Painting - Old West - Dead Mans Hand

Hello Folks,

So as discussed previously I am on a bit of an Old West kick. The new set of rules I ordered turned up on Friday, Dead Man's Hand from great escape games, and I got a set of their models to try as well. This game seems pretty fun to me, nice and simple with with some card mechanics. They have games split up into smaller sets of scenes which seems fun. In the book they have 3 sets of scenarios names, a handful of models, a few models more, and the good the lead and the dead. Hah, excited to give it a go.

Of course I couldn't resist painting the models wither, I went with an Outlaw gang since I didn't have any bad guys previously. The miniatures had a bit more flash and mold lines then I would prefer but they are not super new I guess so that is kind of normal.

They painted up really nice thou so I am quite happy with the result, a good bunch of guys. The boss in the front middle I am particularly happy with.

Paints Used:

GW: Black Spray, Leadbelcher,Chaos Black, Mordian Blue, Red Gore, Wazdaka Red

Vallejo: White, Wood Grain,  Chocolate Brown, Deck Tan, USA Tan Earth, Beige Brown, Smoke, Woodgrain, Flat Earth, Dark Sand, Japanese Uniform, Ivory, Dark Grey, Neutral grey

Foundry: Flesh Triad

Army Painter: Flesh Shade, Cloak Grey, Electric Blue

Liquitex: Black Ink, Umber Ink

I also re-based a couple of my old guys over to the new standard to keep the numbers up.

I painted these guy probably 4 or 5 years ago, so hopefully you would agree that the new ones look allot better and I am improving hah.

Of course this meant I didn't make any more progress on the Somali pirates but I am ok with that.

Pledge Status 2015:
Bought: 227 (7 Outlaws
Painted: 127 (Painted 7 Outlaws!)
Total: -100

Now I need to find a Clint Eastwood man with no name model. I know someone out there makes one! I have a hanging tree kit to paint as well which should be fun.
Thanks;
Mike

Somali Pirates & Old West

I got a bit more painting down over the last little while. We are working on a Maersk Alabama scenario and I was assigned to paint some pirates, so I have been getting a few of those done. Nothing super serious just a few packs from Khurasan, I have 2 packs finished now so thought I would toss up a picture. These are in 15mm.

I didn't know what to do with the basing, part of me says sand. In the end I just glued them down and painted it red-brown to hopefully roughly match the deck color. I figure this can be temporary and I can always put something over it if I decide later. So I have 4 RPG guys and 2 machine gun guys with 2 loaders from the heavy weapons pack, and then 8 guys with AK-47s. I have another 5 of the AK-47 packs but I probably will only do 2 or so more. My latest instructions are for 24 pirates. I also have 2 small boats with a few guys riding to do.

They don't look super great but just going for a few quick pirates.

Paints Used:

GW: Black Spray, Leadbelcher,Chaos Black, Mordian Blue, RedI forget which one

Vallejo: White, Wood Grain,  Chocolate Brown, Deck Tan, USA Tan Earth, Luftwaffe Green, Beige Brown

Foundry: African Flesh Triad, Dark African Flesh Triad

Army Painter: Flesh Shade


In addition to the above Stan was showing me some of his Old West stuff when he was ofer the other week, and it got me thining shit I want to do some Old West gaming! So with that in mind I ordered up the Dead Mans Hand book and a few buildings, and in a flurry of inspiration decided that I needed to re-base some of my Old West guys to the new standard, so they will look better in a game which is surely to come.

I painted these guys a few years back, so there are for sure some things I would do differently now, but they still look pretty good. So I popped them off their GW bases and put them on some renendra ones with a magnetic bottom and did a bit of a better basing.

The black with red accents looks good, but the boots are bad. I will likely end up re-basing a few more guys in the next week or some. Hopefully the book comes in soon and we can try out a game. I am not sure how good it will be but they seem to have some fun ideas, if not can always just go back to playing Legends of the Old West from GW which I really like.


Pledge Status 2015:
Bought: 220 
Painted: 120 (16 Pirates, I count 4 15s as 1 point)
Total: -100

Thanks;
Mike

Flames of War - Total War - Loraine Campaign

Hello Folks, so on Friday we got together at the club to play a total war game to cap off our recent Loraine campaign. We have found that it is fun to do a big multi player event at the end of these as a way to mix things up a bit.

We had 7 players with 1250 point armies each, and Serge had 2 armies I think to balance out the numbers.

Allies - Mike, Bad Duncan, Bernhard, Chris
Germans - Serge, Jeff, Lev

The played the total victory mission, which has 6 objectives and you get 1 point for every one you control every turn. So you have to get on them fast or else you really start to bleed points and it can be hard to come back. Last time the allies were quite well organized and we had a good plan before hand, this time not so much.

Since there wasn't to many of us we decided to be lazy and just use the big conference table, it was long enough but really a bit narrow in retrospect. I think next time we will likely drag out the tables.

Sadly I did not do such a great job of taking pictures but we will have to make do. The Germans deployed first and put tigers on the left, then infantry with heavy anti-tank guns, then more infantry, then on the far right a bunch of Panthers. On the allied side we had the objectives in our deployment on the wings and the middle objectives where in the center, so we did the opposite. On our left we had US Para troopers with Shermans, tank destroyers with Patton, my Shermans, and then Infantry with heavy artillery. I took a plane so I could bomb stuff all over as well.

Here is a set of pictures around turn 2 I think. I offered to bomb the tigers with my plan but I was declined so had to try for some Panthers. Sadly this was the one area with allot of AA so my plans got destroyed on that run. But anyway I moved up my Shermans to contest / capture my center objective, and the infantry by my smoked and bombed as many tanks as they could to cover. On the other flank our compatriots ignored the objective and went to hunt tigers. So we started loosing on points right from turn 2.

The fire ending up being allot worse then I had thought and I was loosing tanks very fast, after one round I only had my commander in a jumbo to protect the objective, and there was a distressing amount of infantry around.

So next turn we fared a bit better. I moved my next platoon of tank right into the panthers and got a kill or 2, and was now being supported by some tank destroyers, and my plane destroyed a German rocket launcher. on the far side the tiger hunting party is going better then I would have thought and they have 2 killed with only 3 lost Shermans. I moved my commander up to machine gun some anti-tank guns that had pressed forward at the double, but stayed in range of the objective, this turned out to be a bad idea with so many infantry around.

Next time around the tigers polished off the rest of the Shermans, but it is costing them time and they are taking allot of hits from the artillery. In the center the Panthers made quick work of my Shermans, and my commander in the jumbo was assaulted by allot of infantry and died as well. This meant that my company was broken, and although I had contested an objective for awhile no one else had really pushed up so were losing by more and more each turn. But the other guys were putting a good hurt on the Panthers as well so all was not lost.

This tank battle continued on for a few turns as the Germans racked up the points. The Paratroopers were now well on the way to breaking the tiger company so they continued to work on that, and the far infantry, kept hammering on the Panthers who were pushing in. As you can see they are starting to be a bit light on tanks.

In the late game we got a few assaults. The para guys aided by some tank destroyers had finally killed all the tigers, and now made an attempt to assault the woods and take back that objective. This failed due to a massive amount of defensive fire, but at least they tried. On the other end we realized that we now just had to break the Panthers to win and so they got much more aggressive down there. The Germans assaulted out of the forest and took out a recovery vehicle and a tank destroyer but that was not so bad. Of course through out all of these the Germans continued to increase their lead by 2 points every turn, so our only hope really was to break their battalion.

It went down to the wire in the end, but we never quit killed enough Panthers, although we were only a couple short. On the other had Bernhard had to make a few company morale tests for the tank destroyers, so we almost got broken as well. The final score was 20-12 for the Germans, or something like that, so a solid victory for them.

So we had a fun game even though it was a loss. It probably would have been better on a deeper table, but on the other hand it forced everything into the game right from turn 1, so that is kind of fun also!

These big games play out a bit differently then a normal flames of war game, so I find them to be a good bit of fun to do once in awhile. But admit it can be disheartening to see all of your tanks destroyed in 2 turns hah.

I was hopping that the next campaign might be something a bit different, but seems that we are going to be doing Bagration again, but with the new lists. So look forward to that, I will be on the German side this time at least.

Thanks;

Mike

Battle Report - Flames of War - Fate of a Nation

So on Tuesday Stan came over for a few games and we decided to give Fate of a Nation another try. Since it has been awhile since the campaign ended, I thought it would be good to get this stuff out for a game again.

I took my Jordanians with 8 M48 Pattons, and a platoon of infantry with M113 transports, and Stan had the Israelis 2 Sho't and 5 I-Shermans I believe.

I don't have that much desert terrain really so I left it kind of sparse. The fields and tree base are being used to represent soft sand, so I think very difficult for tanks and infantry can't dig in.

Game 1:
Free for All

For the first game we decided to go for a simple battle and went with Free for All. This is a straight up mission with everything on the table and 2 objectives on each side. But due to how few teams we had it is pretty unlikely that the objectives will ever become important.

I think I got the first turn in this one. So I took advantage of that and got my tanks into decent positions and took some shots, killing a couple of Shermans. No effect on the Sho'ts which was to become common. I elected to move my infantry up at the double to threaten the objective and try to lure Stan into shooting them. Not a bad first go.

In response the Shot's killed 2 Pattons, and the I-Shermans made a mess of the infantry transports. Still that meant no more dead tanks so I was feeling pretty good about it, just need a few lucky hits on the Sho'ts.

This was sadly the peak of my success. The Sho'ts continued to dominate my Pattons on the far flank eventually killing them. On the near side the I-Shermans finished out the infantry platoon while some bad luck caused me to not get any more kills. This forced a company morale roll which I failed and lost the game.

There was a bit of a fun moment with my infantry platoon leader and the Super Bazooka team failed a morale test, and the Jordanian Qadri rule came into affect leaving the Bazooka to fight on. Actually now that I think on it that rule should also have applied to my Company Morale test, so my platoon of tanks could have fought on without their commander. Oh well.

Game 2:
Forced Withdrawal

In game 2 we decided to go for a defensive battle, since the Jordanians always defend, this would mean the Israelis would have to advance a bit and hopefully make things a bit more balanced. Given how few platoons we had, any mission involving reserves (or heaven forbid delayed reserves) was un-palatable, so that left us with Forced Withdrawal. I was pretty confident that it wouldn't last long enough for any withdrawing to come into the picture but that is hardly the point.

This time I took the other side and put one platoon of tanks concealed behind the town, 2 commander hiding out in the back out of range, and some infantry dug in around the objective that can't be removed. My other platoon of tanks is being held in ambush.

On turn one the I-Shermans advance and fired on the Infantry with some effect, and the Sho'ts started a long range gun duel with the tanks behind the town.

On my turn I pulled my ambush behind the small town on the road, and moved them up to flank the I-Shermans, while the Pattons continued their gun duel. I was hoping for a quick decisive result in my favor with the I-Shermans, and got 2 kills which is not bad, but the third passed his morale test.

On their turn the I-Shermans moved into close range and had a good fight back killing 2 pattons (the third ran). Meanwhile the Sho'ts continued to put a pounding on my other Pattons, so things are not looking good.

The Pattons and sho'ts continued to pound on each other, eventually leaving my commanders dead, and the platoon crippled but hanging on. In the mean time thou the I-Shermans were now left to collect my infantry which they were able to accomplish surprisingly easily.

This left my force broken once again. I think my huge issue in these games was having an odd number of platoons, especially with the infantry being so weak. But I don't have a much better option at the moment, the real solution would be to play more point and add some more stuff.

You may be wondering why I continued to batter with the Sho'ts over 2 entire games, wouldn't it be better to leave them? Well because the Isrealis only have 2 combat platoon I am pretty much forced to kill them at some point, so I felt it was better to try it with as many tanks as possible. They don't have that much of a better armor really it was partly a matter of bad luck, and partly that they are slightly superior in every category which adds up. In retrospect it may have been better to put my ambush down there and try to flank them, but they also have stabilizers and this makes them even equally superior in a close in fight, and I was worried about loosing that other objective. Perhaps the opposite tack could ahve worked, with all my stuff focusing on the I-Shermans first, but I just didn't try that.

Thanks;
Mike

Battle Report - DBMM Classical Indian vs Republican Indian

Hello,

On Friday we got together for a game of DBMM at Nick's. He set up a DBMM game with Republican Indians vs some Classical Indians. Serge and I took control of the Classical ones, and Nick and Jeff had the Republican. Both armies are irregular and have some inferior troops.

We had 3 commands to deal with and were the defenders, one command of Hordes with some blades and elephants, one with cavalry, and one with elephants war wagons, and bows. We decided to put the hordes in the center to hold the line, thinking they would be hard to kill backed up with a superior baggage element, and had the other better commands on the flanks to press in like a pincer.

Here we are a couple of turns in, I had most of the elephants command on the right on the other side of the river so they had they option to fight any troops that might end up there. They have now crossed in column and formed up, but this maneuver ended up blocking the wagons from getting into things. In the middle our big block of hordes sits and watches a wall of archers advance and on the right our superior chariots launch a scattered attack.

Seeing as how our army was irregular we had a few hard time moving things around, my elephants on the right for instance needed 3 pips to wheel and fight the blades opposing them which is just crazy. Anyway on the left we tried the chariots again, and sent in some elephants in the middle, along with a bunch of bow fire going around. Still no ability to advance my elephants. These little attacks did not gain us much except a few losses.

Eventually things got allot more mixed up. I finally got to send in my elephants but they ended up doing nothing, I think we forgot they were superior, but not sure if that would have helped. Our hordes got decimated by the bows which was not great, and our chariots were getting picked off one by one, along with some dead elephants.

Eventually our commands started to break down the chariots on the left broke, and we were getting close on breaking in the middle once they destroyed our superior baggage.

Our general in the center then got surrounded by chariots and killed, which broke us. I think we had one or 2 of the enemy commands that were close to breaking but not quite.

This was a pretty fun game, but for me it really cemented that irregular commands are just to frustrating to move around, especially with a mix of all kinds of different troop types. But it was fun to see some different stuff then I would usually go for and move around some elephants and godly icons and what not. I think that DBMM is trying to do to much for its own good thou.

Thanks;
Mike

Battle Report - Flames of War - Early War Desert

Hello Again,

So this passed Friday Duncan and I both took a day off so we decided to go for some gaming. The Frostgrave stuff has already been discussed but now I thought I would put up a battle report of the Flames of War game we played. Duncan has already done this, but I am going to put it up anyway as it can be interesting to see both sides, and it's not that much work anyway.

Duncan's Report

German List:

So I wanted to give early war a go since I find it to be quit fun, and have been nostalgic for our Early War campaign that we did a few years back.

I decided to go for a Panzer list (can also do Infantry or Armored Cars (not sure there is a list for this now thou)). So that meant it would be a Panzer 3 force, which as we were playing 1500 points pretty much set my list right there.

You may notice that I am over by 5 points, but I arbitrarily decided that this didn't matter!

Italian List:

I don't have the Italian list, but Duncan was using a Bersagleri force with lots of motorcycle recon units, artillery, air support, tanks, armored cars, anti-tank guns, the whole 9 yards. I was more then a bit intimidated at first, but it is always important to remember that this is a bucket of Italian stuff so not to worry.

Game:

We ended up playing Free for All, which is not my favorite scenario, but is a decent choice for two mobile armies like this. Especially since the Italians weren't keen to dig in and leave their fancy motorcycles behind, for good reason.

Here we are after a pretty symmetrical deployment, one objective on each side of the table for both of us, and armies spread all along. I had a platoon of tanks one each objective, recon on each flank, and infantry in the middle. The shutzen infantry elected to start off in their trucks as they didn't want to be shown up by a bunch of Italians.

My plan in the start was to hold on my left, and the converge to the objective on that flank, avoiding the anti-guns in the town. Also important to spread out and avoid that nasty artillery and plane.

But the Italians decided they wanted to attack hard on both sides, so this caused me to just play defensively for the early game. I had my cars on the left advancing, hoping to bait out the tanks a bit, and also to put some pressure on that side. My infantry had no idea what they were doing, so they just stayed on the hill and bleed. Meanwhile my cars on the right moved at the double to help out the right flank. In the early part of this game I was quite lucky, the Italian tanks failed to make their fire power tests to kill my tanks, where as mine were killing on every hit. They couldn't even take out my armored cars. Then plane flew over every turn but caused no or little damage. So things were going my way very quickly.

I think on this turn the plane killed 1 armored car, so fair enough. The Italians were not quite able to finish out my infantry with shooting, so decided to press for an assault. Unfortunately for them my 2IC was within support range and was on the ball. I think the cars assaulted first and my tank killed one and bailed another stopping that assault. Then the motorcycle guys went in and finished the job at the cost of a few stands. So not a bad trade for me.

Next turn my tanks cleaned up the remnants of the attacking elements and now the time came to move in on the artillery and pay the piper. However as luck would have it the Italian commander was dead and they were almost broken, so instead of having to lead a potentially disastrous assault on the artillery (they are very strong in direct fire in early war typically), I just had to eliminate the conscript infantry around them. That sounded much better.

This they were able to do while using the burning Italian tanks for cover. So we had a pretty solid German victory, but keep in mind that even just the plane alone had a couple of chances that could have easily seen off on of my platoons, so this could have gone another way very easily.

You may think that the terrain is a bit light, but in early war a long ranged gun is 24", so this is very much less of an issue.

Thanks;
Mike

Painting - Vikings - 28mm Ragnar and Lagatha

So a week or 2 ago I was browsing TMP or some other such miniature news sight I saw a post that Stronghold Terrain had done a couple of miniature version of the lead characters from the TV show Vikings (un-licensed I assume). In a batch of impulsiveness I couldn't resist ordering them since they looked great, plus I am fan of that show even thou I have only ever watched the first season. But they are a fun addition to my other Vikings.

Lagatha:

The first I painted was the Shield Maiden, I think this is a very nice model so I tried to do a good job in it which I think came out pretty well. Obviously it looks better in person then a blown up picture from my phone but I do what I can. The face is the weakest part.

Interestingly while I was looking around for what colors to use I came across the photo I assume inspired this:

Paints Used:

GW: Black Spray, Leadbelcher, Iron Breaker, Chaos Black, Mordian Blue, Baneblade Brown

Vallejo: Flat Earth, Dark Sand, White, Wood Grain, Orange Brown, Japenese Uniform, Choclate Brown, Yellow

Foundry: Flesh Triad

Army Painter: Flesh Shade, Electric Blue

Baccus: Basing Paints

Ragnar:

And today I finished up Ragnar, another great model from these guys. I don't have as good of a picture to go off for this one, be he always seems to be wearing leather stuff so I just went with that. They included a few barrels and tire in with my order so I decided to add a barrel to his base as well. So this makes I believe 5 Viking warlords that I have now (2 Ragnars actually hah) which is totally needed.

I found the face came out better this time, the beards make it allot easier to pain for some reason. One great detail I like about these that is often ignored is the swords. Ragnar has an axe so his sword is still in it's sheath, the lady has hers out so it is not also in there. The glue on the base is still wet where I put down some clump foliage but that should go clear as it dries.

Paints Used:

GW: Black Spray, Leadbelcher, Iron Breaker, Chaos Black,  Baneblade Brown

Vallejo: Flat Earth, Dark Sand, White, Wood Grain, Orange Brown, Japenese Uniform, Choclate Brown, Yellow, Luftwaffe Green, USA Tan Earth

Foundry: Flesh Triad

Army Painter: Flesh Shade, Electric Blue, Bondi Green

Baccus: Basing Paints

Liquitex: Umber Shade


I really enjoyed painting these guys, so I will have to keep an eye on their website to see if they add any other cool things.


Pledge Status 2015:
Bought: 220 (2 Vikings)
Painted: 116 (2 Vikings)
Total: -104

Thanks;
Mike

Waterloo Campaign - Turn 3

So we had the next day of our Waterloo Campaign at the club, using Lasalle. So another crop of fun games has been had. We were forced to play outside due to a scheduling conflict, but this actually turned out to be not bad, and is great for the pictures as it turns out.

Prussians vs French at Papelotte

My job was to attack the French forces in Papelotte, I moved a Prussian unit here to block their retreat, having assumed that all units would attack Chemin d'Ohain. So I played with mine and Tods Prussians against Nick using Serge's French.

Nick set up Jeff's terrain to emulate the area we were fighting in, it takes allot of different peopel to play a game it seems hah.

So here we are after turn 1, I took the Prussian infantry backed up by a cavalry brigade, and Nick took the regular French infantry with Old Guard Cavalry (I kept forgetting and thinking they were just curassier, although the difference is not huge).

In my view there are 4 ways to break units in Lasalle if you don't include be lucky.

1. Attack 1 unit with 2 units
2. Even better attack with infantry and cavalry at the same time
3. Use cavalry to force an infantry unit in square and shoot it with cannons for a long time
4. Just be a way better unit (have to be the best vs the worst)

So my plan was to march forward with a bunch of infantry and try to get plan 1 in the middle, and use a mix of 2 and 3 to get a unit on the flank. My cavalry is not great so I decided to march around the flank with my better 2 units, and keep the 2 crap units in the safety of the crop fields. The Old Guard are in reserve so I have a big advantage until they show up.

The French advanced up and then formed into lines, which I consider to be a big mistake. Then I charged in with all my units to give it a go. Sadly the unit charged by my cavalry was able to form into a square, and almost all the French units fell back so no great results yet, but my cavalary is now working its way into the back.

The French fired some shots and adjusted their units where it made sense. On my turn I charged in again and got a better result, a few of the French failed to fall back, also I had been getting unreasonable lucky with my musketry which helped allot. So I had a few units broke and my Cavalry was formed to charge. The French are close to reaching their break point now.

The French artillery was positioned in such a way that it prevented my cavalry from attacking a juicier target, I had hoped that they would move, and didn't align my unit well. So 2 units charge them, but I kept the best unit out to make sure they stayed fresh. Then charged into the line yet again. I was starting to think about the old Guard arriving now, even Nick's bad luck can only keep them out of the game for so long.

And arrive they did, but Nick positioned them in such away that my best unit could slip by into the meat of the French army. My other unit also tried to charge past but the Old Guard was able to clip them with a counter charge, which is not ideal. My artillery got lucky with plan 3 thou and destroyed the infantry unit on the hill, leaving a convenient whole for the Polish Lancers as we will see. Around now the French force was broken so the game turned into a dice rolling contest for Nick and my goal was now to not loose units. I am not great at this part.

General mayhem ensued after this point. Allot of units were broken. The Polish lancers charged up the hill killing one of my infantry units, and then my Landwher cavalry on that side. All the French infantry except for one unit were broken, and the Old Guard tried to beat up my poor mounted to score some easy points. But I was mostly able to avoid them due to the poor original placement. On the counter charge they count as the defender so lucky for me it was impossible for them to kill me on that turn.

So that is how thing went more or less, I took the French objective for a turn with my artillery, but the Polish Lancers came back to contest after they were done stomping all over everything. Nick was able to win the dice rolling contest in the end, as the game ended before his army failed it's morale roll. I would have had to kill the Polish to get a better chance of it, but it was impossible to get rid of such a big dangerous unit by then. So the game was a draw, but a fun game with lots of action. I think my army was also very close to the break point at the end, or at least very close. The old guard just had to go into the field to collect some Landwhere which admitably would have taken some time.

Still the Prussians are steadily doing better hah.

Lasalle is a fun game but has some big problems, I will liekly put my thoughts on that in a later post, maybe separate or with the last battle report we will see.

Thanks;

Mike