The gift of Gunners!

Christmas is a time for giving and this year I am giving Seth and Bruce the gift of Artillery!

Seth is building up a force of Confederates for Sharp Practice and I've assembled a couple of batteries from the Perry Miniatures American Civil War Artillery set this leaves a whole load of gunners left over so I assembled and painted up a gun crew for Seth, although the guy leaning on the wheel while the other pulls the lanyard is likely not drill-book ;)

Bruce is building up a Seven Years War collection so while at Historicon I picked up a Crusader Miniatures Austrian 3-pdr cannon and crew to paint up for him. A lovely model and really easy to paint.

There usually some interest in colours for Austrian guns, I used a base-coat of Vallejo Gold Brown highlighted up with Pale Sand.

Finally, completed on Saturday and entry for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, five more gunners, this time for the Union for Drew.

These chaps are models re-aiming the gun, so one chap uses the trail spike while two more push the wheels. Two more crew members prepare to ram home the next round.

The 12lb Napoleon is from my collection and just included for the purpose of the photo.

These are also on the Painting Challenge blog here....

Sharp Practice - Seven Years War

Saturday saw me take the couple of hour drive down to Palatine IL to join the chaps there for my first ever game of Sharp Practice.

Phil was hosting us and after a splendid vegetarian chilli we retired to the games room to get set up. Phil, Alan and Ed would be playing the Austrians, while Mark, Liam and myself the Prussians. We decided on the Attack on an Objective scenario with 100pts of troops per side. The forces after adding the random component (if my memory serves) were:

Prussians:

• Level 3 and Level 1 with 3 Musketeers
• Level 2 with 3 Grenadiers
• Level 2 with 3 Fusileers
• Level 1 with Freikorps skirmishers
• Level 1 with a medium gun

Austrians:

• Level 3 with 3 German infantry and 
• Level 2 with 2 Hungarian infantry
• Level 2 with 2 Grenadiers
• Level 2 with 1 Dragoons and 1 Cuirassiers
• Level 2 with 2 Grenzers and a medium gun

The Prussians would be defending the church in our right hand sector while the Austrians attacked up the road.

The game played out really well. The Prussians formed a defensive perimeter around the church while the Austrians demonstrated to the front with infantry, skirmishers and cannon while pushing their Grenadiers up their close right flank and sending the horse on a wide right flanking manouver.

I commanded the Fusileers and although they were rather tardy at first they did eventually engage the Austrians to their fore and seemed to be getting the better of the fire-fight.

However, despite some good Prussian discipline managing the shock, the Grenadiers were taking quite a hammering from the Austrian skirmishers and cannon. Plus the Austrian Grenadiers were now emerging from the woods to support the cavalry attack on out left.

Following a volley from the Grenadiers the Dragoons charged in, but were repulsed by the fire from our Musketeers. Then the Cuirassiers charged in and were destroyed to a man and their leader killed.

The Austrian Grenadiers continued to pour fire into our Musketeers forcing them to step back, then the rallied Dragoons administered the coup-de-grace and our left flank collapsed along with our Force Morale.

A really enjoyable game with great company. I really enjoyed myself and the rules played out really well. Our group in Madison are having our first game of Sharp Practice on Thursday with the new American Civil War collection