6mm Plancenoit AAR

So hopefully this isn't my annual blog post, as things have tended to be lately - still have lots of photos of projects and games backlogged, and stuff going on, but not much here.  In an effort to address that a bit, here's an AAR from last Sunday's game at Glenn's, a 6mm rendition of Plancenoit, with Glenn and Ron S. as the dastardly French, and myself, Dick, and Martin as heroic and manly Prussians.

The AAR was written by Glenn, I've added some commentary and boasting in bold italics. My few photos are from the end of the game, when the issue was no longer in doubt and I wasn't going to jinx anything.  They're after the report, with suitably Prussian captions.

On to the AAR:

Lobau's (dastardly French) plan was simple hold Plancenoit and refuse his left flank outside of the village so it could not be enveloped by the Prussian cavalry that was noted to be facing that flank.

Bulow's (heroic and manly Prussian) plan was also simple. He would attack on both flanks and slowly put pressure on the center.  (Actually we planned to hit hard on the right and centre, my job on the left was not to lose the game by going crazily into the town.  I just wanted to pin down the Guard and set myself up for an eventually multi-pronged attack on the strongpoints, to take away their mutual support for each other.  As it turned out, our attack in the centre was slowed by terrain and bulky units, and I was able to engage the town in time, using firepower to knock out one Guard unit near the end of the game and being ready to hit some others if we hadn't need to use our initiative/tempo on the right flank where Martin could win the game for us.)

The commander of the 1st Prussian Cavalry Brig. Schwerin (this was Martin) promptly put both of his regiments in motion. Their orders were to circle around to the rear of the French line and take out the gun line set up on the hill behind the village. As they were moving they noticed that the French left flank was pulling back.

In view of the changing situation Eicke commanding the 6th Hussars and Beier commanding the 1st West Prussian Uhlans decided to disregard their orders and try and stop the French from withdrawing. Sabers were drawn, lancers were lowered and in they went.

Jeanin (this was Ron S.) commander of the 20th Div. had been keeping a careful eye on the Prussian cavalry as he slowly withdrew his brigades on the French left. He soon noticed that the battalions exposed to the cavalry charges formed into squares.

The French were almost laughing as the Prussians were repulsed again and again. However, as this was being played out Losthin (also Martin) managed to push his 15th. Brig. forward. Now the French were caught in a vice with infantry to their front and cavalry on their left flank and rear.

It was now a struggle to the death which took Tromelin (Ron S.) as he valiantly tried to get the 107th Ligne to hold it's ground. Miraculously the entire Div. held up until the very end when the pressure from the Prussians was above and beyond what any courageous body of men could ever endure. The collapse was complete, the Div. was lost, with only a few stragglers managing to follow Jeanin on the road back to France.

Elsewhere on the battlefield the fighting had been sparse as the French Guard were in very strong defensive positions and the Prussians were only able to make minimal gains. The one exception was the loss of the 2nd Neumark Landwhre under Braunschweig. They tried to advance in the centre and found themselves overwhelmed by the firepower from Simmer's 19th Div. (Dick always tries to advance forces in the centre and they always get shot up, it's his thing!)

The game was ended at 4:00pm with the following standings:

Prussians (Chris, Martin, Dick):   11TP, 19AC, loss of 4 bases

French (Ron S., Glenn): 10TP, 12AC, loss of 8 bases

The Prussians leading in all three categories were awarded the victory.

Of special note the commanders recorded in their respective armies dispatches for honorable mention were Bony & Tromelin (Ron S.) for their valiant defense of the French left flank. Eicke & Beier (Martin) for taking the initiative with the Prussian cavalry in attacking the French left relentlessly, that lead to the destruction of the French 20th Div.

Next game planned for Sunday Jan. 31 Plancenoit revisited (everybody trying it from the other side and new guys slotted in).

This was my flank at the end of the game, that's Glenn's hand-wringing in the background.  My troops have position in and around the town, most of the actual buildings are held by the French, except in the very middle where I've just captured one block of Plancenoit.  On the left, I have two forces ready to go after some hurting French units (including one battery).  Most of the town and area behind it was set up by the French to be mutually supporting, so you had to go after the supports at the same time as the main forces, which was a slow set-up but if the game had gone on I think I was ready.

An overview of the Prussian centre and right (more on the right below).  The French here are down to holding the town blocks on the middle left and the hill at the back left-centre.  Sort of in the upper centre is where Dick's brigade got blowed up. Those fields and hedges slowed Dick's troops down.

Sky shot of the Prussian right.  That plowed field with the sheep is where the French were when they all ran away home on the last turn, after Martin was finally able to take them in a squeeze play.  Lambchops for all!

 Another view of the Prussian right, showing a bit more of the backing forces and the centre. 

For proper historical posterity, another shot of my flank and the town envelopment.  We left the church alone for the most part, though it took some pot shots at anyone getting too close.

No AAR is complete without a shot of the French dead pile...

Even better than one shot of the French dead pile is two shots of it!

Back With a Very Minor Bang

Well it's been a long, long time - not an unproductive time for my miniatures hobby, but between needing a new computer that worked better with BlogSpot and doing a lot of unphotogenic prep work, I haven't gotten anything up on here for almost a year, and even then my lone 2014 post was pretty lame.

I still have a bunch of photos from Hotlead 2014 to get up, and since Hotlead 2015 is almost here, I'd better get them up soon!  And then I have some game photos from the 6mm Napoleonics club I'm in and some aircraft shots from Canada's Aviation Museum.

On the topic of Hotlead however, I'm hoping to host my first ever game there, actually a series of short scenarios within one timeslot.  The rules are "Songs of Drums and Shakos" by Ganesha Games, and they're very small scale (8-15 guys per side) cinematic Napoleonic skirmish rules.  Sharpe or Brigadier Gerard types of things.  I also plan on eventually using them for 18th and 19th century adventures in India and variants for the French and Indian Wars/War of 1812.

My first batch of 15mm Napoleonic figures have been painted up by my buddy Ron and I'm now in a panic getting everything else done.  One thing I realized I needed are fences and other minor terrain bits for both Russia and the rest of Europe.  So while I plan on buying 4Ground fences for NW/Central Europe, I wanted something more peasant-like for Russia (apologies to any Russians reading this), so I spent the weekend working on some tests.

This is the collective shot with some figures for scale, on the left is a pig/chicken pen that will fit against a building wall (hence the open side to the left) and will also have smaller wire glued vertically to the crossbars to represent the smaller branches that actually keep the animals in.  Google "old Russian village fences" and you'll see some examples of what I mean.

On the right are my attempt at regular Russian farm fences, the sort used to pen in cattle or maybe between fields.  In retrospect they probably should have been a bit taller - I was aiming for 10mm high posts, or about 4'.  But I think they'll do ok for now, I only need a few of them to start.  Fences 2.0 can be taller. 

Below is a ground-scale view of the fences, a gate will eventually go in the gap, then I'll add some texture to the base and get painting!  All told these involved popsicle sticks, thin (Touch brand) toothpicks, white glue, and 20 gauge hobby wire.

 

Below is the pig pen again, the vertical wire (smaller branches) will be 28 gauge hobby wire.  Some of these will be with a wintery look, others a summer/spring (basically, no snow) look.  I'll also do some all busted up and others (like this) intact with an eventual gate.  The busted winter ones will be for my "Last Pig in Russia" 1812 scenario.

That's all for now, good to be back!

Caption contest at the Mad Padre's Blog!

Well it's been a long, long time between posts, partly because I've mainly been cleaning and prepping 6mm WWII figs and vehicles in an effort to finally finish that project, and partly because I need to upgrade my computer to fully use blogger again.  It was annoying enough before my browser stopped being supported, and it's 100x more annoying now.  I do have a bunch of Hotlead photos to get up shortly, so I hope the new computer arrives soon!

In the meanwhile, there's a caption contest going on at the Mad Padre's blog - I've entered and hopefully you do too!

http://madpadrewargames.blogspot.ca/2014/04/it-contest-celebrating-100k-page-views.html

Finished Tanks & Ruined Factory

Well, by "finished" of course I mean they need a coat of Dullcote to really finish them off, and the tanks need a coat of Future Floor Polish over their decals to seal them, but "artistically", these are all done!  Yay me!

First up is the 6mm ruined factory from Gamecraft Miniatures, with a roof added on by me, as well as doors and ruined walls made from Gamecraft's ruined floors.  This is the front, complete with Nazi eagle.  The front pillars etc. were painted as being fancier than the basic walls, and show up a big grubbier looking in real life, the white reflected the flashbulb well in this pic:

Here's an interior shot, the office area is where the turquoise walls are, the rest was factory:

Another view of the interior, showing the one problem area I had, what to do with the reverse side of that fancy entranceway.  It was either try to paint by hand the windows and door, or...

Build a pile of rubble to put in front of the blank wall to cover up that it doesn't match the exterior.  This is what I came up with, a wooden base with some cork bits, tin foil paper, a pin or two, and the sprue from a set of Shapeways aircraft I'd recently prepped.  I also used some cardstock as roof/upper floor pieces.

A close-up of it.  I'd built it so one side, that would go up against the wall, was supposed to be tall and cover up the blankness, but as you'll see in the next pic, somehow I misjudged the height and it's still short.  Not sure what I'll do, either make another or keep adding to this.  I do like the bits.

The rubble in place - as you can see, the wall isn't really covered at all.

The temperature and humidity around here finally broke this week, after 3 weeks of high temps and humidity that meant I didn't really want to do any critical painting or decalling.  But with this window of opportunity, I finally decalled up some tanks that have taken way too long to finish. 

This is the whole collection, although the American halftracks and armored cars still need final detailing before they get their decals (I also have to figure out where the decals go on them!).

British Comets to the centre and left, one of those American halftracks on the right:

ISU-152 up close:

More ISU-152s!

On the left a couple of T-34/85s, I did a pack of 5 (all of these are GHQ), 3 in one platoon, 2 in the other.  The T-34/85 up front is obviously a hero of the Soviet Union with all those kills on the barrel!  Decals here are a mix of GHQ and I-94.

The other platoon (2 tank platoon) of T-34/85s.

My fleet of JS-3s!  These heavy tanks were in platoons of 2, so my five-pack gave me 2 platoons and a HQ tank.  The red numbering and star didn't show up as well as I'd hoped, but within historical reality.

Another view of the JS-3s.

 As always, clicking on the photos brings up bigger views of them, although these small scales aren't necessarily prettier the closer you get!

3 & 6mm Paintjobs in Progress

Hehehe, I said "paintjobs".  Here are some of the things currently on painting table #2 now that the big German factory is finished (pictures to come).  First up are some 3mm wood churches for Terrible Sharp Sword ACW gaming, the miniatures are from Bay Area Dockyards:

 Most of the painting is don, now I'm in the touch-up cycle, correcting all my mistakes from the first pass!  The pieces are ok, these ones didn't need any fixing, I have a lot of other Bay Area Dockyards that need sanding after I patched some pitting in the resin.  Not tragic problems, but two extra steps in the process.

Next up is a 6mm bridge from what used to be Simply Six - I think Picoarmor carries the range in the US (at least he carries the 3mm stuff from Simply Six).  This is actually DONE!  Yes, believe it folks!  It just needs sealing:

It's a really nice piece, none of the Simply Six stuff ever needed fixing, just a wash and straight to painting.

These 6mm ruins are also from Simply Six:

These are still a work in progress, I usually dabble with them when I paint left over from one of the other pieces, I add a bit to the rubble piles, and now just need to focus on finishing them with some grays and browns.

Finally, here's the Stalingrad Grain Elevators in 6mm from JR Miniatures:

The bulk of the painting is done, just have to do the gravel on the roof, drybrush the green and blue roofing, and do the metal tanks and pipes (and latticework on the one side). 

Reapermas Arrives at Twothreesixmm

Last night I came home to find a large, large box left on my front porch by UPS - my Reaper Bones Kickstarter package had arrived!  Reapermas at last!  I had pledged at the Vampire Level (all that that ended up entailing is in the picture below - click to see the whole thing) and picked up some extras:

• Cthulhu (a huge, huge figure!)
• Undead (Bone) Giant
• Clockwork Dragon
• Mythos Monsters
• Deep Dwellers
• Extras of the IMEF Marines and Nova Corps
• Carrying case for figures

When I originally pledged, my plan was to use some of the Lovecraftian figures for pulp gaming, the non-fantasy Zombie Hunters and Chronoscope for pulp, VSF, and/or modern spy gaming, and the sci-fi figures for topping up Star Wars.  The clockwork dragon is for VSF as some mad Prussian science project.  Some of the fantasy I'd paint myself to top up my collection of plastic collectible pre-paints and 1980s-era metal for Warhammer Fantasy-universe and Conan/Kull skirmishing, with some also being set aside for my young nephew as his first painting projects.

However, since then, despite my best efforts, I started three new projects this winter - and without really planning it this way, Reapermas actually supports two of those projects better than it does anything I outlined above (other than getting my nephew started at painting).

One project gathering steam has been Mythic India, and a ton of the figures above will work for it - the familiars, a couple of the necromancers, the skeletons and mummies, swamp things, owlbear, griffon, and the female storm giant (imagine her painted blue as the avatar of an Indian goddess...).  Even the spiky dark heroes and elves can work in the setting with the right paint job and mindset.

The other project is gaming with miniatures in the world of the Feng Shui RPG - for those not familiar with it, it basically encapsulates the best of 1980s and 1990s Hong Kong movies in one grand setting.  So Chinese eunuch sorcerers with Shaolin monks with gun fu mobsters with strange science fiction.  I'm not sure of what rules to use yet - Osprey and Ganesha Games have announced a Hong Kong set based on the Song system that will be my first stop - but I've started collecting minis for it.

Reapermas helps with some gun-toting heroes, including a perfect figure for Furious George, second in command of the Jammers faction (yes, I know Furious was a chimp and that's a gorilla, but I'll work with it).  The IMEF and Nova can work as Buro soldiers/police, perhaps the Wheel too.  Some creatures will do as demons for the 69 AD timeline too, although I have some other figures (in metal) from Reaper that will be better (and work as cyborg-demons, aka abominations).

My third new project is the Monster Hunter International setting in 15mm, so theorectically out of scale for this, BUT that giant head monster (can't remember its D&D name), the green and fire haunts, the vermin, the swamp things, and the specials I got - undead giant, Cthulhu, Mythos monsters, deep dwellers, ALL will work for 15mm too!

It's like I'm a genius but don't even know it.  Of course, it's probably 50 years of painting to get this all done, but I'm looking forward to it.

There's been good threads on how to work with the "Bones" material circulating around, so I now have to read up on that, certainly some of the figures need a bit of re-shaping after their travels.

6mm German Factory Ruins WIP

This is a 6mm scenic project I've been working on for a while (too long - why am I so slow?), a ruined factory from Gamecraft, which came in acrylic plastic and had two optional ways to build it - as a German (eagle holding the globe symbol over the door) or Soviet (star symbol over the door) building.

It took a couple tries to find a good glue for the acrylic (Gorilla Super Glue won in the end), and I probably should have set the big doors at the back of the building, rather than the front, so they'd look like train doors that could have the track running through the whole factory. Although when I looked at the image on Gamecraft's site, they built it the same way.

The roof and interior floors and walls are all add-ons by me. The interior walls/floor are actually from Gamecraft's other ruined city sets, which come with ruined floors. I flipped some of them 90 degrees to make the walls. The roof bits are cut from heavy cardstock, out of the box it has exposed girders. I also used some thin cardstock for doors on the interior walls, and for exterior doors.

I'm getting to the end of the road for this, just some final touch-ups, finishing the external doors and windows at the main entrance, painting a gold eagle and globe, and then distressing the whole thing with soot stains.

I also have to deal with the interior side of the front entrance - because the fancy doors and windows on the outside are added on, the inside shows nothing to match them. My plan is to make a base of rubble heaped high enough to cover up the fact that there are no doors and windows along that part of the interior wall.

And if you're wondering about the turquoise - I wanted something with some contrast. I'm saying the turquoise is all the office space, and then I used a paint pen to add the outline of an interior wall and floor where it fell away; I'm hoping it looks better when distressed.