Over the weekend, we had ourselves a Napoleonics game featuring Chris Caron and I running the dastardly French (and one unit of Irish allies) vs Mark and Rob's assorted British / Allies including Kings German Legion, Badeners (posing as Portuguese) and some Black Brunswickers. We kept things reasonable and had roughly 200pts per player, and thus 400pts per side. Laid out 2 static objectives (Lion statue and french supply cart) in the middle and would score 1 VP for each enemy unit broken. As ever, Video Battle Report is at the end. Enjoy!
View from the French side, you can see supply cart left middle and lion statue mid right.
We decided to deploy onto the table using orders. Hands up if you can guess whose entire Brigade failed its command rolls? I took a cavalry Brigade with 3 units of Horse and 2 Horse guns, and thus was not able to take advantage of 'Attack Column' Command bonuses!
Rob's splendid King's German Legion preparing to deploy in Line Formation to sort out the frenchies.
Mark's British and Light Dragoons. He wouldn't let me take shots of half-finished Brunswickers! Ignore the unpainted casualty markers please.
After my Brigade failed to get on the table, and Chris' 3 infantry and 2 light infantry (in attack columns) only moving one move, the Redcoats managed to get everyone in place, except the guns. Rob here has left room for the guns on the hill.
Close-up of Rob's KGL, front view
For the second straight turn, most of my army does not come on the board. Only my 9eme Dragoons are on board near the house and obscured by my alcoholic beverage :)
Meanwhile, Chris' 2 units of Lights move up to the Supply wagon and deploy into open order, with the Irish plugging the remaining gap to the trees. Mark already has some British in the middle and a vicious close range firefight would ensue .
Mark's Brigadier fails to inspire the troops to get into the safety of the houses, even though they would be much safer from the musketry coming from the stone walls in the background there.
Meanwhile the German's under Rob's Brigadier await the tardy french horse to arrive!!!!! Only my guns made it on (back right) and took pot shots at Rob's limbered guns on the hill
Holding the Supply Wagon and manning the defences, Chris' Brigade has no reason to move and focuses fire on the limbered British gun in the town square, Disordering it repeatedly so it can never unlimber and fire cannister (see below)
Mark's Brigadier would love to order the gun to fire, but its is permanently limbered with Disorders. It would eventually break off after failing a morale test.
Chris' Light Infantry command jeering the British from the supply wagon, waving the colours!
FINALLY my cavalry brigade comes on the board, but can only declare charges on the infantry and they form square. My Horse Guns, despite being within Cannister range, only on the last turn do would they finally break Rob's KGL line infantry. With Mark's Brigade below half strength from the town-side fire, the British -Germanic alliance would fall back and leave the field to the French. To be fair, Chris' infantry did all the heavy lifting. Still, great game, and it turns out we have enough models and terrain to play in Scott's absence. Looking forward to our next game, perhaps some Colonials?
Quick hobby article.. had a great game of Black Powder showing the ropes to Rob, David (British players with 1 painted battalion apiece) and Christian (who is waiting for MDF bases for his French) However, the footage for that game is on another machine, so instead, I decided to fix all the chips from a disaster that occured driving home from that game on Good Friday:
I had slammed on my brakes, and David and I could hear all my models jostling around the trunk.. So this is what 7 battalions all smashed together looks like! I have already fixed all the damage (mostly bayonets) but figured why not start by highlighting my battalions as I fix paint chips? I had initially just speed-painted these guys to get them playable.
These are how my whole army looks: Blocked-in colours, a wash. Thats it. "good from far, far from good" But this allowed me to play a whole Division vs Scott pretty quickly.
Command base, with white highlights, sky grey on the trousers, green and red highlights, the bridlework done in black, with a dark grey highlight. about 30 minutes.
When highlighting the cloth, I left dark areas for shading. Turned out great. Vallejo 909 Vermillion is a great red highlight color.
All 6 bases done. The white really pops on the strapping and gloves. FYI, these are Perry Plastics, with a few different torsos and arms.. I built these when I had no clue.. I mean I didnt know what a Turnback or Shako was :)
As ever, Video:
Bonus pic: Ever wonder if there is such thing as too much stowage when putting together a tank? The answer is yes:
WTF I don't even....
No idea what this guy was thinking when he was putting wings on top of wings and onto the SIDES of his car.. Oh, I watched him pull away from the parking lot. The horses' eyes on the roof light up in red!!
Anyways, on to highlighting my other Dragoons.. exactly the same as above except yellow instead of red. Riveting stuff, I know!
Hey gang. Scott and I did our first game of 2017: Napoleonics, using Black Powder Rule set, 'Granja Abundancia' from the Albion Triumphant Peninsular War supplement, essentially, a take and hold field objectives. First time we have everything painted, 500pts a side, on a nice 12 foot by 8 foot table. Below is the picture dump, the actual battle report is in the linked video:
Not much pre-amble: last year I kept a loose tally of what I painted. This year I kept better track. Taking inspiration from a bunch of folks from around the 'net, here is what I painted this year, first pics, then a video with more explanation
January was me rebasing my old Perry Miniatures 28mm French Napoleonics for the Black Powder ruleset. This is a small brigade of 3 battalions of line infantry, their brigadier, and the three wound markers. The wound dice go in the green spaces on the markers..
Well well, here we go again. Last time we checked in on my French it was to paint them to be used in Kings of War, a Mantic game of ranked infantry in a fantasy setting. We had an event at this year's local Con, and whilst my french did badly (Who knew a goblin Warlord was better at shooting than a whole unit of Fusilliers?) it was nice to see familiar faces from the old local Warhammer scene. But I had based my guys singly on 20mm bases in case Mark and I ever got around to playing Colonials. Instead, we met up with Scott and Rob, and played the excellent Black Powder ruleset in 28mm. Scott had chatted me up at the Late War Flames tourney about dusting off the old 28mm models for a test game in his war-room basement..
"So an Aussie, a Frenchman and 2 Canadians walk into a bar.."
I quickly painted a regiment for Kings of War.. I am using Kingdom of Man list so these are Arquebusiers. They are just Perry Miniatures plastic French Line Infantry. I will ink and detail them later, but I have only a few weeks to get colour on models before the first tournament of Kings of War.. early October!
Command models and casualty figure.. the casualty has been inked and detailed, the regular guys just basecoated. "Good from Far, but Far from Good" :)
Another shot of the backpacks, where 90% of the detail is.... Next up Cannons. Then I have to figure out a QUICK way to paint 25 horses ....
