Battle of Green Wood Fields

Catching up on some of my back log. A couple weeks back Tim and I had a trial run of the Regimental Fire&Fury system. I've long been a huge fan of Brigade Fire&Fury and so I was very keen to try out the regimental version of which I was not disappointed. I like many of the new changes with the best being a casualty inflicted if a second disorder result is rolled.  My friends that was a much needed improvement! Before it could get quite frustrating with disordering a unit repeatedly with no additional effect. I also like the additions of a the high casualty status for an army which has the effect of reducing the effectiveness of your overall army and I also like an actual ammo pick up point marker instead of just withdrawing one move back to re-supply. Some have complained the new version plays slower then the original and it does a little bit, but I think it's worth it as I like the extra bit of detail as it adds more flavour without overly bogging the game down. As a matter of fact, I don't think it plays that slow at all and after a few turns of accustoming ourselves to the rules we were playing at pretty darn good pace.

Now.. virtually all ACW games have a high figure count which is fine by me as I like my ACW games that way and RF&F is no exception. At the moment we do not have enough figures yet to play any of the scenario's in the books, but this is not a problem as you only need a few units per side to get started. So, with this in mind we created a fictitious battle with 2 union brigades of 4 and 3 regiments supported by 3 guns attacking a confederate brigade of 4 regiments and 1 gun dug in defending a redoubt and some stone walls.

Staying on the subject of a high figure count we decided at 28mm we would need to make some adjustments in basing to accommodate this. We felt 4 figures per base is impracticable to both build an army and play games on our tables to the size of engagements we eventually want to do. Also we determined if we did 3 figures per base then figure count would still be very high and would cause us to re-base a lot of figures already done. So, we opted in the end for 2 per base on 40mmx20mm. This effectively doubled our unit sizes without any re-basing needed or additional space taken. So, in the future units already based on 40mmx40mm will remain so as making adjustments isn't all too hard, but all new units will be on 40mmx20mm bases. We also used the 15mm scale for movement and ranges, because the suggested 28mm ranges would have just been too enormous!

So.....how did the 28mm figures on 20mmx40mm bases and 15mm ranges work you may ask....... just wonderful would be my reply!:-)

Looking at my table it still needs quite a bit of work yet to give a proper ACW feel that I want as most of my collection is geared towards European Dark Ages and AWI/F&IW, but I do have some buildings and fencing in mind to hopefully give a more convincing look that I'm after. The figures are a mix of both mine and Tim's collections.

As to the game Tim commanded the two union brigades and I commanded the confederate brigade with the union needing to throw the confederates out of their defences. In the opening rounds Tim brought his first brigade on line and began to engage my rebels in a fire fight, but soon learned this was not to his advantage and withdrew his brigade out of musketry range to form up with his other brigade to support each other in order to launch a full assault on my defences which would be his only real chance at victory. Wisely, he launched a strong attack on my regiments defending the right stone wall and a diversionary attack on the redoubt to keep me from supporting my right flank. Not surprisingly his attack on the redoubt didn't work at all, but the attack on the stone wall did and with great success and allowed him to outflank my troops in the redoubt which pretty much collapsed my army and routed them!

I did think he would have real problems overcoming my dug in troops, but a combination of good tactics and a few key rolls for Tim broke my lines. Tim played a very good game and deserved the win and I tip my hat to him.

I'm really looking forward to another game! Also, with the release of Longstreet plus Fire and Fury should see quite a bit ACW action here at Bunker Hill in future months!

Some pics of the game in no particular order.

Saxon Duguth Warriors #1

Now that I've finished the characters for my Dux Britanniarum army it's on to the units themselves starting with some Duguth warriors which are standard warrior class for a Saxon army/raider force. I'll need three units of these before moving on to some skirmishers and elite household guard.

The figures are once again from the superb early Saxon Musketeer range and paint up very nicely.
The shields are a mix of re-painted Foundry transfers and some LBM transfers with some Mig pigments for dirt effect.

I've based them on 25mm metal washers that I then set into a 9 slot 2p movement tray from Warbases with magnets placed in the slots to help hold the figures. I choose 2p as this is slightly larger then 25mm and so allows for easy placement and removal without damaging the basing. I don't really care for the skirmish movement tray and prefer a standard one. The reason for a 9 slot movement tray is during the course of campaign a unit can be upgraded by two men and the last slot is if I wish to set a character, casualty or something else in the tray. When no figures are occupying a slot I then insert a blank terrain textured 2p piece in to keep the look of a fully textured base.

Oh, I had another fantastic game vs Nick's Romano British yesterday and I'll post some pictures of it  as soon as I can as I have a backlog.

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

 

Blank 2p piece that's inserted when a figure is not in place.

Wolfhad

Mute since birth and unlike our other heroes Wolfhad is Wodenborn and the son of a minor lord. However, since he cannot speak he was considered less then useful as making any marriage  possibilities and a chance at leadership difficult. So his father sent(sold) him off to learn wood carving to be a ship builder. This wasn't to Wolfhad's liking as he wasn't much for working wood, but he really didn't have much of a choice.

Things changed when Hamarolf visiting the progress of his ship being built noticed a very large craftsman knocking huge chunks out of the plank wood for his ship with strong easy blows which looked very good for warrior cuts, but terrible for a craftsman. Hamarolf nonplussed and close to striking Wolfhad questioned  him as to why he wasn't properly cutting the wood and it was here that he noticed he could not speak. Sensing Wolfhad's frustration and impressed with his size and strength Hamarolf recognized this man's potential wasn't being put to proper use and bought  out Wolfhad's contract.

Hamarolf trained Wolfhad in the art fighting and not surprisingly he has proved to be a real natural warrior and a quick learner not to mention thanks to his conditioning he is able to endure punishment that would crush lesser men. Grateful to Hamarolf for his new life Wolfhad has never left Hamarolf side and is now the personal champion of Hamarolf.

The superb miniature is from Musketeer and for me an auto pick as I had to have one of my characters with the famous Sutton Hoo helmet that is virtually synonymous with early Saxons and frankly is just flat out cool and what better then to wear it then the champion who is supposed to be the personification of a Saxon warrior. Shield design is from LBM's excellent transfer range with a bit of MIG pigments added for some weathering on the shield and stones. I also did a small conversion on the miniature and gave him a sword instead of a spear which I prefer for this dynamic pose.

Thanks for viewing!
Miniature Company-Musketeer  Miniatures

The 47th Alabama Infantry Regiment

Continuing on with Law's Alabama Brigade with the 47th Alabama infantry regiment. The figures are from the excellent Redoubt range and the flag from GMB Designs. Redoubt packs a lot of character in their figures which enables one to experiment with unit composition which is really fun and something I enjoy doing.

The hard fighting 47th Alabama was mustered into service in Loachapoka Alabama on 22 May 1862 under Col. James McCarthy Oliver consisting of 10 companies like the Tallapoosa Light Infantry, Chambers infantry etc. and assigned to the Army of Northern Virginia.

 The 47th Alabama served first in Jackson's division for the battles of Chantilly, Second Manasses, Harper's Ferry, Sharpesburg(Antietam) where it was virtually decimated losing 98 killed , wounded or missing out of 115 and could only muster a sergeant and 18 men the following day. Reconstituted it then fought in Fredricksburg before moving on to Hoods division in Laws Alabama Brigade further fighting in the Suffolk campaign, Gettysburg,  Chickamauga, Look out Valley, Siege of Knoxville, Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Petersburg, Finally laying down their well used arms at Appomattox with only 17 officers and 188 men left.  Let's just say they not only saw the elephant, but the whole darn herd!!

I've also restarted basing my 28mm ACW figures 2 figures on 40mm x 20mm bases to cope with all the stands needed for Regimental Fire and Fury and what looks to be a high requirement for Longstreet too. Let's face it folks just about every ACW rule set has a very high base count and I feel I need to be practical and my gaming group agrees(for this period at least). I've tried it on RF&F and it worked out just great! 

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

Gaming some more Maurice

The forces meet for battle

Man it's hot here! I'm finding it very hard to summon the energy to pick up a brush. Only thing I want to do is try and stay cool. Still, I have something to offer as couple of my friends came over last week end for some more Maurice gaming and as usual had a lot of fun!

We tried as much as possible to have an AWI feel to it, but cannot quite completely pull it off yet so some SYW Austrians played the role as Germans and SYW French played as AWI French. The Americans were as Americans and the British as British as normal. I also got the chance to blow some dust off some AWI buildings I had made a few years ago which was nice.

Mike took on the role of the British and being the good sport opted to play the attacker which is more difficult in Maurice with Franz taking the Americans with me lending a hand and running the game. Mike decided to try a cavalry flanking manoeuvre followed by a strong push up the centre. The cavalry was caught in the flank and wiped out so that didn't pan out. The infantry push was getting a bit hamstrung by terrain forcing a piecemeal attack that was getting a bloody nose. Sadly due to time constraints we couldn't finish the game and while Mike was getting the worst of it he still looked in good enough shape to have another try up the centre so a draw was declared.

Maurice is really an enjoyable game and one we have only really scratched the surface of as we are yet to design our own armies as we usually just dived the figures up we have then play.

Oh I also updated the blog a little by giving it a new header picture of my Iron Brigade I did awhile back. I also added some more pictures to the Iron Brigade post using a terrain background where I just had a white one before which can be viewed here.
 
Here are a few pics of the game:

Thanks for viewing!

The Americans and their French allies

Another shot of the American/French forces

The British and their German Allies

A solid block of red coats

Trampling the carefully cultivated wheat field

Whoever finds the biggest turnip wins!.

A mighty clash of forces!

Umm...sir I think we are outnumbered here!

Who called for back up?

Busy, but have some Dux Britanniarum

The table

Hello everyone things have been pretty busy here and so blogging has taken a hit. I'm currently doing a lot of re-basing oh the joy of it.... , work and summer activities with family and a simple laziness at times that heat can induce is the reason why for the slow down here on Bunker Hill.

A few weeks back Nick and I played some more great Dux Britanniarum which we like more and more. We managed 2 games which will be our goal each time we meet as we don't get that many opportunities to play together mainly due to distance.  I can't remember all the details, but I'll give a very brief summation of the games.

The first scenario I (Hamarolf) needed to capture a noble to hold for ransom.  In this case Nick(Magnus) sent out on patrol Dungbreath who seems to often draw this duty(wonder why....) Dungbreath started on patrol with Hamarolf and his Saxons entering from the table edge and Magnus racing from the fort to rescue him.  Things were going well as my Saxons managed to close on Dungbreath pretty quickly, but equally fast Magnus arrived in the nick of time to repel my Saxons. Result was Saxons licking their wounds and withdrawing hastily the way they came.

The second game was a Saxon raid on a farm stead to capture gold if any and food supplies for the coming winter with the Romano British hurrying to intervene. In this case Hamarolf was able to ransack the farm pretty quickly and form a strong defensive line and basically giving Magnus a bloody nose and sent packing back to his garrison.

This ended the year in game terms and now winter has set in. Hamarolf "The Battler" has now risen to the status of Warlord which now makes it possible for him to actually take territory for himself! YES!!  Nick's leader on the other hand has a acquired a less then hoped for end of year result with the title of Theodosius Magnus "The Simple". Not sure if this was given to him by Hamarolf or the farmer who lost all his pumpkins! However, he really didn't do that bad as the actual game victories is just 2 Saxon wins to 1 win Romano British which is hardly bad at all. The truth is I acquired a lot of wealth through uncontested raids which why I was able to rise quickly to Warlord. So, next time we meet will be a new game year and promises to very interesting indeed!

Now for a few pics of the two games in no particular order. Nick's Romano British are really looking great with super Sabot basing and appropriate figures and a lovely fort that he brought for us to use. I apologize for my Saxons as I've had to use my Vikings as stand ins except for a couple leaders I've managed to finish. I'm working on more Saxons and some matching Sabot bases to correct this so please bear with me.

Thanks for viewing!:-)

Another angle

Leaving the Garrison

A brawl in the wheat

We found the pumkins!

How dare you steal our pumkins!

Give those pumpkins back!.....No!.....ring of steel on steel

The cream of the armies meet!

 

Isenhart "The Peacemaker"

A noble and one of Hamarolf's chief retainers. He is aged 34 and like Hamarolf and Nothhelm comes from humble beginnings as the son a village peasant.

His rise to a noble has much to do with his winning smile as well as his ability in arms. He is known to be a lustful man who has no issues in taking other men's wives to bed with him and if it wasn't for his ability as a smooth talker and handy with a blade would have long since seen him pushing up daises.

In spite of Isenhart's short comings Hamarolf has taken him under his confidence for his natural ability to negotiate tight situations when needed like getting garrison's to agreeing to surrender without a fight or if faced with a stronger advaesery to talk them down or even establish favourable trade agreements. Hamarolf is no fool and keeps a watchful eye on Isenhart, but as long as he keeps in line Hamarolf has seen no reason to let this valuable asset go.

The figure is again a lovely Musketeer miniature that is normally Hengist or Horsa that I use as one of my nobles re-named Isenhart "The Peacemaker".

I added a campaign history page on the top of the blog for those interested. Nick and I also had a couple more great games I'll post up when I have time.

I almost passed out when it seems my blog disappeared, but thankfully my wife was able to recall it back somehow! Thank heavens she is a computer wiz as I'm just the opposite that being a computer idiot.

Thanks for viewing!:-)

Miniature Company-Musketeer Miniatures