Mostly a catch-up day today on chores, etc around the house but I was able to also catch up a little on my painting and play a very small, very quick game of "MUSKETS & MAYHEM."
So a few pictures from my SYW game, followed by Old Glory 10mm Napoleonic French, Battlefront WWII Canadians, and finally Israeli Halftracks for BATTLEGROUP: Sinai.
The game was a Seven Years War battle between 4 Austrian "Regiments" and 3 Prussian ones. Accompanying them on each side was 1 battery of artillery.
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| Turn 2. The Prussians refuse the left. Austrian artillery limbers to catch up! |
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| An Austrian Regiment charges the Prussian right. The Prussian Regiment fails its pre-charge QC and beats a hasty retreat right off the table! |
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| Never good. 2 Prussian Regiments left facing 4 Austrian ones! All of the units on the table are starting to rack up casualties now. |
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| Like usual, the Hungarians get the worst of it. Shaken with 2 stands left. |
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| The Prussians hold on by their fingernails |
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| Solid Prussian volleys and lots of good dice rolling keep the marauding Austrian units at bay. |
Okay and now onto the painting...Napoleonic French 10mm are up first
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| The latest French Battalion for "Napoleon at War" or whatever else I feel like playing. (the unflocked one) |
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| Brigade Commander. |
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| Light Infantry progress for this battalion. Not finished with them yet. |
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| The Brigade in all its glory. |
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| The first Battalion - finished a few weeks ago |
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| The Second Battalion WIP |
Next up? The Canadians for my Battlegroup Overlord Authie Game (or Disposable Heroes, Bolt Action, etc)
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| They just need their detailing, unit patches, helmets etc, and flock |
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| Bren Team. Truth be told, I'm happier with my own version of British Battledress over the Vallejo BB. Mine was a shade darker. |
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| PIAT team |
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| Rifle Squad. |
And now my unpainted (well they come prepainted but of course I'm going to repaint them) Israeli half tracks from POC. These tracks are loaded up with MGs and kit from multiple sources. These are the first Israeli vehicles I'm preparing for my upcoming Battlegroup: Sinai game.
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| Quality Casting Israeli trooper. All my Israelis will be rebased individually for Battlegroup: Sinai and various other games. (Seek Out, Close With, & Destroy, Force on Force, FUBAR, etc) |
Very much looking forward to Battlegroup Sinai...a favourite period.
ReplyDeleteAlso see a lot of good results in the M&M game. Real tactics work, and one bad QC can really ruin your day. I feel another game coming on with it.
Darren,
DeleteMine as well. The AIW have some of my favorite battles of all time.
The M&M was purely a "pickup" game as I was checking out some of my SYW paintwork and decided to have a quick go at it. Worked well and even with 4 attacking Austrian Regiments, the good Prussian volleys and troop quality held them at bay and I believe it ended with what you could call a "draw."
As for BG: Sinai, I'm working out the details, unit costs, etc and will have a small game shortly.
Also if AIW is your thing, check out this Cold War Commander game I played a year ago - this is one of the most fun games I've ever played:
Deletehttp://soundofficerscall.blogspot.com/2014/07/middle-eastern-turkey-shoot.html
An excellent looking game. I think I remember seeing that at the time last year with those excellent new vehicles you got.
ReplyDeleteWhat did you think of CWC? I haven't tried it yet.
I actually like CWC very much. Do you own BCK or CWC? CWC and BKC are very solid systems. At one point in my life I played so much of it them with microarmor I thought I would not need another system again! (we all know how that turns out).
DeleteI also alter the rules somewhat - like "sticky hits" on AFVs meaning I retain hits instead of discarding them unless I'm playing the platoon scale (1:4) when I would keep them.
The rules for suppression and fall back are the best I've seen, and I really like the way specialists, artillery, air and the like are used. Come to think of it, I'm not sure why I don't play BKC and CWC more often since I really enjoy them both. Both are very, very solid systems.
My problem at home has been the switch to 15s. Both BKC and CWC need a bigger table for larger, megalomaniac games and with my "modest" 6 x 4 table, I can only put about a company on each side on the board.
You can actually have a very satisfying WW2 game with 2 or 3 StugIIIs on one side, a few shermans on the other and a bunch of infantry (closer to the actual MTOEs).
OK off my soapboax now! :)
Some very nice and diverse Works in Progress there Steve. Those Nappies are particularly lovely. Was that a 15mm WW2 Soviet Command group I saw in the background of those QC Israelis? :-)
ReplyDeleteI agree - different scales or games need different rules and scratch different itches. I have to say that three times every time I invest in another to justify it to myself...
Paul,
DeleteI always have alot of irons in the fire (or bite off more than I can chew!). I like 10mm Naps as they're cheap and they paint up fast! And you don't have to be a painting expert for good results.
Depending on how quickly I get my Napoleon At War stuff painted up, I may just dive into 10mm Horse & Musket for other periods as well (I already have quite a few bags of 10mm SYW).
There is a Soviet Command Group for Battlegroup with your name on it sir!
Lately I've been on a big kick to actually start downsizing my ambitious collection.
No Sir no I implore you!
DeleteDownsizing is actually Heresy in disguise!
In my (not inconsiderable) experience, I have concluded that if I have bought something at some time, then I have an interest in it. That interest may become latent for awhile as my attention wanders elsewhere, but eventually it will come back. My 15mm Vietnam collection is a good case in point. With very few exceptions, anything I have sold off I have come to later regret (often years later) and sometime been forced to repurchase with no small measure of sour taste. On the other hand, rediscovering old projects is a very cost effective delight.
I instead propose that your issue is not now of downsizing, but one of effective long term storage. I have invested in some of those large watertight plastic tubs into which treasures can be stored without fear of mould and other damage, and store in out of the way places like under floor crawl spaces and roof rafters. I promise you that your wife will never find them...
On reading this reply again it appears I am displaying somewhat compulsive and possibly addictive tendencies...
PS There are some nice offerings in 10mm for ECW too...
Paul,
DeleteThank you for that great advice! I once literally dumped out a HUGE Army for Epic Space Marine/Epic40k that I had spent years amassing (through my teenage years and into my early 20s). That was a very big mistake and I spent the remainder of my 20s and a considerable amount of $$$ purchasing stuff on Ebay and yes even from the "Axis of Evil: GW / Specialist Games" (paying close to 40 dollars for 4 Land Raiders!!!!!).
In this instance I think it's wise to at least start looking at scales I "mostly" play and stick with them. (I have napoleonics in 6mm, 10mm, 15mm, and 25mm). It's funny I can't bring myself to part with my plastic HaT 25mm Naps and probalby because they're the most light hearted and they remind me of playing with toy soldiers as a kid. There is the terrain issue to consider - the fact that the overwhelming majority of my terrain fits one scale and not the other 3...Still though, as you cogently pointed out, I don't think there's anything inthe world that could successfully get me to part with those HaT Napoleonics. Even the unpainted ones.
Thank you for your concern re this! Getting rid of anything in this hobby would most certainly leave me regretful. I'll look into storage (we actually just added some floor space to our attic and that might be an option :)
I dont think you're being compulsive or addictive at all - maybe you're enabling those tendencies in me however ;)
in regards to the 10mm ECW stuff - a few years back the Army had me stationed in Arizona for school for about a year and that's when I discovered the joys of Old Glory's 10mm line. Up to that point, most if not all of my 10mm were GHQ's single-based Napoleonics, which I'm pretty sure you paint legions of in purgatory, so when the blocks of infantry came to my house I painted up my entire first bag in a day or so! I then bought some SYW, and, since the movie "Kingdom of Heaven" was so good, I just had to buy a Crusades force for Warmaster Ancients!!! Unfortunately the Crusaders, Prussians, Salahaddin Cavalry, and Hungarian Musketeers have all remained largely un-open as teh Army sent me across the country again and again (and across the Atlantic to the sandbox a few times in there) and my megalomania became dormant :)
I will look into the ECW 10s. Always wanted to start that era.