Longstreet Campaign

My son and I were inspired by the Baron and his son to start a Longstreet campaign. I must say it has been an incredible amount of fun. We have played three battles now and our armies are starting to develop some character. I highly recommend the Longstreet rule set, by Sam Mustafa, to all. It is very entertaining and provides a chance for some quality time together.

The campaign system provides overall flavor for the individual commanders as well as lighthearted moments as the post battle process takes place. If one is rolling Ones on that particular day then a plague of camp fever is likely to produce more casualties than the actual battle.

My son is playing the Union side in this first campaign. His commander is a Mexican War Veteran and Drill Master named Jack “Pellets” McKenna. He commands a brigade of troops from Rhode Island. When we started this campaign, his troops were all eager recruits, after three battles his brigade is a mix of cautious veterans and new recruits. And after three battles, it is apparent that Pellets McKenna is an absolute assassin when using counter battery fire.

The Confederate troops are a brigade of rascals from deep in Georgia. A former Cavalry Officer and Drill Master, Eustace P. Marmalade, has been granted command of this fine and eager brigade. While George Pickett may have graduated last in his class at West Point, Marmalade may have been a close second. He has proven to be an offensively minded commander that loves to charge. After the second battle his antics were so brazen that he got his name in the papers back home.

We have been been using the random scenarios from the Longstreet rule book. Our battle in 1861 was the Walled Farm scenario. Pellets McKenna won that engagement handily, kill off most of the Confederate artillery in one battle. EP Marmalade just couldn’t quite understand that charging a walled defensive position was not a great idea. McKenna was promoted after that battle for meritorious conduct.

 Walled Farm - Overall table
 

 Walled Farm - Rebel Columns on the attack

 Walled Farm - Rebels press attack to their peril

The second battle was the scenario for the Railroad Embankment. By the Longstreet campaign system, this was the first battle in 1862. This time EP Marmalade had some room to maneuver and get his boys in a position to ram his charges home. The fortunes of war (dice gods) were smiling on Marmalade that day and it was a decided Rebel victory. Eustace P Marmalade was promoted after the battle and a picture of him astride his faithful mount Macaroon was shown in all the papers from Savannah to Atlanta. Pellets McKenna was also promoted by an act of congress because of his continued ability to destroy enemy artillery.

 Railroad Embankment - Overall

Railroad Embankment - Rebel Columns massing for a charge

The third battle was the Outflanking scenario. By the campaign system it is the final battle for 1862. This one had a bit of everything including some extremely poor surveying that completely missed a rocky out-cropping that appeared somewhat magically. This was a battle where Pellets McKenna seemed to have the advantage the whole game but EP Marmalade kept sniping at the union troops and snatched a victory out of thin air.

On the outflanking scenario, one objective is positioned outside of the confederate staging area to the left (Union right). The Rebs deploy first, but the Union gets the first move. Once the rebel position was observed, Pellets ordered his command to grab the exposed objective. He came around the rebel left flank like an avalanche. 

 OutFlanking - Overall

 Three Reb cavalry units orders to secure supply objective.  Are you nuts?

 The bulk of the Union force arrives to claim the undefended supplies

 Final position, the Rebs get one more kill that provides an outside chance at victory.

Longstreet has been a rare treat for my son and me. It has provided some great entertainment and a lot of projects for me to complete on a timetable. For example, my son’s artillery advantage beginning the 1863 battle is now eight stands to five and that is only because I got lucky on a campaign card after the last battle. I now need to paint some more union artillery. It has also provided for those priceless gaming moments where they become part of our gaming lore. “Needed a six, rolled a six.”

A time for celebration

Yesterday, October 7, 2017, my son John was married to his beautiful bride Lindsey. It was an amazing day as all the family was together for the first time in a long, long time.  Seeing how my children have grown and matured has made me a little emotional and admittedly verklempt.  That is okay, it was a very beautiful day and I am embracing that emotion for the sheer joy it has brought.  I wish the best for my son and his wife.  May they have a lifetime of happiness and joy together.

The fall and winter months will be setting in soon.  I have a painting project ready to go.  If one looks at my older posts, there will be several on Hauverstover.  I am painting these again, and have bought enough 10 mm soldiers to have an opposing army.  It will be my other favorite Norm Crosby inspired imagi-nation of Franistan.   I am still in the process of picking a color scheme for the uniforms.  I hope to post these over the next couple of days.

There is a whole world out there

I can't believe that it has been so long since I last posted. I have not been comfortable painting for a long time. Turns out I was growing a really professional set of cataracts and just flat couldn't see. Two weeks ago, the first surgery took place and the results have been weird, exciting and incredible. I picked up a 10 mm fig last night and could actually see the detail on the little guy's face. I picked up a brush and managed to get the paint precisely where it was meant to go.

Another Basement General over at Jon's Curio Clashes is interested in doing some 15MM ancients. He is painting up a ton of Early Imperial Romans. I will be painting a ton of Greeks and Macedonians to have some battles with him. So it is time to pick up the brush again, scrape off the rust and get busy painting. Looking forward to it.

Hauverstover 2nd Infantry

The second Hauverstover Infantry regiment is ready. This is a quick post to show the figs. These are 10 mm Old Glory. They are based on 50 MM Litko bases. Here is the full line.

Here is a close-up showing a little more detail. It actually pained me to paint the cords on the flag over the owl, but it had to be complete. There will be a change to the flag design coming for the 3rd infantry, and maybe others. I like them on paper, but this one was a challenge to paint. I need a simpler design.

I have experimented with several backgrounds for taking pictures, this one was a medium gray. Not sure that I am satisfied yet. I guess that is part of the fun.

Next up will be my 28mm Norman Saga army. Wow, something in a larger scale for a while. I am currently blocking colors on my cavalry. I will post some shots when they are farther along. Right now they are pretty messy.

Ducks Bellow for Rum

I just received my copy of Dux Bellorum. I am looking forward to reading it and playing a few games with the rest of the Basement Generals. However, it is the end of a very long day, so Ducks Bellowing seems extremely funny at this point. Probably not.

I bought these figures over the weekend to go with this rule set. I now have another project to get started. However, these are going to fall in line after my Saga Normans. All in all it was a good holiday weekend. I finished the Wilson's Creek ACW board game. I should be done with my 2nd Hauverstoverian infantry regiment soon. I just have the tricorn lace to paint and then I can base them. On the figs I bought for Dux, (Armalion - Leichte Weidener Ritter) the casting for the leader had a horse head coming out of his crown! A little snipping and filing and he looks tons better. His opponents would have been vulnerable because they would be laughing themselves silly.

Hauverstover - 2nd Infantry - Flags

The Old Glory 10mm Marlburian range has cast flags as part of their sculpts. Working in larger scales, I have always used paper flags. This allowed either a purchase of a ready made flag or producing my own using a vector graphics program. When creating a vector based image, I can draw as large as I like, and then shrink the image down to the final size without loss of clarity. Hand painting these little 10mm flags has been a challenge. I have enjoyed it and the learning process as well.

In a previous post, I showed the flags for the Hauverstover 1st Infantry unit. This post is about the 2nd Infantry unit. Their flag is more complex. I think the flag came out pretty good, so it deserved a posting. This is what I was trying to represent in a flag that is less than a centimeter square.

The best I could do was to break the flag down into basic shapes. Then it was time to determine the level of detail to be added. At this scale the flag becomes impressionistic. The following image shows the basic striped flag and then the addition of the moon. The figs sat for a week or so at this point. Trepidation kicked in big time.

Next came the basic shape of the owl in flight. I just tried to get the head, ears, wings and tail onto the flag in the appropriate positions. It was really rough at this point.

Next were the lighter brown shapes for the face, wings and tail feathers. I began to realize that the ears were too big. I would have to trim them down later.

The final steps were adding a little lighter color to indicate the legs and eyes. Then three small black dots for the eyes and beak.

The figures still need to be finished, but I am pretty happy with the flags. A fun project all in all. Happy gaming!

Pea Ridge - Finally

A few weeks ago, I put together the Pea Ridge ACW game from Wargame Downloads. It just sat gathering dust for many days and nights. We have finally managed to play a couple of games. This is a report about the most recent one.

The scenario starts with the Union deployed south of an imaginary line through Leetown and Pratts Store. The cameras point of view is from the Confederate side looking south. This image shows Greg's initial deployment.

The Rebel enter the game on the two roads at the north side of the table. In the image above a gray counter marks one of the starting positions. The other is off camera to the extreme right. For the first turn, all the Rebel troops are considered in Command Control. The rule set in use is Brothers At Arms, it stresses the importance of command and control. The Union has a good set of commanders, the Rebels don't. This has proven to be the Achilles heel for the rebel side in both games. Their forces are split to the east and west of Pea Ridge, one force is inevitably out of command. Its movement then is severely curtailed.

For this game, I chose to put the Rebel overall commander in proximity with the force attacking Elkhorn Tavern. This left McCulloh's force on the west on their own resources. The next image shows the battle progressing after several turns. The Union realized that the western Rebels are having trouble moving and swept forward to capture the objective in the middle. At this point, the Union owns 4 of the 6 objective markers, but the battle in and around Elkhorn Tavern is heating up.

The battle on the west side of Pea Ridge is a non event. The Rebels grabbed the closest objective. However, there was always the problem with command to keep that force moving. That front basically just stalled with the occasionally exchange of cannon fire.

The action was on the east side of Pea Ridge. The rebs made some good progress, grabbing the objective to the southeast of Elkhorn Tavern. The Union was being pushed back.

And then that one union counter holding Clemon's Farm dug in like a tick. The rebs threw overwhelming firepower against that unit. It was not overwhelmed, it would not budge. The Rebel offensive stalled.

In the game, day light was running out, and we were running short of libations. The game ended in a draw just as the beer and scotch ran out. Here is the final position at sunset.

All in all a good game. I like the rule set, the mechanics are fairly clear. Command and Control is the heart of this game. If you are out of command, your units just sit. I am going to build the Wilson Creek game next. Same rules, but hopefully it will be a bit more even on C&C.