All ready for HAVOC tomorrow

I will be running two games at HAVOC in Marlborough, MA this weekend.

In reverse order, I will run the First  Battle of  St. Albans form the Wars of the Roses Sunday at 10 AM. 

Table set up. 

All but one of the buildings are from the Lodestone Kickstarter of a number of years ago. 

The empty space surrounded by the buildings is the Town Square. 

With the troops added - in the foreground is York's advance upon the Town.

The defenders under Clifford, Buckingham, Percy, and Somerset.

Warwick, "the Kingmaker" is in the foreground, looking for the Gap!

Finally, approaching from the near side, is Salisbury.

Saturday at 7:30 PM is  Wellington's Waterloo with the Square Eagles rules. Hougomont is seen on the left of the Anglo-Allied ridge, with La Haye Sainte towards the center. 

Papelotte Farm is on the left of the Allied position, with La Belle Alliance seen off in the distance. 

The table with the troops added!

The long view. 

View from the Allied left. 

Now with the hit markers added, color coded by command. 

View from behind the French position. 

"It was a near run thing!" The French must either take both Hougomont and La Haye Sainte, or reduce the Allied army by 60% in 15 turns; failing that, Blucher arrives, and Napoleon is defeated!

Map of the Battlefield.

This year I am actually playing in two games on Saturday, both using a form of  the Lion Rampant rules. First is "A New View of the Battle of Crecy", by my freind, Mark T, at 9 AM, and then The Battle of Tinchebray at 2 PM. I have to leave by 6:30 AM at the latest to make it there in time for game one. 

13th Portuguese Line, "Peniche"

 The 13th regiment was recruited in Estramadura province, and quartered in Lisbon. 

It formed part of the 10th Portuguese brigade, along with the 5th Cazadores and, later, the 24th Line regiment. The brigade acted independently for much of the Peninsular War. 

Belonging to the organizational Center Division, it had white piping on the collars, cuffs, turnbacks, and front of the jacket. 

The later uniform had either a fringe to the shoulder straps or British style "wings", usually shown as green for the light company and piping colored for the grenadiers; the light companies had green plumes, while everyone else had white plumes on their shakos. 

Photography assistant Miss Maddie. I usually take my pictures outside on an overcast day, using the cover of our hot tub for the (grey) surface!

Note the white lace decoration on the uniform of the Fifer. I know that many wargamers don't like their figures in firing positions, but I always like to have at least some of my Napoleonic infantry in same, so I was pleased that these figures from Brigade Games had firing options. 

And with this unit, Project Portugal expansion is complete. Parade to follow at a date to be determined!

Snappy Nappy comes to the 20 Sided Gamified Podcast (and Aspen-Essling with BBB)

 

My good freind, Jared Fishman, is the host of the 20 sided gamified podcast, which now has almost 100 recorded episodes.  I often times listen to his episodes while I am painting, which has had a positive effect on productivity! Last month, Jared did an episode with Russ Lockwood, author of the Snappy Nappy rules, and released the  podcast a few days ago. I fed my narcissism by listening to it while painting some largely nekkid ancient Libyans, and found it fairly entertaining despite having been there, LOL. It largely concerns SN and our campaigns in a day events,  which regular readers will be aware are all chronicled on the appropriate page of this blog.  So if you are so inclined, check it out!

By the way, literally the second episode Jared produced was his interview with Brent Oman, author of the Field of Battle rules, You can find that episode here. Brent just released his Battle Command : Ancients to Medieval, which I have to get onto the table later this Spring. 

 

 In the interim Jared, who now also lives in Litchfield county Connecticut, and I were discussing the game he recently ran using the Napoleonic Scenario book for Chris Pringle's Bloody Big Battles, namely Aspern-Essling, 1809. Following are some pictures he sent of the game, using his 15 mm Napoleonics. 

 

The red stars are objectives, to right being the village of Aspern and the Gemende Au, and to the far left (stone walls, signifying the formidable granary there).Note the many markers on the Austrians; Jared tells me the French rolled a lot of boxcars for combat on the first turn (BBB uses 2 d6, with a 12 being the best possible roll - 1 chance in 36!). 

Fierce combat at Aspern!

Essling was no neglected, either!

Run away! The colored pins denote which Corps the troops belong to. 

Grenadiers, Angriff!

French Reinforcements!

Austrians press the attack on Aspern and the Gemende Au, threatening Napoleon's bridgehead over the Danube! 

An island of blue in a sea of white!

The battle for Aspern rages on!

The Kaiserlicks seem to have lost interest in Essling.

The French retain conrol of Asopern!

Spent, the Austrians withdraw to lick their wounds. Napoleon has prevailed at Aspern-Essling! Kaiser Franz remains obstinate about negotiating for peace, however. 

Scuffles have Ridges

When I ran my "Waterloo in Two" games at Historicon last year, I had it mind to make custom ridges for the game; in the end, time ran out, and that just didn't happen. I'm going to do Waterloo at HAVOC on Saturday, April 5th with the "Square Eagles" rules, and this time out I did have to time to make them. I had almost enough foam board from previous project, but not quite enough of the 1.5 inch thickness, so I wound up having to buy a new sheet. They only had 1" and 2" sheets, so I went with a sheet of the 2" foam, which was way more than I needed. Boy, has this stuff gone up in price compared with years ago! Anyway, I designed the ridges, and cut out the shapes using two different hot knife tools. 

A heavy coat of "Sunny Valley Green" from Home Depot. 

Applied brown craft paint to the slopes using a moist sponge. 

Then lighter dabs of Delta CC "Jute" to the dark brown areas. 

The flat hilltops were then brushed with a heavy coat of scenic cement, and a heavy application of Scenic Express "Green Grass Blend" flock. 

After the excess was shaken off, there were some bald spots that got a second application of cement and flock. Note the Really Useful box with the surplus flock!!!

The 7 foot long  "French" (La Belle Alliance) ridge is up top, the 11 foot long "British" Ridge (Mont St. Jean) is in the middle and bottom, and on the bottom right are two spare pieces. I still need to spay again with Scenic cement for best adherence of the flock. 

2nd Portuguese Line, "Lagos"

 

The second Line Regiment was recruited in Algarve province and quartered in Faro. 

The regiment formed part of the 2nd Portuguese brigade, along with the 14th Line regiment. 

The regiment belonged to the organizational Southern Division, and thus had red piping on the shoulders, turnbacks, collars, cuffs, and the front seam of the single breasted jacket. 

The second regiments distinctions otherwise were dark blue collar and white cuffs. 

The wonderfully colorful flag is by Adolfo Ramos once again.  The figures are by Brigade Games.

The drummer in the back rank has red and blue lace decorations on his uniform; the drum is dark blue with red rims. 

Egyptian and Assyrian pieces from Acheson Creations

With the Portuguese army expansion already done, I have been working on some foamboard hills for my Waterloo game at HAVOC in a few weeks. I had original thought I would do that for my 3 Historicon Waterloo games last year, but ran out of time. There isn't much to show yet, but there will be in the next week or two. 

I am planning on running two different Chariot era games at Historicon this July, using the To the Strongest" rules by Simon Miller. While Acheson Creations sold off quite a bit of their extensive line of scenic items last year, there are still quite a few excellent pieces that remain, and they are still introducing some new items. Here are some I acquired this winter with a view towards those games. 

A set (? Set) of six smaller sphinxes; these are about 30 mm tall. 

These were found in several locations lining the approach to an important Temple. 

Assyrian Tree of Life; these panels are about 75 mm tall.

Nisroch, Assyrian god of Agriculture; about 65 mm tall.

Smaller Assyrian Winged Bull (I have two large ones already). 

Side view; about 35 mm tall. 

Celtic Steles.. perhaps suitable for the future Viking armies?  The stone pattern is from Scenic effects, purchased several years ago. I plan on using these to help build the walls of Nineveh.