Little Bighorn 7th Cav

A few posts ago I mentioned I would soon begin working on some Little Bighorn characters to be used with the Baron's  Fistful of Lead skirmish rules. I'm quite impressed with my ability to get all of the 7th minis finished in about 6 weeks. This batch includes 14 mounted (I'm using a half dozen Foundry ACW troopers until a few more packs of the 7th collection arrive from Foundry) and 16 dismounted troopers to go with 9 I had previously painted. These totals will probably amount to more than we will ever need, especially since the Native Americans need to outnumber the cavalry by at least 2 to 1. Next, the the Cheyenne and Lakota.

Thanksgiving Greetings

Last night Brett and the Baron made it over for an ACW clash using our Black Powder rules (Jaye's Glory Hallelujah supplement has gone missing, so we couldn't use some of those rules).  I had anticipated a small showing with Thanksgiving the next day, but we decided to throw a lot of troops on the table anyway. The Union side would get the advantage of two gun batteries while the Confederates would benefit from a small cavalry regiment.

With the opening move going to the Yankees, Brett and I got the center and left flank moving, however the right flank (held by five regiments of the Irish Brigade) would not get in the fight until the third turn.

The Iron Brigade would enjoy some successful volleys thrown at the a pair of Georgian units during the first turn, but the CSA middle would rally with some help from its left to blow a hole in the Union center.

Finally the Union right would spring into action and begin shifting units left to cover the center. On the left, Brett would begin to hook around the CSA right flank.

Prior to being run off, the Iron Brigade would inflict enough damage, while Brett would begin to pour into the CSA right that two shaken Rebel brigades would result in a Union victory. This game turned on a dime enough so that we may institute a new house rule - over half (rather than half) of an army's units will need to be eliminated before a victory is declared.  All in all it was a fun night and as early as the game ended, there was plenty of time for a few beers, Dr Peppers, and some good discussion. Happy Thanksgiving.

Not Another Project!

As if my pile of lead wasn't big enough, I had to go and add a couple handfuls of minis from Wargames Foundry's Plains Indians and Little Bighorn collections. George Custer has always been one of my favorite personalities of the American West, so several years ago I decided to paint several of the LBH personalities. Ever since I've wanted to one day put them on the table for a LBH scenario.  With Jaye Wiley over at Baron's Blog offering the perfect ruleset in Fistful of Lead , I have decided it is time to bite the bullet (no pun intended). It's been a privilege to call Jaye a friend and to game with him on a regular basis. Maybe this project will encourage him to add to his supplements for Fistful of Lead.

Black Powder ACW Fight

It has been a while since I have had a chance to drag out a bunch of my ACW collection, so Thursday night I accepted an invitation to the Baron's to dust them off and throw them into battle. Black Powder has more or less become our default ruleset for ACW and now that we have Warlord's Glory Hallelujah supplement, we have enjoyed the game all the more. Since we had a few guys that were fairly new to the BP rules, Jaye decided to evenly match the two armies (equally matched regiment sizes, weapons, and leadership). Now that most of the group has had enough experience with the rules, I think our next game we run with them will be a historical scenario (I have had my eyes on a McPherson's Ridge scenario from the Regimental Fire & Fury Scenario Book Vol. 2). These rules are relatively simple and allow for a game that flows pretty quickly. The evening would end with a Confederate victory beginning with the Iron Brigade taking a beating in the middle of the field with things to unravel for the yankees soon thereafter.

4th of July Weekend WW2 Clash

I had a little time to kill yesterday so Brett came over to play his first game of Bolt Action. Since I hadn't played the rules in a while, it turned out to be a good opportunity to freshen up on the very basics of the rules. Since the time we had to play was limited, I set forces for each side with two infantry teams and a HQ team. It was a fun little battle that gave Brett a nice introduction to the rules and he enjoyed them a lot; we even had a few units mix it up with some hand to hand combat which was fun. The intro of arty and armor to this game makes matters a little more complicated, so that is something we'll include next time.

The battle would turn out to be a unit of German Wehrmacht chasing chasing three units of the 29th ID around the board while two other Kraut units held the bombed out ruins. The tide would turn in the Fritz's favor at the end of the day.

Glory Hallelujah

I have for some time wanted to paint a unit to portray the 54th Massachusetts. I love Glory and have always admired the jobs done by Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman. It's a miracle I ever got around to finishing these because the molds by Redoubt Miniatures are the worst I've ever painted and more than once in the early stages I about gave up on them. As bad as they are, I'm fairly happy with how they turned out. I'm now working on two more stands and have enough still needing primer to give me a grand total of about ten stands eventually.

Black Powder ACW Clash

My opportunities to get to the Baron's have been spotty lately, so with an afternoon to kill, I made my way across town for a Black Powder matchup between the blue and the gray. This is the fourth or fifth time we've used BP for our ACW games and I'm beginning to feel they will be the house rules for the period. The mechanics are very clean - subsequently the games are running pretty quickly (when the room isn't distracted by an exciting KC Royals game). I decided to bring a light number of troops, however I wish I'd brought more because the table could have used more regiments and I don't believe the extra units would have slowed things down too much. All in all it was a fun match up.