San Antonio Muster, 25 July 2015

Some of the LSHM leadership have been organizing small mini-conventions to get people to try new games. Yesterday was the second time I participated.

I brought the 28mm LPE game out. Although the "con" only ran from 11am to 3pm, I was asked to run the game twice, so we went until 4:30.

I ran four players each time, French against Anglo-Brunswick. The games were bloodbaths, as LPE tends to be. I think the players really enjoyed themselves, as their was a lot of spirited mocking of each other and cheering at the dice.

Here are the best pics I could find. First, the table all set and ready to go:

Here I am helping the players work out a combat. The line of British flags in the foreground are Ray's beautiful Foundry figures.

Hmm. Again I'm pointing at toy soldiers.

And finally, the entire attending crowd gathered behind my game for a group shot.

Organizing and repairs

Talking about LPE on the Chipco Games Yahoo Group got me back in touch with my friend Steve S. Steve is primarily an ancients and medieval gamer (he is listed in the credits of several of the Warhammer Ancients Battles supplements), but enjoys all of the Chipco Games.

Recently Steve has been conducting a solitaire campaign using the Chipco rules Days of Knights to resolve the battles. He has been posting the results on the Yahoo group.

Steve suggested he and I get together for a game at a newly established San Antonio store, Tabletop. Tabletop’s new location is only a couple miles from each of our homes. So last Friday night we arranged to have a game there. While everyone around us played GW or Star Wars, we brought out the Chipco rules and historical figures!

Steve brought along Successor armies, but used Fantasy Rules! Tournament and Campaign Edition or FR!TCE as the rules. It was the first time I had used them, but having played LPE for so long I picked it up easily. Not enough to prevent being thoroughly defeated, but at least I understood why!

Then I pulled out my LPE armies and we had a game of that. It was a very bloody game.

Neither game was particularly interesting in a tactical way. There was little terrain (okay, there wasn’t any terrain) and essentially we lined up and had at each other. Basically, we were refamiliarizing ourselves with the rules and trying to generate some interest in historicals. We did get a couple, "Ooo ahhs."

On other subjects, Ray has been on a collecting spree. And since he’s coming out to San Antonio in a few days he has had the goodies sent to my house. So I’ve been vicariously opening his packages, pawing through the toys, and sending him pictures to tease him. Objects have so far all been Napoleonics from Warlord Games, including French Light Infantry, Guard Grenadiers, Chasseurs a Cheval, Vistula Legion infantry, paints, brushes and the free figure of Napoleon on foot.

I’ve been cleaning up and organizing my 28mm Napoleonic collection. Ray and I long ago decided to base all of our 28mm stuff singly and then use sabots to play any particular rule set. It works, but I managed to get lots of units split up into different boxes and otherwise mixed up. All are now properly sorted, but I found a lot of detached cavalry riders, broken bayonets and swords, and missing flags. Surgery is being performed.

By the way, what is the Interwebz opinion about broken swords, bayonets, and plumes? Do you bother fixing them? Only the “easy” fixes?

Coming Back

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged. We’ll skip the why’s and wherefore’s and just move on to toy soldiering!

Ray and I have been gaming partners for almost twenty years. Early during our association he discovered a new set of fast play Napoleonic rules titled Le Petit Empereur by Chipco Games.

LPE was an immediate hit with our club. We could play a game to a full conclusion in an evening. Sometimes even two games. It is similar to DBA in that the basic game has a fixed number of elements (28 + a general) with each country having a different mix. There are only seven unit types:

EC – Elite Cavalry
OC – Other Cavalry
ET – Elite Infantry
LN – Line Infantry
LT – Light Infantry (in the 1st edition, these were more like conscripts)
ART – Foot Artillery
LtA – Light (Horse) Artillery

Our club, Lone Star Historical Miniatures, played in 15mm and many of the club members built armies. In fact, I have ten or so! Soon we were playing games including two, three, and even more armies. Our local convention, MillenniumCon, even hosted a hugely successful LPE tournament in 1998.

As such things go we eventually burned out and moved on to other games.

But in 2006 Ray and I were finally moving into 28mm historical games. We decided to use MillenniumCon as a deadline to motivate us to prepare new armies. Our first subject was Napoleonics. Although we wanted to play large games with big units of 24 or more infantry, we knew we needed an intermediate goal.

So out came LPE again. I ended up building a bespoke 28mm French army, but Ray did as originally planned and used his Anglo-Brunswick LPE army as a building block to larger army. At the 2006 convention we put on the game several times and it was a great success with players, both returning veterans and new conscripts. Sadly the websites hosting our pictures are gone but the AAR is at The Miniatures Page. I put on additional LPE games at 2009 ChimaeraCon and 2010 MillenniumCon.

Ray used his original Anglo-Brunswick army to expand into a 25:1 British division. Now he has decided that the plethora of plastic kits means it is time to build a French army as well. We are going to use this coming MillenniumCon as another deadline to build up our armies. I already have French, British, Dutch-Belgian and Hanoverians. I will use this opportunity to build Prussians.

But instead of just 28 elements per side, we plan to have at least double-sized armies and hopefully triple! Stay tuned to this channel as we work toward MillenniumCon!

You fight a war with the army you have…

A quote from Don Rumsfeld? Well, actually, Ross Mac got me started by this post at Battle Game of the Month:

“Like many another Autocrat who has come to power with absolute right over the life and death of his subjects and control of the army, I find my power over my armies of Toy Soldiers less absolute than one would expect. Once the bands have played, the soldiers have paraded by and cheered and the senior officers have pledged their allegiance, I find myself not starting from scratch to build an ideal army according to my reveries but dealing with an existing infrastructure, a limited treasury, shortages of barracks and men and the enemy pressing at the gates.”

My 28mm Napoleonic collection started out from a desire from my friend Ray and I to put on a “cool” Napoleonic participation game at our local convention, Millennium. We started with 120 or so figures per side, playing Le Petit Empereur. Then we used those armies to expand to 30:1 ratio, using Wellington Rules. Then, megalomania set in.

My French-Allied army was based loosely on Marshal Suchet’s Army of Aragon in the Peninsula. For Wellington Rules, figures are singly based in order to use the game’s main mechanism, called “straggling.” I won’t go into that now, but suffice to say I have a French corps at 30:1 based singly. Oh, and a British division, too.

Now, my “French” army only had a single French infantry division. So I recently contact Neil at Reinforcements By Post and contracted for another French infantry division, 12 battalions of 24 figures each of Old Glory 2nd Edition. But without a game, I never based them.

This year I am helping to put on a game at Millennium. So it was time to base these troops. Oh, did I mention I also picked up a brigade of Perry Nassauers from the talented Roger Murrow? They needed based, too. That’s another five battalions of 30 figures each, plus some Neapolitans!

So this weekend, armed with a nice drinkable Italian red, I have done the deed:

Sadly, and back to the topic indicated by the title, we have decided to move on to 20:1 units. Arrgh. I guess these will just be small French battalions!

Cheers!

Raising an army takes time

It has been since June 25th??! Really? Yikes!

During this time I have managed to play several games of The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game at the new GW store. Thanks to all involved, especially Charlie and Art. I won a game, too!

LOTR motivated me to finish a few figures to have a completely painted, 500 point army. I got four (4) whole figures done! What, you want proof?

I have also been plodding on the Prussians. I have to admit:  those of you out there that crank out dozens and scores of figures? I have no idea how you do it.

I don’t like painting, even though I love fielding a force that I have painted myself. I can even get into “the groove” on occasion and get some serious painting done. But not right now.

I tried to do production-line painting, but that was just depressing. So I am now working on the Prussians in 8 figure blocks. I have 16 complete and have just finished putting black on the next group, which includes the command figures. I had to stop because I was getting tired and sloppy. Still, I am progressing, if slowly.

I also took an evening to assemble and prime a box of plastic Warlord Landwehr. You can see them here with the completed Perry figures.

I primed them with ArmyPainter Navy Blue, as in the article on the Warlord site. I think they are not dark enough blue, but will see when they are done.

Thanks for stopping by. Hopefully more interesting stuff in the (near) future!

One down. How many to go?

So here is the first Prussian after his bath in white primer. I had hoped to use ArmyPainter blue spray, but it was not dark enough. I note, however, that they just came out with a darker shade that I might try for the Landwehr.

And here he is with basic colors blocked in. I can’t believe that it has been FOUR YEARS since I painted a figure! Let’s just say my brush skills are somewhat atrophied. Anyway, I decided on the unit will be the 10th Line (1st Silesian), so yellow collar and cuffs with white shoulder tabs.

And here it is with a brushed on coat of ArmyPainter Quickshade Strong. I am very pleased with how it looks at this stage, although these multi-megapixel cameras sure point out the spots you miss! It will need to be completely dry before I do a few highlights and the coat of Anti-Shine.

All in all, I’m quite pleased. I’ve never been a fast painter, nor a high quality one. But I will be proud to have a new unit from my own workbench for my games.

Cheers!

Part the second, or “He’s kept his focus for 24 hours…”

First, let me just say that the current score is:

• Perry Brothers:  46
• Ed:  0

It took four (4) hours to assemble the first box:

Even then, I still need to get the belly pouches onto the Jäger. You can see the pouches in the lower left of the pic.

My compliments to those of you who like to model with plastic. This was tedious work, made bearable only by the CWF interview with Henry Hyde that was my listening companion.

Anyway, I’m beat and my eyes hurt even though I was using my brand new, nifty Ott High Definition Craft Light with magnifier. So, now I’m sipping a nice Sangiovese wine that reminds me of our trip to Tuscany.

And then I remembered the REST of the lead pile. I completely forgot about the three boxes of Warlord Games Landwehr. I think I need to decide on which units soon!

Now I just need for all the new Perry and Warlord goodies to arrive at the US distributor, Architects of War, to REALLY put me behind the curve!

A new direction—to Waterloo!

Here it is, the 196th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. I have been fiddling around with various projects the last few weeks, but I have finally made a decision:

I am going to build a 28mm Waterloo Project, and I’m going to do all the Prussians myself.

There. THAT is a line in the sand table.

So, over the next few weeks I’m going to do some plotting and scheming here on the blog, while I also get started in the painting department.

“The WHAT department??” I hear you ask.

Yep. I have one other project that I have done all my own painting, and that is my Lord of the Rings project with the Games Workshop figures. The Prussians will be my second.

I already have a respectable amount of 28mm Napoleonics, including 24 battalions of French infantry, each of 24 figures. I have a small force of British, too.  Plus my good friend and gaming partner-in-crime Ray has more Brits, plus most of the Brunswick contingent.

The plan is simple, if daunting. I will buy and paint all of the new Perry Miniatures releases. I have three boxes of the plastic line infantry now, which will become the first regiment. Which regiment? Good question. I’m not sure yet.

The very first historical miniatures I ever purchased and painted were 15mm Minifig Prussians. I painted them as the Leib Regiment. For some reason, I have always been fascinated by that particular unit. Problem is, it wasn’t at Waterloo! Leib was in III Corps at Wavre.

So what units to paint for Waterloo? I have several books on the battle to help me decide, including Adkins Waterloo Companion, Bowden’s Armies at Waterloo, Haythornethwaite’s The Waterloo Armies, Hofschroer’s two volume The Waterloo Campaign, Linck’s Napoleon’s Generals, and Nofi’s The Waterloo Campaign, as well as Robinson’s The Battle of Quatre Bras and Uffindell’s The Eagles Last Triumph. Oh, and plenty of Ospreys.

My next problem is to decide how I’m going to paint all of these. I am interested in using the Army Painter method, as I’m not a very good or fast painter. However, based on some pictures I’ve seen, their dark blue is not dark enough for Prussian blue. Something I will need to consider.

Finally for now, I want to blame—I mean thank several people whose sites have motivated for this project. In no particular order:

The League of Augsburg, both for their interesting rules Republic to Empire and their forum with LOTS of great eye candy.

Martin Kelly’s Befreiungskriege blog, good for all things Napoleonic Prussian.

Martin is very partial to Calpe Miniatures’ exquisite Prussian figures. I like them too. They will probably be added to my force as well, especially if I can get ahead of the Perrys’ release curve and need cavalry.

Von Peter Himself, and his lovely and entertaining blog.

And the always amusing banter at the WD3 forum.

And of course Ray, whose fault it always is, no matter what is wrong.

OK. Let’s get this thing started. Here’s the “lead pile” so far:

The ground we fight on…

I have been asked how I made the ground sheet used in my latest battle report. The answer is that I stole ideas from other gamers!

Back in the days of The Courier magazine, there was an article by a gamer who made 6mm Franco-Prussian maps that were just gorgeous. I actually saw them at Cold Wars and they were even better in person. He used T-shirt material, dyed and airbrushed, stretched over Styrofoam--or expanded polystyrene if you prefer.

Now, for Big Battalions I needed a big map, which was portable, relatively small, and relatively cheap to make.

I grabbed one of my wife’s 40% discount coupons and trotted off to Jo-Ann Fabrics. I bought a piece of 100% cotton muslin, in a single piece that was 96 inches wide and 11 yards long. Cost was about $20 with the discount. I also picked up four bottles of green Rit Dye.

After washing the muslin to get rid of sizing, I poured very hot water into a 20 gallon rubber container, and mixed in the Rit with a wooden stick. Note the directions for Rit say to do it in your washing machine, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do that. Then I slowly layered in the fabric.

Two things here:
1. I used rubber gauntlets up to my elbows. Rit will dye ANYTHING it touches. You have been warned.
2. Do this outside, in the grass or somewhere that you don’t mind sloshing the dye on. Rit will dye ANYTHING it touches. You have been warned again.

I left the fabric in the container for 4 days, occasionally stirring it, unfolding the fabric, and mixing again. The washing machine would have been faster, but I did not want to risk staining it green (or having my wife kill me for doing so). After 4 days, I poured out the dye, and let the cloth dry for a week.

Then I bought a variety of cheap green spray paints, plus brown and blue. I laid out the cloth in my garage and taped out the patterns.

Two more lessons:
1. Put newspaper under the cloth, as the spray paint WILL bleed through since you have to apply a lot.
2. Use three times wider tape or paper than you think is necessary to prevent overspray. I thought 2-3 inches wide would be enough but as you can see in the final product there was more overspray than looks good.

I worked from a map for our Napoleonic battle at the Millennium Convention 2007. For the green fields, I just randomly picked areas to give that look you see from an airplane.

So, voila! One 7 foot by 33 foot reusable green ground cloth. You can even fold up unused portions underneath without a problem.



For hills, I place 3 inch Styrofoam underneath and use T- or U-pins to mold the cloth over the hill. For towns, I put my buildings down on gray felt, cut to the shape of the building, so that if necessary the buildings can be removed but the location is still there.

You could even do smaller pieces and then piece them together just like most gamers do with their 2-foot or 4-foot terrain boards.

Here is one last photo of the final product.

MConX big Napoleonics game

Here's a teaser from the big game this weekend. We hope to post more over the next couple days over at http://huzzahm10.blogspot.com/.

This is a picture of the table just prior to the game starting. Sadly, it was 8 feet shorter than intended.

33 foot by 7 foot "map"

This is the table cover for MillenniumCon 2007. We are putting on a corps-size Napoleonic game, with 24-figure battalions.

There will a styrofoam ridgeline in the center where the big monochrome light green splotch is, and of course it will be decorated with trees, lichen, buildings, and a thousand or two figures!

A ground cloth may not be the most beautiful thing, but it beats plain felt in looks and is a lot more portable than terrain boards when you drive a Honda...

Ed

September already?

Although obviously intended mainly for my Hesse-Fedora project, I also intended that this blog would cover my other gaming interests. Now, here it is September already, and I had only a single post in August! So, what's been happening on the toy soldier front?

First, I have spent most of my gaming time preparing for the big Napoleonic game that my friend Ray and I have scheduled for Millennium Con X in Austin, TX on November 10. To that end, I've been basing figures and making movement trays. Sadly, we have decided to make one modification to the rules, and are using 2-deep figures to represent a line, that changes the basing for columns as well. Of course, all of my movement trays were already built for columns using the original rules...C'est la guerre!

I am fielding a reinforced French corps at 30:1. There are 25 battalions, 30 squadrons, and 21 miniature guns, about 800 figures all told. A complete OB is at Huzzah!

Here are some of the Napleonics:


Hussars


French 13th Cuirassiers


Most of the corps...

Napoleonics!

My first era of wargaming, and the one I to which I always come back. Right now I am deeply involved in a large 28mm game to be presented at MillenniumCon 10 in Austin, TX. For specific details, see the Huzzah! blog.