Where Did Our Horses Go?

   After my car crash a few weeks back, I've been stuck in the shoffice* far more with a lot less to do, this has meant I've been able to spend time trying to get on top of my backlog. I decided that the best thing to do was focus on just getting units off the list, without any order of priority or worry about whether I needed them for an upcoming game or not.

*shed/office

   I did end up focussing a bit on my Yorkist War of the Roses army as they were to hand, but I'm also going through whatever units are built and sprayed on the shelves near me. This post is about the ACW Confederate dismounted cavalry - after I finished their mounted versions back in 2023.

   I bought these figures in at least 2023, but I suspect a bit earlier, as we were trying slightly amended rules for cavalry in the American Civil War, with them dismounting to really shoot. I ended up rush painting the mounted versions for a game in 2023 and these were ready to be painted but didn't get close to the top of the queue.

   The horse holders for the unit were also built and sprayed about the same time, but were actually painted a month or so ago when I had a game of ACW lined up and I used it as an opportunity to just try and paint something for the project, but I didn't feel they deserved a post.

   I'm not going to rush to paint more for this project, mostly as I don't have any space in the boxes it would live in, but I do have another cannon with associated limber built and sprayed, I just can't find the cannon crew for some reason.

Thanks for reading

5th New York

   While on sick leave I had planned to give myself two or 3 big (ish) projects to do, mostly painting big units of things that I just haven't been doing in my normal painting time. One of those was an army of Warlord Epic scale American Civil War Zouaves that I picked up in a sprue sale last year. I had time while off to get some of the base colours on and have since gone back over them to get them done.

   I really like having Zouaves on the table when playing ACW as the reds they tend to have in their uniforms give a bright pop above all the blues, greys and browns that the Union/Confederates normally wear. I have a few units painted for my 28mm ACW in the form of the 72rnd Pennsylvania, Baxter's Fire Zouaves but for these I went for a more "Zouave" colour scheme and picked a unit that had the red trousers, this time being the 5th New York.

   I'm hoping to get more 15mm gaming in this year* and having these done gives me one more thing to put on the table and something else not sitting on a side next to me. 

   I need to get their other banner, but they have their US flag for the moment.

*although I need to actually game to do this

Thanks for reading

Sweet, Sweet Caffine

   Every now and again I paint something that I feel the need to justify to myself, and this one is simple, because why not. As soon as I saw this model, I knew I had to have one for my wagon and baggage collection as I am currently a man who doesn't really work until I've had my first coffee of the day*.

*if I can even drink it before it gets cold

   This is a coffee wagon plus limber for my American Civil War Union infantry. It could do with a horse team like my other wagons, but as its modelled set up, I didn't have picking up the extra models as a priority.

Thanks for reading

A Big Push - ACW Edition

   I mentioned in a post at the start of March that I was organising a big club game for the summer to try and get the whole club in one place playing one big game - hopefully with every player suppling a unit or two but not leaving out those unable to - well that game has now been and gone and I was much further behind than I had planned.

   I wasn't too stressed going in whether both sides were perfectly even, but I wanted to at least have enough troops to bulk out one side if it turned out to be seriously uneven. With that in mind I set off trying to build and paint the last few bits I had for this project, although I ultimately had to make choices as the deadline hit quicker than expected.

I got one more regular unit of Confederate infantry done. I went for a fully grey uniform on these guy only varying a couple of trousers and the blankets over the bodies just to get them across my desk as quickly as possible.

Then I put a couple of days into painting two units of Confederate cavalry. These were nowhere near as quick but were one of the big gaps in my Confederate army, so they needed to be done. I left the horse holders and dismounts for another day but I'm pleased these got finished as they were used.

On the day I had 6 and a bit players turn up with half of them supplying troops of their own - although as the photo shows Wayland Games didn't give me any mats so we had to scrounge two green mats from elsewhere in the hall and hope it wasn't too obvious. I think on hindsight I gave the Union a slight troop advantage but the game was so very close until the last turn that I don't think it mattered.

The game ended with the Confederates holding one farm house, the Union held the crossroads and the last farm house was contested until the Confederate advance crumbled, leaving a Union victory.

It was really good playing with guys I just don't play with enough, seeing a big game on the table and we also had a first time wargamer roll some dice, which is always a bonus.

I think the plan is to do a WW2 version of this game next year!

Thanks for reading

Lots Of Horses

   This post is carrying on my ACW push with the wagon train and some generals/leaders for the armies. The figures from this post are much more of  mix from different companies with Perry Miniatures, 1st Corps, Warbases and Colonel Bills all represented in one thing or another.

   As in a lot of other cases, mostly from last year, I always figure if you plan to paint some horses, do loads at one time so that you can mix the colours in without wasting time.

Two wagons - one from Warbases and the other from Colonel Bills.

A cannon limber team for my last two cannons

A caisson for the Union forces

Commanders for my forces - as we are trying to have a separate leader for each army.

Thanks for reading

Confederates?

   I've got an ongoing project to try and get my club to play a single big game as a group - as we seem to split down into little groups on club nights and not mix as well as we once did - for which I picked the American Civil War as the theatre for the game, using the Rebels and Patriots rules.

   With this in mind and the year starting to get away from me already, I thought I would put my money where my mouth was and make sure I had enough troops for both sides to make a decent showing*.

*the idea being that the game is more about getting guys to participate than demanding hobby from those who might not be able to, I want spare troops I can lend out if needed

   The first thing to cross my desk is a unit of Confederate infantry as this is one of the areas that I have been planning to bulk my collection up, plus it never hurts to own an extra unit of two of extra infantry. These are Perry Miniatures plastics and have been painted in a quick and dirty scheme to match the others I already have.

In the future I have the rest of my Perry order from last year to paint - mostly limbers and wagons - then I plan to bulk up the cavalry of my Confederates and lasting a quick addition to any part of either collection that I think is lacking.

Thanks for reading

We Can Get Off Our Horses?

   A project I didn't expect to be painting this year was American Civil War in 28mm. We played a lot of it in 2019, it was my go to club night game for a fair while, then other things came along and the collections dropped to the bottom of the boxes stack and remained there ever since.

   Then this year, my mate Neil decided to get his Confederates out and wanted a test game to see how dismounted troops for his cavalry could work - something that R&P doesn't normally do. This, however, brought to light the gaps in my collections and that, as a historical gaming period to game, it is brilliant for a club night. A few sizeable orders later and we have a fair bit to paint;

   The first thing onto my desk for this gap reducing drive are dismounted Union cavalry units. This means three bases of horse holders (as I already had one in my collection) and 4 units of dismounted cavalrymen - I seriously doubt I will need all 4 units at one point but it stops issues mid game. 

   I probably need to bulk up the horse holders so that every horse is represented rather than it being a token holding base, but then I need to represent the holders themselves in the unit and it starts to get messy fast.

   We played another game using these new additions and obviously neither side's cavalry wanted to follow orders and were shot off the table before they could deploy, so I'm glad I got them painted up in time . . .

Thanks for reading

A busy week

   This is a bit of a mixed post, but here we go. As with past years, I don't plan to post about every game I manage to play but with it being nearly six months since I last played a physical game, I though I would celebrate the UK starting to open up and start to arrange would games I could.

   The first game I managed was of Warhammer 30k with my podcast mate, Keith, and was in fact 2 games (as I lost the first so quickly) and was, also, last weekend. He wanted to get his new Imperial Fists on the table to try and motivate himself into getting them finished and I used my favourite legion, my Sons Of Horus. As I have already mentioned, the first game was a complete loss with the final score being 17-0 to Keith, as his first turn of shooting neutralised the two tanks I was relying on. The second game was much closer but was still a loss, but only 2-0 to him.

   Then this week, I really went to town with arranging games to test gaming on our new(ish) garden bench. When we picked the bench I pushed for one 6 foot long, however it isn't wide enough to play a decent 28mm game on - although I plan to rectify that by buying some board to sit on top of it - but for 15mm it is a perfect width, so that is what we did. 

   The first game we tried was after work early in the week and was Rebels and Patriots using my epic scale Warlord and Kallistra ACW stuff. While I lost, again, I'm really taken with Rebels and Patriots at this scale. We played with 38 points a side, which was 4 or 5 infantry blocks depending on the side, a cannon with limber and 2 units of light cavalry each, which is a big game at 28mm. In 15mm it was a couple of hours where we had space to manoeuvre and attempt to flank. I want to get more 15mm on the table in the next few weeks but it's really made me feel more confident with this scale shift.

  We then arranged an afternoon of gaming for Saturday which was going to be another test game using my 15mm Lion/Dragon Rampant armies to see how that looked in 15mm for which I did some frantic late night painting of a unit of Undead Knights and Undead Chariots. Both units are entirely Alternative Armies figures. The knights I'm not hugely keen on as they look too fantasy for me (in my head undead knights should just be skeleton knights, they don't need bat banners and skull shields) but I couldn't find another model range I liked more, I also, just about fitted the 8 cavalry on that my basing requires, but it was tight! The chariots have had a crew swap as I have other plans for the drivers and I've put them on half width bases to allow a bit more flexibility in future gaming.

   It was all moot in the end as time and other stuff meant we played a couple of board games instead - something for the future.

   I also saw online that Mike Hobbs has sadly passed away this week. He was a play tester for various rulesets, was a co-host on Meeples and Miniatures, was seriously entertaining on Twitter (both for his hobby and for his cats), was a friendly person you could ask questions of and was the cause of a lot of my hard earned money being spent on projects I didn't know I wanted to get involved in. My thoughts go to his wife and family at this time. He will be missed.

Thanks for reading.

The Union Boys Keep Marching On

    I've got to stop giving myself to much to paint in one go as it kills motivation, but here is my last* big batch of ACW 15mm(ish) figures and its more for the Union Side - thanks to Paul from my club for posting me his sprue. 

*planned

   Not much to add for the painting as you've seen it all before, but I've stopped doing anything with the mounted officer from the sprue as it just doesn't fit the scale of the other cavalry I'm using. I've swapped out the command section for metal figures from Kallistra like I did with the Texans I painted recently and I also replaced one regular trooper on another base with an officer calling orders as I've recently watched Glory and I wanted to recreate a moment in that.

   Also in this post are a couple of extra bases of figures I've added to make the game look a bit more battle like, namely a horse holder for one of the company/regiment's** officer's horses and a command scene with whatever the senior officer of this army is. The more I think about it, the more I should have a base of horse holders for each command base of infantry, so there is a real risk I'll paint at least one more base of them per side in the not too near future.

**not entirely worked out how much a base represent yet

   I've still got a few bases of cavalry to paint for each side, an extra base of infantry for my Union which I just couldn't face painting in this batch and I've just pre-ordered some wagons from Warlord as it's the one extra Kallistra doesn't do. Now if only the new warlord Zouaves were sold in packs of 5 and not 15, I'd definitely get some of them too. Also, do I need some bases of Native American irregulars?

Thanks for reading

The Texan's Arrive

    I've been painting a few bitty things recently, so it was nice to settle back down with a big batch of figures again. At this point my plan of what order I am going to paint has completely gone out of the window and instead of another unit of Romans to get that project onto the table, I've gone back to my ACW project.

   While I have now painted up everything I needed to get this game on my home table, I want to add the bits that will make this a 4 player game on a 6 by 4 board, namely another sprue of Warlord figures per side and loads more cavalry. Chatting with my regular gaming group about each of us painting a sprue of figures for a big game when we could meet up again met with muted support at best, but when it became obvious to the guys that I was pushing ahead anyway two of them offered to post me their sprues.

   The first sprue was designated for the Confederates with the request that it be Texan. This is the first unit that I tried copying some other hobbyists I've seen online and I've cut the command group out of the Warlord plastics and I've used a command group from Kallistra.

The next thing, for this post, is the Confederate Command and a unit of horse holders. I want the battlefield to look messy with all the gumpf that comes with marching armies. So the army commanders won't be standing in the ranks, they will be on horses at the back and unit officers will probably have left horses with a subordinate behind the lines and this is stuff I want to model. Again, all these figures are from Kallistra (bar a guy on the general's base cut from a warlord cannon crew) as they fit so nicely.

   All I need now is wagons but I think I need to wait for the Warlord ones as Kallistra don't sell any, which is a right shame.

Thanks for reading

Working on the periphery

    It's about this point where I've really started to worry that my hobby plan for 2021 has already gone out of the window. I had planned to spend the first few months of hobby getting my War of the Roses projects moving well ahead of the May deadline, however, it seems that my head is stuck in a 15mm (ish) space. More on that in another post.

   This post is about the extra bits that I decided I needed to add to make the two sprues of 'Epic' scale figures from Warlord Games into a full game that could be played when games are allowed to resume. I felt it was obvious that I needed limbers for the cannons that came on the sprue, a unit or two of cavalry for each side and I wanted some scenery.

   Going in the order listed above, here are the limbers. I went with Kallistra for all my extra figures as other reviews seemed to suggest that they scaled well and I have to say, I am convinced they are the same scale - if you ignore the single horseman who comes on the sprue and is a bit bigger than the Kallistra horsemen. I mounted the limbers on bases that matched the cannon's base from the warlord sprue and I put the cannons that came with the limbers on their own bases, so they can be replaced with a set up cannon.

Kallistra Confederate Limber with Warlord plastic cannon

View from behind the Union Limber

   Next up are some cavalry. One of my main problems with historical gaming is the issue of basing. Normally I solve this by mounted 28mm figures on separate bases and having a variety of movement trays to fit either different rulesets or different opponents, however, with 12mm figures this is a tad harder. I toyed with making a unit two smaller bases of 4 horse as it looked really good, but in the end, I went with 6 horse on a base the same size that the warlord infantry are mounted on. The more I thought about it, the more having a more standard base size for my games made sense. 

Union Cavalry

Confederate Cavalry

   Last up I have some scenery.  Looking online the best option, for what I was after, seemed to be Hovels, so I ordered the farmstead set and some tents.

   The tents I just based up as simply as I could as it is supposed to look like the edge of an encampment. The farmstead, however, I spent a bit more time building. Each gap between buildings is big enough for a stand of figures and the end result is that you can have 4 units defending the farm with the command unit in the centre. The haystacks came with the farmstead and aren't glued down, while the wagon was a test order from Irregular Miniatures which seems a bit large but without the oxen and crew I don't have a problem with it.

   As ever, my painting at 15mm doesn't survive the close shots from my camera, but I am really pleased with how this stuff looks on the table. I've got enough for a decent 2 player game as I had planned for my small table, but now I think the theory is sound, I still have more coming in the post to try and make it a bigger battle game for when we can meet up with the club again.

Thanks for reading

Doing the other side

    I wasn't planning on getting another post out quite so quickly, but a day where my mum was able to help babysit our son gave me a chunk of free time to relax that I put into painting. I used the time to carry on with my plan of getting two 15mm armies ready for a game the moment there is some relaxation of the mixing rules and we can start gaming at home.

   I'd already made sure that my confederates were tidied up and sprayed, ready to go. As they would be a bit less uniform than my Union, I knew they would take a bit longer, but (other than the straps) they were still good fun to paint. I gave them all a grey uniform based on the uniform palette I used on the 28mm version and, again, like the Union troops I gave them the same banners that their 28mm counterparts have.

   Now I have two sides sorted and the project is done, it makes sense to own up to the full truth. I've been placing a few little orders elsewhere to fill this project out a bit. I've got some cavalry and limbers coming for both sides from Kalistra as they seem to be the best size match out there - more on that when they arrive - and I picked up some scenery from Hovels just to stop it being a green board with some trees. If this works out as I hope it will, I should have a good looking game I can play at home, and if I can convince a few other guys to paint their sprues, we'll have a decent sized game to play at the club.

   There is also a voice in my head telling me to pick up at least another couple of sprues to bulk both sides out, but I think its best we ignore him at the moment.

Thanks for reading

Same Army, Different Scale

   As you can probably imagine, painting time is at an all time low at the moment and with no real end in sight for this lockdown, my painting motivation isn't that high either. This time last year I was trying to work through my cavalry backlog which is always the bit of the army that I enjoy painting the least*, however, this year my plan is just to paint what I can, when I can. So, expect to see a lot of jumping about.

*if anything that backlog has gotten a lot worse

   When Warlord Games announced they were doing ACW in plastic on a smaller scale, I got a bit excited. When I saw the first sprue was coming free on the front of Wargames Illustrated it got me thinking. Then when I realised that the sprue was the equivalent of the first army I painted for Rebels & Patriots, the ideas started flowing.

   I've been looking at dabbling in smaller scales for a while now but haven't really committed to any single project hard enough that I could play a game of it tomorrow, but as we are in lockdown at the moment and I suspect we'll have a repeat of last late spring/early summer where the gaming centres weren't open but we could gradually mix in each other's homes, I have been looking at smaller scales even harder as my best gaming table at home is at best a 3 foot by 4 foot board and while gang sized games are fun and I plan to play a few, it would be good to play an army sized game early on.

   I've got a few plans for this new Warlord stuff - short term I'd like to basically downside Rebels and Patriots for my smaller table, long term I'd like to see how big a game can be played with this stuff, but that's a story for another day.** 

**I'm going to keep half an eye open for cheap extras of this sprue.

   For now, I've only managed to get the Union done, using the same recipe as my 28mm army except I've gone for a slightly lighter brown on the guns as I figured the guns and skin are the two focal points that stop them being blocks of blue. My painting on them doesn't stand up to close inspection, but as they are blocks of 20 men at 15mm (ish) they aren't really expected to be looked too closely. Flags are from Wargames Designs - thanks to the suggestion on twitter from Mike Hobbs - and are from their 10mm range rather than 15mm.

Thanks for reading

Gentlemen on Horseback

   The 3rd phase of my ACW project has focused heavily on the Union side of the conflict and today's post isn't going to drastically change that, but I did want to add something useful to my Southern army before I moved onto other projects for a bit and the obvious thing to add was a unit of cavalry. I've had a mental block on painting cavalry for years, which is why my armies tend to be entirely on foot, and this has led to my pile of potential including a worrying chunk of cavalry units that haven't made it into finished armies* but this has changed with the vast numbers of Union horsemen I've churned out recently. I already know what my next project has to be - due to a looming deadline - but I am now very tempted to pick another unit of horse from my backlog to focus on as well.

*There are units for my Napoleonics and at least 4 of my Dark Ages armies in there

   Lastly, I don't normally post a huge amount of games up on here - something I probably do need to change - but we played a game of Rebels and Patriots round my mate Neil's house recently **based on a battle in West Virginia called the Battle of Pine Mountain, which gave me a chance to get all of my toys out in one go***. According to Neil, the game played to a fair representation of how the battle actually went, with the Confederates losing badly in the last few turns after doing really well for the first half****.

 **loosely

***we had to sub some Union infantry for Union Cavalry instead

****No prizes for guessing which side I was on

The Confederates trying to stem the tide and hold the pass - but it was too little too late.

Thanks for reading

Colours Reporting In

   Hot on the tail* of the last of my** Union cavalry are the second and third units of Pennsylvanian Zouaves. It's been quite good fun painting mass cavalry but going back to batch painting fairly simple, identical uniforms is a joy all of it's own, so I'm a little sad that this bit of the project is now over for a while, however, the next project or two are already lined up and raring to go, so I had better get on with it.
   The banners are something that I've also found quite satisfying with this whole ACW project. I've tried not to add too many as I don't want my armies looking like a few men taking a flag for a walk, but the Zouaves felt like they deserved their own colours and as they could be bought online, it was too good a chance to miss up.

*Or would have been if I had taken the photos earlier
**Planned

Thanks for reading