Saturday, March 24, 2012

Battle for Pohlman Hill







I've been a bit quit recently, lost the painting motivation but doing research for the next proper army I'm about to start. More detail on that later but I'm about to make an attempt to built a 1800-1806 French army after I finish some Mexican/American skirmish units.

Anyway, we had a good ACW game recently using Guns at Gettysburg. We decided a while ago that for every game someone of the group would create a scenario and be the game master for the day. I must say this is really paying off adding a lot of fun and making the games much more interesting (as the discussions before and after). And if you wonder, couple of years  ago we usually showed up, looked at the troops we brought, put everything on the table and played a couple of turns before we packed and went for refreshments.
We are getting better at this each game and my thinking is that preparation is key for an interesting game.

This time it's Jacco's (Jake) show. The following is the information I got after the game. Before I only received my OOB and some background for the day. He created the map in Powerpoint.




POHLMAN HILL
March 10 1863

Background
In a period of relative inactivity following the Battle of Stones River, a reinforced Union infantry division, under General James S. Wadsworth reconnoiter south toward Columbia. Four miles from Pohlman Hill, Coburn attacked with his right wing, a Confederate divison under General John Bell Hood; he was repelled. Then, General John Bell Hood seized the initiative.

Mission
The winner is the side that has possession of Pohlman Hill.

Deployment
Union: deploy 5 US Battery D and Vincent’s brigade anywhere within three inches of the western short edge of the table.
Reinforcements are diced for at the end of the to arrive in the move phase of the following at the western short edge of the table.




Brigade
2D6
Meredith (with Wadsworth)
2-5
Robinson
6-7
Ward
8-10
Stewart
11-12

Confederate: deploy the 15th Arkansas Volunteers anywhere on Pohlman Hill. The rest of Wofford’s brigade anywhere within 3 inches of the eastern short edge of the table. Reinforcements are diced for at the end of the to arrive in in the move phase of the following at the eastern short edge of the table.


Brigade
2D6
Anderson (with Hood)   
2-5
Benning & Henry
6-7
Hampton
8-10
Perry & Haskell
11-12


On the 6th turn all reinforcements that are still of table will arrive in the move phase.


Terrain
The hill lightly wooded and the hill does not otherwise impede movement. The Creek can be forded at any point on a throw of 4+ (D6)








As said it was good fun and in the end the Rebels could secure the hill helped by the terrain and better artillery positioning (canister works:). I only took some pictures at the start and near the end of the game unfortunately. We never learn.


GameMaster Jake (who also played Union)is  looking to see if he can change the scenario to secure a blue win.





Battle for the light woods





Reb cav about to charge and get slaughtered

Rebs taking the south flank
Pohlman Hill secured

Jakes freshly painted Brigade

All the pictures of the day: link

Thursday, March 8, 2012

SAGA extras, baggage train and fatigue markers


Painted this baggage cart for SAGA's escort scenario which requires three bases of baggage or anything that deserves to be protected. Enough finished so it's time to get a couple of games and depending on how much fun we have I will do some more points or another Warband. First game end of the Month where I will be trashing Rene from Paint-In.

Models from Gripping Beast with the except for the Viking dragging the poor woman with him. I gave the celebrating drunk a small treasure chest I found in the lead mountain.

Fatigue Markers, with decals from Little Big Men Studios



Experiment with a different background, easy to do once you know the trick but I'm not sure I like it?






Thursday, March 1, 2012

Vikings for SAGA point 6: Archers



Not overexcited with the idea of having to paint the archers I got the job done. While I have collected hundreds of Vikings over the years I had a hard time finding twelve archers I could use. This is a mix of 5 manufacturers and I ended up doing a very simple conversion on a Foundry Bondi figure giving him bow, arrow and a quiver to get to twelve.
Warband is done now and I'm currently painting a baggage train for one of the scenarios. At least one game of SAGA and an ACW battle this Month and I'm looking forward to that. Last week we had a WWI game using Mud & Blood which was great but unfortunately the pictures are unusable.




In the meantime the group decided to start yet another project so I'm currently in research mode for figs and history. This time we found another nice niche: Mexican American War in 28mm. We are fully aware of some great 18mm and 40mm ranges out there but because we have a lot of  unused scenery in 28 we decided to use what we have and stay with 28mm. We will use So Far From God by TooFatLardies as our ruleset for the period. Now let me see if I can find some cool figures I can use...


Viking Gallery

Monday, February 20, 2012

Vikings for SAGA point 5: More hirdmen

Another group of Hirdmen, this time led by a retired Berserker who likes his parties. I guess his well fed belly more than makes up for the extra armour point he gets leading these guys.
The Hirdmen are from Crusader, retired berserker from the Foundry Viking range. Shield transfers from Little Big Men Studios.




I've created a gallery with all Vikings here...






Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Vikings for SAGA, point 4: more Bondi


4 points finished and ready for a first game. Probably next week. Another point of Hearthguard and 12 archers (hopefully they are of any use, don't really like the idea of including them) on the paint bench before I move to the civilians, carts, casualties etc to enrich the gaming table.
Again a mix of manufacturers and the shield transfers from Little Big men Studios.

















Saturday, February 4, 2012

Vikings for SAGA. Point 3: Bondi


First of two (maybe 3)groups of Bondi. Next group will follow very shortly and then I have 4 points to put up a first test game to see if the game will live up to it's expectations.





In the meantime I'm recovering parts of this blog since a lot of the pictures went missing recently. With a nice piece of Apple's new hardware I decided to migrate to iCloud last week. Wrong decision. As a long time user of their products I also used their internet galleries. They announced these end of life last year but stated that you can use them until June 2012; also if you migrated. Well, not for me. Two days after my move to iCloud the galleries were deleted..Gone. Together with the pictures on the blog that were sourced from the galleries. Fortunately I quit using the galleries after 10 blogposts or so and I still have copies but it's time consuming to put them all back. In the meantime Apple support is working on it now but I don't think they will be able to get all the pictures back in a way they link back to the blog. Anyway, I'm frustrated and I rather paint or browse the blogs instead of this %$@.


















Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Vikings for SAGA, point 2: Berserkers

Yesterday I realized it was exactly one year ago I started this blog. It's been really nice to see it slowly grow through the year and had good fun making new virtual friends with as one of the highlights a game with Blogosphere celebs Ray and Fran during my holiday in Kent.
Time for the hobby is a bit limited for me the next months but I will try to keep up the one post a week schedule. And I will keep them shorter :-)

Berserkers: two from Artizan, one Crusader and one unknown (Gripping Beast?)






My flesh recipe for the Berserkers:
Vallejo red leather basecoat. Highlighted Foundry expert Flesh B to E