Russian to the front....

Pardon the terrible pun, but I managed to finish my cossacks literally seconds before stepping out the door to catch a ferry to the enfilade convention.

 Doug (Dots of Paint) convinced 6 of us to all paint contigents of troops to help populate his Borodino battle field. After promptly finishing off my first allotment of troops, I went for a stretch goal and added a number of troops including these cossacks. Many have fallen by the wayside, but not these fine fellows.

Hail Caesar: Romans vs Carthiginians

One of the local gamers, Joel, has finished painting up his ancients for Hail Caesar. He invited Nate and myself to play, while he GM'd and familiarized himself with the ruleset. It's quite similar to warmaster and blackpowder with the activations. Units are selected and diced against the commanders leadership. Very good rolls result in multiple moves.

You need to pre-declare your intent, so it's an interesting friction where some troops may fail to activate at all, while others lurch across the table at dizzying speed.

 Joel threw down all his painted stuff, in rough parity, Nate grabbed the Romans, and I took the Carthiginians. In the end it turned out I had about a 20% point advantage (up an elephant and a skirmisher) but it was a fun game none the less. Lots of good natured heckling from all three of us.

While the Romans were loaded up with legions (including some convicts), 2 skirmishers and 2 medium cavalry, My own forces had a mix of gaellic (med) cavalry, horse archers, skirmishers, 3 elephants, and a number of blocks of spearmen.
The special rules aren't too common, or overpowering, but do add a certain character to some national units. In particular, the roman pilum rule seemed pretty kickass.

SAGA Crescent & Cross - last stand AAR

I had a chance to make it over to Vancouver and play with some friends at the monthly Trumpeter gaming night. Cameron (LINK) has been converting a bunch of locals to SAGA over the last two years or so. It started with regular (viking) SAGA, and for a small group of us, we all ordered up 15mm figs for crusader war gaming (Crescent and Cross).

At long last enough of us have painted figs and the opportunity to throw down some lead on the table. I had never played, Grace has played a few times, and Cameron knows the rules. We did a two vs 1+1 battle. I suspect we had the advantage due to the number of saga (activation essentially) dice we got to throw as two individuals rather than one.

The mission was a last stand, after bidding to see how long we thought it'd take us to table our enemy using endless reinforcements we had chosen the same number. Cameron won the dice off, and it was a typical crusader murder fest against the indigenous peoples of the levant.

15mm Napoleonic French: Old Guard

After running quietly for some time, I've finally managed to clear an old project off the painting queue. In fact, these guys were part of a failed resolution for 2015!

These guys are largely old glory figs, although there's maybe a 1/3 of 'other'. I suspect they are various iterations of minifig, but I'm not that great at these identifications.


They are based for napoleons battles/fire and fury, although many of the newer rule sets are base agnostic, as long as you are consistent.

Part of the massive delay was trying to get enough guys to finish these units such that I'd never, ever, ever, have to come back and do more. Tracking down the numbers I needed was tricky as was trying to understand the guard formations (old, mid, young, constant reorganization.......so confusing).

I ended up with 12 bases of both the chassuer (2nd regiment w green and red plumes) as well as the grenadier (1st regiment with the pure reg plume).

Having been painting in 28mm for a while, they don't look quite as splendid as I hoped. I'm pretty stoked to be done with them. The flags could probably be trimmed or painted a bit to get rid of the white. ALL of my 15mm naps need to be based, which I'll probably do as a single marathon endevour. They also need varnishing, which is terrifying with the risk of frosting, so will have to wait to a hot dry day in the summer. 

Basic Fire & Fury: Gettysburg day 1 (pt 2)

We ended the first part with the Right Flank at a turning point. The rebel cavalry had flanked the union defending line, which was anchored by a cannon. The cannon chose to grapeshot the cavalry marching column......and failed to see them off. Bad things are afoot for the union....




While the cavalry is stunned into doing nothing, a small unit of rebels crashes into the artillery, handily routing it. This leads to a breakthrough assault on the flank of the large union unit. Flush with success and hooting their crazed rebel yell, the union is dispatched with such ferocity the entire unit disappears as a viable entity.


This flank is largely a mop up operation for the confederates now, and the cavalry rushes back towards Gettysburg to support the advance.

On the left, which was expected to be an easy go for the confederates, everything is as expected. There's a massive, but slow, breakthrough in the woods.
The union speedbumps on the road are recoiling fast and losing men. 

The rebel left and centre have just about connected, to pressure Gettysberg from multiple directions.

At the town itself, the union reinforcements have fully engaged with the rebel push in the centre. Desperate to change the tempo of the battle, the men in the cornfield advance agressively to try and put a rebel unit out of the battle.



Unfortunately, the cavalry from the right flank chooses this time to reappear and charge into battle.




















 History does not repeat itself and the union manages to chase off both the cavalry and the rapidly diminishing rebel brigade facing them.

Despite local successes, the day is lost for the union, as the confederates have handily taken Gettysberg and are still have day light to march on the important hill to the North.

Basic Fire & Fury: Gettysburg day 1 (pt 1)

Nate managed to host another game at the friendly local game store. We played some basic Fire and Fury (as opposed to the newer Regimental F&F), with a minor rule change for faster play/resolution.
The game was set up as the 1st day of Gettysberg, with the Confederates holding a manpower advantage and needing to strike hard towards the town, and displace the blocking union forces. Joel and myself took the Confederates while Nate and a fellow and is son whose names I forgot took the union.

I have never played F&F but was familiar with the rules, having read them. Nate tells me that it's very common for fire fights to bog down to both sides getting disorder and not much happening. As a result, a rule mod was used where disordered units that take another disorder will lose a base instead. It seemed to work very well, and I can really see how it would drag on without this mod.

Front Rank Russian Jaegers (28mm Napoleonics)

The last of the group of front rank Russians I recently completed. I've previously painted up the Perry version of skirmishing jaegers, and I didn't want to duplicate what I had. I also was intrigued by the musician with the french horn/cornet. Apparently these instruments were not very popular with light troops and often 'lost' quickly.

The posture of these guys are pretty fun. Again, you get a lot of choice from the front rank website. The faces look a bit muddy in these pictures, and the pants might be a tad muddy, but generally I'm pleased with how this base turned out.