ACW with Fire & Fury

At the weekend I joined in an ACW game held at one of the local school libraries, by one of our two local gaming clubs. The game played using 25/8mm scale figures and using the Fury and Fury rule set.

Steve came up with a scenario where by opposing mounted scouts come across each other and dismount to hold their positions while the two armies follow up to engage.

I played the game on Rebs side with my fledgling unit. Our mounted scouts held a hilltop church and graveyard, whilst the Yankees held the adjacent farm. The Rebs got first turn, and started their advance on to the field, with the Union coming on with a reserve, which heavily weighted their left flank. The bulk of our forces were also on our left flank. This caused a typical rotation of the battle lines about a central crossroads position.

Here's a few pics of the game...

Rebs deployments

The opposing scouts

My fledgling unit takes a circuitous flank march

The Yankees advance on to the field

The Rebs advance and deploy guns on a central hill

Yankees threaten to advance on and overwhelm Rebs in church

A view from Rebs right flank as Yankees advance on church. Scouts mount up and back off.

Battle lines begin to form and meet. And that dreaded single dice roll of a '1'...

Rebs push heavily on the farm forcing off Yankee scouts, whilst their own right flank pulls back to avoid being out flanked. This was just about the final positions, with both advancing flank forces moving slightly further on...

The game looked good, but I have to say for my tastes played poorly.

After 4 hours of play we had advanced into battle lines, with negligible result. Shooting had to this point killed about one stand of an infantry unit from each side. One charge had pushed off one unit from the farm.

The problem for me was all the shooting was doing was causing 'disorder' which petty much had the effect of halving your movement and subsequent shooting. Which resulted in a tedious slow grinding game.

Also the single dice mechanism was also for me a failure in the rules. Its too open to random chance. Whereas when many dice are rolled you get a more likely statistically and predictable average result.

When the Yankees finally amassed enough fire power to seriously damage an enemy unit they rolled a 1 on the single d10 rolled... groan...

I was left feeling that was an afternoon wasted, to be honest.... I would have been better served getting on with figure painting!

I couldn't help but wonder how better this scenario and game would have played using Black Powder as a rule set...

Fire and Fury? Nope.... Smoke and Disorder? Yep!

American Civil War - Confederate Battalion

I have finally finished that box of 36 Perry ACW 28mm figures, started oh so long ago! They have stared at me rather mournfully ever since I got started on that journey into Piracy ;-) I finally felt they deserved to be finished.
When I started the project they were just going to be for Black Powder gaming, but then I realised there may be some skirmish gaming opportunities for them also.

So I am pleased to present to you, a Confederate Battalion with Battle honours of Seven Pines & Manassas, upon their flags.

Firing Line

 Here above seen in all their glory in full firing line.

Skirmishers deployed

 Here above seen with skirmishers deployed. Having checked the Black Powder rules on such a Mixed order formation, it seems about a third of the unit should be deployed as skirmishers in this fashion, so thats 12 figures out of the full 36 figure set.

Full Skirmish Order

And here above in full skirmish order.

All the figures are based on nominally 20mm (but actually19mm) zinc plated steel washers. Being steel they are attracted to magnets, and so I made sabot bases from 3mm mdf sheet cut 40mm x 40mm. This was then covered with a layer magnetic paper, painted brown, and flocked to match the figures. As the figures are light weight plastic, the strength of the magnet works well, the base can be fully inverted and the figures don't fall off.

Mounted on magnetised sabot base

4 figures on a 40mm x 40mm sabot base.

Magnestised sabot base

The sabot base itself, flocked just enough to allow the washers contact with the magnetic layer.

The figures themselves I must admit, I took several short cuts in their painting, realising that with 'gerzillions' of figures for multiple periods still to paint, I had to try and get quicker.
So, I black undercoated, and then base coated all figures in their required 'mid tone'.
I then washed the entire figure in a 50/50 mix of Vallejo Dark Brown and Black wash.
I then worked back up the colours using the original mid tone colours.
I didn't do the eyes, just left them as a dark brown line in the eye socket recess.
Being plastic figures I only gave them one coat on Vallejo acrylic matt brush on varnish. I didnt bother with the polyurethane gloss, reasoning that the gloss was only really required for metal figures to resist chipping from the metal surface. Plastic figures don't require this.
The base was flocked with GW sand and this was just given a wash of Vallejo Dark brown wash. Normally I'd then drybrush lighter browns and cream colour to the sand, but didn't this time, content just to add the static grass.

I think the figures still look fine, and a lot of time and effort was saved. I am happy with the result.

So I can use my figures as originally planned for Black Powder as ACW troops.

I can also use them in full skirmish order for Rules with No Name, on Joe Harrison's Leadwood.

And finally, again as skirmishers, I can use them for some GASLIGHT gaming, whether as ACW themed troops, or perhaps as a Colonial force; the '1st FusilierAbteilung of Neu-Bavaria', to go alongside my planned Prussian themed VSF army.

So several uses out of one box of figures. More bang for your buck I say!

30/11/11
Second thoughts too: Using the washers also means I am no longer defacing Her Majestys currency, by using NZ10cent coins for bases, though oddly enough, the washers I bought are exactly the same size as the 10cent coin, yet have a hole in the middle (therefore less physical metal than the coin) and cost 21 cents each to buy... not sure what that says about the state of our economy? I wonder if  I might get any odd looks if I tried to pay for my lunchtime sarnie down at the cafe with a handful of washers....  'honest, they're worth more than the coins in your till !"  ;-)

WIP - ACW & Zulus

A work in progress from the painting table for you. I don't normally do this kind of blog post, but perhaps it shows I am still working away and wets your appetite to see the final finished unit...?

I apologise for the poor colour quality of shots. Whilst my angle poise lamp gives plenty of light for me to paint by at night, it has rather poor lighting for photography work. But hopefully you get the gist...

Plastic Zulus from Wargames Factory. 28mm. These are the first sprue of figures done. Painting is complete, just need basing and varnishing.

Perry ACW. 28mm. These figures have finally been fully base coated, as shown in the picture. I have since washed all figures in a 50/50 mix of Vallejo Dark Brown and Black washes. I am now about half through working the highlights back up. Then basing and varnishing. I didn't do the eyes though. Eek! perhaps I have turned a page in my painting technique. At least for the bulk troops of units. I have to say it was a lot quicker and the Perry sculpts have such fine features (small say compared to Foundry), that I think I would have struggled to achieve a good looking result. So I have left the eye orbits as a horizontal dark brown line from the wash... I hope the painting gods forgive me!?

I'm getting there! Slowly but surely...

American Civil War

Turn your speakers on to enjoy the delightful yet mournful music of this video...



Whilst I realise many people may have a passion for a particular period, and then try and find a rule set that does justice to their chosen period, I have come at this situation from the reverse.

After enjoying a recent game of Black Powder, I decided to look for some periods to play this rule set with.

One that immediately became obvious was the American Civil War.

I would not say that I am particularly passionate about the period, but it seems an ideal choice for these rules, and a new period to start from scratch, for a few reasons:

Firstly, plastic sets of suitable models are now cheaply available from the Perry's, and secondly, one box set of models can be used for either side in the war, just by painting them the different opposing colours, and thirdly, the period does not feature too many exotic uniforms, so painting up the troops should be relatively easy.

Consequently I couldn't resist buying a brigade deal from Warlord Games.

The figures duly arrived in March '11, and I started work on trimming the first boxed set ready for paint. I usually trim my figures at work during my lunch and coffee breaks, so I get a few models done per day. I reserve painting for home.

I also received a wealth of inspirational literature from a good friend; Roly, which will help me in some colour choices and uniform details to get these figures painted up correctly.

Here today (29/3/11) I present a shot 'from the workbench'

The first boxed set of 36 infantry figures, ready to go to war for the confederacy.

I'll keep this post updated with progress shots...