6MMRPC: Week 8 (Zombtober week 4): Nearly finished

The slow slog/progress for Zombtober continues. I suppose it's appropriate considering it's zombies (baring the new fangled fast zombies which are way more scary). I think I'm on track here to have all the zombies finish at the same time (plus 1 strip of survivors). To stay within the theme I will attempt to finish them by the end of the month.

I've ended up doing 3 types of skin recipes to give some variability (and I didn't know what I'd like). Painting civilians are much more time consuming as I colour hop a lot more. There is also trying to decide what color normal people would match so they don't look like a clown, but aren't duplicates of other models. Possibly I put too much thought into this.

Outstanding action items:
1/. blood/gore (final step)

2/. bases (won't do this month) - I'm probably changing my basing technique, so will do everything later after some trialling

3/. Trim, ties, belts, boots - mostly just small items that will help pop the models & break up the solid colours.

4/. Hair - Hair is super annoying to me. I started to look at peoples hair when I was grocery shopping and realize a lot of it is black. Blond is not yellow, it's more like lighter tans over a brown base (platinum blondes not being spotted). Red is orange tint over brown. Etc. I think part of my annoyance is my brown selection is not all that great. Curses.

5/. Survivor garb...need to decide on some clothing colours that are reasonable. Two of the figs (slight variants of one another) look like they are in leather suits. It should be black....but that mostly looks like you haven't bothered to paint something without some clever highlighting that may be extra tricky at 15mm (and I've drybrushed everything white to see the mini better and try and avoid highlighting post base coloring).

I'll get some proper photos up after I'm done. I don't really feel like setting up a light box for incomplete figs.

2014 Autumn Big Napoleonics Game - Montmirail pt 3 (mid day)

As we rejoin the action (Bottom of Austrian turn 4) we have the French line stretched out across the board with no reserve. The old guard has taken a drubbing from the Prussian grand battery but are close to engaging them at last. Nansouty's cavalry corp is strung out facing overlapping squares, and the advance of the Hanoverians (not Hessians as I noted before).

The Austrians on their own right flank (left side of the picture, to the left) have cleverly pulled back their artillery and line, allowing for more punishment of the french advance. One artillery unit is left within engagement range though, as there was insufficient command points and space to rescue it.



Bottom of French 4. (right)

One artillery base was hit by two stands of old guard. Surprisingly (or not given their very worn status) it avoided destruction and retreated behind some infantry. Both units take some attrition damage. How humiliating. 








The infantry in Richards command, advance close to the forest. This will hold up the Prussians as if they advance through the forest they will become disordered, and easy meat for the French.

This essentially halves the forces that can attack Richard until they are driven back.




The cannon in the centre continues to do nothing against the prussians lodged inside the town.

Up above you have a better view of the flank attack (only by one unit, the second was too far away) against the empty spot where the artillery was. This now threatens the flanks of the reserves for holding the town.





Nansouty is largely parked in front of endless lines of squares. The Prussian cav is hiding in reserve and sweating that the French will swing around the end of the line and hunt them.

The Hanoverians are close to close the gap and threatening the French right flank by now.

 Missing photo.Full table of prussian end of turn 5

We can see the next move of the Hanoverians is to deploy their artillery to short range of the cavalry. I seem to recall it being awkardly just out of range of the lancers. The infantry that is in range goes to square. Meanwhile the rest of the corp aggressively advance to take open fields behind Nansouty.




The Prussians are hit by some poor command rolls. They manage to cover their flank, and continue to plink at the guard with cannon.










Bob realizes the conundrum the troops in the trees are in and pulls them back.
















Meanwhile the far flank continues to advance against Richard in the village.










End of French turn 5.

It's the french turn to suffer poor command rolls.

Richard shakes his columns out into lines to further complicate Bob's job on the far flank (bottom of pic).

Nansouty does not much at all, just wheeling around the lancers to take better aim at the cannon and/or infantry. This does open his flanks to the Prussian cav corp.



In the centre one guard unit destroys the flank guard. A column of two units beeline for the village. This is to threaten the cannon and to try and provoke a response by the Prussians to either relieve pressure on Richard, or to make a mistake and open an opportunity to attack Bob's command (Prussian right flank).

Bob played a cagey conservative game all day which worked very well for the Prussians.



Given the extreme wear on the guard, two to one corp advantage against Nansouty AND Richard, things are looking dicey in the extreme for the French. And then, Barry showed up from work. I had no idea that reinforcements were on the way (Doug organizes clever games). A mystery box was pulled down from a shelf, and low and behold......

The young guard show up to help pull the Grognards chestnuts from the fire.

Stay tuned for more pictures accompanied by far too many words!


Insert arrival of the young guard here.

2014 Autumn Big Napoleonics Game - Montmirail pt 2 (early day)

Starting from the morning we see both forces lined up (French to the bottom, allies to the top).
The Allies have obviously numerical superiority and were ordered to attack. Despite the surprise presence of the french old guard, they lurch forward.

End of Allied turn (Right). The cannons in the centre of the line, where rolling redhot dice and steadily putting the hurt on the guard.

The allies also managed to seize the central town, making for a tough to evict presence there.








The Hessians Hanoverians shake out their lines and get organized on the far flank.










End of French turn 1 (left).
Richards command (bottom right of photo) holds fast unwilling to hasten the very uneven fight. The forest will disorder the advance and may buy them some time.

The Guard lurch forward at top speed towards the forward deployed horse artillery (which can move and fire). The few cannons are positioned to batter the central town, and to discourage an advance up the middle by the central prussian corp.



Nansouty aggressively moves the cavalry forward, setting up for a cav vs cav fight, and hoping to crush hit the prussian central corp on the flank.

End of Allied Turn 2. The allied right flank (bottom left of photo) wisely turns a block of infantry battalions to prevent a flank attack by the guard. This generates some pressure relief on Richards command (French left flank) who know only face a slight excess of enemies.

The allied cannon continue to abuse the French guard.

End of French turn 2. The old guard close to within close range of the cannon, sure to take even more grevious casulties. On base turns to attempt to hit the flanks of the prussians on the right.

Richard has advanced some of his troops to help form a continuous line and prevent similar shenanigans against the french.

Meanwhile, in the centre, the prussian corp has been forming square to fend off Nansouty's cav corp. The prussian cav corp has come off worse for wear against the guard cavalry.









Note the french cannon to the left are positioned to punish any prussian advance out of the town. Their cannoning of the town has otherwise been ineffective.

A french cav unit in the lower right has angled to hold up the Hessian Hanoverian advance......







.....which thanks to poor command roll hasn't done almost nothing this turn.

End of French turn 3. Doug has a great shot of me staring blankly at the guard during this turn. I was trying to decide whether to fully commit moving them against the grand battery, they had taken a drubbing and were quite depleted at this point. I wasn't sure they could successfully kill the artillery once engaged.

Moving back seemed like a bad decision as well as they'd already paid for the ground with blood. Retreat would only cost them more. I finally decided to stay the course. It was looking like a reverse Napoleon setup....my reserves are committed, there's a rupture point developing, and the enemy has reserves he can pile on to break me. Dicey indeed.



Let's look up close. Bob has cleverly split his battalions into 2 lines to hit Richard, while still covering his advance. The french horse artillery is almost dead from a weak starting strength and firing attrition.

Meanwhile Bob's other block of 4 units is moving through the woods to threaten the village.




The prussian centre has very strong artillery units, and hordes of infantry ready to reinforce the fortified town. My only chance is to shut up the artillery and hit the infantry in the side.

You can see one guard infantry unit sitting in the back has 1 pip left. They continue to fall away from the artillery whenever I have the command points to spare.



Ian has cleverly arrayed his infantry from the centre corp into overlapping squares.

End of French turn 3. Probably easier to look at each area again.












Left flank. Guard with the flanking attack, and Richard infantry destroy a prussian unit. The horse artillery of Richards command disappear after killing the other unit of the 1st line.

After harming a unit, artillery make an attrition check, on a roll of 1 (on a d6) they take a hit themselves. Double 'poof' doesn't happen very often, but is strangely satisfying for both players.


The perfidious prussians have avoided contact with their guns for one more round. I think the guard are JUST short of the more devastating short range. At least one unit is up there to tempt fire from other, more intact unit. It didn't work, both Ian and Bob were very catholic in their targets, and happily identified units to 'take the shine off'.

Thanks guys.

Nansouty has driven back the prussian cav (both with 1 strength pip left). The horse artillery has moved up to cannonade some squares. The cav have managed to eat one square (on the left).

This would, at the end of the game, result in a huge discussion about square vs cav effectivess, combat modifiers, how to resolve multiple base combats, etc.

In defence to what happened rules wise, a overstrength heavy cavalry unit, with a overstrength light cav unit both attacking together won.....and then recoiled because the squares won't move. Artillery would eventually eventually allow these joint action units to destroy 2 prussian bases in square by damaging them to low strength. Arguably this was more believable as they squares were probably 'shaken' under fire. I think the big argument was about a fresh square 'losing' the fight.

Keeping in mind that 1/. you basically never see cav with strength 6, 2/. pips probably represent morale more than casualties, and 3/. there was a fixed bonus for a second unit attacking, it's been changed to another iteration.....this probably will never happen again.

The hessians Hanoverians continue to move forward, having secured their village. There is an opening for them to seize another village to swing the VP point total.

They do, however, face Nansouty's cav corp, which can be a bit of a challenge for infantry.

Under these rules infantry can close to fight cav. I suppose the idea is that musketry is base to base, and if the cav wish to retire, they'd have placed themselves further away.

I think it's mostly a gameability issue. Allowing cav to 1/. not be able to be contacted by infantry or 2/. have a choice to retire was VERY abuse-able (I'd done so myself), and super unfun for the infantry player. It seems to work now, although there was also a discussion about whether this was a problem or not. I think any solution would either be too rules heavy, or just create alternative issues.

It's now about mid day. The forces are strongly engaged across the entire front. The hessians have an opening, and the old guard could easily rupture and cost the French the entire war. STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT EXCITING INSTALLMENT!

2014 Autumn Big Napoleonics Game - Montmirail pt 1 (setup)

So on the weekend Doug (of Dots of Paint) hosted another big table game in his basement. Due to a variety of snafus, at least 2+ people were not present, but multiple commands are not overally taxing with this game. Speaking of, 'this game', Doug & Seth really need to come up with a title for their rules as they are getting pretty close to full polish (and I want something identifiable to call it in my blog entries). (UPDATE!: the working title with be General du Corp).

As noted in previous posts the rules are geared towards fast play convention settings. Each base represents multiple battalions (I think the number bandied about was 1000 people?). Gun bases represent a battery for each pip of strength and are more a locus of activity than a true position of gun (this allows for shooting through non engaged bases and 180 degree forward fire).

Prussians finished setting up

The battle, as always, was a thinly disguised historical based scenario. Doug does his best to confuse the players to what they are playing and facing. Given my nearly non existent knowledge of specific battles, it usually works just fine on me. I was particularly impressed this time as he had about 3 French bases on the table, and most of the Prussians. The Prussians were told that there are more french there and allowed to set up their forces as they wished. A grand battery of a LOT of cannons were formed in the middle, and a massive corp set up to seize the town in the centre. Secret info was then told to the allies.

Old guard(mortier) in the middle, Nansouty (cav) in the distance

On my side (French) I was given my forces after the allies set up. Turns out Napoleon is in the area and I have Friant (old guard) and Nansouty (Old gaurd cavalry). Richard has some super enthusiastic conscripts (sufficiently enthusiastic they were given kudos by the old guard historically). My orders are to crush the enemy as thoroughly as possible, as we have another couple armies to go defeat in detail. Power of the central position! Each village and town (only one in the centre) are worth VP's. Killed/Destroyed old guard units and broken corp are penalties. I've also been warned the allies have reinforcements off towards their line of communication (marked with wagon base markers on each players side).

I was particularly stoked to get to attack for once, and, amazingly, with super elite troops. The relative numbers though made this look like a classic quality vs quantity fight. Another confounding factor for the french is the near absence of artillery (moving toward some other fight I think). I had 5 strength pips vs 17 or so. Consider that the pips represent an attack each and you can guess at the artillery pain the French were to experience. 

Doug, after the surprise reveal of the troops, told us this is based on Montmirail. The Prussians on the board were actually Russians under Sacken.


Now for some eye candy interlude....


Old guard.

Nansouty's command. These bases had incredibly high strength values (most horse is 3 or maybe 4....this corp had 2 with 6).

Another classic feature of Dougs games are the close proximity of the armies. Given the short move distances and zero musketry distances it makes a lot of sense.

Full table view. Wagon marks the line of communication (i.e. line of retreat). Note the allies LOC is to the upper right. This gives the french an interesting opportunity to try and cut off the retreat fleeing allies (assuming they can break enough corp).

The allies have 3 commands, a cavalry corp on the far right (of the photo, left flank for them), and two large infantry corp (the split is down the middle of the grand battery in between the central town, and top left village).

French are Richard (enthusiastic conscripts 3 bases plus artillery) - left around the village, Friant (6 Old Guard stands and foot artillery) - middle, Nansouty (2 hvy cav, 4 light cav, 1 art) - far right. 

Also note the last troops to be revealed at setup were the Hanoverians (in orange) on the allied LOC. They were handled by Doug who is usually sufficiently distracted by game questions that he often forgets to move everything every turn. Ideal command for a relatively defensive force.

These guys were, historically, the actual Prussians under Yorck.


That's probably long enough for a blog entry. Stay tuned for some game play reporting.

6MMRPC: Week 7 - almost bust

October continues to be a disappointing productivity month. I thought I had done nothing at all this week, but then I remembered I had brought figs over to my mother's house at the beginning of the week. Not the zombies I should be working on (and thereby failing the zombtober challenge part) but a pittance of work none the less.

 These are the next batch of Russian napoleonics that are in progress. They are jaeger, who look almost identical to the line, except (mostly) for black harness instead of white.

The 3 fig per strip are perry metals, the guys in the forage caps (which are also appropriate for line) are perry plastics.

I took two shots to show the WIP on the black. Not quite done them all with that colour.

I'm a bit disappointed in this week, but honestly it was a nightmare week with multiple visits to the emerg department, and suddenly had the job of cooking (Canadian) Thanksgiving dinner devolve to me. What is it with this month anyway?

In related news, I got to play in a big Napoleonics game on saturday which will be posted up shortly. This was totally worth losing painting time for.

6MMRPC: Week 6 (Zombtober week 2) - Hazmat troopers + Dogz

Another week of poor productivity. The new (additional) job strikes again....it's already time for midterm evaluations which are particularly hard when I've had less than 30 hours of contact time with 8 students.


Back to important manners.....zombies! I've had my tray of figs that I tend to use one colour and pick and choose models to add it to. I decided I needed a solid effort to deliver some figs though, and focused on painting up 3 sticks.



My trained zombie elimination troops. Since they don't need camo against mindless foes, they are marked up in some bright hazmat gear. I made a mistake when I painted two sets of colours on two sticks.....I grouped them in similar poses for ease of painting, so now the squads are, unfortunately, few very poses.

I saw one set of painted figs on another blog with the purple gloves, and quite liked them. I see them at the hospital sometimes (blue as well). Strangely the sculpts have a hood rolled down, but they are still wearing a hood.








I rationalized that they probably quarantine all their 'outside' equipment, and have disposable (or cleanable) inner suits.....hence the purple hoods and gloves (closest to the skin). Everything else stays in the 'dirty area'. I imagine it wouldn't be worth trying to clean weapons, armour, and battle harness every outing.




















The dogs were fun to paint, as I was trying to convey a few different breeds. Two of the small guys ended up looking too similar in my mind, but I couldn't be bothered to change it as there is still a mountain to defeat.









The ladies I painted with 2 different skin recipes. The greener one is super simple (2 colours), but I don't like it as much. The one on the end is much more involved..and one of the later steps detracts a lot (green ink, too light final skin tone used). I'll probably edit it a bit for some of the other zombies.




The blood was a mix of dark red/brown, with a bit of brighter red. I suppose I should add some extra brown and black bits, but I think it will darken the figs too much. These are the first zombies I've painted so input would be much appreciated.