periods to be expected here over the next months.
At Crisis we also met Rene, who will join our group and gets his first action in January. Unfortunately he lives a two hour drive away so is limited to our Saturday games. The scary thing is he also runs a blog ...Anyway, here he is, practicing his painting skills
Lastly I just won this piece on ebay here a couple of minutes ago...
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270847988870
Another week without painting unfortunately. With Crisis11 next Saturday most of my spare time is spent on Google investigating new projects.
About two years ago I spent several months painting a 15mm DAK army while Jake took on the task of painting the British. I had so much fun painting these but since only part of the group joined the project they never got action until recently. Jake was visiting, we had only two hours but we decided to unbox our troops to get them on the table. With limited time it wasn't much of a game. We deployed and when we started turn one we looked at each other...How does Fow actually work? Is it You Go I Go? We had forgotten the mechanics.
IABMS3?
As a fan of Lardies rules I ordered this new ruleset. I now have the iPad version and waiting for the hardcover book and playing cards to arrive. My plan is to give them a go and replace FoW since I feel they better reflect our playing style. My only concern is if we can simply use our FoW style basing. I noticed IABSM 3 uses campaign strength sections of 8 figs while some of our FoW armies are five on a base. Anyone experience with this or suggestions?
Crisis
Next Saturday our group will be at Crisis making friends with some of the traders and bartenders. Should be good as usual with some nice demo games as well. Anyone else going?
Anyway, some pictures of our desert game. The terrain boards are from Encobertura. We bought lots of those two years ago and they got their first game as well. Nice boards, especially for 15mm. The houses we picked up from Last Valley at Salute last year. We just need some palms trees and other bits to liven up the table.
I've almost reach the point I throw away all the grey paints that dominate my painting desk for almost a year now. Only one Regiment and some skirmishers to go and I'm finished for our new years game and I will take a break from ACW for a while. That said, I ordered a lot of Foundry and Perry stuff for the next Brigade this week and I'm still on a mission to build a decent size army of at least three Brigades with all the bells and whistles.
Doing this one year project with our group made me again realize what games I like best: Fast paced (say platoon level) skirmish games for our evening games and larger sized games where you actually can take the role of a general ordering lots of units around. The more the better in this case. With our very limited attention span we never got to that point actually. Even with our biggest efforts we always got stuck at about eight units per side for this kind of games. Of course we have great fun playing this games but it also gives the feeling that we need far more to take it to the next level.
This ACW effort is different in that aspect and to me is a game changer. We can now do a decent size game and our new years game will feature about twenty Regiments a side. Finally some reasonable numbers.
But this also makes me reluctant to start yet another new period soon. I want to do some more ACW next year building on what we already have now. And really, I have so many armies that have seen action only once and even some that never reached the tabletop at all. Why start painting another if you have lots of others you can expand, or simply can start using. Well, I know the answer but to stop this rambling I'll conclude that I'm lost at the moment. Haven't touched a brush in two weeks and even considering a downsize to a 10mm project to reach my goal of mass sized games. It's only because I can not decide on the period that I did not order some samples to see if it's something for me. Over the next weeks I will introduce some new periods from the archives on the blog and let you know what the next move will be.
Miniatures from Renagade, flag from GMB. Complete gallery of all painted ACW here.
The Renegade miniatures Brigade is finished now consisting of a standing, marching, firing and charging regiment. I've made the stupid mistake of making the charging unit 18 figs only. As these mini's always lead the way on the gaming table it would have been smarter to make this regiment a bit larger instead of smaller than the rest. With regards to poses I would also do it different next time. More of the same pose in a Brigade, looks better as a Brigade on the table. The next ones will be all in attacking/charging poses...
Now, off to see the All Blacks crush the French. I may be Dutch but I'm a huge rugby fan and I'm still recovering from last weeks semi-finals tragedy. Hopefully the All Blacks set things straight today...
Or better known to me now as The day I could not throw more than three.
A week ago saturday the group came together for our second game of GaG. Rob created a the scenario and had built a great table for us to play on. Since it was our second game we decided to take it easy and focus on getting a bit of practice on maneuvering, charging and some melee.
The maneuvering worked out pretty easy and it took me and Rob, who also played Rebs, quite some turns to get the rebels in Brigade attack column to deliver some heroic charges. In the meantime our Union player Jake had a great time practicing dice rolling while shooting our approaching troops.
With some damage done on our side it was now time for some serious bashing. The first one in were my skirmishers. Looked pretty easy and in my mind the blue skirmishers were already stored back in Jake's boxes. But that's where my first great dice roll happened. The skirmishers decided to let me down and went to the ground instead. I was considering a repaint for them as traitors at that time. But OK, we could handle that as I had now two Attack columns in charge distance and Rob one. Next turn it would all be decided and I could drink a cold beer on a glorious victory.
Full of positive energy I started with the first Brigade, I moved them halfway and threw for morale... A three. Looking at all the modifiers the result was they halted and volleyed. No charge. Slightly dissapointed I moved to the second Brigade so they could secure the center...Another three. No charge again. I sat down in frustration to watch Rob charge his Brigade. Since Rob never misses a charge roll he went all in for his. Under heavy fire he hit the Blue wall. Minutes later he was pushed back with his leading regiment reduced to only a couple of stands. At that stage we ran out of time so no time for a second chance. Bad luck, but that is part the fun I guess and in my case it better should be as I carry the curse of the dice with me on many occasions.
The next day made the matter even worse. As it is still fresh in the memory I always reread parts of the rules and FAQ's the day after to see what we did wrong. First thing I ran into was an errata from the author on the forum. Brigade attach columns neglect the Halt and Volley result to represents the fact they were an "all or nothing" formation. Thank you, they should have charged! and I should have known... These rules have a lot to it and we just need to take a bit of extra attention to learn how to use them. So far, we are having good fun with them. Maybe I need to read the rules before the game as well?
A few pictures:
Lots more can be found on Photobucket
That's it. Done. After a year of painting ACW I have enough troops ready for a decent game and it's time to move on to different projects. I will definitely return to the ACW in a couple of months or so.
