Testing Rules for refights

 

 I will be planning a variety of re-fights over the next year or so, with a target of a very large game. As such, the topic of rules always comes up, so my trusty companions and I will play test some rules over the next few months.

Today was Black Powder, a rule set I have used a few times before in a lot of periods. Some pics from the game below, French defending a crossroads from an Allied attack.

 

 

 

  

 

A French Victory as the Allies ran out of steam at a crucial time and with some excellent dice rolling.

Fantastic Book

 

On  a whim, I recently purchased a secondhand book of an auction site, and it has been a pleasant surprise. Page after page of these excellent examples for many periods I know nothing about but have figures for.

In particular, the Seven Years War which my imagination armies are set. This will be a great resource as I paint the finer details of the figures.

 

Battle of Pleasant Hill, 1864

Some time ago, Archduke Piccolo and I decided to play a 1/72 ACW game, a great set of "old school" rules with lots of dice rolling and very bloody battles. It has been a while so I cannot recall the detail, but a fierce confederate attack was held by the union lines.

The figures are a mix of Airfix, Esci, Italeri, Revell and 20mm pewter.

 

All talk and no trousers.

A full 18 months since my last post, a new record.

Well, despite being in New Zealand, the global epidemic has hit me very hard. My industry destroyed, had a large pay-cut for a year, had to make redundancies and see a lot of clients businesses go under or have at least 90% staff loss. That is the way it sometimes goes, some ends up getting the smelly end of the toilet brush and the alternative was far worse, dead industry and sick community. I have a lot of friends and family globally, so I saw what they went through and wouldn’t wish it any other way. It certainly felt like "going down with the ship" at times, but it did highlight to me the importance of this hobby in my life. However, we are still here and things are looking up for 2022.

Recently there was an excellent mental health YouTube post - I recommend viewing it. 

Despite the extremely stressful times, I found that painting gave me that nice release away from it all.  I have accomplished quite a lot in this time, painting and gaming, but when it came to the blog I simply could not be bothered. A few times to be honest, I have even been tempted to simply exit this hobby, but that is more to do with my accumulation of unfinished project, so I have been sorting those out. 

I hope to document these projects more, as I have completed a vast amount of painting and basing. So below is a small sample of my 2020/2021 results work, and it is almost purely all 1/72 scale from a variety of periods.

I plan to make posts on the completed forces, and you can read all the Colonial Campaigns at Archduke Piccolo

Sailing up the Limpopo.

Archduke Piccolo made an excellent account of Portable Wargames Colonial action, so I will not attempt to re-write it.

For the original positions, I went with several baggage trains, intermingled with foot troops and cavalry bringing up the rear. I had hoped the Cavalry could use the clear ground to some effect, but in the end, they were "swamped" with the rest.

 

As bad luck has it, a large force of M'Butu was stationed mid-table and close to the column, there was not a lot I could do here, apart from form ranks and prepare to receive them.  

 

The gunboat looked impressive, but Azeitonian gunnery appeared to have been influenced by the hot weather or rum. The did not achieve a lot during the whole game.

 

The advance party fixed bayonets to repulse the initial attacks.  This advance guard survived most of the battle despite being in the thick of it.

 

The M'Butu swarm out of the bush, overwhelming most of the line. 

 

Governor Relaxado rallies what is left of his fragile command on a small rise on the banks of the Limpopo.

 

As the M'Butu withdraw, a mysterious party watches the forces separate...

 

 

Prussian Cavalry

I am being very productive, but taking photos is not high on the list at the moment so there is some delay on that front. The following figures are painted with basing just being finished, main flocking is down but just needs the final wave of bits and pieces to add on. 

The 2nd East Prussian Cuirrassiers, which are Hinchcliffe 25mm figures which I quite like. (Standard is yet to be added)

2nd Silesian Hussars, an old unit of Old Glory that recently were refurbished with some additional basing needed.

 

Currently, I have two other units to finish, both Old Glory Uhlans but the lovely wire lances I purchased something like "7 years ago" have gone walkabout. I suspect I might have to open every box I have to find them as they will be hiding somewhere obscure.

As I overfilled the PVA Palette, I also based some 15mm ACW figures I have for a "rainy day". I picked most of these up mainly for when I wanted to play-test Fire and Fury rules or other ACW rulesets, the confederates on the left are actually over 21 years old. They are TTG figures (or battleline in NZ).

Exciting 1/72 news

While waiting to pick up my father from an appointment, I popped into Acorn Models as they had recently had a shipment in of new 1/72 kits. To my surprise, Airfix is releasing a kit of old sets and to my surprise, I found a great classic...

 Allegedly, they plan to release ALL the old sets and one of those is the old Firefly kit that I have looked for a while.

At the same time Italeri re-releases the old Warsaw pact, just in time!