Blood on the Plains #2 - Supply Run

An evening encounter and another run through of the Plains Wars adaption for Sharp Practice and a chance to get some of the new toys on the table.

A detachment of Cavalry with a wagon mounted Infantry company have been tasked with escorting a wagon of supplies, reaching the ford at the creek an Indian village was spotted blocking the passage of the column. 

The Indian's could be anywhere on the table so the army and their crow scouts would need to be cautious. They had the fire power but the Cheyanne and Sioux were swift.

The Crow scouts spotted a group of Sioux who fired from the tree line and scuttled back through the stand of trees. 

The cavalry sections swept the wooded areas and rises looking to spot any of the hostiles. The wagon train pressed.

Cresting the largest hill the cavalry spotted a hidden warband who with a war whoop who rushed towards the cavalry who headed back to the safety of the column.

At the base of the valley a further group of horsemen broke cover from behind a stand of trees and headed for the cavalry troop.

The Crow could only stand and watch as the Sioux poured down the hillside.

The hostiles caught the retreating cavalry, they broke and ran.

As with many an encounter with the Sioux they held the advantage but instead of closing on the column and the wagon they turned and headed across the creek taking their dead and wounded with them.

A good encounter ironing out a couple of kinks in the rules around low ammunition and evade rules.

A few more pieces to get off the paint table before a formal roll out at Hammerhead in March.

6mm Plains Indians - Mounted Sioux

After a few weeks on the paint table the Lakota Sioux finally take to the field.

I was a little nervous at first dropping down from 28mm to 6mm but am really pleased with how they have come out and how they look on mass. 

Based to cover both the new Pony Wars rules albeit a leaning towards the rolling hills of the Bozeman Trail rather than the buttes of the south. But also Sharp practice for one on one play or more historical scenario's.

Wonderful sculpts from Pete at Baccus with a good mix of warriors and chiefs with the sculpts containing a mix of bow, lance and rifle. A single bag gives you 120 warriors, not a bad starting point. Although the total numbers needed for the Pony Wars Rules is likely to run into a couple of hundred.

Using them within Sharp Practice each group is an Irregular Cavalry Unit of 10 figures under the command of an individual Big Man, Indians are not able to become a formation which should help the cavalry keep them at bay.

The Sioux need some additional flocking and grass tufts to finish them off, but this first batch should be enough to give both rule sets a run through in the weeks ahead.

A fresh supply run is due to drop in the coming days from the Pony Express (ok Royal Mail) some extra's to flesh out the various scenario's and plenty more reading material for the Great Sioux War.

Pony Wars - 7th Cavalry deployed.

Finally the business end of the project and the 7th Cavalry take to the field. The plan is to use them for an adapted version of Sharp Practice and/or the re-released Pony Wars Rules.

With 6 figures to a base, each base represents a section of cavalry fighting as Irregular skirmishers within sharp practice when on foot.

Big men are based on a small Flames of War command stand with a built in bugler and standard bearer.

The good thing about 6mm as despite the initial mass, once finished I have 8 units complete, a great starting point for any outing. Now for the mounted versions.

Adding in the horse holders and wound/shock stands this is what an individual section should look like or perhaps a company depending on the scale of battle I was looking to play out.

The sabots look really nice next to the units and hopefully keep the volume of table top clutter down to the minimum.

Now the pressure is really on as the re-released 1980's rules landed this morning. The text and layout is largely unchanged with a number of the original line drawings kept in and pic's from the early miniature wargames magazines. Wonderful stuff.

The inclusion of the event cards does cut down on the effort required to set up the game.

A nice touch providing a guide to a typical layout.

My original copy is long gone but the latest version whilst retaining all of the original charm has a clear and clean layout however a quick flick through reminds me of the need for several more packs of Indians and Cavalry, not forgetting the lone ranger of course.

Next up the mounted cavalry.

6mm Pony Wars - Shock and Casualty Markers

Just a quick update on the Pony Wars Project.

I manged to complete several shock and casualty markers over the past few days as I shall be fielding units on a single base, I wanted to ensure the table was not cluttered up with a number of loose dice. So these bases will double up as a way to record any killed or shock for the casualties.

With 3 dice frames to stand it should be enough for most games, the dead figures are from Baccus's ACW range with a couple of left over 7th Cavalry to add a little variety to each stand.

To my eye they look really good on mass, even though the pic's don't really do justice to the individual castings.

The prep for the main body of cavalry is almost complete, I am trying not to think about them as 80 individual cavalry figures more the fact that once complete I will in one cycle have completed 8 units and 4 big men, more than enough for most outings. But like most gamers already have a list of 'extras' before they have even landed on the table.

Meanwhile the holiday read lands. This is sure to put a dent in the painting time.

Until next time.......

6mm Pony Wars - First steps.

As it looks like we are finally coming out of Lockdown and the thought of face to face gaming draws ever closer, it gave me the impetus to kick start the Pony Wars Project.

My vision for the project and the choice of 6mm was to provide those sweeping plains as the cavalry struggle to pin the Indians and force them into battle but are ever conscious of the supports being left exposed to war parties.

My initial thoughts were to adapt Sharp Practice but base the figures in groups or sections, with a way to record shock and causalities. However I have one eye on the forthcoming Pony Wars Rules, resurrected from the 1980's.

The beauty of 6mm is you get so much bang for your buck.

First up the Indian Mounted Warbands, based in groups of 10 and their foot variants in groups of 6. Within Sharp Practice I am thinking about applying the Irregular Cavalry quality class, but that may change in play testing.

I envisage using the command base to double up as the shock and casualty markers and using the smaller Flames of War movement bases to make them easily recognisable on the table and minbits sabots to hold the dice.

The packs from Baccus contain enough to create 10 mounted groups and 12 foot groups, more than enough for a standard Sharp Practice game.

On to the US cavalry and enough to create 4 troops of cavalry from the initial single packs.

I wanted the Cavalry to have a long tail on the table top with ultimately wagons and wood cutting parties etc, which tie down the better armed troopers trying to cover too much ground.

The US cavalry will be in groups of 8 for the mounted sections, converting to 6 figures when dismounted. In the same way Big Men will be represented by an officer, guidon and bugler.

 

The difference for the US cavalry is I will have casualty bases to capture shock and kills.

Each troop will have on table an accompanying mule train, which I will be using to record low ammo and horse holders which will need to be protected.

I am not sure the right idea was to base them all in one go, the fumes from the super glue plays havoc with your eyesight after a while.... :-)

But good to get them out of the packs and on to the bases to see the size of the initial project.

I am hoping that it will be relatively easy to get them to the table top once the prep work is done with filler and sand, A few more 28's to finish first as I suspect the switch to their smaller cousins will take a few days to get my eye in on the paint table.

Dispatches from the front XVI

A bit of a mixed bag this week as we enter into the third week of Lockdown 3.0 in the UK.

First up a post I should put up a few weeks ago around ammo markers and 3rd prints, Paul over 'at move along nothing to see here'  very kindly shared some 3D printed arrows after a conversation around markers for Infamy Infamy. I had some spare sabots and circular bases, so thought I would use  them up to create some nice counters for the Ancient games.

Despite first appearances they are quite resilient and once based should look quite the part.

Missing that face to face gaming and off game banter that club nights bring, I thought I would dabble with a couple of virtual games whilst not physical gaming it gives me an excuse to set up weekly gaming calls and sneak in some solo gaming with field commanders pulling the strings as it were.

The first one is a short RPG type affair based around the Water Margin and Ancient China, as it was pure fantasy, I "borrowed" the Warhammer map for Cathay which has just about the right level of detail. At the moment players take command of regions garrisons or unknown rebels looking to over throw the corrupt government. I imagine if you will TV shows of the 70's and 80's Water Margin/Robin Hood with players taking hostages, stealing jewels or blocking roads to ambush convoys.

I will be briefing players on Zoom each week, which is an excuse for a beer and a chat about all things gaming, successful missions will see the ranks of the rebels swell, failures and rebels flee the cause..

So far the rebels have picked their camps and hide outs to base their operations and the government forces increased security... more to follow.

If anyone want's to join in plenty of room for extra's and sub-plots....

Meanwhile an excuse to dig out a classic Tactics II perhaps the perfect game for Lockdown Britain the grand father of  tactical board games and with a handy grid mechanism perfect to for a daily exchange of orders, you never know I might be able to covert to table top games for the Red Phoenix Project in the weeks ahead.

Red vs Blue with the objective of securing the opponents cities. Fortunately I have two copies of the map so my virtual opponent can spend his winter evenings pouring over the map planning each month of movement. Before a call to move the regiments and corps.

The initial deployments.... equal forces on both sides... Stay tuned for the first moves.

Meanwhile another year older, without meals out or trips to the pub, I was gifted a number that I actually wanted.... blimey that was a win. OK so I did not push it asking for 'swarf' as my father used to refer to my early miniatures but lots of reading material, some fillers for Bolt Action Far East, The British in Haiti and a great read for the forthcoming Pony Wars Project.

This was an interesting surprise.... Aliens - Another Glorious Day in the Corp, A Solo or Co-Op adventure based on the movie... On face value slightly more complicated that Zombicide but minis are lovely.... more on this in the weeks ahead.

An finally a note to self don't tell a fellow gamer that my mission is to paint everything I own.... On this occasion I might just have settled on socks or beer. What on earth am I going to do with these.... 7 mini's in plastic made up of what looks like 10 parts each..... why???? - Give me Perry Plastics any day.

Despite over 35 years of gaming I have never played 40K, I suspect this is a devious trick to get me to make and paint his stuff, but will give them a go, maybe in the autumn looking at the pile of lead still on the to do pile.

Until next time....