28mm Napoleonic Russian Cossacks

The Wellington gamers are putting on their epic Leipzig refight next weekend. Dave, Stephen and Kent are all heading up for the gaming but alas I will have to miss it. I will be in Wellington for a couple of days with the family from the Sunday afternoon. Finn has made the rep team for 12th grade soccer and his the South Island comp is in Blenheim at the top of the South Island so we are driving up and thought we'd take the kids over to Wellington on the ferry as they've never been to the North Island for a few days and visit Te Papa (NZ's national museum) and catch up with their cousins. It should be a good trip but unfortunately I won't be there in time to see the Leipzig game

 John needed a few more cossacks painted so over the past couple of nights I've painted up 4 more stands for him which will be heading up with the guys. The figures are all Front Rank.

More Black Powder

Another enjoyable game of Black powder last night. Once again a Prussian/Russian (11 battalions of infantry, 1 regiment of cav) taking on Kent's French (10 battalions of infantry, 2 regiments of cav).

The French deploy

 And advance

 Kent's troops advance on the Prussians

 A cavalry clash early on. The Prussian lancers destroy the French Cav!

 On our left flank I have a cunning plan... and advance four battalions foward

 The Prussian cav follows though into a battalion in line.

 On the left my troops are held up by stubborn French resistance.

 That's better... ufortuantley tog i ave takken a few too many casualties.

 Kent throws his cavalry into the Prussians but they are repelled.

 Unfortunately my last few battalions are whittle down and my command breaks!

 Luckily though te Prussians see off the other French infantry brigade leaving them with the remnants of the brigade (formerly) facing the Russians to claim victory!

 The final round and the French collapse!

The Prussians once again claim victory whilst my Russians do their typical trick of imploding in spectacular fashion!

Lots of fun!

Craig

Black Powder Napoleonics

Kent and stephen popped orund for a quick game of Black Powder Napoleonics, using Stephen's new Prussians (3x regular, 2x landwehr, lancers + dragoons?) & a Russian brigade (4x regulars, 1x jagers)

vs Kents 10x regular French, dragoons & lancers.

Lighting in the new room is still a WIP- haven't seen the electrician in a week so I jury rigged some lighting. Hopefully I will get the lights wired up soon. 

The French deploy

 My Russian brigade deploys.

 Stephen's Prussian command

 My infantry advance on the far right flank.

 And in the distance the Prussians advance.

 Kent advances and in the next turn we charge a battalion of infantry.

 On the right the two armies close.

 Each sends in some cavalry support.

 Stephen manages to destroy a French battalion.

 One of Kent's infantry battalion forms square and somehow survives two rounds of assaults, which allows his lancers to charge home routing the Prussian battalion. The French Cavalry then does  a sweeping advance into the Prussian lancers (bottom left of shot) destroying them!

 

At this point Kent had to go- the battle was definitely in the balance. The French infantry brigade in front of Stephen has just been broken but both our commands were the worse for wear, another turn and it could have gone the other way but we will claim a hard fought minor victory.

Our first Napoleonic game since Borodino last year, was lots of fun and hope to have  a rematch next week and fight to a conclusion.

ACW Black Powder

Tonight we had a fun game of Black Powder. Both sides had 12 regiments + 3 batteries of artillery, organised into three brigades.Each side deployed two brigades and kept one reserve brigade that came on randomly (when Stephen turned up).

Kent's union force deploys.

 The rebels (vets) advance on our left flank.

 In the centre we occupy an important wheatfield which dominates the battlefield.

 The union forces advance on the wheatfield- on our far right flank my regiment attacking the building is destroyed, leaving our flank wide open.

 On the left Kent sends his brigade forward and fierce hand to hand fighting develops.

 The two lines close in the centre.

 The rebels drive back the union brigade smashing it and leaving Kent's flank wide open!

 Alas our own right flank the same thing has happened. Stephen had jsut thrown two reserve regiments into the assault but both were broken!

 Our flank is now wide open and Kent moves quickly to exploit the advantage- enfilading our troops.

 This isn't looking good!

 My brigade tries to wheel and catch Kent's centre brigade- we are both just above our break points.

Kent concentrated fire on the regiment in the centre of the photo, and does enough damage to it to break the brigade handing him the win. Close, very close.

A brutal, bloody and quick game. We were pretty rusty with the rules but it flowed quickly and we went with the flow whenever possible. The game took less than two hours- I'm happy with that and we all enjoyed the  way it played.

I think next week Stephen is keen to try out his new Prussian army...

12 Confederate Regiments rebased

And then there were 12.

Plus 4x stands of skirmishers. I've another 4 battalions worth to redo but they may wait a wee while longer.

All going well I'll be popping round to Kent's for a game of ACW Black Powder this Wednesday night

Craig

...then there were 8.

Another 4 regiments rebased- which means only 8 more (or thereabouts) to go :). To re-base 4 regiments is a good 4+ hours work.

Flags
I originally used flags I'd managed to locate on the internet but Tim D had the flags out of the Perry ACW boxed sets at the Gettysburg game and I thought they looked good so changed all the flags as well. Rather than use the flags as is, I photocopied them and used paper versions as they are a bit easier to work with.

Craig

More ACW

The game at the weekend was absolutely stunnig- great terrain, great opponents (and allies) and wesome loking armies. I got isnpired by some of te other armies I saw and decided I need to improve my own Rebs. First stop the basing!

I like Roger's 5cm x 4cm bases- same frontage, just less deadspace on the stand. So I have already rebased 3x (Black Powder) regiments (12 stands) and added a 4th.

Next stop tonight is to highlight some of the darker colours to make them pop a bit more- love the different painting techniques on display at the weekend- of only I could have grabbed a stand of each style for future reference.

4 newly based regiments ready for action.

 A comparison between the new and old base depths.

 And the first of my rebased artillery and limber :)

 Here is a good comparison between the depth of units- same frontage when deployed into line, just less depth when marching.

 

 Craig