Making hedges, basing Russians...

The current offensive is being waged on my 6mm collection. Having been inspired by some group activity (thanks Daz and Ed), I'm attempting to co-ordinate several projects through the production of some scenery. Here are a couple of photos of the results.

On the scenery front, I've made some 6mm hedges. Ed's suggestion of using coffee stirrers helped me to stiffen up the scouring pad frame, ready to be modeled on. I have really found useful spray mount permanent glue; it's really sticky on the downside, but it is very quick to use. Spraying, then flocking, spraying, flocking, has given the hedges some variety in appearance. I couldn't tell you the source of my flocks because I've had them for donkey's years!

The Russian component comes from Ed's interest in playing Lasalle by Sam Mustafa. Sam has been my go to rules writer most recently as he combines simplicity and theme to provide an enjoyable game. My Napoleonic Russians have languished in a box, half completed and half based. The last idea was to use them for Napoleonic Command and Colours (which still stands). Ed is currently painting British, with Daz more or less having a Prussian army ready to go. Whilst it may not be accurate, it will get the figures onto the table. Here's the progress of the painted stuff so far. There's as much again needing painting.

That's all for now folks. Marching on to maybe a report on 'Altar of Freedom' next...

 

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Blucher bases - MDF style

Another purchase at Derby was some miniatures from commission figurines. The special thing about these pieces is that they are made from MDF and are virtually 'flats'! For the cost of just ten pounds you get all of these figures...

These have been a little experiment for me on several wavelengths. Firstly, this was an exercise in speed painting. These bases have been completed, start to finish, in about five hours. They are not meant to be perfectly painted as I want to have quickly prepared, massed miniatures. Besides, 6mm is not meant to be judged under a microscope.

The second wavelength is their interchangeability to rest on Blucher unit cards. With a little blu tack underneath, these bases can quickly represent the variety of units presented in the game. Rather than stick them with permanently marked statistics, basing them on only the width of the illustration allows ultimate flexibility. They almost feel like a blend between board gaming and miniatures games which is becoming ever popular. They certainly scratch my itch!

 

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Blucher revisited

Bumped into an old friend a few weeks ago; many games were played in our later teenage years, including first edition DBA. Well, let the good times roll again! Like myself, Ed has found it difficult to find the time and energy to put figure to table. Fortunately, Ed has been dabbling with Sam Mustafa's Napoleonic game 'Blucher'. So we arranged a game with Daz for Saturday this week, with Ed playing a British coalition, and myself and Daz playing the French.

We used the cards from the 100 days set, so I chose to use the simple boards that I painted for a wargaming school club. Not as pretty, but functional and effective. Ed went for a large corps of quality troops on his left flank, with the Dutch and Germans holding a hill on his right flank, cavalry lurked in the centre. We went for 4 equally sized, average corps of foot, each with a battery of artillery; 2 small corps of cavalry, each with field artillery, finished out the force.

The early moves saw a see saw, with both army's left flanks moving forward to strike a telling blow. Both sides chose to ignore the centre due to the two large woods making manouvre difficult. The attack for both sides became difficult. For the English, the rough ground the French occupied reduced the effectiveness of their fire, with units waiting behind to push any advantage. The French attack stalled with a rather well timed Cavalry charge forcing the infantry to form square.

The game settled down to a grinding match. The French reinforced their heavily weakened right flank, with a fresh infantry corp propping up the position. The British continued to batter the French left, reducing them to a position of being unable to force the issue any further. Casualties mounted for both sides, with army break points being very closely reached (6 of the 7 units on both sides). Ironically, the battle was finally decided by a close combat between two battered brigades in the centre, between the two woods. The fight was so close, that the English lost by a single hit on a unit!

What an enjoyable game! Maybe it's because we had a whole afternoon, rather than a snatched evening, but the game went at a leisurely pace, with both sides swapping ideas and reminders of opportunities that could have been potentially lost. For the French, the use of strong artillery (along with some lucky barraging dice) suitably weakened British resolve, this was supplemented by taking the opportunity to shoot first when the British attacked, aided by strong skirmishers. For the British, the menace of charging cavalry kept the infantry brigades from moving forward.

Fortunately, we had time for another game afterwards, but my recording energy had gone by then. Needless to say, the second game was just as interesting, as we got to grips with the manouvre game options to maximize attacking opportunities.

We've decided that the next game will use the Scharnhorst mini campaign to generate the battle. With more practice, we're hoping to play the 100 day campaign, using photographs and email to manage the campaign section. Some little steps first though...

 

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First sailing ship completed!

Just finished the first ship of a fleet pack from Tumbling Dice miniatures. The scale is 1/2400 and this is a 2nd rate British ship of the line. I'm yet to do the research to give it a suitable name though. There were eight ships in the pack at a very reasonable £18. The ships have been bought in mind to play...

In terms of the painting, I'm not too unhappy with the results, except for the gun ports not being equally shaded; on the next ship I'll try a flat edge brush to see if I can leave the ports black. Seven more ships to go...

 

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First game of Blucher

We had our first attempt at playing Blucher tonight using 200 point armies.

Daz played the Prussians as a defender. He controlled 3 Corps, each containing equal amounts of Landwehr and foot regiments. Each corps had a battery of artillery. Two of Daz's Corp were positioned to defend 2 objectives, with the third Corp in column on his left flank.

I played the French, again with 3 corps. Unfortunately my photography does'nt show my left Corp which was in a column, aimed for the objective on the hill on Daz' right flank. My central corp was positioned to support my attack on Daz's right flank. My rightmost corp was ready to stall any forward movement by the Prussians.

 

This picture shows the central and right flank from the French position. The first few turns saw the left flank French Corp march towards the hill. The French central corp echeloned towards the centre in support. The Prussians awaited the attack, with both sides artillery firing at vulnerable infantry brigades, grinding them down.

The action started to heat up as a French brigade raced up the hill and destroyed the Prussian artillery deployed there. This became the start of a long battle for control of the hill. Meanwhile both opposing central corps faced off against each other, with the Prussian Landwehr getting the better of the initial volleys. The French right flank was fairly quiet as Daz moved some of His brigades forward to occupy the fields along the road.

The battle for the hill now became a violent affair. The Prussians followed up their initial firing with a round of close combat. Again, the landwehr performed well and threw back the central French Brigades, lowering their élan to half their initial strength. However in doing this, some Prussian brigades become exposed to the flanking French corp on the left French flank. The French central corps called forward it's reserve to bolster the retreating remnants from the Prussian surge forward.

Another round of close combat was again fought, with this time honors being fairly even, with both sides taking casualties. Meanwhile the initial success of the French brigade on the hill top was thrown off by a Prussian infantry Brigade. Daz reserve moved across the remaining elements of his central corp to bolster the now faltering Landwehr militia.

By turn 12 the French left Corp had re-organized for a final push on the hill top objective. Unfortunately for them however, they were now too weak to force away the Prussians, as Daz performed a timely counter attack pushing them away from the hill top. By now the French were becoming tired along the centre, with the Prussians still having a few Brigades in good enough shape to carry out a vigorous defence as needed. The French right flank became a little more active as Daz deployed his final corps elements from reserve. At this stage, both side's artillery had become exhausted and no longer took an active role in the battle.

 

It now became clear that the French no longer had the strength to continue an attack, particularly as Daz pushed forward some Landwehr in the centre. At this stage of the game, I decided to start to withdraw the left and central French corps towards my own table edge in good order, before the army began to collapse. At this stage of the game we decided to call it 'honors even'. Daz had lost a foot battery and a Landwehr brigade. The French had lost a line infantry brigade.

All in all, it was an entertaining, fast flowing game. The rules were only referred to infrequently, mostly concerning how brigades retreated post combat, usually a common sense answer was obvious and did not slow the game down at all.

The game was certainly encouraging, as Daz is now thinking of digging out some 6mm Prussians from 'a long time ago...'. Whilst the visual appeal isn't quite the same with unit cards, for me it still held enough spirit to visualize what was happening. Now, Hammerhead show is coming up shortly...

 

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Solo test play of Blucher rules

 

I have been reading the rules for Blucher. As ever, you only know if you understand the rules with a quick play through. I thought about having a go with Darran, however sometimes things speed up if you have a go yourself. I've got some really simple terrain boards I made for an after school club; they fit perfectly with the simple iconography of the unit cards from the 100 days supplement.

 

The rules play easily and quickly. I have only needed to refer to the main rule book once or twice. The reference sheets generally give you all the information you need. Shooting is simple and quick to resolve. Generally the defender gets a first shooting opportunity as the attacker moves into position. Close combat is a little trickier to organize, but the mechanics are still fairly easy to manage. Close combat reminds me of Armarti where attacking dice can be split between two units, therefore overlaps become important to gain those extra dice.

Playing solo takes away some of the mystery as you know both the momentum and identity of both sides, therefore I'm looking forward to playing with an opponent.

I'm certainly not a Napoleonic grognard, but the rules play simply and effectively, they should suit quick games, large games and multiplayer sessions. Also the pre-game mini-campaign should add interest to initial terrain and army deployment. Will look even better with miniatures; must carry on the rebasing project...

 

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Preparing for Blucher's arrival...

Well, I've talked about gaming and thought maybe it's time to show something.

Like many gamers I know my figure collection is littered with unfinished projects; this is one of those many examples. Many years ago myself and three friends decided to venture into a 'large scale, small sized' napoleonic venture. Now one of those friends lives in France, one got bored with the period and the other sold on his small collection...but I could'nt let mine go.

Recently I have become a fan of Sam Mustafa's series of rules. 18th century warfare is not my main passion, but I have enjoyed playing Fire and Fury ACW. As such I've played Sam's Longstreet rules which I have enjoyed playing a lot. His rule systems remind me of older systems such as Tactica, Armarti and Shako.

For me, playing a game needs to eloquently and simply portray a period that allows gamers to enjoy the story unfolding, without the need for endless rules searching and table consulting (I have played a lot of 'Advanced Squad Leader' so what do I know?). I also enjoy a rule set that easily allows multi players, as they have been some of my most memorable, enjoyable games played.

So now I am rebasing my Russians to use with Sam's newly realesed 'Blucher' rules. The rule system uses unit cards as either stand alone or part of a miniature experience. My plan is to stick clear card sleeves under the bases which will allow the unit cards to be slipped inside for record keeping purposes.

I'm going to grind my teeth on the 100 Days supplement to learn the rules whilst giving time to continue the rebasing project. I'll post more pictures as the units come...

 

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