Black Powder- Napoleonics

The long retreat to Moscow continues. Bagration detached a division to slow down the French advance and hopefully give them a bloody nose. Would it work?

Each side had:
10 battalions of infantry (we had 2 grenadier, 2 jager and 6 line)
2x foot batteries
3x regiments of Cav
1x horse battery.

Dave, Lewis and I commanded the Russians vs Stephen and Kent. 

Turn 1: The French advance. On turn 2 Stephen's command (the French on the foreground) blundered and retreated two turns off the table! Huzzah!

 Dave commanded the 4 line and 2 jaeger regiments in the foreground.

 Dave signals the advance.

 On the far right I sense and opportunity and charge the middle guard (why do I always pick the elite units to charge?). Both Russian units are disordered as they charge home. 

 This unit is about to be shattered and the survivors flee back towards Moscow.

 Meanwhile Dave charge the French battalion that is in the house on the right, resulting in several rounds of inconclusive combat.

 On the far right Dave's jaegers form a  skirmish line and advance through the woods.

 Where are my troops? My grenadiers charged into the teeth of the French defences and are destroyed, leaving one shaken unit and one okay so the rest of the brigade also retires- and Lewis's Cavalry reserves have yet to appear. Dave, I think we have a problem...

 Lewis's Cav have finally arrived, he ponders what to do with them. Or more correctly how can he salvage anything from the festering pile of dogpoo he inherited on the right flank?

 The French cav also arrive and spend a couple of turns preening and cleaning their uniforms- we aren't the only ones who can roll crap command dice.

 Kent meanwhile throws some infantry at the horse artillery which have just claimed our first battalion destroyed! It is not a complete white wash.

 French cav clash with the lancers, who pull back from the engagement.

 Time Gentlemen. Things were not looking good for the Russians. Dave had occupied a couple of houses in the centre and his command as intact but faced the bulk of the French army. Lewis was charging disordered squares with curiassiers (and bouncing off- I'm not the only one to roll useless dice tonight) but at least was tying up Kent's command. Having slowed the French advance (that's our story and we are sticking to it) the Russians pull back towards Moscow...

Next week, some Impetvs as my Ancient Germans try to overcome their phobia of all things Roman in a clash somewhere in Germania, in the early years of the first century AD...

Craig

ACW Basing Finalised

After much indecison I've finally settled on the basing system for ACW. I'm going to stick with the 50mm square bases and put 5-6 figures on them with 4 stands per regiment. Now all I need is some more figures to paint.

Last night I rebased the 6 stands I've so far done to this standard and like the look.

Craig

And now for something completey different...

An musing video about the adventures  of a battalion of toy soldiers in a garden!

Link: here

Confederate Cavalry

I' mucking round with a new system of big basng to see what it looks like. In future though I will do two half sized bases per unit. They do give a dynamic look to the base (more like Impevs basing really). Saves a bit on figures too- I use 8 instead of the 12 I would usually use on a base this big so will get 3 units out of two boxes of Cav. I really enjoyed painting the Perry Cav, they are nicely detailed and easy to paint.

Craig

ACW Basing

I am a little concerned about how to base, most people are going for 5cm bases, but I do like the look of the 6cm widths. Tonight I painted, and based, 4 stands with 4 figures per stand to compare them with last nights effort.

 As you can see the 3 bases have 5 figures (or 6) and the unit has a frontage of 18cm-  (9 figs in the front rank so 2cm per figure). The new unit has 8 figures per rank and frontage of 20cm (2.5 cm per figure).

So which looks better?

I a now out of Confederate infantry  to paint having demolished a box of Perry plastics in two nights- not a bad effort that! At this rate I might even be able to challenge Kent's painting output, at least for 24 hrs!

One down...

And here we go, one "unit" finished. The Perry plastics are easy to assemble and paint well, the only thing that I am not so keen on is the facial features are a bit soft and ill-defined. That being said they willl still be fine for the rank and file of my force. I've decided that I am going to make Anderson's Brigade, part of Hood's Division for Black Powder and for the Gettysburg game.

The game is going to be using Fire and Fury but I hope my slightly larger bases aren't going to cause any issues as I a not really keen on the 50mm square bases suggested as the standard. Kent and I will mainly be using these armies (well, these once he gets started) locally so I'd rather base them to a system I like and want to use long term, than one for a specific game and which I don't really like. Swings and round abouts I suppose. I might also base a unit using 50mm bases and see how it looks, it may look okay.

Craig

28mm ACW- and so it begins

I've just finished a test base for ACW using some of the Perry plastics. Not too happy with the colours, they are a bit dark, I need to use a lot lighter grey's but I do like the look of the bases (6cm x 5cm). For Black Powder I will use 3 bases this size for a battalion, with between 15-18 figures per battalion.

 Craig

Bedecon Motostrelkovy Finished

I finished my Bedecon Red Army (Confident trained) Motostrelkovy tonight. The force consists of:

HQ, 2iC + kommissar & sniper
1x 2 platoon motostrelkovy company (SMGs)
1x 1 platoon motostrelkovy company (SMGs)

Edited: Light tank company: 8x Valentine VIII

 Tank Destuction Company: 4x Zis 2 AT guns
Assault Gun Company: 4x SU 76

 Heavy Mortar Company: 4x Heavy Mortars

 Tank Killer Company: 4x SU 100s

 

 Gvardeyskiy Tankovy Company(3x IS 2s)

So there we have it, 1750pts on the nose. I've managed to fit in all the units I wanted to field, except the ravedki. In the end I decided to go with the Valentines for a couple of reasons:
1) snow tables will reduce movement for most tanks to 8" anyway- or 4 inches for the M3A1s, and
2) I didn't want to white wash half my Razvedki force.

I have yet to test it out but it should make for an interesting force and hopefully I will make my opponents work hard to deal with it.

Next Up?
A test of the the Perry Confederates. Kent and I decided 2013 as going to be the year for getting into ACW (and I chose to be the Confederates) so I picked up a box to start operation ACW at TAGCON. With all the interest in ACW generated post Borodino thought I'd better get started on this project. We are not sure how we will base them yet, I like the idea of 3x bases (each 6cm x5cm) with 5-6 figures on each but I'll try a couple of options out. 

Motostrelkovy Continued

3 platoons of SMG armed infantry and the Battalion HQ stands (commander, 2iC and kommissar) in two nights, I am well on the way for Bedecon. I will be running them as a company of 2 platoons and a single platoon company. Next up will be some Zis 2s, heavy mortars and a sniper (which I forgot about- each player gets a free sniper and there is a prize for the most sniper kills- so I'd better get one done).

Craig

FoW LW Motostrelkovy- WIP

Well I've finally settled on my list for Bedecon, and it does include the uber weapon that is the mighty British Valentine tank (MkVIII). As the theme is the Winter War 44-45 I thought I' better paint up my infantry to match the theme and so have started working on some snow themed motostrelkovy.

I got a pack of the Soviet infantry in Great Coats and was hoping that there were a few more that were armed with SMGs but there aren't that many. So I've plundered my bits and spares boxes. I have a Urdany company I have never built as I didn't really like the figures but have used those, a few scouts, some old summer infantry to make a hodge-podge mix of figures to represent a group of veterans that have fought their way to the German frontier. Here is the first platoon, I need 3 all up.