Spanish Spearmen 1

I'm back to expanding my El Cid Christian mercenary army. There are two reasons I've come back, the first being I've always intended to for quite awhile and the second reason is I've agreed to a Impetus demo with Sir Toby ( check out his great blog at http://tobispaintpot.blogspot.de/ ). The demo will be at an upcoming event in Ulm called  Attriticon in early May. If your able to attend please come and say hi or better yet join in!  I will be fielding my El Cid army and Toby the Andulsian Moors.

I'm pretty excited about meeting Toby for the first time and seeing his lovely Andulsians. I'm also looking forward to finding out how the armies will play out from the newly released lists in Impetus 5 which look to be very interesting indeed!  The new changes from the old beta lists look like they have really captured the feel.

For now at least I believe I have more then enough cavalry completed even for a Christian Spanish force so I decided to start on the infantry.  While infantry played a very junior role in Spanish armies of the time they did have some influence and so I decided they should be included in an army. I do not plan on having very many heavy infantry units, but I do feel a need for some to represent their use historically and also they are useful on a tactical level to keep the enemy occupied so the cavalry can do the real damage.

On the painting front I've continued with the a heavy Moorish influence mixed in with the Spanish feel as I did for the preceding cavalry units. I used ap with additional highlights added on the figures and hand painted all shields and banners to keep army theme going.

More infantry coming!

Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company- Artizan, Crusader, Musketeer, Gripping Beast

Compagnies Franches de la Marine

Gosh almost a month since my last post! I need to pick up the pace a bit. Life and a bit of a painting slump slowed my productivity down, but I'm back in the saddle again and on my brushes.

Hello everyone back to my French and Indian War project. Something about this period just compels me to attempt to arrange a cinematic scene for each post. I suppose every time I finish painting a unit  The Last of the Mohicans cinematography and music comes into my head.:-) I depicted the marines emerging from the woods conducting a flank attack or surprising a British column.

The figures are from Redoubt and once again they pack character I really like and are fun to paint in spite of the extra clean up they give. The flag is from the superb GMB designs. Paints I used were Foundry and some Vallejo.

The marines are shown wearing their waistcoats and different type leggings. Other then the leggings which are different I kept the unit a bit uniform in their looks to help them stand apart from the militia that will be following.

As you may guess I'll be playing the French and their Indian allies while my friend Mike will represent the British. More to follow with some militia later.

Thanks for viewing!:-)

Miniature Company-Redoubt

German Light Artillery/Charleston Artillery Battery(Confederate)

Adding more to my ACW collection. This is a confederate North Carolinian 12pound smooth bore cannon of the German Light Artillery or otherwise known as the Charleston Artillery Battery  from Hood's division at Gettysburg. It was commanded by Cpt William K. Bachman.

Memorable battles included:
Seven Days Battles VA (25 JUN - 1 JUL 1862)
2nd Bull Run VA (28 - 30 AUG 1862)
South Mountain VA (14 SEP 1862)
Antietam VA (17 SEP 1862)
Fredericksburg VA (13 DEC 1862)
Gettysburg PA (1-3 JUL 1863)
Tullifinny Station (9 DEC 1864)
Carolinas Campaign SC (FEB - APR 1865)

I used a mix of browns and greys to give a campaign feel, but still kept the red in the uniforms as that was the colour of artillery for both sides. I've seen several colours used for gun carriages, but I always liked the green so went with that. The figures are from Perry and while they do require some clean up are they are still very nice sculpts as one expects from the twins.
Thanks for viewing!
Miniature Company-Perry Miniatures

"Drop Zone" Operation Squad Scenario

A few of my friends(Franz, Nick and Tim) came over to my house and we had another really fun game of Operation Squad which is a WWII squad based game. It can of course be adapted to other periods like Curt did from Analogue Hobbies using the SCW as the back drop. However, we played it for another game set in Normandy during WWII like last time with Fallschirmjäger vs U.S. Airborne. All figures and terrain are mine and the vehicles were kindly supplied by Franz.

The scenario was "Drop Zone" in which intended supplies dropped from an aircraft have landed off course with each side scrambling to recover the goods. The supplies were marked with small pieces with a ruck sack on it of which there were 6. Three of them were marked with an x underneath indicating broken and useless and 3 undamaged. The players won't know if the supplies are intact until they reach the counter and flip it over. They then have to carry them back to their deployment zones. Points were awarded for supplies recovered or having possession of them at the end of the game in addition to taking out the enemy.

We decided to include more powerful vehicles in the form of tanks for support to see how they played on the table. The forces looked like this:

Veteran US Airborne Squad(Screaming Eagles) + Support

1x Sergeant with Thomson sub machine gun, MK II Pineapple grenades
1x Corporal with Thomson sub machine gun, MK II Pineapple grenades
1x Paratrooper Sniper with M1903 Springfield Rifle, MK II Pineapple grenades
1x Medic with M1 Garand semi automatic rifle, MK II Pineapple grenades
1x Paratrooper with a Bazooka and a Colt 1911A1 pistol, MK II Pineapple grenades
1x Paratrooper assistant to Bazooka with M1 Garand semi automatic rifle, MK II Pineapple grenades
3x Paratroopers with M1 Garand semi automatic rifles, MK II Pineapple grenades
1x 3 man Paratrooper  30.cal Medium Machine Gun Section
1x M4Sherman Tank
 V.S.

 Veteran Fallschirmjäger Squad + Support

1x Sergeant- MP40 Sub-machine gun, Stg 39 grenades
1x Corporal- MP40 Sub-machine gun , Stg 39 grenades, Binoculars
1x Fallschirmjäger Sniper with Kar98K rifle, Stg 39 grenades
1x Fallschirmjäger with MG34 light machine gun, Stg 39 grenades
1x Fallschirmjäger Assistant to MG34 light machine gun,with Kar98K rifle, Stg 39 grenades
1x Fallschirmjäger with a Panzerfaust and Kar98K rifle, Stg 39 grenades
5x Fallschirmjäger with Kar98K rifles, Stg 39 grenades
1x 3 man Fallschirmjäger MG42 Medium Machine Gun Section
1x sdkfz 161 Panzer IV Tank

As before I won't go into a blow by blow account of the game and instead just give a quick Battle Report. We picked sides and then rolled for scatter of the supplies. The supplies didn't deviate all that much so it was pretty much a horse race to see who would recover the right ones first. The Americans decided to go aggressive on the right flank and grab the supplies there while the Germans  went for the center and left flank.

The Americans reached their supplies first and low and behold the two they happen to turn over are in fact good and so they recover them to the rear. While the Germans had a tougher time reaching their intended target a wounded FJ did get to one and it was indeed intact which therefore made the remaining 3 not yet turned over pointless to keep on the table as we knew they were broken supplies and were accordingly removed. So 2 to 1 in favour of the Americans on supply recovery which left combat to decide the rest.

Due to the fact that the American sniper was a modern day Daniel Boone picking off an estimated 60% of the German force from a concealed position on a hill overlooking the battlefield and the rest either being taken out from other para's or fleeing the field of battle sealed the fate of the Germans turning the engagement into has to said a route. However, the Germans did have a high point in the game with the Panzer IV winning the duel with the Sherman by knocking out his main gun and wounding some of the crew. However, everyone agreed the game was a lot of fun and we are looking forward to going at it again.

Some key observations of the game were the vehicles and snipers. The vehicles really worked well which I'm very happy as I feared they may over power squad level games, but because of the nice checks and balances they do not. For example  when they are completely buttoned up their field of fire is reduced and more importantly their ability to detect hidden targets is greatly reduced and if they unbutton to see better they become much more vulnerable to rifle fire and grenades. Also they can get a bit pricey so powerful things are limited. The other observation is trained snipers are too powerful  and dominate games. We are thinking of not allowing them in some games and/or placing limits on them such as introducing fog to limit range and/or giving players a roll to see if they spot snipers after they fire plus some some other ideas to make them more playable.

Great rule set and I highly recommend playing it!

Thanks for viewing!:-)

The set up.

Taking cover.

Ariel view.

Wounded FJ recovering supplies in the field.

Para's recovering supplies while suppressing the Germans.

Managed to finish the ruined building before the game.

Tank duel.

Supplies waiting to be recovered.

FJ's moving across the fields to confront para's in the woods.

German sniper occupies the ruins.

FJ sniper trying to find a good spot in the ruins.

FJ's moving to support sniper in the ruins

Panzer IV advancing down the road.

FJ's skirting the woods. 

My daughter overseeing the battlefield.

My daughter apparently seeing something more interesting then our game.

The 4th Texas Regiment

The 4th Texas regiment was organized in Richmond, Virginia in 1861 from various companies that made the journey from Texas to Virginia. Like the rest of the Texas Brigade these were elite rock hard fighting men from a brigade that can arguably be called the best in the American Civil War. They included some colourful companies like "the Robertson Five Shooters" and "the Lone Star Guards", and "the Mustang Greys" to name a few of the 10 companies that made up the regiment.

The 4th fought at Eltham's Landing, Gaines' Mill where they established their reputation by breaking the union line on Turkey Hill, Second Manassas, South Mountain, Sharpsburg (Antietam) where it suffered it's most casualties, Fredericksburg, Chickamauga, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg ,  Appomattox Court Houseand several others not mentioned.

Of the 1,343 men that served in the regiment throughout the war and after KIA's, Wounded, Desertion(just 3%), POW, and Disease are added up only fifteen officers and 143 men were left to surrendered at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. Even reduced to those numbers they only surrendered when ordered and some even breaking their rifles rather then having to give them up.

The figures themselves are from Redoubt which is my favourite ACW figure range in spite of the often arduous amount of clean up needed on some of them. I just really like the look of the figures and the extra touch of silver stars added to the hats of the models which the Texas brigade really did have and so is not a gimmick.

I painted the figures using mostly Foundry paints and some Vallejo. The flag is from the wonderful GMB. I opted for the battle flag as the state flags usually remained in camp. I'm thinking of Modelling Hood with an aid holding one of the state flags to get the "Texas" flag in the army at some point.

Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company-Redoubt Miniatures