Ships of all kinds!

Well, two kinds anyway.

I've been painting again, and again have some things to show you. This will allow you all to heap upon me the praise which I so richly and obviously deserve. In many ways, this blog could be considered a public service.

Anyway, enough modesty. Let's look at some pictures!

First off, another Shaltari Voidgate for Dropfleet Commander. You may be getting fed up of pictures of these by now, but let me tell you, it's nothing compared to the tedium of painting the things.

This is a new photo, although there's no real way to tell.

Voidgates are an absolute requirement for the Shaltari fleet (they're the only way for the blue hedgehog fellas to land troops, which is the whole point of almost every mission in the game), so you have to have several. However, they're also the most involved model to paint, at least in the colour scheme I'm using.

All of which is to say, sadly, I'm stuck painting several more of these, and you'll have to look at them. Sorry.

All is not lost, however, as I've also painted something new...

...and photographed it badly!

Those are Azurite light cruisers. They have the "Vectored" rule which allows them to make turns at any point during their move, not just the start. Normally, that would only be possible using a course change order and would add a spike to each ship, making it easier to target. So I'm hoping these can be like a stiletto blade slipped neatly between the ribs of the enemy fleet (ooh, that was evocative, wasn't it?). To be honest, if they're useless I'll be somewhat irritated as they've cost me two cruiser sprues (they have to come groups of at least two) that could have been used for something more obviously powerful. Time will tell.

And finally, one last thing to show you...

Ships again, but of a subtly different type

A couple of American Civil War armoured gunboats. I got these the last time we had some interest in Black Powder, which was long enough ago that I can't remember where I got them. However, we've just had a bit of a resurgence of interest, and Pete's acquired a fort. We need a fort and these for the next scenario in the Black Powder ACW book, so it seemed like time for them to make an appearance. Reading the rules, ships in Black Powder seem to be extremely situational (which I suppose makes sense as otherwise they'd be far, far too powerful for the game) so they may never achieve anything, but it makes life a bit more interesting I suppose.

So there you go. Now, onto my scores!

Painted: 86
Acquired: 78

Still seems like I should find something to paint a lot of quickly - we're quite close to me going back into negative painting equity...

Salute the Cavalry!

For once a couple of things have happened that are worth blogging about. Try not to be too shocked.

First of all, I've painted more things!

Not big things, admittedly, but still, here they are...

Some dismounted Union cavalry! These match to the mounted versions I already have painted, so now, should I ever keep my cavalry around long enough to allow them to dismount, I'll be able to represent that clearly. So that's nice.

Next, I went to Salute! We seem to instituted a weird system where someone chaperones Kieron on his birthday trip down to London, and this year it was my turn. We arrived after only a short delay due to an accident on the M1, and a shorter one as we drove somewhat randomly around residential streets to find the parking space I'd booked. 

It was worth the wait though! I picked up several things:

Stuff!

I got the Salute free mini (a Russian standard bearer that might work for VBCW at some point), a free Wild West Exodus thing (might work as a wizard for Kings of War), two free Mantic zombies (which will presumably work as zombies), a painting guide for multicam from Spectre (useful if I ever get around to painting my US army), a free die (for rolling things), and a free sweet (for eating).

I also spent some money, and got a pack of seven defensive cloches that I'll use for Bolt Action, an MDF fountain, some small scale flexible roads, and the pre-release Shaltari command cards for Dropfleet Commander.

So, more work for myself there. Still, I was more restrained than I might have been, so, just barely, I avoided increasing the lead pile more than my painting had reduced it - I painted 12 tiny models but acquired 11 of various sizes on the day.

So watch out for something happening with all of this stuff! And now, numbers.

Painted: 81

Acquired: 78

On the right track

I've been painting again! There's absolutely no way that anyone could find this to be less than entirely thrilling.

Admittedly, I haven't done a lot of painting. But I do at least have something to show for it, which is this...

Choo choo!

Train tracks! I got these a while ago when the trend in our group was for 6mm American Civil War, and we needed terrain. And, you know, "terrain" = "train", maybe, or something.

Wow, that was terrible. I feel bad for you having read it.

Anyway... last weekend, our ACW campaign led to the battle of Vicksburg. The campaign rules generated a battlefield based on the map, and that had a railway line running into it. Kieron casually mentioned a couple of days before the game that we could ignore the railroad, which for some reason made me incredibly determined to paint one before the game.

So, you know, I did that.

The best part, of course, is that the track comes as two dozen separate pieces. Therefore, I'm counting it as 24 models towards my tally of painting for the year. This might be a bit of a stretch, but the key thing is that it'll bother Pete, which is an excellent reason to do more or less anything.

Here's the tally, increased by 24 on the "painted" side...


Painted: 69

Aquired: 67

This puts me over the top! Choo choo!

Small Guns Go For It

I've been quiet here for a while, but in an unusual move I've actually painted more than one or two models - although admittedly they are all pretty small. Let's have a look at my tiny achievements...

First off, some ACW artillery.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! 

We need these for the first battle in a campaign that we started a couple of weeks ago. These are actually Parrott rifles, so would normally qualify for extra range in Black Powder. I suspect they won't have that ability in the campaign game, but it's nice to have these available in any case, since it increases my options for future games.

Next, some casualty markers!

Captions about dead horses. Errr.... something about glue?

These have been sat amongst my painting stuff for months, but needed finishing off, so I finally did that as I was in an ACW mood. My experience of Black Powder is that most of my units take damage (and then I lose) so it's worth having more of these ready.

Speaking of things that needed finishing off...

Legs are overrated!

It's a terminator crawler. This was sat on my desk in need of a base, so adding one lets me finish it and add to my painted tally...


Painted: 45

Aquired: 67

See? 

Teeny Tiny Town!

It's a post! About some stuff I've painted! Those have been a little thin on the ground recently. But never mind, let's not mope, stiff upper lip and so on. 

I've painted some buildings for Black Powder. Since we've been playing American Civil War in 6mm with Black Powder, these are, somewhat obviously, 6mm ACW buildings. 

Here's the first one...

It's a sawmill!

These are from Leven Miniatures. I picked them up at Joy of Six last month.

It's a shack!

Joy of Six was good, as always. Made more interesting this year as we actually had plans to play games in 6mm, so were more invested in what we were looking at.

It's a church!

It's a blockhouse!

It's a forge!

So there you go - I painted stuff! Hopefully at some point in the not too distant future these can grace a table.

Horse Trading

Or something. Sometimes I feel compelled to try to come up with a joke title where none is available.

Anyway...

As I've been banging on about recently, my little group of gamers is planning to play the first scenario from Glory Hallelujah, the American Civil War supplement for Black Powder.

The game is planned for tomorrow, after Joy of Six, so it's convenient that I've finished the models I
need to supply for the game!

Here they are...

The cavalry! The Wilson's Creek scenario gives the Union a single, tiny, cavalry unit, so here it is.

Tiny!

We also need more commanders, so I'm providing two of them:

Commandery!

Glory Hallelujah lets you use commanders on foot... but I don't have any models for that, so I'll be sticking with mounted ones for now.

Oh! Also, I painted some skirmishers for use when changing formations with my infantry regiments. This is them, here:

Skirmishy!

The Wilson's Creek scenario will be interesting. As the Union force we'll be outnumbered, and the Confederates have a flank attack. However, we can send a brigade to attack the enemy from the rear, so we should be able to achieve something with that - at least use it to prevent a total whitewash!

Tune in next time to see how that works out for us...

Stating the obvious

More tiny American Civil War stuff!

Pete is now painting Confederates, which will be useful as someone for me to fight.

However, Kieron and Wes appear to be letting the side down.

So, we're stepping down our plans a little. We were intending to tackle the first scenario in Glory Hallelujah. However, the Black Powder rulebook contains a smaller ACW scenario, which we can manage with the forces we have models for. So, I need to get these painted by the 17th.

First step: infantry!

State Troops!

Federal Troops!

The state troops (can't remember which states, or be bothered to check. This blog is free, what do you want?) are intended to allow me to pick out units that have different attributes. This was going to be important for the Battle of Wilson's Creek, which we're now not doing yet. Ho hum.

Anyway! Since the scenario needs a picket which starts the game in skirmish formation, I think I have enough infantry!

I still need more commanders, and some cavalry. That should be doable though...

Limbering up for ACW Black Powder!

More! More! I've painted more (More!) 6mm American Civil War stuff for Black Powder.

And here it is...

Woo!

Limbers!

Now, you may be wondering, did I paint those just so I could make the lame pun in this post's title?

I couldn't possibly comment.

More Federal Fellas

I'm back!

Hot on the trail of the artillery I posted about last time, here's some more to add to the slowly growing pile of 6mm Union forces for our planned Black Powder outing.

A brigade!

It's a second infantry brigade! I really needed one. With these, I now have something approaching an army that could play a game by itself, albeit a small one.

I've found more of a rhythm with these than I did the last time I did any painting of them, so motoring through some more should hopefully be pretty straightforward.

Just a short post... back to it then!

The North Rises! Very, very slowly...

Right, I'm back again, strap in!

You may recall, if you've been avidly following this blog (and why on Earth wouldn't you be?) that as a group we started a 6mm American Civil War project an embarrassing amount of time ago.

It was then somewhat ruined by Pete secretly painting everything and rendering everyone else's efforts somewhat pointless. 

Still, we'd all bought the models, and Black Powder, our system of choice, is a good game. So when the ACW supplement came along for Black Powder, and Warlord sent us all a £10 voucher for not buying anything from them for a while, we leapt into action and immediately started bickering over what we should do next. Then we bought the book.

And a very nice book it is too!

It contains, amongst other things, some scenarios with worked out army lists. Pete is unavailable for weekend gaming throughout June, but we've agreed to tackle the first scenario, Wilson's Creek, on his return. 

This simply requires that we prepare Union forces of about five times the strength we had available the last time we played, so that should be no problem at all...

To that end, I've done these:

Boom! Bang! And so on!

Alright, these weren't hugely difficult, but I can now remember what colours I was using to paint these models, and we've got artillery now if nothing else.

It may very well be that we don't get everything done in time (but don't tell Pete). However, adding anything at all to this project is good, and there's no reason we can't play at least something with whatever forces we end up with.

So keep watching here to see what that is!

The Just War Doctrine

Recently, our merry band convened for our second game of Black Powder using 6mm American Civil War models.

In the first test game, *mumble* months ago, each side consisted of just a few infantry units, so we could get a handle on the rules. Kieron and I had the union forces, against Wes and Pete's confederates.

It was in that test game that Kieron made the error of saying "that's just war" when Wes was bleating about the small disparity of numbers on each side. Black Powder doesn't use points, you see, so we'd just lined up the very small forces we had available and had at it. There was some scenario that we came up with, but at this remove I've no idea what it was.

Anyway. The "just war" comment seems to have made something of an impression. Pete in particular was so upset by it that he painted an entire army, in secret, before the next game. Wes also increased the size of his force and added some artillery. This feat is particularly impressive when you consider that Wes and Pete would both have had their vision blurred by bitter tears this whole time. The "that's just war, dickheads!" banner on Pete's command stand was a particularly stirring touch.

So, what we, the gallant and sportsmanlike players on the union side, thought would be another small skirmish was in fact a case of a very small union force being caught on the hop by a much larger formation of sneaky rebels!

The Black Powder rules really shone here. We were able to quickly come up with a rough scenario - the union force would try to retreat the length of the table, while partly encircled by the confederates. We figured that if the union could escape with more units than it lost, that could count as a union win - anything else would go to the confederacy. As simple as that! We deployed the union force around a small farm, with the confederates off the table - they would move on in their first turn.

I took pictures, but I can only vaguely remember what happened here, so I'll try to roughly sketch it out with the aid of the photos.

We'd decided that my mid-sized brigade would try to stall the rebel advance, so I lined it up by the farm in order to intercept Pete's large infantry force as it moved forward.

At the same time, Kieron's two smaller brigades struck out towards the location of the confederate flanking force. The hope was that they could fight through there, and then have a fairly open line of retreat.

Artillery opened up on my position, but mercifully didn't achieve much. I didn't have much to do there really, so fell back to the foot of a hill.

Pete's force got a bit disorganised (we'd decided that the rebels would be inexperienced so they had to roll a die to see if they got into trouble the first time they attacked) but in general they were rolling toward me. My plan was to retreat in stages, with a regiment firing at the advancing enemy as the rest of my force pulled away.

Kieron and Wes clashed, and things got messy there. After some shooting and even some charges, both of Wes' brigades had broken, but so had one of Kieron's. Kieron's second brigade wasn't looking too healthy either.

Pete's cavalry tried to get involved, but repeatedly did so badly on orders tests that it could only trot forward a bit and never actually met the enemy.

Back at the hill, I got into trouble. It all looked so simple - just keep falling back and give some fire to put the rebels off their stride - but I just couldn't get the dice to agree, and I failed the orders test several times in a row.

Thus it was that Pete's infantry was able to pour fire into mine and even bring up a cannon for enfilading fire, while I was caught out of formation and barely able to do anything in return. Eventually, my force succumbed to the inevitable and broke.

On the flank, Kieron made a try at rescuing something, but with only a single target left to aim at, the confederates were able to break his remaining brigade too.

So a loss to the union, but not a terrible one given the circumstances - we at least got rid of a couple of enemy brigades.

As I said earlier, I was impressed with how Black Powder handled this very uneven matchup. Right until the end, it never felt like there was nothing that Kieron and I could do, it always felt like a bit more luck would have seen us through it.

So it's a shame that we can never play it again, really...