American Civil War Wargame Played on 3rd January 2019

Hello Again. I found some photographs that I had not posted on my Blog. This was my first wargame of the year and gave me the opportunity to place some new Confederate cavalry on the table.

As the game was very engrossing I did not have much opportunity to take photos.

The object  of the game was for a Confederate force to cross the table and escape off the Union baseline. This was unknown to the Union forces and with their initial deployment in the middle of their baseline and a large open right flank, this led to the Union starting to move some of their forces to their right.

After a few moves and three Confederate infantry units advancing on the Union line a large force of Confederate cavalry appeared on the left. Here they are advancing as they pass the woods on the Union left flank.

 Further Union troops arrived from behind the Union base line and slowly moved into place.

I usually use my zouave unit to represent the Union 'green' troops so I do not get them mixed up with other troops. In this game they lasted well and did not decide to have an urgent appointment elsewhere on this day.

The advance from the initial Confederate was slowed but continued to be a threat.

While the Confederate cavalry managed to escape.

The scenario was provided be Adrian and worked very well with honours were even at the end of the day but the game had come to a definite end.

American Civil War Confederate Cavalry

Hello Again. I am working on some of the above in preparation for a ACW raiding game. This is one of my projects for 2019 and an excuse to get some of my own figures painted for a change!

I normally take my photographs outside because the better light can make a big difference to the overall quality. Today it was a little overcast, (and very cold), so I did not linger for very long.

My ACW collection is a mix of Wargames Foundry, Perry and Redoubt. I feel this provides a nice mix of height and build in my units and any figure which appears vastly out of scale is placed along side a smaller figure which has a wedge of thin plywood under the base to make them look taller.

Above are two Foundry figures which are part of a unit pack I bought a few years ago. I noticed a sale on the Foundry website where unit packs were being sold at a greatly reduced price, (which bought them in line with the figure price of everyone else!), so I purchased two packs of Union and Confederate cavalry.

My horses are painted using an 'oil paint wipe' method, (ala Peter Guilder I am told), where the figure is deflashed, degreased, primed and painted in a lighter enamel shade of the required colour. Then a darker shade in oil paint covers the whole figure and is gently wiped off. Do not use a cloth that sheds fibres as these will adhere to the figure and spoil the finish. I have used my finger here and wiped off the excess on to a cloth in between wipes. When the oil paint is dry I paint in the saddlery.

On looking at the photograph of this figure I was surprised to see how stark the highlighting on the trousers looked. On looking at the figure in daylight it was not that apparent.

I feel this maybe another example of a 'wargames distance' observation. When I photoshopped this picture I cropped it which made the figure about four times larger. This then magnified everything on the figure. Across a wargames table it does look quite acceptable.

The uniform is a representation of the later war 'cadet grey', for the trousers and the 'English blue cloth'  for the jacket. As the war progressed the Union blockade took more effect and what imports were received became more important to the Confederacy. England was the source of a lot of material but the 'blueness' of this cloth led to 'blue on blue' fire being received by some Confederate units. Texans at Antietam comes to mind.

My grey horses are painted as before except after the enamel I paint a thin layer of acrylic white, (mixed with a little Vallejo 837 pale sand), and then a fine stipple of oil based pastel is applied with a colour shaper. This resembles a paint brush but has a rubber point instead of bristles. I researched grey horses beforehand and printed off some pictures from the internet to use as reference when I did this.

I varied the shirt and coat colours to make some figures stand out more. Soldiers were always asking home to supply clothes so a good mix of civilian clothes always provides some colour to my units.

I placed the flag bearer on a base with an officer. The Flag is from GMB and on the white horse here you can see some Army Painter soft tone to define the muscles on the horse. I have also used Windsor & Newton Peat Brown ink in the past for the same effect.

Something you do not always see in wargame cavalry units from this period is plenty of piebald and skewbald horses. I have many of these in my units.

I read a number of features by a Gustav Adolphous, on the internet, who studies the uniforms of the Confederate Armies and he has described 'white uniforms' which were available to them. I added some coloured trim here for the far figure. However troops did not like to wear then as the colour white was associated with 'slave clothing'. Despite this the use of white uniforms was widespread.

Apart from red, I try to make the colours of civilian clothing look a but washed out. Here a pale green fits the bill.

Lastly another officer. I use this and the chap above to act as commanders for my cavalry units. This also gives my sharpshooters something to fire at in future games!

Desert Dust Clouds

As part of the Bir Hacheim refight I held at the end of last year, I wished to represent the clouds of sand and dust that moving vehicles produce in the desert.

In the spotting rules that we use anything behind such 'clouds' will be obscured. I thought about a quick way that I could represent this and obtained this effect.

I will provide a tutorial to WSS magazine in the future for these items.

First Completed Unit of the Year

Here is the first completed unit of this year and the first Napoleonic unit I have completed for 23 years!

These are Front Rank figures painted to represent the 1st battalion 1st Swiss Regiment. They are intended to be used to refight the Battle of Maida but will also be used for various Peninsular engagements. 

For Maida this unit may have been wearing a preponderance of bicornes, as it was so close to the introduction of the new uniform and the formation of the Swiss regiments from the old demi brigades.

The next unit on the list is the 1st battalion 1st Polish Regiment.   

Napoleonic Peninsular Battle at New Buckenham Historical Wargamers Club

Hello again. As I have some spare time after meeting some deadlines for further features for WSS magazine I am able to add to my blog.

On Friday 11th January 2019, the wargames club I, (try to), attend put on a Napoleonic Peninsular war game.

Entitled 'Blow the Bridge' a British force had to delay a French/Polish force trying to capture the bridge. A British engineer unit would lay charges and allow the British defenders to retire before the bridge is blown up. Here is a view of the table with the bridge on the centre left and the French forces entering the table of the right. The British forces were partially deployed to the right of the bridge.

Here is a view of the river. Supplied from overseas this is made from resin and also includes some crossings and wide river areas.

The British had some cavalry support.

Here are the British commanders discussing tactics.

Here are some of their infantry forces.

The opposition consider the same.

These figures are from a club members collection who has his own blog Here. Further pictures can be found here

Ancients Battle at New Buckenham Historical Wargamers Club

The New Buckenham Historical Wargames club put this game on, on Friday 21st December 2018.

This was a continuation of an earlier game where the casualities of the Roman's were carried over and reinforcements began to arrive for the Romans and Britons.

Some Roman forces had reached their camp earlier and would provide support to the relieving Roman forces. The club has a Roman marching camp complete with tents and stockade wall. Here some troops are manning the walls at the start of the game.

Some of the Roman reinforcements turned to face Britons advancing through the woods across the table from the marching camp.

While the remains of the previous battle lay scattered over the field.

The threatening Britons charged across the field to get at the invaders.

Aided by their chariots. There is a reconstruction of an ancient British chariot in the Norwich Castle Museum along with archaeological finds including items of Roman body armour.

In this collection there is also a chariot casualty.

Here is a view of the commanders tent in the Roman camp.

Here is a larger view of the approaching Britons. 

I had to leave early as I was working over the week end however further pictures are here