Fall-In: The Confession

Its been a few weeks so I can finally try and face up to my lack of restraint at Fall-In.
Plus SWMBO has gone out for a few hours so the coast is clear to take some pics...

"Mistakes were made"

To move through the stages of grief, I could offer rationalisations such as bargains, needs projects planned, past and future, the bad influence of an enthusiastic offspring and the fact that some of this horde arrived by mail and wasn't technically purchased at Fall-In.  Instead, lets just admit that mistakes were made and move onto the shiny.

You can never have enough trees and terrain can you?  I didn't think so either.  The Lad did amusedly note though, that I have perhaps bought more trees than figures in the last few years.  Each day at Fall-In he also teased me about going to go off to buy some more trees because we didn't have enough yet.  Cheeky bugger!

Lovely 15mm terrain for Battlegroup Kursk - by Mark IV Miniatures: https://markiv.company.site/

More Mark IV Miniatures, this time for Fall of the Reich.  These are for the Dux actually! The damaged Cathedral (lower left) is rather spectacular.

6mm terrain for our ECW Project by Monday Knight Productions http://www.mondayknight.com
The big fields are very nice too - they are by Battlefield Terrain Concepts  http://battlefieldterrain.com

Goodies for Flint and Feather, and Muskets and Tomahawks -  British Wilderness Force, 3 packs of the beautiful F&F minis, an Indian long house and a frontier log cabin.  Plus the M&T rulebook and activation cards.

Pulp Figures.  The Lad said he needed Hooded Minions.  Who was I to argue with such logic? Plus if you bought 5 packs, you got a 6th one for free.

More obscure: LAF Post Apoc Russians.  Yep.  But has you seen what Curt did with these minis?
http://analogue-hobbies.blogspot.com/2014/01/from-curt-28mm-post-apocalyptic-neo.html
C'mon, I'm only human!

These goodies, I am delighted to say, were raffle prizes from attending the WWPD podcast - thanks lads!  The MK IVs will be built as early models for service in North Africa.  No plan for the Comets at this stage though

And while I'm confessing, my Strange Aeons KS goodies arrived a month or two ago as well :-)

And that all makes me feel better.  Except that I just remembered we also bought all this stuff (plus more not in the picture)

So in summary - Look at the postage I saved if I had waited to order it all back home in Australia!

Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends!

Terrain Modelling Inspiration

Last week my family visited Plymouth Rock and the nearby plantation which has reconstructions of the traditional native American village of the region and a Pilgrim Village, circa 1620-30.

I found it to be very interesting from a modelling perspective and snapped a whole bunch of pictures of the architecture and building materials.  While they might be 17th Century/ECW period, they clearly have applicability for a wide range of genres.  Here are some of them:

Here are the pics from the Indian village:

CanCon 2014 Demo Games - Muskets & Tomahawks

The French fort - armed with heavy cannon and manned by French Regular troops

On day 2 of CanCon, we played in the 'Tomahawks and Muskets along the Ohio' participation game.

I hadn't played the rules before and was really keen to give them (and the period - who doesn't love Last of the Mohicans, after all) The gents running the game had been playing a campaign over the weekend and we targeted this day, in which the British forces would be attacking a French Fort.  As you can see, the collection of great figures and fantastic terrain really made this a treat to play.

The Battlefield - the Fort is in the top left corner, the British entered on the right hand side and via sea

Setting up my force (pic courtesy of Chris from the Moruya Marauders)

Peter and I commanded the British Provincial and Irregular forces, which would be advancing up the road, while British Regular forces and militia would be landed by boat.  The French infantry were deployed in a screen and supported by the heavy guns in their fort.

Rule Brittannia: the Royal Navy Frigate and boats waiting to land

Foresters in a skirmish line lead my Provincials onto the table...

...and immediately come under fire from the French fort.

Meanwhile the British ships arrive...

...and start landing the Guards foot troops

Another perspective of the landing captured by TrailApe

My troops slowly made their way up the road and were lucky that the artillery fire was inaccurate, as the balls would have chopped a huge swath through them while in column.  Instead the French sifted their fire to the landing Guardsmen and they suffered badly but made steady progress onto the French line.

I really took a gamble advancing in column down the road into the teeth of the fort - the rules for cannon balls are that they bounce, if the casualties would have been horrendous had the French gunners been accurate.  Luck was with me though!

The Guardsmen land under heavy fire

My provincials move up to support the landings while the Foresters flank the position on the right

At this point the combat got heavy and the game very exciting...to the point where I completely forgot my camera!  The landings were completed and the French infantry neutralised, but at a heavy cost.  The British were down to Provincial troops and militia only.  The Fort could be flanked and set ablaze but their would be significant casualties in doing so.  In the end the game had to be called for time before we could play that out.

I found the T&H rules quite easy to use and after only a few turns we were working most rolls out for ourselves.  The game is card driven in the style of many Too Fat Lardies games, which is a mechanic I really enjoy.  The game felt right for a black powder period game and the advantages and disadvantages of the different troop types were evident.

Thanks to Doug and the other guys from the Canberra Gentlemen Gamers for sharing their most excellent toys and running a very enjoyable game.  Its a period I have always found interesting but never played.  I'm really glad we did.