Lord of the Ring battle

Still under the weather with a lingering cold, I got over to Francis' for a Monday Night game.  A 'Lord of the Ring' affair with me controlling a command until his son would arrive.

I don't know anything about the rules or even the types of combatants as I have not read Tolkien's Middle Earth books nor seen any of the movies - gasp!  To these players about a sin as a priest never reading the bible.  But there you go.

Nevertheless, a spear is a spear, an archer an archer.  I had the "Riders of Rohan"  armed with bow and hand weapon with a shield.

Nicely arranged bow up front, hand to hand guys in support. As I was told everyone had bow and shield but needed room to "see" a target or to charge or fall back; and all that when going around woods, my later formation was not as neat and tidy.

  On the left flank I faced Francis' bad boys on 'dogs'. 

close-up of the "dogs".  GW LotR model. 

the bad guys chieftain

the opening skirmish

The rules were patiently explained to me but I still had some lapses.  "What am I rolling for?", I would ask as I threw the dice. "For the kill", was the response as the die came to rest. "Well don't worry about against what", they continued as to interrupt my unsaid question. I rolled a 1, of course.....

Dave's guys fighting Chris O's guys.  Don't ask which guys...I have no idea....

Anyway went at it until Brandon arrived to have a son vs father tabletop fight with Brandon reminding his father that his rider and dog do not get two attacks per combat. Francis thus did not continue his good luck as he did when fighting me and later would exclaim "my dice s**k!"

the fight down the middle of the table

Apparently our side lost the battle it was said due, in part, with the 'initiative' roll never rolling our way.  In one case we rolled a high 5 but the Evils then beating that by rolling a 6!


Good to see the bunch of boys out on the Monday night.

my AWI project's direction?

I found a small unit of 28mm lads which I had added a note to myself:  not FIW, could be 2nd SC of AWI

Hmm, don't remember writing that (old age or too much stuff?)    Anyway, this got me back on the topic of my dormant American Revolutionary War/ American War of Independence collection.  To start with it is not much as compared to most of my other projects it has very few miniatures at present. I say "at present" as some - ah, who am I kidding - all of my larger collections unintentionally did indeed start as small!   Gathered due to cheap deals, trades and the like, the collection so far only has some 50 raw Perry figures. 14 British regulars in 'roundabouts', like number of "Marbleheaders" [Eureka minis actually but nice fit], two cannons and crew, a ammo wagon and 24 'militia' - for southern, or perhaps a northern summer campaign.

Having roundabouts suggests the Southern campaign, and I like the small numbers for the Battle of Waxhaws.  But I also have a painted unit of Brunswick Dragoons and 24 German grenadiers primered which suggests the Saratoga campaign in the north.  However. the afore mentioned primered 2nd SC suggests concentrating for that area;  which does allow me to use a fairly large but only partially painted AWI French army organized for Savannah of 1780.  However, these are Front Rank figures which I don't like combining with Perry - too different in style.  Do I still do them?   But with the Perry beautiful sculpts and the plastics box is screaming the Saratoga campaign......  And yet I still so have a single, and painted, Continental unit from un-mixable Front Rank. What to do?

my French AWI era regulars. Front Rank miniatures

some of my French Colonial infantry

"Pierre, you OK?"  (as you can see, I had to fill in some of the ranks with dead, lots of bearheaded and bandaged boys as this was a very mixed lot when I picked them up years ago)

 

 

my lone Continental unit

I also couldn't part with this Brunswick dismounted dragoon unit

 although it causing much problems fitting it in to the scheme of things!

armed slaves (previously from Foundry).  Note the beautifully long muskets! 

Oh, of course that large, and painted(!) horde of armed slave/native militia types, which suggests a campaign in the Caribbean. Could then use the French but no "Marbleheaders" nor Brunswick Dragoons.  Oh dear.

 While I should be thinking more about organizing my bank payments, this is taking up some thought. Too much really but I hate loose threads.  The mind of a obsessed wargamer.

New lighting over the table

It is not for lack of trying as I have been painting much over the past while, but nothing really completed.   I have painted another 4 elements of Prussians and got only to the flocking stage when I started on the next batch.  I have been in 'total concentration' to get the Prussians done so I can truly get a proper historical scenario in the works. But, heck, is this project a big bite full.

So with nothing reporting and some time since the last post, this rather dated post about my new lighting which I installed after pushing my 'fear' of playing with electricity aside. (I really must try to learn more about it...)

 I bought I new lighting fixture for over the wargame table.  I was going to go with track lighting but this would entail screwing it up on the ceiling which I did not want to mar and so went with a halogen tri-light.
Creates more direct light on the table but leaves the room darker. "Isn't that the point of all this?" observes my wife.
Yeah, I guess so...

The new lighting fixture. Poor photo BTW, it is brighter in reality. I have an old torchiere style lamp helping the situation.

Prussian Jagers

The scope of the developing rules suggest the big picture, not the minutia of small tactics.  The elements are suppose to consist of many battalions, light companies, skirmishers and the like.  But Napoleonics without Jagers, Rifles, and all the known famous 'light' units?!


The completion of my Prussian Jagers has us looking at how to involve those elements we want/will create.  Obviously we shall not them to be all powerful nor create many additional rules or amendments.  Having agreed to keep the numbers low, the light elements while fighting like any other infantry element will not be affected by the disrupting effects of fighting in the tough terrain.  Keeps all simple, which is the supreme focus; convention games require this.

Prussian Jagers.  They will be employed in the I Corps as historically they had a split battalion of the boys to justify the numbers.

The Perrys added one jager pose for each plastic sprue to give the player the option of adding the volunteers who joined each infantry regiment in small numbers.  The single pose is a bit limiting for skirmishers but with different right arm positions and heads and a slightly staggered formation, doesn't give the element too much uniformity.

the rare 'back' view

Not all Prussians were in dark blue (or at least at some point!) as expressed in the 29th Regiment (ex-Berg).  The officers of this and the sister 28th sought to have the men wear their overcoats even during the summer days of June 1815 after the engagement of Gilly early in the campaigns when they felt they were targets in their dark blue regulation uniform contrasting with the rankers white tunics.  I choose not to cover up the nice white of their uniform!

Those of the regiment who obtained their regulation uniform were placed in the second rank on the left.

The Jagers lead the 29th Line into action.  I wanted still a "skirmishy" look but enough 'bulk' to look the part of a whole formation.

Continuing efforts to make nice (and more) terrain for the tabletop.  My "orchard" of blooming trees bought cheap(er) during the annual local hobby store sale. These model railroading trees are quite fragile and were without bases so needed to be drilled and held by the wood base which was flocked to match the matting.