WIP Wednesday: C&C Guilford Courthouse & Kasserine Conurbation

 Lots going on this week at the Sound Officers Call command bunker.  I managed to get in a game of "Commands and Colors: Tricorne - The American Revolution" on Saturday night and it was a real dust-up against Dave's militia and regulars to whom I lost, 10-4.  Meanwhile, continuing (slow) preparations for Kasserine Pass.  Sci Fi prep also makes headway this week in getting ready to play my first game of One Page Rules' "Grimdark Future"!

Tearing into the American line in the first few turns, it's safe to say the British won every engagement they fought!  Dave's skillful use of shooting with his militia units, and ability to pass almost all his rally checks was scary.  Still though, I absolutely love Tricorne games.  I dont think I've played a bad game of it, and no one game is the same.

My aggressive, "hold nothing back" attack, and Dave managing to hold onto the hills and pass rally rolls time after time after time assured battlefield destruction for my tough redcoats.  Dave also made good use of the combat cards although we were a bit generous in their application (IE ahem...Dave -A player may play as many Combat cards during a turn as desired, but only one card may be played on any given unit, a lone leader or a unit with an attached leader, during a turn.) .  

Don't worry, though, we made sure to quote "The Patriot" and Tom Wilkinson in almost every dice roll.

This game had some great and unexpected use of powerful cards that really changes the C&C dynamic.  Sigh - if Borg won't publish his SYW variant...I guess I'll have to write one myself!

The right flank - really nasty and vicious fighting between the Highlanders and my Hessians against Virginia Continentals and riflemen.  Most of these units are ready to toss it in with 3 hits...

Hard fighting at the fenceline on the right.

THe British gain the center easily, pushing the militia back, but the thing about these militia troops - the ones that survive the 3 hex retreat distance (!) and the rally roll, seem to come back to shoot at you!  It's Lexington and Concord all over again!  My light-bobs push through the woods on the left and my regulars advance up the center.

We will definitely play Commands and Colors again, in all its forms.  I am thinking this is a perfect fate for my Warlord Epic Minis, by the way, to play on hexed fields in Commands and Colors games.  BattleCry ACW will be the next CC game we play I'm thinking.  Meantime, let's get the WIP action!

And speaking of "the green dragon" here is Tarleton himself with his dragoons, in the wrong coat, of course.  Admittedly, AWI cavalry is a huge issue for me and I need to paint up both Continental and British cavalry.

"Damn him!  Damn that man!" Cornwallis rages over "Tavington's" insubordination

For the Kasserine battle, preparations continue apace as I am getting the town and village hexes ready for the game.  These are my homemade tiny North African mosques and middle eastern buildings, aka pine cubes from amazon!

The black structures have not yet been painted but you can see where i'm going with this.  I dont need alot of towns but I can crank plenty of them out in short time.  Going to put sand down and paint it for these villages.  I think they look cool!  

While finishing up the terrain, we arrive at perhaps the most important component of the battle - the scenario!  Martin Rapier was kind enough to share his with me from his 2020 game and I'll be using it as a good starting point, especially as the OOB is concerned. That will be in a separate post however.

Another sprue of epic minis being painted, in total I'm painting up 2 more Union and 2 more Rebel units, all 3 stands.

More work continues (slow work) on the Prussians, but I'm still making better time than Blucher in getting to Waterloo...

15mm "BLood Pact" Infantry.  What can I say, I've read too many Dan Abnett books.  They'll face off against some under-equipped Planetary Defense Forces.

So big thing this week is scenario development and since this is an "off week" for gaming, I will try to put Peter's "big battle" Napoleonic rules a run out on the table and try out a reasonable sized battle.  Hope everyone is having a great week!