Adventures In Miniature Gaming

More Painted Renegade Imperial Guard Conscripts

2011-10-24T08:00:00.003-05:00

I've finished painting my second batch of my Warhammer 40k Renegade Imperial Guard Conscript models. That makes about half of them done, and the other half still to go. It should look pretty impressive when I have the full unit of 50 of these guys on the table.

I don't have much to say about them. They were painted pretty much the same as the previous batch, except that I did a bit of highlighting on the sharp edges of the green coats before doing the Devlan Mud wash over the whole model. I think it does make them look a little better, but I'm not sure if it's worth the extra effort. Let me know what you think of these guys compared to the previous batch.

I also set them on their side shortly after applying the wash, so that it wouldn't all run down to the very bottom of the coats, which it had tended to do on the previous batch. I think that is worth doing on the rest of them, so some extra shading stays in the higher folds of the coats.

Warhammer Fantasy Temple of Skulls

2011-10-11T11:36:00.000-05:00

I've painted up my Warhammer Fantasy Temple of Skulls terrain piece. I decided to buy this after seeing one in person. It is much larger than I expected, and should be a useful piece of terrain for Warhammer Fantasy or 40k.

After assembling it, I noticed that the plastic was extremely smooth. Especially on the big skull parts, which I imagined to be carved out of stone. I wanted a bit of a rough texture, so it would look more natural and more ruined. And it would also make it easier to paint just by dry brushing. To add some texture to it, I mixed some watered down glue and some sand and coated pretty much the entire thing with it. I then tried as best I could to remove it from the spikes sticking out of the columns.

In retrospect, this is probably too much texture. It might have worked better to apply some spray glue, and then sprinkle on a much finer grained sand until it had the coverage I wanted. That would have given enough texture to make it not look completely smooth, without being quite as rough as this, and without covering as much of the piece.

For painting, I started with a black primer. Then I just painted most of it a dark grey color, with a dark brown for the parts I wanted to be dirt. Then I drybrushed with a lighter grey, and a lighter dry brush with an even lighter gray. I put a wash over the dirt to try and give it more of a varied brown tone, but I'm not sure that accomplished much. I also touched up the skulls white, and painted some grey rocks amongst the big dirt areas. The spikes in the column were painted with Boltgun Metal drybrushed with Tin Bitz. I finished it up with some static grass in a few places. Overall, a pretty quick job.

Have a look at the pictures, and let me know what you think. I included some previously painted figures on it, to give a sense of scale, and to add a bit of drama to the scene.

Might and Reason 7 Years War game

2011-09-18T08:00:00.002-05:00

I recently started using Meetup.com to look for gaming groups in my area. I found a somewhat nearby group that does historical gaming about twice a month, and so I went to one of their gaming meet-ups. I played in a big multi-player game of Might and Reason. The game was a hypothetical 7 Years War battle between French and Prussians with Hanoverian allies.

I don't know much about the 7 Years war, and I had no experience with the Might and Reason rules, but the guy running the game did a good job of explaining the rules and the historical context and reasoning behind the rules.

The scenario was that a small Hanoverian force allied to the Prussians was in a good position on a hill right next to a river. Their Prussian allies have disappeared in the night to go on a long flanking maneuver to outflank the large French army across the river from the Hanoverians. So the Hanoverians, in a strong position, have to hold off the much larger French army long enough for the Prussians to arrive. The French do not know when or where this will happen.

The Prussian players got to secretly select one of five roads on which they wanted to arrive. The turn they would arrive on depended on the road selected, but the French players did not know where or when they might show up. The French army was split up between the players, with one controlling the center, one the right wing, one the left wing, and one the reserve. I was controlling the right wing, including the Guard regiment of four infantry battalions, another infantry regiment of three battalions, and a cavalry regiment of three squadrons, I think.

The plan of the French commander-in-chief was for the entire front of the French army to advance at full speed to sweep the Hanoverians from their strong position, and in order to not be where the Prussians were expecting by the time they arrived. The reserve would stay back to delay the Prussians if they arrived too soon, so the rest of the army would have time to reorganize to face the bigger threat. On the far left and right flank, cavalry regiments would move down the river to find crossings and get in behind the Hanoverians.

In practice, this didn't work out so well. Between command difficulties and the delaying effects of the river and surrounding hills, the front Infantry regiments advanced slowly. The cavalry moved faster, and the Hanoverians only had a single cavalry regiment to deal with two of ours. On our right, my cavalry regiment reached the river crossing just as the Hanoverian cavalry arrived to deal with them. These two regiments spent the rest of the game in a pretty inconclusive cavalry battle. My regiment lost a squadron to an enemy charge, and both sides took a lot of casualties, but both sides were also held up and unable to have any effect on the infantry battle in the center.

My two infantry regiments started forward toward the river, but then got tangled up with each other. Their commanders spent much of the battle arguing about which one was holding up which, and who was in who's way, and who was going to get blamed for the delay, which of course caused even more delay. Meanwhile, the center was moving forward and slowly crossing the river to engage the Hanoverian infantry on the hill, who outclassed the French infantry and were in a better position.

The Prussians arrived much sooner than expected on the far French left, very close to where the French infantry were advancing toward the river. The French cavalry on the left did make it across the river at the crossing just before the Prussians arrived to cut off access to the crossing. As soon as the Prussians arrived, the French left had to turn to face the coming onslaught, and the reserve was moved as quickly as possible in that direction.

The infantry of the French left wing took the brunt of the Prussian attack, and was completely wiped out. They did, however, delay the Prussians and wear them down a bit, which is what was needed. The reserve arrived in time to form a pretty solid two-layered battle line to engage what was left of the Prussians, who were unable to break through.

Meanwhile, the French Commander-in-Chief came over personally to find out what was going on with the Infantry regiments in his right wing. He personally visited one regiment commander, and then the other, no doubt dealing harshly with their childish arguments. This finally got them moving. At this point, the infantry of the center was mostly spent, and the Hanoverian battalions were weakened, but still holding their positions.

The right infantry crossed the river in unison, four battalions in line in front, with another three right behind in reserve. At the same time, the French cavalry from the left had made it's way around, free of the one Hanoverian cavalry regiment which was tied up elsewhere, to charge the flank of the Hanoverian line. Between the cavalry in their flank and the strong infantry attack to their front, the brave Hanoverians could hold no longer. They had held out longer than could have been expected, and still the Prussians had not reached them.

The Hanoverian Cavalry regiment was getting the better of the French cavalry regiment on the French right, but now they were completely cut off. With some of the French army turning to face them, they decided to retreat. This is where we decided to end the game. Neither side had yet reached the victory conditions, which was to eliminate a certain number of enemy units. But the French were closer to their victory condition, and the momentum was certainly on their side.

The French also seemed to hold the field, with a long line starting on the hill where the Hanoverians had started and stretching left all the way to the table edge. A pretty solid double line faced the Prussians on the French left, and the French right would now be able to turn toward the Prussian flank, though this would take a long time. It seemed that if the sun were going down at this point and the battle had to end, the Prussians would likely be obliged to fall back, and the French would hold the field. So we agreed it was a minor French victory.

All in all, it was a fun game, and the guy controlling the Hanoverians was a fun opponent. I wasn't paying too much attention to what was happening on the left flank, but it seemed like quite a brutal contest between the French Left and Reserves against the Prussian army. I know the battle in the Center was pretty dramatic. I look forward to more historical games with the group, and getting to try out more periods and rules that I haven't tried before.

Warhammer Arcane Ruins

2011-09-12T08:00:00.001-05:00

I finally got around to painting the Warhammer Arcane Ruins set that I've had sitting around for years. It was a pretty simple paint job. Just started with a black basecoat, drybrushed a dark gray color, then another dry brush of a lighter gray color. I used some craft paints and a one inch wide paint brush I got at a hobby store for pretty cheap. It worked fine. The big bristles on the brush did leave some brush strokes, but on the rocks of these ruins it looks okay.

Here are some pictures of the results.

Finding Gamers

2011-09-07T17:43:00.000-05:00

I have a group of friends I game with about once a month. With everyone being on different schedules and not living very close anymore, this is about all we can manage. Of course, I wish I could play more. But that would only really be practical if I knew some players that lived much closer, and were on a similar schedule, so we could maybe get a game in on a week night.

In addition to not playing very often, my gaming group almost exclusively plays Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000. Over the years, I've started to become more interested in trying out other kinds of games. If you've been following my blog you'll know that I'm interested in historical gaming, especially in the American Civil War and other "horse and musket" wars. I would also really like to get back into RPGs, and would really like to find a group to play Pendragon or the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying game with.

Unfortunately, I don't really know how to go about finding other players for historical games or RPGs. The group I play with now are all people I was friends with before, and we got into gaming together. Or they were a friend who joined in later when some of us were already heavily into 40k and fantasy. So I haven't had to find other gamers to play some particular thing I was interested in before.

I've tried getting the current gaming group interested in those other things I am interested in, but to no avail. For the most part, they only want to play Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000. And who can blame them? After all the money and time spent creating multiple armies for those games, they only get to game with them at most once a month, usually less. So maybe 10 or 12 games each year between the two systems. And with multiple armies per game, each army might only be played once or twice a year. So already the gaming is stretched pretty thin without using up gaming time trying out new things.

Nevertheless, that doesn't prevent me from wanting to try out other games. So lately I've been trying to find other gamers who are interested in the types of games I want to play. I've had some mixed success. At first I did a lot of looking for gaming message boards (including official company ones like the Fantasy Flight Games message boards) and posting or searching for posts about gaming in my area. That didn't work all that well, because there are so many boards out there, and many people don't use them, and any people using them are spread all over the world.

One thing that has worked out was searching on meetup.com. The site is not gaming related, and is used in general for any kind of meeting groups that are looking for interested people. The group pays a small fee to be listed on the site, and then it can post meetings for the group. Members can search groups by location and keywords, join groups they are interested in, RSVP to their meetings, and post in their individual message boards, etc.

I did manage to find some groups on meetup.com that are in my general vicinity and that do historical gaming, though none of them are using the Black Powder rules, which I like. I haven't found any groups or individuals interested in playing Pendragon or Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, though there are a lot of Dungeons and Dragons groups. So if you are looking for some people to game with, I would recommend checking there. It's really quick to do a search for groups that are in your area and see all their upcoming and past meetups to get an idea of what kind of games they play.

I also found out that a gaming store near me does some open gaming nights for Warhammer and Warhammer 40K on week nights, so I might stop in some time and try to get a quick game in after work. Also, that store has a guy who does games of Ambush Alley or Tomorrow's War every other weekend. I'm really hoping to make it up there for one of those games, and I'm really interested to see those rules in action. I'd actually be interested to know if the Tomorrow's War rules can be used with the 40K miniatures I already have. I like the 40K miniatures and background, but sometimes the rules just don't allow the kind of story and mission driven games I would like to be playing in that universe.

So, I've had some success so far in searching out others who share some of my same gaming interests. The internet seems like a double edged sword in this respect. It has allowed me to find out about all kinds of gaming, miniatures, and rules that I would never have known existed without the internet, since I certainly wouldn't have seen them in person. I played Warhammer 40k for a long time before I had any idea that people did a similar kind of gaming in historical periods. On the other hand, since I didn't find out about these things by seeing them at a local gaming store, that means there's no telling if anyone near me will have the same interests. So it may just allow me to find out about all kinds of great games that I'll never get to play.

If anyone out there has any tips or suggestions for finding like-minded gamers, please leave a comment. It might help me or someone else who happens to read the blog.

Warhammer 40,000 Painted Battle for Macragge Terrain

2011-08-08T08:00:00.000-05:00

I finally got around to painting the crashed shuttle terrain pieces from the Warhammer 40,000 Battle for Macragge boxed set. You can see a couple of pictures below. This was just a quick and basic paint job to get something usable, since I don't actually have a lot of painted terrain. I figured it's better to have terrain with a basic paint job than terrain that is completely unpainted. So it gets the job done, and didn't take long to paint. I painted it green, which is the predominant color (at least for the infantry) in my Renegade Imperial Guard army.

Painted Renegade Imperial Guard Conscripts

2011-08-01T08:00:00.001-05:00

I've finished painting up the first batch of my Renegade Imperial Guard Conscripts. Since I have so many of them to paint, I decided to break the painting up into batches, each batch being all the models with the same kind of headgear. Below are some pictures of the completed first batch, consisting of 14 conscripts.

These were painted in pretty much the same way as the Infantry units, except that I used gray primer instead of white. This didn't seem to make much difference except for requiring an additional coat of snot green to fully cover the coats. So a white undercoat probably would have been better.

Games Day Chicago 2011

2011-07-31T09:56:00.000-05:00

I attended Games Day Chicago this past weekend. I had a good time, and it was a decent Games Day. They don't have much in the way of seminars anymore, since they are mostly pointless. But they did have Forgeworld and Black Library seminars, which I did not attend. Aside from that, there was a lot going on. Lots of Golden Daemon, Armies on Parade, and conversion contest entries to look at. Lots of open gaming tables to play on if you want to bring an army. And a lot of event games to play in. Most of those also required you to bring your own force, but some of them provided everything and you could just stop by and play.

There was also the on site Fantasy and 40k conversion contests, where they give you some sprues and you have an hour to convert something cool out of them. They were mostly chaos warrior and daemon sprues, but I did make a pretty cool Chaos Spawn, I think. There was the scenery make and take, where you could build and take home a small Cities of Death building, but it was so crowded all day, with people waiting in line to do it, that I didn't get a chance to get near it.

There were some guests from the design studio, and some guests from Black Library. I got some stuff signed by Gav Thrope, which was cool, and he seems like a nice guy. I enjoy his blog, and Crown of the Blood, Path of the Warrior, and Angels of Darkness are all very good books which I would highly recommend. I wish I had stopped to talk with him a little more about some of the ideas in his books, but I didn't want to hold up the people waiting behind me.

Here's a video I took of one of the event game tables, which included real running water. I hadn't seen that done before. As always, Games Day had some impressive display tables and event game tables.

The giant Chainsword here was at the booth for the Space Marine video game. The game looks fun, though I didn't wait in line to play it, since I don't own a system it is being released on anyway. They also had set ups for playing the Dawn of War game, which I've never played. The giant boltgun was just brought by that guy I think.

Here's a picture of the one event game I play in, which was a massive super-heavy tank battle pitting many (probably around 30?) Imperial Baneblades againts a similar number of Ork Super Heavy tanks. I didn't try to get a picture of the whole table, but it was huge. The rules were very simlified (each tank getting 4+ shots that hit on 4, and penetrated on 5+, then needing a 6 to do a structure point, 3-5 to lost one shot next turn, and 1-2 to not be able to move next turn). Each tank had 3 structure points, so I took a lot to do any damage. But as the game went on, the organizers made things more deadly but giving aerial bombardments to the side that could scream the loudest, and then eventually giving +1 to all rolls. The objectives were the landing pads, which could be held by being within 6" with no enemy tanks within 6". Anyway, it was a fun game. Mine was the green Baneblade charging forward on the left there. Unfortunately, things turned against the Imperials and we got completely crushed, with all the tanks on our side in my imediate area being destroyed by the end.

They had some new models there to show off, and I took some pictures of the new Zombie Dragon kit. It looks even more impressive in person.

I have a couple of pictures of Golden Daemon entries, but it's very hard to get good pictures of them, since they are setting behind some plexiglass or something which is very scratched up. Between the glare and the reflections and the scratches, it's hard to take a good picture, so I only have a few that turned out well. I really liked that diorama of the TechMarine and Servitors working on the Dreadnaught.

Lifesize Khorne Berzerker. There was actually a gun in there moving around, it wasn't just a statue. He was pretty terrifying.

Here's one of the entrires in the monster conversion contest, which had some decent stuff, but nothing amazing. The vehicle conversion contest, on the other hand, had one entry that was without a doubt far above anything else that has ever been converter. That massive Ork ship was really incredible, and hopefully you can get some sense of the size of it from this picture, because it was really enormous.

This was an Armies on Parade entry that I really liked. A daemon army with a beach theme, with everything converted to go with the theme. It went together really well with the terrain and backdrop, and I liked how everything in it was unique.

Here are a few of the club boards and display boards they had at Games Day. As usual, there was some pretty impressive stuff.

There was a Specialist Games area, where you could see or learn how to play some of the specialist games, like Epic, Blood Bowl, and Space Hulk. This is a picture of the Battlefleet Gothic table in this area, which I thought looked pretty good. I was tempted to try out Epic, which I think looks really cool, but I don't need another game to play.

They had a big Empire Cannon that people were lining up for. I'm not sure exactly what they were doing with it, since I didn't want to wait in line, but it looked cool.

And finally, here are some pictures of a Khorne Chaos Spawn I made in the Fantasy conversion contest. Considering the time limitation, and that all I had to work with was a few random sprues, a pair of clippers, and the absolute worst plastic glue ever invented, I think he turned out pretty well.

Warhammer 40,000 Battle Report: Ultramarines vs Renegade Imperial Guard

2011-07-25T08:00:00.000-05:00

The Setup
I wanted to try out playing my new Renegade Imperial Guard army that I've been working on, though I don't have much for it yet, and most of what I have isn't painted yet. I managed to just barely scrape together a legal 1000 point army by borrowing a tank from my opponent. It was the Leman Russ variant with the hull mounted heavy bolter, two heavy bolter sponsons, an a twin linked 4 shot autocannon on the turret. It can spew out an impressive number of AP 4 shots, and would be a fearsome weapon against any army but Space Marines. Naturally, my opponent decided to play Space Marines. His Ultramarines, to be more specific.

So 1000 points of Imperial Guard against Space Marines. We set up 1/3 of the board with tunnels using the Space Hulk floor tiles. This would represent the tunnel system found beneath the bunker entrance. The tunnels could be entered or exited by the bunker entrance we placed halfway between the long board edges, or units could move onto the table through the tunnels that reached the long board edges.

We decided to use the deployment method where the players each had a long board edge, because it would work the best with how we set the board up. The mission was the one with two objectives, one in each player's deployment zone. Mine was placed inside the tunnels, and the Space Marine objective was outside behind some trees. The Space Marines deployed first, and would get the first turn.

The deployments are shown the the pictures below. Outside the Ultramarines had, from left to right, a combat squad with missile launcher, a Dreadnaught guarding the objective, a combat squad with a Lascannon in the woods, a small assault squad, and another combat squad accompanied by a Terminator librarian. Facing them was a unit of Rough Riders, a Heavy Weapon squad with Heavy Bolters next to the Leman Russ in the woods, a long line (three files thick) of Conscripts in front of two Infantry squads, a Platoon Command squad, and finally another unit of Rough Riders on the other flank.

Inside the bunker complex, there was already a combat squad of Marines with a flamer, and a Vanguard squad led by a guy with lightning claws. The renegades only had a unit of Veterans and a Company Command squad protecting the objective to oppose them.

The Story
This would be a lightning raid by the Ultramarines against the renegades to secure some important intelligence from the computer banks in the renegade bunker before the renegades could escape with it. Under a sudden and unexpected attack, the renegades needed to protect the computer banks long enough for either their reinforcements to arrive, or to remove the information to a safe location. At the same time, the renegades needed to deactivate or destroy the Ultramarines locator beacon before the loyalist reinforcements could arrive. If the beacon could be destroyed, it would buy enough time to evacuate the bunker complex before a stronger force could arrive to completely destroy it.

A combat squad and a Vanguard squad of Ultramarines have already infiltrated into the bunker tunnel complex. They will stage the surprise attack inside the tunnels to quickly capture the intelligence before it can be removed or destroyed by the renegades. At exactly the same time they reveal themselves, they have arranged a larger attack outside the bunker as a diversion. This way, most of the forces guarding the bunker will be outside defending against the larger attack, leaving the inside mostly unguarded so the smaller force can complete their mission quickly. After enough time has passed, so that the objective must have either been captured by the Ultramarines or removed to safety by the renegade, a larger loyalist force will use the locator beacon placed by the Ultramarines to locate the bunker and destroy it completely, unless the renegade can disable the beacon in time.

Turn 1
The Ultramarines outside took up their positions unnoticed, and waited for the signal. At the precise moment, they revealed themselves. The assault marines move forward to take up positions near the bunker entrance, and the Librarian took his squad to the edge of the tree line. The rest of the marines opened fire, killing a few conscripts and a few Rough Riders. They did, however, achieve their goal of getting the attention of the renegade forces. Meanwhile, inside the bunker complex, the two Marine squads moved through the tunnels toward their objective.

Most of the renegades outside surged towards the attacking Marines, intent on taking out the locator beacon. The tank and heavy bolter squad in the woods managed to take out three marines in the combat squad with the lascannon. It would prove to be the most successful round of shooting they could have hoped for. The marines must not have had their helmets on yet or something. On the Renegade left, the platoon commander ordered the Rough Riders to run full speed at the assault marines! The haughty cavalrymen ignored the order, and trotted on at a dignified pace. Still, they managed to deftly negotiate the trees in order to assault their enemy. With their hunting lances they took out two Marines, who in turn couldn't kill a single one of the Rough Riders. Obviously they were too distracted by the magnificent display of horsemanship they had witnessed.

Turn 2
The Ultramarines inside continued to move stealthily towards their objective, hugging walls and using every nook available to avoid being seen or fired at. Outside, most of the marine firepower was focused on the four unengaged Rough Riders on the renegade right flank. However, the Dreadnaught and the combat squad with the missile launcher were unable to kill a single one of the cavalrymen due to their being well obscured in the woods. The rest of the marines maintained their position, knowing the only needed to hold off the renegades long enough for those inside to complete their mission. Without support, the Assault marines again somehow failed to kill a single renegade Rough Rider, while losing another of their number to the enemy cavalry.

The determined renegades again surged forwards, the Rough Riders on the right staying inside the woods that had protected them so well so far. The Platoon commander bellowed at the conscripts to fire in ranks, and they actually managed to do it quite well. Their well-timed volleys wounded the Terminator Librarian and took down all but one of his retinue. On the Renegade right flank, shots from the Rough Riders, an Infantry squad, the tank, and the Heavy Bolter squad took out three of the Marines on the hill in front of them. The two remaining decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and chose to fall back in the face of the impending charge of the cavalry.

Inside the bunker, the renegades had finally discovered the presence of the infiltrating enemy. Deciding to take the initiative, the Company commander charged with zeal into the nearby combat squad. He proved to have more courage than skill, not causing any wounds with his power sword, though his squad took out two of the marines without the significant benefit of such a weapon. Meanwhile, just outside the bunker entrance, the assault marines finally got their act together enough to defend themselvs, and managed to kill two of the circling Rough Riders.

Turn 3
The brave sergeant from the Librarian's squad charged madly forward at the Platoon command squad, killing most and gunning down the rest as they fled. And little else happened. Inside, the Company commander again failed to cause any wounds with his power weapon, and this time his squad couldn't pick up the slack, but they still held their ground against the intruder.

Even with their officer lost, the conscripts and the infantry squad behind them continued to surge forward, intent on capturing the beacon. In a hail of lasgun fire, the finished off the brave Ultramarine sergeant and the Librarian. Meanwhile, the combat between the Rough Riders and Assault marines continued to be a complete stalemate, and was no doubt quite an impressive display of fencing ability on both sides.

Turn 4
At this point, some Ultramarine reinforcements turns up, dropping in directly behind the Leman Russ tank. A lucky shot immobilized the vehicle. The heavy bolter squad fired everything they had at the newly arrived Assault marines, but only took out one of them. Elsewhere, the Rough Riders on the renegade left were getting worn down, their horses clearly blown by this point. Another two of them were killed, but the stubborn and proud cavalrymen fought on.

Inside the complex, the Company Command squad just couldn't finish off the combat squad. They lost their nerve and tried to flee, but in the cramped corridors they stood no chance of escape, and where slaughtered. Outside (but unpictured), the two Rough Riders left alive on the renegade right charged the two remaining marines on the hill, killing one of them and losing one of their own.

Turn 5
The recently-arrived Assault marines assaulted the Leman Russ and made short work of it. On the hill on the opposite side of the battlefield, the remaining Rough Rider, who had single-handedly taken down a Space Marine, was unable to repeat the achievement. However, he managed to survive a while longer in single combat with the remaining marine.

Not much longer, of course. The marine finished him off, then fell back away from the approaching Infantry squad. Inside the tunnels, the Vanguard squad and the two remaining members of the combat squad linked up and ran down the hallway towards their objective. The defending Veteran squad fired desperately down the cramped hallway, frag grenades exploding everywhere, but only two of the Vanguard squad were taken out.

Turn 6
With a few bolter shots and a sweep of the Heavy flamer, the Ultramarines in the tunnels killed all but one of the renegade veterans. The remaining veteran fell back into the objective room and shut the door, hoping some miracle (i.e. random game length) would save him and the vital intelligence he protected from the marines. Outside, the assault marines finally finished off the few remaining exhausted Rough Riders.

Turn 7
The reinforcements for either side, expected at any moment, had still not arrived, and so the desperate struggle continued. The remnants of both Ultramarine assault squads charged an renegade infantry squad in the middle of the battlefield, and made short work of them. Meanwhile, the Ultramarines in the tunnels broke down the door to the computer room and made a mess of that last poor renegade veteran. They located the information they were looking for, and so had achieved their objective. All the renegades could hope for now was to take out the locator beacon so that the rest of the base could be evacuated.

The remaining conscripts, who were easily the most valuable unit in the renegade force on this day, fired on the Assault marines, killing all but one. All that remained of the Ultramarine force outside the bunker was that single assault marine, and the dreadnaught.

Unfortunately, the hastily-assembled renegade force didn't include much in the way of anti-tank weaponry. So the brave renegade Infantry squad nearest the beacon charged the behemoth to keep it occupied. They attacked it with grenades, but had little hope of damaging it.

The Result
Unfortunately for the renegades, the dreadnaught could not be harmed, and was just close enough to the beacon to prevent them from deactivating it. (It was pretty much EXACTLY 3" away, so close that you couldn't really tell if it was within 3", so I gave my opponent the benefit of the doubt, counting it as contested.) Though there were no Marines nearby to operate the beacon, neither could the renegades deactivate it in time. In addition, the Ultramarines had retrieved the data they were after, and so the victory this day was theirs.

Warhammer 40,000 Battle Report: Eldar vs Chaos Space Marines

2011-06-21T14:38:00.001-05:00

The Setup
This was a 1500 point standard Warhammer 40,000 game, pitting Eldar against Chaos Space Marines. It used the standard missions and deployment from the rulebook. The objective of the mission was simply to gain more Kill Points than the enemy. Deployment 12" on to the long table edges. The Eldar deployed first and would have the first turn.

The Story
Renegade Space Marines of the Crusaders chapter are assisting a rebellion on an Imperial world, as they are wont to do. Pursuant to such, they have destroyed and then desecrated an Imperial church, along with some other outbuildings. Having done so, they are now occupying the area whilst a Thousand Sons aspiring sorcerer amongst them prepares an arcane ritual. This ritual, like any good arcane ritual, requires the sacrifice of a beautiful, scantily-clad woman. In truth, it probably just requires any old human sacrifice, but given the choice, why not choose the beautiful, scantily-clad woman?

And so the sorcerer has, and said woman is now chained up awaiting her fate. Unbeknownst to all, an Eldar Farseer has taken an unusual interest in the fair maiden (though to any who've seen her, the interest taken is perfectly understandable). The Farseer has examined the threads of future destiny, and decided that he needs to rescue the sacrificial woman. Perhaps saving her life on this day will result in many Eldar lives being saved in the future (probably the lives of all the Eldar he imagines he'll be fathering with her once he rescues her). At any rate, he doesn't have to explain himself to anyone and, furthermore, if he says the future of the Craftworld depends on saving some hussy, then save her they shall.

Turn 1
The Renegade Marines were pretty focused on their pillaging, so the Eldar managed to sneak up pretty close to them before being noticed. Once spotted, however, they were still out of range with most of their short-ranged weapons, so they all moved forward to close the distance. The sole exception was the rangers, who were in a good position and fired with their sniper rifles, but caused no wounds. There must have been a gust of wind.

In response, the Berzerkers in the remnants of the church struggled through the rubble towards the now visible Dire Avengers, not realizing the epic struggle they were about to engage in. Most of the rest of the marines held their ground and fired, with the Predator causing a few casualties in the Farseer's bodyguard of Warlocks. The Thousand Sons, in the Rhino on the right flank, drove up to the other side of the Altar to protect it.

Turn 2
Appearing from out of the warp, a unit of aptly-named Warp Spiders destroyed the Rhino containing the Thousand Sons, forcing them to disembark. They jumped again to add some distance between them and their foes, but return fire from the Thousand Sons and Crusader marines nearby killed several of them. The rangers found their range, and managed to kill a couple of the Crusader marines on the hill by the altar.

In the middle of the battlefield, the ponderous advance of the Wraithguard was held up when two Obliterators (in this case, renegade Techmarines) teleported in directly in front of them. They opened fire with everything they had, aided by the Marines in the woods behind, but after the barrage most of the wraithbone constructs still stood.

On the Renegade Marine left flank, the Dire Avengers fell back while firing at the Berzerkers, killing two of them. That really annoyed the Berzerkers, and they continued their headlong charge at their foe.

Turn 3
With well-practiced precision, the Dire Avengers again fell back, staying just close enough to keep the Berzerkers in range, and felled two more of them. Now the Berzerkers were getting angry. They fired a few bolt pistol shots at the Dire Avengers, but to no effect.

In the center, the Wraithguard all fired on the Renegade Techmarines, but only killed one of them thanks to their powerful force fields. A unit of Swooping Hawks landed, dropping enough grenades to kill a couple of the marines on the hill near the altar. The Swooping Hawks then immediately fled the battlefield upon taking a few casualties from return fire.

Having failed to eliminate the last Techmarine with warp-tearing energy fired from their Wraithcannons, the Wraightuard charged in to beat him to death with them instead. The Warlock leading them was crushed to death by the Techmarine, but the Wraithguard fought on, only managing to wound their adversary.

On the right of the Renegade Marine battle line, the Howling Banshees and the Farseer with his Warlock bodyguards sprinted full speed to assault the Thousand Sons marines near the altar. It doesn't take a powerful Farseer to predict how that turned out. However, one tenacious Thousand Son did survive the initial onslaught, and so prolonged his twisted semblance of life for another few seconds.

Previously, a unit of four Terminators, one with a Heavy Flamer, teleported down in the rear of the Eldar force to take out the pesky rangers. Unfortunately, they arrived far off target. They had, however, drawn the fire of the Rangers, who only managed to take down one of the Terminators. Undeterred by the loss, they advanced to within Heavy Flamer range and roasted most of the Eldar Rangers in an instant. The four remaining Rangers bravely, though foolishly, held their ground.

Turn 4
The Howling Banshees, Farseer, and Warlocks easily put an end to the one remaining Thousand Son, and advanced toward the Crusader Marines on the nearby hill. Sprinting at full speed, both Eldar units charged into combat with the Marines before they could get off a volley. Most of the Marines were cut down in a blur of flashing power weapon blades. Only the Lord and an Aspiring Champion survived long enough to kill the two Warlocks, before fleeing for their lives. The Eldar let them go, intent on the bigger threats still remaining.

Shuriken catapults blazing (or whatever they do), the Dire Avengers charged into the Khorne Berzerkers. Normally this would seem pretty foolish, but the Berzerkers, finally enraged by the Eldar continuously staying out of assault range, had sprinted so quickly towards their enemy that there was simply no more room for the Dire Avengers to fall back. Knowing that they would soon be caught by the frothing, charging Berzerkers, they elected to reverse direction and charge, hoping the element of surprise would bring them victory. This was not to be. They only killed one of the Berzerkers, while three of them fell. Undeterred, they held their ground and the fight would continue.

Meanwhile, the six Wraithguard were unaffected by the loss of their Warlock leader. With the determination of soulless constructs, they managed to beat to death the renegade Techmarine.

Turn 5
The Howling Banshees ran up to the crest of the hill, but were still too far from the Marines in the woods to assault. The Farseer examine the twisting paths of potential futures, and determined that he didn't want to be shot by the two Heavy Bolters and the Autocannon on the nearby Predator. With the psychic power of his Witchblade, the managed to destroy the tank. The Marines in the woods couldn't see the Farseer, and so again fired at the advancing Wraithguard, cutting down three more of them. Elsewhere, the Berzerkers slaughtered the remaining Dire Avengers, and the Terminators easily finished off the few remaining Rangers. The forces on both sides were severely depleted by this point. However, it is not in the nature of the Crusader marines to hold ground long, and the time had come to withdraw.

The Result
The Eldar force destroyed a Rhino and a Predator, wiped out a unit of Thousand Sons and the unit of "Obliterators", and broke the Chaos Lord and a unit of marines for a total of 6 kill points. The Renegade Marines wiped out the Dire Avengers, Rangers, Warp Spiders, and the Farseer's retinue, and broke the Swooping Hawks, which gave them only 5 kill points. A victory for the Eldar, as the Renegades were forced to withdra, leaving the sacrificial maiden in the hands of the Farseer.

Pendraken Napoleonic Russian, Wurttemburg, and French miniatures

2011-06-13T08:00:00.000-05:00

The folks at Pendraken Miniatures were nice enough to send me a few samples of some of their 10mm Napoleonic figures. You can click the link to check out their Napolenic ranges. I had mentioned somewhere on The Miniatures Page that I might be interested in getting some of the Pendraken Napoleonic Russian and Wurttemburg figures, but didn't want to buy a lot of them without knowing what they look like, and there are no pictures on their website. So the helpful Pendraken people offered to send me a few samples to get an idea of what they're like. They also threw in some samples of their latest 1809 French figures. So I thought I'd be helpful back, and post some pictures so others can see what they look like.

Before taking the pictures, I cleaned any mold lines and flash from the figures and primed them with white primer. I then applied some Games Workshop Black wash to the figures, so that the details would show up better in the photographs. I think the wash is a little thick for such small scale miniatures, because there are quite a few places where it didn't get in all the recesses. Hopefully it worked well enough to make the details easier to see.

First up are the sample figures from the Moscow Campaign Wurttemburg line. Here you can see one of the regular Infantry figures (I'm assuming this is the "March Attack" pose), and three command figures. In general, I'm assuming there is only one sculpt for each thing, so all the infantry in the same pose will be identical, and all the drummers identical, etc. But I'm not sure.

Next are the sample figures from the Moscow Campaign Russian range. First is a standard line infantryman, and again I assume this is the "March Attack" pose. Next is a couple of Cavalry figures.

Both of these ranges are okay. They are very sturdy and have well-defined and probably easy to paint details, which is very nice. On the other hand, they are pretty chunky, with the Russian Cavalry in particular having freakishly large heads. That seems pretty normal for many ranges in 10mm or 6mm. I prefer more realistic proportions, but then of course the miniatures will be much more frail.

The thing that I really don't like is the strange pose on the marching infantry. Their legs look like they're way too far apart. They look bow-legged. The other thing I don't like, which just makes no sense at all, is that the Wurttemburg infantry are on really thick bases. They'll look like they're all walking on rock. Of course, I could work around that, except that the Russians are on really thin bases. So I'd either have to put all the Russian infantry on something thick to make up the difference, or it'll look like the Wurttemburgers just tower over the Russians, especially with the combination of their tall helmets and always making sure to stand on a big rock. And with both ranges being for the Moscow campaign, I would think it likely for these to be used together, so I'm not sure why there is such a big difference in their base thicknesses.

However, I'm not aware of any other company that makes 10mm Wurttemburgers, so I suppose I'll have to overlook my minor complaints. But since the Pendraken Russians don't match well with their own Wurttemburgers anyway, maybe I'll shop around and see if I can find other Russians I like better. I doubt that Wurttemburgers are huge sellers, so I won't hold my breath for any new ones being sculpted.

Now, to move on to a more recent range. I don't know when those Moscow Campaign figures were sculpted, but the Pendraken 1809 French range is pretty new. First is two of the figures from the Engineers pack, then an infantryman, and finally a couple of cavalry figures. Really, the pictures on the Pendraken site for this range are WAY better than mine, so you'd be much better off looking there. I just figured I'd include them anyway.

These are really nice. I think the sculpting has improved greatly. The marching infantry pose is much better, and the cavalry have much more dynamic poses. The figures also seem a little less chunky. I think the proportions are better, while still managing to keep a lot of crisp details. Unfortunately I don't need any 1809 French, but if I did I would certainly consider this range.

For those interested in this kind of thing, with a little filing of bases I think I could just fit four of the marching infantry side by side on a 3/4" wide base. I do like to base dense so it looks like an actual line. Still, if I use these figures I might just do 3 wide per 3/4" of base width, or 4 wide per inch. Then I could do the Russians on 4 bases (one per company) that are 1.5" wide each with 6 figures across, and the Wurttemburgers on 6 bases (one per company) that are one inch wide each with 4 figures across. Then it would work out to 6 inches across for both in line, with the same number of figures across as each other.

For anyone interested in Great War gaming, I've also done a post with pictures of some of the Pendraken World War 1 Miniatures.

Grismeire Valley Campaign Turn 4-1

2011-06-10T10:58:00.000-05:00

The High Elf 1st army, led by Lord Tethelion of Caledor himself, was disordered and scrambling for a place to regroup and refit their army. Wary of the powerful Elf lord, and not wishing to allow him to get his personal guard back into fighting condition, the Vampire Counts armies set about securing all the villages in the area that Lord Tethelion could retreat to.

The Vampire Counts 2nd Army marched south to capture Nice and the nearby bridge, which could be a very important strategic point as it was the only crossing of the Grismeire river that far south. The Vampire Count 3rd Army moved south to occupy Chateau D'If, destroying all the crops in the fertile farmland surrounding it.

The Vampire Counts 1st Army attacked St. Mer-Eglise, which had been recently captured by the High Elf Blue army from the last of the Beastmen. The High Elves hadn't had much time to prepare defenses in the ravaged village. Through careful and meticulous maneuvering, the undead army managed to force the High Elves to withdraw from the village, though they sustained few losses. And those losses would soon be made up from the remnants of the High Elf Purple army, so that they would soon be back to full strength. The Vampire counts had, however, succeeded in taking the village and denying Lord Tethelion's forces any place to regroup from.

Renegade Imperial Guard Conscript Conversions

2011-05-02T08:00:00.012-05:00

I have finally finished converting a full unit of 50 conscripts for my Renegade Imperial Guard army. They are all made using bodies and arms from the Victrix Miniatures plastic Old Guard Grenadiers, and heads mostly from the Perry Miniatures plastic Napoleonic French Hussars (which come with A LOT of extra heads). If you haven't been following along (and shame on you if you haven't), I used the Hussars as Rough Riders, which you can see here.

The weapons were made with extra 40K weapons I either had already or could scrounge from others. Many of the figures that don't have separate arms I just had to remove the top of the musket and replace with a las-gun barrel to make a las-musket. The figures with separate arms required a lot of work in some cases to get them to convincingly hold the huge over-sized Warhammer 40,000 weapons. But they were fun, if a bit time consuming, to convert, and the many arm options in the Grenadiers plastic kit did allow for some interesting poses that add personality to the unit.

Here are some pictures of how they turned out. You can have fun trying to spot some of the unusual conversions.

They look rather impressive in a huge mass like that. Now I just have to paint them all, with all their little uniform details. All that work converting and then painting them, and all the time it will take to deploy them on the table, just to most likely have them flee of the battlefield on turn 1. Oh well. At least they'll look pretty cool before the enemy gets a chance to shoot at them. Then they'll thin out pretty quick.

Warhammer 40,000 Battle Report: Fortress Antorktica - Part 3

2011-04-25T08:00:00.002-05:00

The Setup
This battle was the grand finale of a planned 3-part mini-campaign between my Tyranids of Hive Fleet Maturin, and some Orks who have taken over an entire continent on an Imperial world. You can read the battle reports for the first two games by clicking on the following links: Part 1 Part 2

This final battle in the campaign would represent the assault against the coastal defenses of Fortress Antorktica. We played it as a Planetstrike game, using the mission where there is one objective in the center of the table, and the attacker had to control it at the end of the game. This seemed like a good way to represent an attempt to punch a hole through the Ork coastal defenses.

We played with 4000 points per side, and two players on each side. Obviously the Tyranids were the attacker. Because the Orks lost the first two games of the campaign, they would be forced to re-roll all successful reserve rolls for the entire game due to their reinforcements being intercepted by infiltrating Tyranids. This would prove to be crucial.

As part of the mission, the Ork army was required to split in half, with one half of the army deployed at the start, and the other in reserve. With two players each having 2000 points of Orks, we just split their army along those lines. So one player deployed all of his Orks at the start. Below you can see the initial positions of the Ork defenders. The two-story Bastion in the center of the table was the objective.

The Story
The Tyranids of Hive Fleet Maturin are conducting a full scale invasion of an Imperial world designated 18-D93. Having completely secured and cleared the land mass they made planetfall on, they are now ready to move on to other continents. First on the list is Fortress Antorktica. The entire continent has been fortified by the Orks who had previously captured it from the Imperial forces. Now the Tyranids would have to break through the defenses on the coast in order to reach the population centers of the Ork-held continent.

To support the landing, the Tyranids have already sent infiltrating forces to take out the Ork artillery and Ork reinforcements that are positioned to support the area they intend to attack. The Tyranids are now sending a massive force against the weak point in the Ork coastal defensive line, which is isolated and unsupported.

Hearing reports of the Tyranid infiltrators, the Orks aren't caught completely unaware. At the last minute they are able to deploy a force field right across the front of the Tyranids path to their objective. This would disrupt the Tyranid advance as they struggled to capture the massive Bastion that commands this part of the Ork defenses.

The Tyranids managed to implements some clever stratagems of their own, however. By attacking in darkness before dawn, they would limit the effectiveness of the Ork firepower as they approached the objective. They also managed to convince (mostly through the judicious use of brain slugs) the huge unit of Ork boyz with their warboss, who had been garrisoning the Bastion, to instead trade places with the Lootas over on the Ork right. This left the Bastion much more vulnerable to assault, and also put the huge Ork mob much closer to the advancing Tyranids.

As the Tyranids crept forward unnoticed in the darkness, their appearance was eventually announced by their bombardment of the Ork defenses. Little damage was done, but the attack did kill several Nobz and Stormboyz, and pinned the Nob unit containing the second Warboss, who huddled for cover next to the Bastion. There were now few defenders around the Bastion to stop the massive Tryanid onslaught.

Tyranid Turn 1
With incredible precision, nearly the entire Tyranid army sprung forward at the exact moment in a wall of alien menace. The right half of the Tyranid line was entirely composed of an unbroken wall of Genestealers. The left was a mix of Gaunts, Genestealers, and Tyranid Warriors, with a Hive Tyrant near the center. All surged forwards. At the same moment, a Trygon burst through the ground right behind the Nobz and Stormboyz next to the Bastion.

The left of the Tyranid line saw a lot of action. Hormagaunts poured into the nearby ruined building to clear it of Ork Burna Boyz. The Trygon tore apart all but one of the Stormboyz, but was wounded five times in the struggle. On the far left, 20 Genestealers leaped over the barricaded to assault the huge unit of Boyz who had been displaced from the Bastion. The Boyz had numbers and cover on their side, and a brutal melee ensued. By the end the Genestealers had made their way inside the defenses and were clearly gaining the upper hand, but the Ork Boyz refused to break.

Ork Turn 1
At this point, the Orks sprung their cunnin' plan! Half of their army had hidden in covered trenches on the beach, ready to emerge in the midst of the Tryanid attackers to stage a devastating counter-attack! Unfortunately, without the benefit of a Hive Mind, they were unable to coordinate quite as well as the Tyranids. Instead of all of them emerging at once, only a unit of Stormboyz and 6 mega-armored Nobz with a Warboss emerged. It still proved to be an effective counter punch. Wisely targeting the Tyranid synapse creatures, the Stormboyz killed a Tyranid prime and all but one of the left-most unit of Tyranid Warriors. The Nobz easily wiped out an entire unit of Tyranid Warriors closer to the center. On the plus side for the Tyranids, the Genestealers on the left finished off the remaining Boyz and Warboss who defended the defensive barricades.

Tyranid Turn 2
Now freed up, the Genestealers on the left came to the aid of the one surviving Tyranid Warrior, and easily wiped out the remaining Stormboyz. In the center, more Tyranid reinforcements turned up right behind the recently-emerged Mega-Armored Nobz, in the form of THREE Carnifexes. Sandwiched between the three charging behemoths, the Nobz stood no chance. The Trygon, badly wounded and on it's last legs (so to speak), charged the Warboss next to the Bastion. The Trygon just managed to kill the Ork Warboss before being finished off by his loyal Nobz.

On the Tyranid right, a large unit of Genestealers charged forward to swarm a unit of Ork bikers, easily destroying them all, but leaving themselves dangerously close to a truck full of Ork reinforcements.

Ork Turn 2
Seeing Hormagaunts bounding towards them, the Grot artillery opened fire, blasting apart all but two of the beasts, though thanks to the influence of the Hive Mind the two survivors kept coming. In the center, another unit of Orks sprung from the sand right behind some Zoanthropes who had just arrived. They charged and hacked the hapless Tyranids to pieces.

On the Tyranid right, the advancing Genestealers were finally in range of the weapons on the Killa Kans defending some barricades. The Genestealers were bunched up in order to move around the force field that blocked their path to the objective, and were an easy target. Many were killed by the various and sundry weapons of the Killa Kans, but many more Genestealers remained.

Tyranid Turn 3
The Genestealers who had been shot by the Killa Kans charged forward for revenge. Two of the Kans were destroyed, the explosion of one of them killing more Genestealers than it would have in combat. One Killa Kan survived to continue on the fight as the remaining Genestealers swarmed around it.

Having cleared most resistance, the Tyranid army continued to advance. The two remaining Hormagaunts avenged their brothers by slaughtering the Grot artillery crew before returning to synapse range of the last Tyranid Warrior. At this point, the Flying Hive Tyrant arrived from reserve, landing right next to the Bastion objective and immediately assaulting, right at the same time the other Hive Tyrant reached the objective. The two Hive Tyrants combined had no trouble destroying the Bastion. All that remained was to clear the few surviving Orks from the rubble.

On the Tyranid right, the Genestealers were easily handling the Orks who attacked them, with plenty of Genestealers to spare.

Ork Turn 3
On the Tyranid left, another Ork unit sprung it's trap from behind and took out the final remaining Tyranid Warrior and the huge unit of Termagants. Nothing much happened in the center. A unit of Orks stared powerlessly at the battered bastion, unable to pass through their own force field, while the Lootas had no intention of starting a fight with two Hive Tyrants.

On the Tyranid right, suddenly a horde of Ork reinforcements arrived, some charging the nearest Genestealers, while other Orks shot at another unit of Genestealers. A bloody but inconclusive close combat ensued, but it was clear the Genestealers couldn't hold out indefinitely against such numbers.

The Result
Sadly, we had to stop the game at this point because we had run out of time. It's too bad, because I would have liked to see if the Orks could make it to the Bastion, which still had two Hive Tyrants defending it, with two Carnifexes withing a couple of turns of it as well. But other than that and a couple of Genestealer units, there wasn't much left of the Tyranid army, and the Orks had quite a few reinforcements just arriving. So I think we'll have to consider this one a draw. The Tyranids created a beachhead and gained a foothold by destroying the Bastion and scattering the defenders, but the Orks responded quickly enough to bog down the Tyranid attackers at that point, preventing them from pouring through the gap unopposed.

GHQ Painted Iron Brigade Regiments

2011-03-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

I've completed my 10mm Iron Brigade by painting up the final two regiments, plus a brigade command stand. You can see the previous three regiments (composed of Perrin miniatures) here. For these two regiments I used my usual GHQ miniatures. I used two packs of Firing Iron Brigade and two of Iron Brigade Skirmishers to get a mix have standing and kneeling figures, and to have some skirmishers left over for casualty bases. The command stand has one Perrin figure holding the flag, but the rest are GHQ.

These recent GHQ releases are even better than previous releases. The figures include some amazing details, such as the brass horn emblems on the front of the hats, and the hat cords and tassels.

Here are some pictures of the results. As always, comments and feedback are welcome.

The Peninsular War Atlas by Nick Lipscombe

2011-02-23T08:00:00.001-06:00

I purchased The Peninsular War Atlas mostly because of the positive reviews both on The Miniatures Page message boards and on Amazon.com. I have to agree, the positive reviews are correct. This is a really great book.

The book is very large, with 384 extra wide pages that include 160 maps. It has a hard cover and comes in a nice slip case. It is a really nice looking and high quality book. Here is a picture of the book outside the case.

On top of the production value of the book, the contents are really exceptional. It starts off with a brief Foreword by the current Duke of Wellington, followed by a Preface which contains interesting information about the development of military map making and information about early histories of the Peninsular War. It also lays out the purpose of the tome, which in short is to provide a nearly comprehensive set of maps of the military operations of the Peninsular war, supported by explainatory text. An effort has also been made to portray the entire conflict with coverage of Spanish contributions, which are sometimes neglected by English writers, and English/Portuguese contributions, which are sometimes downplayed in Spanish sources. The book also definitely sticks to battles and things that led up to battles, leaving out anything about the war that is not relevant to the military conflict.

There is an Introduction by Charles J. Esdaile, which is somewhat interesting, but is mostly just concerned with explaining why the Peninsular war is important and interesting, and you probably wouldn't have bought the book if you didn't already think so. It also randomly compares the Peninsular War to World War 1 for some reason. Much more useful are the Chronology of Events in the Peninsular War and the Legend to Maps, which I've pictured below. The Chronology is good as an overview to keep the overall timeline of events in perspective. It also lists all of the huge number of battles and engagements that took place, most of which appear to be covered in some detail in the book.

In the back of the book are a bibliography, a glossary, and several appendices listing out strengths and dispositions of various forces at different times. An example of these pages is shown below.

The rest of the book follows a consistent format: a map on the right side with descriptive text on the left, starting at the very beginning of the conflict and continuing to the very end. The maps cover different scales, from showing the whole peninsula with strategic movements of armies, down to tactical maps showing locations and movements of individual battalions and batteries. There are even some 3D contour maps of some battles. Here are sample pictures of two of the maps at different scales.

The maps are very clear, though the blue color they use for the French and the black for the Spanish are sometimes hard to distinguish at a glance. The accompanying text is very clear and concise, and between the text and the maps it is very easy to understand how the battles unfolded or how the strategic movements were playing out. It is full of great information and is really fascinating for anyone interested in the Peninsular War.

The book is also very useful from a wargaming perspective. If you wish to play one of these particular battles on the tabletop, it is a perfect reference for doing so, and there must be something like a hundred of them to choose from. It's got maps for you to follow and orders of battle for the forces taking part, and even text explaining how the battle played out and what contributed to the outcome. Even if you aren't playing a specific battle, it gives a great impression of the kinds of situations that came up in battle, typical formations and organizations of units that might face each other, and the ways terrain played a part in deployments. It will give you plenty of ideas for battles to fight with all different sizes of forces.

In short, it's a great book that I would highly recommend for anyone interested in the subject or who does any gaming in this period. The retail price is $75, but as usual it can be had for a lot less from amazon.com. If you are even remotely interested, I'd encourage you to check out the page on Amazon, because they have a video that shows more of the book, including the slip case and a lot more pages than I've shown. There are also several customer reviews on there that are very positive. It's definitely worth a look.

Painted 10mm Perrin Iron Brigade Regiments

2011-02-14T08:00:00.012-06:00

I've finished painting three of the five regiments of the famous Union Iron Brigade from the American Civil War. These three will represent the 2nd, 6th, and 7th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiments. Here are some pictures of the three completed regiments.

The figures are 10mm and from Perrin Miniatures, instead of from GHQ, which is what all of my other Civil War miniatures are. I bought these a long time ago, before GHQ released their Iron Brigade figures, and I just got around to painting them recently. The Perrin figures are much chunkier than the GHQ ones, and don't have details as fine. Consequently, I didn't do as detailed of a paint job on these as I have for my previous Civil War miniatures, but I think they'll look okay on the table. I also could only fit six figures on each base instead of the usual eight. Hopefully they won't look out of place on the same table with the GHQ figures.

Black Powder American Civil War Battle Report - Supply Raid

2011-02-07T08:00:00.020-06:00

This is a battle report that a friend of mine wrote for a game I played against him recently. The rules were Warlord Games's Black Powder. The scenario was one I invented, which I have posted here. If you try out the scenario, please leave a comment and let me know how it went, and what changes you made or would suggest. The basic idea is that one side is escorting some supplies down a road, and the other side is setting up an ambush to steal or destroy the supply wagons. Here's how our game played out.

Deployment
Confederate Cavalry deploys one regiment (8th Tennessee) in skirmish across the road, and a second regiment (4th Tennessee) to the right flank, also in skirmish. Brigadier General Forrest deploys between the two regiments, keeping, for the moment, to the woods immediately to the east of the road.

Union infantry, led by Brigadier General Meagher, deploy to the west of the road to secure the Union right flank. One regiment (69th New York) deploys in skirmish to move through the woods. Immediately to the north of this are three more infantry regiments in march column (88th New York, 116th Pennsylvania, and the 28th Massachusetts) facing the road. This may prove to be a nasty hammer-blow to the supply train. On the eastern edge of the battlefield a fifth regiment of infantry (63rd New York), deployed in line, supports a battery of foot artillery and is overseen by Major General Winfield Scott Hancock.

Confederate Turn One
The 4th Tennessee is ordered by Brigadier Forrest to move forward at all possible haste in order to reconnoiter the disposition of possible Union deployment upon the large hill conveniently overlooking the road. The 8th Tennessee is ordered forward at a moderate pace in order to maintain a cavalry screen for the infantry brigade following. Brigadier Forrest maintains his position directly between the two regiments.

General Longstreet orders the infantry brigade (currently including the supply column) forward at all possible speed. The good General sees the road ahead is ripe for an ambush and wishes to cover as much ground as possible. His Brigade commanders, while in agreement, move ahead cautiously.

Union Turn One
Major General Hancock, on the Union Left, orders the lumbered artillery to take position atop the hill and deploy. The poor Union soldiers, manhandling the guns, barely make the top of the hill before collapsing from the effort.

The infantry brigade opts to remain in wait for the unsuspecting secessionists.

Confederate Turn Two
Brigadier Forrest orders the 4th Tennessee forward to the hill, and the 8th Tennessee forward a steady pace and to form up. The 8th Tennessee detects the glint of metal in the woods to their left and sounds off that the enemy is sighted.

General Longstreet orders the infantry brigade to move forward directly behind the 8th Tennessee and to the left of the road, wishing to avoid holding up the supply column. The infantry, excited at the prospect of engaging the enemy, does so with speed. General Longstreet then orders the supply column to keep abreast of the infantry brigade and entrusts Brigadier Forrest to secure the right.

Union Turn Two
Having been spotted, Major General Hancock calls for reinforcements and is answered by the distant bugles of the 1st and 5th Michigan Wolverines, a cavalry brigade, commanded Brigadier General George Armstrong Custer.

On the Union right Brigadier Meagher order the 88th New York, 116th Pennsylvania, and the 28th Massachusetts to move forward and bar the road, forming into line once there. Confused by the sudden prevalence of bugle calls, the three regiments are slow moving forward and do not even gain the road. Red-faced with anger, Meagher orders the 69th New York to wheel left in order to ravage the rebel flanks but whether due Meagher’s anger or the aforementioned bugle cacophony, the 69th New York instead panics and flies into full retreat.

On the Union left Major General Hancock orders the foot artillery to deploy, and then orders the 63rd New York to crest the hill and establish a support position directly to the left of the battery. Brigadier Custer leads his two regiments of cavalry cautiously from the east and attempts to take the south end of the hill in the face of the oncoming 4th Tennessee. Directly to the north of them, Custer orders the horse artillery to form up on the right of the foot artillery. Again, caution rules the day and the horse artillery advances, but slowly.

Atop the hill, the foot artillery opens fire upon the leading elements of the Confederates on the road, hitting the 8th Tennessee with a barrage of round shot. The morale of the rebel horsemen holds true, and they ride through the exploding turf dramatically.

Confederate Turn Three
On the Confederate right, Brigadier Forrest orders the 4th Tennessee to form up and charge the enemy cavalry attempting to take the hill. There is, at first, some confusion but Forrest orders them again and they manage to form up. Forrest then boldly orders the 8th Tennessee to charge the Union foot artillery. They come close but end up at the bottom of the hill instead as the Union gunners ram home more round shot.

Brigadier Hood orders the infantry brigade to charge ahead and form line to either side of the road in order to engage the encroaching Union foot regiments. Alas, Hood’s low decisiveness cost some motivation and the Confederate foot merely charged forward whooping and hollering but not achieving their General’s wishes. General Longstreet ordered the supply wagons to move, post haste, in order to break past the Union foot regiments before they can get positioned.

Union Turn Three
Brigadier Meagher again orders his three foot regiments to form line and bar the road. Again, the three regiments move slowly. Meagher then orders the 69th New York to reform, and advance into the Confederate’s left. The confusion of the last few moments means that the New Yorkers manage only to reform and actually face the enemy. This is a small victory in and of itself, all things considered.

Hancock orders the foot artillery to manhandle their guns forward to canister range but due to the proximity of the howling enemy they do not move. Hancock also orders Battery M of the horse artillery to form up on the right flank of the foot battery.

Custer, on the far left of the Union lines, orders the 1st Michigan to advance to the other side of the hill and form line facing the Confederate infantry but they only manage to take the top of the hill. Custer then rides into the ranks of the 5th Michigan and orders them to follow him into line facing the 4th Tennessee and charge.. an order the 5th follows with abandon.

In the Union center both artillery batteries open up on the 8th Tennessee but perhaps due to the incline of the hill or the brazen charge of the cavalry, all rounds pass harmlessly over the heads of the cavalry. The 63rd New York, having wheeled to face the same regiment of Confederate cavalry, opens fire but the furious tirade spatters harmlessly off the ground and rocks.

On the left, the 4th Tennessee countercharges the 5th Michigan and meets them in mortal combat at the foot of the hill. Such is the fervor of the 4th Tennessee that the combat results in a draw! Both regiments fall back a piece in order to regroup.

Confederate Turn Four
Brigadier Hood orders the Confederate infantry brigade to form line and charge the flanks of the Union infantry but with so many regiments in close proximity they manage only to reform.

On the Confederate far left, the 8th Tennessee charges the artillery batteries, hoping to cripple them. Focusing their efforts on the horse artillery at the left, the Tennessee cavalry is subjected to a withering cannonade.

Forrest himself gallops into the ranks of the 4th Tennessee and with a rebel yell they charge into the flank of the 1st Michigan.

At the left, the 8th Georgia and 4th Texas, inflicting moderate casualties and sending the 88th New York into disorder.

The 8th Tennessee ravages the horse artillery, destroying them utterly. Holding their momentum, the 8th Tennessee circles round the rear to threaten the remaining artillery battery and Major General Hancock himself.

The 4th Tennessee, led by Forrest and not to be outdone, breaks the 1st Michigan and forces them back. The 4th then carries their momentum and charges the 5th Michigan. Custer leads his men into a brave combat and the Wolverines completely destroy the impetuous 4th. Forrest’s disposition is not known but he is feared to be gravely wounded.

Union Turn Four
At the Union right, Meagher gets the infantry moving and the line is finally formed to block the road. The 69th New York manages to close up with the rest of the infantry brigade but little else.

At the Union left, Hancock attempts to rally the 5th Michigan but the deviled kidneys he’d had for breakfast intervened and the rally failed as Hancock instead retched onto the hilltop. Custer, however, was able to rally the 1st Michigan, preparing for a renewed assault on the plump target presented by Confederate infantry in march column.

The foot artillery, having spun their pieces round to face the 8th menacing their rear, opens fire. The torrent of canister inflicts casualties but the Tennessee cavalry bravely weathers the rain of scrap metal. The 63rd New York, also having wheeled to face the cavalry, opens fire and this brutal fusillade proves to be enough to break the brave cavalrymen and the 8th Tennessee follows the 4th in scattering and fleeing.

At the Union center, the 88th New York and 118th Pennsylvania direct their fire at the 18th Georgia but casualties were low.

Confederate Turn Five
At the center, Brigadier Hood orders the 4th Texas to charge the 88th New York. The 18th Georgia, being disordered, opts to fire. The 1st Texas wheels right to face the Union Cavalry threatening their position as the far Confederate left, owing to the dispersal of the Confederate cavalry.

The Texans and the Georgians concentrate their fire on the 118th Pennsylvania but the tirade is not enough to inflict significant damage. At the Confederate right the 1st Texas fires at Custer’s Cavalry and sends them into disorder and avoiding a dangerous charge from the horsemen for the moment.

The combat at the Confederate left results in the 88th New York falling back and flying into disorder. A small victory to be sure.

Union Turn Five
The 118th Pennsylvania wheels to the right to face the Confederate lines, and Meagher orders the 69th to wheel and face the enemy lines but confusion in the ranks fails to carry the order to completion. The foot artillery again wheels their guns around to face the enemy, and the 63rd New York again performs a well ordered about-face to face the enemy. The rattle of ramrods tells of the coming hail of lead as much as the unit’s positions do.

The 69th New York opens fire on the 5th Texas, inflicting no casualties but causing disorder in the ranks. The 4th Texas then faces the combined fire of both the 118th and 88th New York. The artillery battery sends a handful of shot over the heads of the Union lines and into the 18th Georgia, sending them into disorder and wreaking havoc among the ranks.

Confederate Turn Six
General Longstreet, keeping his objective in mind, orders the supply train to break for the woods and circle around the Union right and commands Hood to distract the Union infantry in order to give the supply wagons a chance to break through. Hood debates with his aides-de-camps about whether or not to move the 3rd Arkansas forward and the indecisiveness costs them any meaningful progress. The rest of the infantry, being somewhat disordered, reloads and prepares to fire at the Union lines.

The 5th Texas fires at the retreating 88th New York, but they hold their ground. The rest of the Confederate shooting is as ineffectual with the exception of the 1st Texas whose fusillade breaks the already weakened 5th Michigan, Custer fleeing with them.

Union Turn Six
The 88th New York reforms using their own initiative, and turns about to face the Confederate lines, furiously reloading whilst they maneuver. The 63rd New York moves forward to position onto the far Union left. General Hancock attempts to rally the Michigan cavalry, telling them that the loss of their Brigadier shouldn’t be cause for them to mill about. Alas, the realization that Custer had been sent packing was too much for them and they instead “repositioned toward the Union rear.”

The 5th Texas weather the fire of both the 88th and the 69th. The 28th Pennsylvania fires at the 4th Texas, inflicting casualties but little else. The artillery again brutalizes the 18th Georgia.

Confederate Turn Seven
The Confederate Supply regiment continues its attempt to pass round the Union left. The Confederate infantry brigade continues its fusillade and the two points of note are the 28th Massachusetts finally breaking and the 118th Pennsylvania shrugging off what could have been a crippling tirade.

Union Turn Seven
The 88th New York, ordered to rally by Meagher, blundered when they saw the Confederate “column” erupting from the trees right behind Meagher and rather than rally they broke. On the far Union left, the 69th close to short range and level their muskets at the 1st Texas.

The Union firing caused little effect, save the near breaking of the 5th Texas and the decimation and routing of the 18th Georgia.

Confederate Turn Eight
Hood orders the 4th Texas to charge, but thinks better of it… then decides it should be a good idea. Or is it? The moment passes and the 4th Texas fails to charge. The supply train continues its attempted breakout.

Another volley from the Confederate lines ravages the 116th Pennsylvania, but apparently little else is accomplished beyond raw attrition.

Union Turn Eight
The attrition from the recent Confederate volley causes a ripple in the Union lines, which quickly turns into the entire line retiring, having been broken by the withering fire from the grey-clad rebels.

The retreating troops fire a volley to cover their withdrawl, but to practically no effect. The rebel stamina holds true, and the supply train escapes the field to bring much needed supplies to a nearby battle.

Warhammer 40,000 Battle Report: Fortress Antorktica - Part 2

2011-01-31T08:00:00.261-06:00

The Setup
This battle was the second part of a planned 3-part mini-campaign between my Tyranids of Hive Fleet Maturin, and some Orks who have taken over an entire continent on an Imperial world. You can read the battle report from the first game in the campaign here.

This second battle would represent the Tyranid forces staging a preemptive attack on some Ork mobile reinforcements to prevent them from counter-attacking at the point of the main Tyranid attack. If the Tyranids could delay the Ork counter-attack, their breakthrough of the main Ork defenses would stand a much grater chance of success.

We used the Surprise Assault scenario from the Battle Missions book, with my Tyranids as the Space Marines and the Orks as the enemy. Basically, the Orks had to deploy everything with each unit a certain distance from any other, to represent them being naturally spread out and not expecting trouble. The Tyranids moved on in their first turn from any table edge, and could move different units on from different table edges. The Ork army would all have Move Through Cover and Stubborn. The winner would be determined by Kill Points, with HQ units earning 3, Troops units and dedicated transports worth 1, and everything else worth 2. We decided, because of the nature of the story, to change it so that the Tyranids scored 2 points instead of 1 for dedicated transports, and to make up for it the Orks would score 2 Kill Points for each Tyranid Troops unit. The armies were 1500 points.

If the Orks lost, they would be required to re-roll all their successful reserve rolls in the final, climactic battle of the campaign. This final battle would represent the initial landing and assault on the main Ork fortifications on the coast of the continent.

The Story
The Tyranids of Hive Fleet Maturin are in the midst of an invasion of an Imperial world designated 18-D93. Having completely secured and cleared the land mass they made planetfall on, they are now ready to attack the other contents. The first task would be an assault on Fortress Antorktica, which has been heavily fortified by the Orks in order to repel counter-attacks from Imperial forces. Now the Tyranids would have to break through the defenses on the coast in order to reach the population centers of the Ork-held continent.

To support the landing, the Tyranids have sent an infiltrating force to spring a surprise attack on Ork reinforcements waiting near where the main assault will take place. They would attempt to cause as much of a disruption as possible, with the priority being taking out any Ork vehicles that could carry reinforcements to the front lines, where the battle will be decided.

Tyranid Turn 1
The Ork reserve troops behind the main defensive lines were now out and ready to advance at a moments notice. They only awaited word letting them know where their counter-attack would be most needed, and where the enemy attack would be strongest. The Warboss nearest the main Tyranid assault waited with his retinue, which included some Bikers, Lootas, a Weirdboy, Nobz, Grot Kannons, and some DeffKoptas. They oddly had only a single Trukk, containing a unit of Shoota Boyz. The Warboss himself had a personal bodyguard of many Slugga Boyz.

Suddenly, the Tyranids sprang up seemingly out of nowhere to surround the Ork reserve troops on two sides. The Zoanthropes immediately blasted apart the Trukk, their primary objective, which careened back towards the Warboss's bodyguards before exploding. All other Tyranids advanced at full speed, though many were slowed by the difficult terrain they had to traverse. A unit of Hormaguants seemed to be easily close enough to charge the Lootas, but they must have spotted some broken glass or jagged rocks amongst the ruins and had second thoughts.

Ork Turn 1
The Orks didn't let the surprise attack disorder them, and quickly responded. The Weirdboy moved to support the Lootas, while the Warbikers moved up to fire on the Zoanthropes. The Warboss bravely led his bodyguards into an assault with the menacing Trygon, which killed 6 of the Orks and took a wound before being surrounded by the swarming enemy. The Shoota Boyz from the Trukk moved into the cover of a ruined building, while the nearby Nobz advanced towards the Tyranid Warriors sheltering in a crater. The Deffkoptas flew over the unit of Genestealers and dropped a bomb, killing two of them, while the Grot Kannons shelled the Termagants.

The Nobz were close enough to assault the Tyranid Warriors, and they launched themselves down the lip of the crater with great enthusiasm, perhaps partly due to the effects of the Painboy in their midst. The waiting Tyranid Warriors killed one of the Nobz and wounded two others, but it wasn't nearly enough. With all the Power Claws flailing around wildly, the drugged up Nobs tore the Tyranid Warrios to pieces, ripping them apart limb from limb as the nearby termagants and Hormagaunts watched helplessly. Their turn would surely come.

Tyranid Turn 2
The Tyranids continued to push forward the assault, with mixed results. The Hive Mind rather forcefully insisted that the Hormagaunts charge through the rubble to assault the Lootas. It was a brutal fight, with the Orks striking first as Hormagaunts bounded over rubble and through broken windows. Several Orks and Hormagaunts were cut down, but three of the Lootas held out and the melee would continue.

Nearby, the Hive Tyrant and his two Tyrant Guard charged in to assist the Trygon fighting the Warboss and a horde of Boyz, killing many of the Boyz. Recognizing the biggest threat, the Tyrgon focused entirely on the Warboss, dismembering and devouring the Ork leader. His enraged bodygaurds had their revenge, however, and managed to drag down and butcher the massive beast.

Elsewhere, another unit of Hormagaunts assaulted the Shoota Boyz from the Trukk. The Boyz used the cover of a ruined building to their advantage, however, gunning down the enemy as they approached and using walls to shield themselves from scything talons. In this way, the Shoota Boyz managed to take down all of the gaunts while taking minimal losses.

The Genestealers assaulted the Deffkoptas, but were unable leap high enough to reach the contraptions

Ork Turn 2
The Warbikers, Nobz, and Shoota Boyz surrounded the three Zoanthropes and poured fire into them. When the dust had cleared, only a single wounded (and clearly headless) Zoanthrope remained. Elsewhere, the Weirdboy piled his unit into the back-and-forth combat that had the Hive Tyrant battling the Warboss's bodyguards.

The Termagants had been out of Synapse range after the slaughter of the Tyranid Warriors, and so they simply milled about in the ruins while being fired upon by the Grot Kannons. Meanwhile, the Genestealers figured out how to leap up onto each other to form a living pyramid, which allowed them to reach the Deffkoptas and take down two of them. The remaining Deffkopta pilot defiantly held his ground.

Tyranid Turn 3
Having finished off the Lootas, the Hormagaunts charged in to the continuing battle around the Hive Tyrant. The ferocity of the combat continued to escalate, with more Orks and the Tyrant Guard falling, but once again it ended in a stalemate, neither side having any thought of retreat.

The Genestealers killed the last Deffkopta pilot, and menacingly made their way through the field of craters towards the doomed Grots.

Ork Turn 3
Another round of fire from the Nobz and the Shoota Boyz put an end to the exploits of the headless Zoanthrope. Not many people, or Orks for that matter, know that a decapitated Zoanthrope can survive for several minutes.

The Warbikers saw that they were missing out on a legendary scrap, and headed towards it at all possible speed. The Weirdboy was unable to contain the buildup of physic energy caused by all the brutal fighting around him. He attempted to unleash this power on his enemies, but it instead overwhelmed him, causing his head to explode spectacularly. The fight continued on without him, and finally the Tyranids prevailed, finishing off the Ork Boyz and Nobz. The seriously wounded Hive Tyrant and three Hormagaunts were all that survived the melee that laid low a Trygon, a Warboss, several Hormagaunts and Nobz, and a couple dozen Ork Boyz.

Tyranid Turn 4
With no time to recover from their ordeal, the Hive Tyrant led the last of the Hormagaunts in a charge against the Warbikers. Exhausted as they were, they only managed to kill two of the enemy before the Orks struck back, killing a Hormagaunt and wounding the Hive Tyrant with a carefully placed swing of a Power Claw.

The Genestealers made their way through the maze of craters to assault the Grot Kannon crews. The result of this was a foregone conclusion, and should be immediately obvious to the most casual observer.

Ork Turn 4
The remaining Ork Nobz turned their attention to the Termagants, who, left without the influence of the Hive Mind, had simply made themselves comfortable in the rubble of some ruined buildings. Their feelings of contentment in their current situation were shattered by the assault of the Nobz, and the Termagants who survived the initial attacks immediately fled. The Shootas, having witnessed the mess that had been made of the Grots, moved out of their position to fire on the advancing Genestealers, but their nerve failed them and all of their shots missed their mark.

The Hive Tyrant killed two more of the Warbikers, but the one with the Power Claw remained. The Ork drew his arm back, took careful aim, and very deliberately delivered the blow that finally brought down the Hive Tyrant.

Tyranid Turn 5
While the final Ork Warbiker was finishing off the last of the Hormagaunts, the Genestealers were assaulting the Shoota Boyz. The Genestealers easily massacred the Shoota Boyz without taking so much as a scratch.

Ork Turn 5
While the remaining Warbiker approached, the Nobz assaulted the Genestealers. A brutal combat ensued, but neither side would give.

In another minute, either the Genestealers would be wiped out, or the remaining Orks would, but it hardly mattered. The Ork reserve forces had been devastated by the sudden Tyranid attack, and it was now too late for them to be able to recover enough to mount an effective counter-attack. The ambushing Tyranid force was destroyed, but the Tyranid army on the front line had been given the best possible chance for victory.

Borodino: The Moscova by F. G. Hourtoulle

2011-01-27T08:00:00.003-06:00

BORODINO: THE MOSCOVA: The Battle for the Redoubts is a useful reference for painting figures for Napoleon's 1812 campaign in Russia, but the other information in it is less useful, and it spends very little time describing the battle of Borodino itself. It definitely would not be good as a general introduction to the battle or the uniforms of the participants.

The book includes many uniform plates which cover every division that took part in the Battle of Borodino from both sides. These are excellent and very detailed, though not exhaustive. I can't speak to the accuracy of them, since if I knew everything about the uniforms already I wouldn't need the book, would I? They would definitely be most useful to someone who already knew the basics about the uniforms involved, however. As I mentioned, the book wouldn't be a good introduction to the uniforms, as it doesn't really cover the basics. There are many examples of Russian infantry uniforms from various divisions, but they don't all have captions, and there isn't an explanation of why one might differ from another. Does the uniform differ because he is an NCO? Because he is in a different company or a different regiment? Most of the captions mention the rank of someone, and if they are a grenadier or a drummer or what have you, but without any explanation of how this is reflected in the uniform. So if you already know the basics like that, this is a great reference.

Speaking of which, I have found this website to be an incredible reference for everything about Napoleonic armies. You can easily find the general information about Russian uniforms on that site, and a lot of details as well.

Also included are pictures and explanations about the flags carried by Russian regiments. The number and types of flags carried is explained by the author, and there are pictures of his best guess of the flags carried by each regiment at the battle (as he admits he is not certain about many of them). This also adds to the value of the book as a reference when putting together miniature armies.

The book also contains a huge number of portraits of many of the main players and other high ranking officers. This may or may not be valuable when putting together an army, but it is interesting to put a face to the names. There are also various paintings of the battle reproduced in the book, so it contains plenty of things to look at in terms of reference information and just general inspiration.

The main drawback to the book is the text. As I said, the pictures are great, but the text leaves something to be desired. First of all, the translation from French was just terrible. Some parts are almost unreadable because they are confusing or contradictory, and much of it is just badly worded. But even if the text was well translated, there isn't much of interest in much of it aside from the lists of units.

The description of the Battle of Borodino takes up 15 pages, and is very mechanical. It's mostly just a chronological description of when various formations of men moved and to where, without much real context to it. It's not very evocative, and it doesn't provide much inspiration. The 15 pages does include 6 maps showing the position of forces, many nice paintings, plus a few drawings of how the redoubts were laid out. These are all nice, but four of the 15 pages are just paintings and have no text on them at all, and most of the pages have something besides text, so that probably gives you some idea how basic the description of the battle is.

In addition, the author seems to be very biased in his views and what information he presents. It seems to me like the only purpose of the text is to convince the reader that the French army was hugely outnumbered and at a great disadvantage, yet managed to win a great an unmitigated victory at Borodino, killing 5 times the number of enemy as they lost themselves. Napoleon only waited around in Moscow afterward because he had the decency to give Alexander the chance to capitulate, which of course any upstanding gentleman would have been obliged to do after such a devastating defeat.

At any rate, the bulk of the text of the book is just a listing of the forces involved, which is more useful from a gaming perspective. Here, too, there is a bit of bias as the French forces are described with much more detail, though this may have been due to availability of sources of information. Naturally the author takes every opportunity to conclude that Russian formations included more men than usually attributed, and the French of course had far fewer.

For the Russians, it does break the army down to list each corp, it's divisions, and the regiments in each division. The number of men is only listed at the corp level, which may or may not be enough for gaming purposes. For the French forces the number of men goes down to the divisional level at least, and most of them down to the number of men present in each regiment. On the French side, it also lists what seems like every officer in the entire French army, down to those on each general's staff and leading every division, in excruciating detail. If you've always wanted to know where, when, and how some random aide-de-camp of some random general met his end, or what decorations he received during his military career, now you'll know. Really, I'm not exaggerating. It really does list what must be hundreds of French officers along with about a sentence to summarize their career before and after the battle, and their fate.

If you click the link to the book on Amazon, you can view a sample of the first few pages of the book. This will give you an idea of how the Russian forces are described, (with portraits of many officers in the margins) in addition to a page explaining the Russian flags. Amazon doesn't show a sample page showing the uniform plates int he book, or the level of detail shown for the French forces, but they are quite good. Here are some sample pictures from the book.

In summary, the book is a great reference with plenty of uniform plates, portraits, and organizational details, especially for the French forces, though it does assume some knowledge of the basics of the uniforms. So as a uniform reference, it is quite good, though it doesn't clearly lay out everything you'd ever need to know. If you want an introduction to or narrative description of the Battle of Borodino, or the larger campaign in Russia, you aren't going to get it from the few pages of coverage in this book.

The book can be ordered at a significant discount from Amazon.

Grismeire Valley Campaign Turn 3 – High Elves 1st Army Attacking Vampire Counts 3rd Army

2011-01-24T08:00:00.001-06:00

The commander of the High Elf Expeditionary Force himself, Prince Finduleas Tethelion of Caledor with his loyal Star Dragon, took his personal entourage to attack the Vampire Counts army defending the bridge southeast of Soude. The Vampire Counts force, led by Count Tepes, would have to hold the bridge at all costs against this determined attack being personally led by the Elven leader. Count Tepes’s only goal would be to fend off the attack by maintaining control of more of the territory on his side of the bridge than the enemy, so that they would be forced to retreat back across the river. The Elves would have to destroy the undead army to gain a foothold on the far side of the bridge. Being one of the few nearby bridges that would allow access to the Vampire Counts base camp, it was an extremely important objective for both sides.

Count Tepes set up his forces in a tight group in a swampy area on the far side of the bridge near some old ruins. He hoped the swampy terrain would bog down the elves so he could counter-attack and finish them off. Lord Tepes was with his Wight King battle standard bearer in a unit of Grave Guard, prepared to reinforce the line wherever the strongest enemy attack came. From their left to right were a unit of skeleton spearmen, a unit of Grave Guard with great weapons led by a vampire, another unit of skeleton spearmen, and a large unit of ghouls led by a vampire.

The Elves deployed in a long battle line, with Prince Tethelion on his imposing Star Dragon to their far left. Fearing being surrounded by the undead, he went with a strange tactic of using many very small units spread out on a very large front. He brought to battle three units of 15 spearmen each, and four units each of 5 swordmasters. He would try to use these many small units to surround the enemy. He also had a hard-hitting unit of seven dragon princes.

At the start of the battle, Prince Tethelion moved his entire army straight forward, though they were diverted somewhat by the swampy pools. His two mages, wishing to avoid any actual fighting, left their units and waded into one of the pools to hide themselves. Count Tepes formed his units into a semi-circle to avoid being flanked by the many units trying to surround him. His own unit of Grave Guard he positioned on his left flank to take the charge of the dragon princes.

Prince Tethelion then took to the air and landed on the far right flank of the undead army to breathe fire on the unit of ghouls, which had little effect. The dragon princes saw the mighty Count Tepes at the head of his Grave Guard and decided they didn't want to fight him. The rest of the Elven army formed up into a thin, but continuous battle line that arced around the Vampire Counts force.

Most of his units were not close enough to charge the enemy, but Count Tepes could feel the noose tightening around his compacted army and had to do something. He had the two units at the center of his line, the Grave Guard with great weapons and a unit of skeleton spearmen, charge the enemy units they could reach. They each would face a unit of High Elf spearmen. It was a huge risk breaking up his battle line like that and leaving a huge hole in it's center, but he couldn't wait around to be surrounded by the enemy. The unit of ghouls on his far right flank turned to face Prince Tethelion so that he wouldn't be able to charge their flank.

Several of the skeleton spearmen were cut down by the swift elves before they could even attack. Still, seeing the large mass of skeletons bearing down on them caused the cowardly elves to instantly flee as soon as they made contact. The skeletons pursued, but the terrified elves ran so fast there was no chance of catching them. The Grave Guard did even better. They took no casualties while causing the frightened elves to flee and cutting them all down as they fled. One of the Elf mages lost his nerve seeing two units break and run, and he fled as well.

The mage and the Elf spearman unit both rallied immediately once they were out of danger. The two manges continued to be ineffective, however. They spent most of the battle trying to drain magic to prevent the vampires from being able to revive their fallen soldiers, but the vampires usually got the better of them and dispelled their efforts. The vampires in turn did manage to summon some ghouls and rejuvenate some losses, but not much else.

With their line broken, the Elves tried to rearrange themselves better, with one unit of swordmasters turning to face the pursuing unit of skeleton spearmen. The unit of High Elf spearmen on their far left continued to move around the enemy's right flank. Prince Tethelion went off on his own, swooping down behind Count Tepes's unit of grave guard and breathing fire on them.

Count Tepes and his bodyguard were no surrounded by the most powerful high elf units, the dragon princes on one side and Prince Tethelion on his mighty dragon on another. But unlike the overly-cautious elves, perhaps due to their general being off on his own, the Vampire Counts army would not sit idle. One of the other vampires led her skeleton spearmen in a charge against the swordmasters to her front. The other skeleton spearmen, hopelessly out of position and far from any of their vampire leaders, had no choice but to continue advancing and charge the High Elf spearmen again. The Grave Guard with Great Weapons turned around, now in an advantageous position in the enemy's rear. The ghouls again turned to face Prince Tethelion, this time in preparation of having to charge in to help rescue their general. Count Tepes and his Grave Guard could do nothing but steady themselves for the onslaught to come.

With the help of the vampiress leading them, the skeleton spearmen in the middle defeated the swordmasters, who fled right into the deadly great weapons of the Grave Guard behind them. The nearby unit of swordmasters panicked and ran at the sight of their comrades being slaughtered. The other unit of skeleton spearmen again didn't manage to kill a single Elf in their charge, and being defeated and so far from any of the vampires that controled them, they started to fall apart.

The broken swordmasters fled a little farther, fumbling through some underbrush. The High Elf spearmen in the back killed several more skeleton spearmen. The rest of the High Elf army just repositioned itself and watched in anticipation as the their lord on his star dragon and a unit of 7 dragon princes charged Count Tepes and his bodyguard at the same time. Prince Tethelion and his dragon focused all of their attacks on the vampire general, Count Tepes. It was, however, a far from impressive showing by Prince Tethelion, who cause no wounds. The dragon's attacks were fierce, but the magical army Count Tepes wore stopped some of them. The dragon did manage to cause some grievous wounds but Count Tepes quickly regenerated from them due to the powerful magic of the Drakenhof Banner carried by his loyal Wight King army standard bearer. With all of their fury, they only managed to cause Count Tepes a single wound. Unfortunately, while he was distracted attempting to ward off their blows, the dragon princes, clearly with no sense of honor, attacked him from the side. One of their lances pierced through his side into his heart, ending the fight for count Tepes. Meanwhile, the dragon prince champion was cut down in a challege by the army standard bearer. The High Elves had caused few wounds, and had lost the combat by a slim margin, but having just slain the enemy general their spirits were high and they didn't even consider fleeing.

Despite the loss of their general, the undead army held together remarkably well in his absence of the rest of the battle, a testament to the discipline and undying will of their master. The unit of ghouls led by a vampire wasn't yet close enough to charge in to aid the Wight King against the Elven Prince and dragon princes, so they advanced. The vampire did what he could to help by using his necromantic magic to revive some of the fallen grave guard. The other unit of grave guard turned to face the disordered swordmasters, and the unit of skeleton spearmen in the middle turned to face yet another unit of swordmasters.

The unit of skeleton spearmen fighting the High Elf spearmen finally succumbed to the weakening of the magic holding them together and was finished off. In the main combat, the dragon killed a few grave guard, and the grave guard in turn killed a couple more of the dragon princes. To the High Elves, it seemed hopeless as they continued to cut down the enemy and they would just rise back up to fight again. It was too much for the dragon princes, who broke and ran, leaving their general on his down. The Grave Guard unit turned to face the prince.

The broken unit of High Elf swordmasters finally rallies and moved into position next to the few remaining allies nearby. The dragon princes rallied and turned to watch the their Prince do battle with the Grave Guard. The other unit of swordmasters turned to face the skeleton spearmen threatening them. The High Elf army seemed unsure of what to do. In the combat, the Grave Guard champion issued a challenge to the Prince. Stepping in front of the rest of the unit, the champion was prepared to be cut down to protect the others. Incredibly, there was no need. The Prince and Star Dragon combined were unable to cut down the champion, as the powerful magic of their Drakenhof Banner regenerated the little damage they caused. The champion was, however, unable to harm the prince as he was difficult to reach way up there on his dragon. However, by doing no wounds and being very outnumber and surrounded, the Prince lost the combat by a huge margin. (He lost by 6, so needed to pass a leadership test on 4 or less). He stood resolute, however, refusing to retreat, refusing to accept that he could ever be defeated.

Feeling certain that Prince Tethelion would eventually lose his nerve and flee, the ghouls and skeleton spearmen positioned themselves behind to intercept the fleeing general. The other unit of Grave Guard would have charged a unit of swordmasters, but with their general dead the magic holding them together finally started to fade, and several of them crumbled to the ground. The few left were too important to risk in combat, so they held.

In the combat, this was the undead's last change to cause Prince Tethelion to flee before the dragon princes could charge back into combat and the opportunity would likely be lost for good. The Prince and his dragon did better this time, cutting down the champion. But by now, surrounded and outnumbered and not seeming to be making any progress, Tethelion lost hope. He fled in dismay, and his dragon landed on the unit of ghouls, the confusion causing it to go into a hysterical panic and fly away, leaving the battle for good.

The Elves tried one last counter-attack to defeat the enemy. The three remaining units of swordmasters all thought about charging the enemy, two against the Grave Guard with great weapons, and one against the unit of skeleton spearmen. Both units, however, were overcome with fear and couldn't bring themselves to do it. The Dragon Princes didn't even consider a charge, and just stood where they were, watching incredulously as their general flew away on his dragon with no particular destination.

At the end, the only area of the battlefield that was held uncontested was the quarter held by the Wight King and Grave Guard, but it was enough. The Vampire Counts army was in control of the battlefield, and the Elves were completely leaderless. The Elves were forced to flee back across the Grismeire river in a panic, hoping to find wherever their general had fled to. It was a solid victory for the army of Count Tepes. It might take some time, but the regenerating magic of the Drakenhof Banner would return him to fighting strength eventually.

Supply Raid Black Powder scenario

2011-01-20T13:47:00.001-06:00

This is a scenario I wrote for a recent game of Black Powder. There are some things in the scenario specific to the Black Powder rules, but I tried to keep it generic enough to be easily used with other rules. We use centimeters instead of inches for Black Powder, so all the measurements in the scenario are in cm.

Supply Raid
Side A is on the march, and with them is a column of their supplies. Side B has set up an ambush in order to capture or destroy the supplies.

Side A Forces
1 Infantry brigade
1 Light Cavalry brigade (may skirmish)
1 Commander in Chief
1 Convoy brigade. This consists of five bases, representing the supply train. Each base is treated as a separate unit in a brigade, and always counts as being in march column formation. They may receive orders from the Commander in Chief and can use their free move each turn for being in March column formation. They move as infantry. They will not fight, and if charged they count as being captured or destroyed.

Side B Forces
1 Infantry brigade with an artillery battery
1 Light Cavalry brigade with a horse artillery battery
1 Commander in Chief

Battlefield
The battlefield is 4’ x 4’. There is a road running from one side to the opposite side. On either side of the road are woods and high hills, so there will be plenty of hiding places for Side B.

Deployment
Side A deploys his Cavalry brigade up to 24 cm onto one side of the table, with as close as possible to half of the units on each side of the road, and all within 24 cm of the road. Side B then deploys his Infantry brigade and commander anywhere as long as they are all at least 24 cm from any Side A unit. Side B’s Cavalry brigade is in reserve, attempting to move around and outflank the enemy. The Side B player must choose at this point from which table edge his Cavalry brigade will appear (simply number the sides, or declare them as North, South, East, and West, and have the player write his choice down somewhere to be revealed later).

First Turn
Side A has the first turn. On their first turn, their Infantry Brigade, their Convoy Brigade, and their Commander move on from their board edge, all in March Column formation. The Convoy Brigade must be on the road.

Reserves
Side B starts rolling for their reserve Cavalry brigade to arrive at the start of their second turn, at which point it arrives on the roll of a 6. On the next turn, it arrives on a 5+, the next turn after that a 4+, and so on, until it arrives automatically on the 7th turn. The units are not allowed to charge on the turn they arrive, but may otherwise act normally and arrive in any formation they wish. If they fail their command roll, they can try again the following turn without making another reserve roll.

Victory Conditions
Side A wins if they are able to move more than half of their Convoy Brigade units off the opposite board edge from where they moved on, or if they have more than half remaining and they break the enemy army (which is a stunning victory!). Side B wins if they capture or destroy more than half of the Convoy brigade units without their army being broken.

Special Rules
Not Expecting Trouble – Until the alarm is raised (see below), Side A’s Infantry Brigade and Convoy Brigade may only move forward a single move along (or parallel to) the road. This happens in the Initiative Moves phase. Until the alarm is raised, Side A’s Cavalry Brigade units must stay on the side of the road they began on.
Raise the Alarm – The alarm is raised when any of Side A’s units has line of sight to and is within 36 cm of any of Side B’s units, or one of Side B’s units charges or shoots. A unit can only been seen through up to 12 cm of woods.

Painted InkBiz 1:200 scale Napoleonic French Infantry

2011-01-20T08:00:00.004-06:00

I finished painting up my sample batch of the InkBiz 1:200 scale Napoleonic French infantry figures. You can read my previous review of the figures here. There isn't much to add to the review except that the details, like straps and turnbacks, stand out enough to be easy to paint.

Before I show the pictures, I should make it clear that I am by no means any sort of expert on Napoleonic French uniforms. In fact, I don't know much about them at all. So I'm not sure if I got these right. So if you do know something about Napoleonic French uniforms, please leave a comment and let me know what I got wrong on these. I did read somewhere that the color of the pom pom on the shako was different for each company, and I think the first company is supposed to be green. So I painted one base of the figures with green pom poms, and left the rest of the figures unbased with unpainted pom poms.

So here are the based figures. Twelve of them on a 3/4" square base, representing a single company. So a battalion would include six bases this size, each containing a single company of twelve figures in three ranks of four.

And here are a few more of the painted figures still on the painting stick. Since I haven't settled on basing, I have left most of the pom poms unpainted and haven't based most of them. I wanted to do at least one base, though, to show the great figure density that can be achieved.

And here is the base of Napoleonic French next to a base of GHQ American Civil War Confederate infantry figures. They aren't actually that different in size, but the InkBiz figures have a bit of a base built into them that makes them sit higher.

Comments on the painting style or accuracy are always welcome. I think they turned out pretty well, and painted up quickly since I was just going for a decent affect when viewing them on the gaming table. An entire army of them would certainly look great.

Grismeire Valley Campaign Turn 3 – High Elves Blue Army Attacking Beastman 1st Army at St. Mer-Eglise

2011-01-17T08:00:00.001-06:00

The morning sun was just clearing the mountains to the east, its rays bringing a comforting warmth to the mists lingering from the night’s chill. Birds chirped in the trees, and the usual scuttle of the forests creatures was just beginning for the day as if nothing was amiss. Within the tree-shrouded vales were arranged, row upon row, nearly countless tents of the finest materials and the most brilliant white. Amongst the tents tall and elegant figures moved with a grace and swiftness that clearly marked them as members of the elder race; the blue and white panoply of their heraldry clearly marking them as High Elves of Ulthuan. In the forest of Chalons, an army made their camp. In one particular vale there were three tents, somewhat larger than the rest. It is to one of these tents a rider races, his cloak and tunic tugged by the wind as his mount carried him nearly faster than the eye could register.

“My lord, a herald from Calandras’ expedition requests an audience.” Declared one of the guards outside the tent’s entrance as the sounds of horses’ hooves and the jangling of its harness broke the reverie of the tent’s occupant.

“Show him in, Ilthalas. Show him in.” replies the tent’s lone occupant. He is an elf, to be sure. His frame is slight, moreso than those of his countrymen, and he is tall though age seems to be stooping him ever so slightly. His fine robes bear many runes and mystic writing and he carries a tall white staff, clearly identifying him as a mage of the High Elves.

Into the tent steps a clearly excited elf wearing light armor of shining mithril. He is dressed for war but lightly so. Removing his tall helmet and tucking it into the crook of his arm, he drops to one knee and bows low to the elder mage.

“Lord Folariath, arch mage of The White Tower, my master Calandras sends his greetings and bids me deliver news of his campaign to the north.” The herald says, his excitement making the words come out rapid and breathlessly.

“At ease, my friend. Be at ease. You are excited and unless my eyes deceive me you do not appear as though the campaign has met some doom. Your tunic and armor show no more than the dust one would expect on a rider from the Grismerie River Valley. Tell me, what news do you have of Calandras’ little expedition?” Folariath said, his fatherly tone helping to soothe the nerves of the herald.

“My lord, as you know, Calandras led a force to the north where Prince Tethelion of Caledor has been engaged in a campaign with the Bretons to defeat the foul Vampire and Chaos Beast hordes invading from the mountains to the North. My lord, Calandras came upon a sizeable contingent of the Beasts undoubtedly marching to engage Prince Tethelion’s forces, and engaged the Beasts in battle just this past afternoon.”

“Truly? Our purpose in these lands is to discover the lost history of our people, not to wage war. I’ve no doubt that Prince Laethelas will not begrudge Calandras for engaging an enemy but as I’m sure you are aware, every single life lost on these shores is precious. Pray deliver the rest of your report, and it best be good.” Folariath said to the herald, a slight hint of anger evident in his voice and the crackling of energy in the cool morning air.

“My lord total losses for the battle were five Sea Guard of Lothern, one Chariot of Chrace, and thirteen of the Sword Masters that campaigned with us. I am also very sad to say that Gaelith, noble son of Galen and bearer of the army standard, was slain by the foul Beastlord that commanded the enemy hordes. The Beasts, however, were slaughtered almost to the last foul creature. Indeed my lord only four of the creatures were left breathing to flee the field. Calandras was able to massacre the enemy and liberate the small Breton village, though the Beasts had already defiled it extensively.”

“Hmmmm. The loss of thirteen Sword Masters is a strong blow, but if indeed the Beasts were so thoroughly routed perhaps it may have been worth their sacrifice. If I am to make a report to Prince Laethelas I will have what details you are privy to.”

“Yes, my lord. When we arrived upon the field of battle, the Beasts had already defiled the village and arrayed themselves for battle. Their lord and a large unit of Bestigors held the center along with two large units of Gors. To the left of their line was a chariot, some hounds, and some Ungor scouts whilst to the right of their line were some Razorgor beasts, and another chariot. Calandras and Feluvian, his apprentice, could detect the presence of two magic users amongst the Beasts though it was not immediately plain to us where they were. On the final approach of our line, ghastly Harpies attacked upon our flanks. Our own lines were held at the center by Gaelith and the Sword Masters, flanked by Calandras and Feluvian each leading a unit of Sea Guard. The Chariot held our wide right flank, whilst the two bolt throwers were held to the rear of our lines in a support role.” The herald, recounting the order of battle, seemed to calm himself as he settled into the doldrums of the battle’s beginning maneuvers.

“Our forces held the initiative and struck first. Feluvian cast a spell from the Lore of Life which caused all manner of flora and fauna to erupt from the ground below the Gor unit with their battle standard. The dwellers below that unit decimated the beasts, virtually wiping it out and consuming the foul standard as well. Alas, the winds of magic overwhelmed Feluvian’s untrained mind and he burnt out… unable to harness magic for the remainder of the battle. On our left, a bolt thrower fired a salvo at the harpies and killed all but two and forcing them to retreat a ways. On the right, the bolt thrower fired at the main body of the Beasts’ line, and the two units of Sea Guard supplemented this with their own volley of arrows. The white shafts found their marks and the two blocks of Gors were further whittled by the accurate fire.”

“The Beasts attempted to close with our line but it seemed as if the loss of their center unit was too much. Really, all they managed to do was set themselves up for our attacks. One of their foul magic users cast some spell on his own troops, but the winds of magic were still raging from Feluvian’s miscast and the beast mage exploded, decimating his own unit. On our right, the Chariot engaged and wiped out the pack of hounds. The second bolt thrower fired at the Harpies but did not do significant damage. The Sea Guard and Sword masters moved forward to bait the Beasts and were rewarded with the foolish creatures charging. The outcome was obvious. One unit was wiped out. The other was decimated and fled. The Sword Masters had attempted to charge the Bestigors but were likely befuddled by the magical fury and thus were in turn charged themselves. They quite quickly inflicted heavy casualties and caused the Beasts to flee. On our left, the Sea Guard found themselves engaged by the beast Chariot and one of the Razorgors. The combat continued to be won by the consummate skill of the Lothern regulars. On the right, the Lion Chariot engaged and broke another Razorgor, but was in turn charged by the second beast chariot and their scouts, the Ungors. At the rear, our bolt thrower crews valiantly held off the two flocks of harpies but were caught up in the excitement and attempted to give chase upon the fleeing creatures. In the center, the Beastlord upon his chariot and the second beast mage charged the Sword Masters with reckless abandon and inflicted several casualties. Up until this point, our losses had been minimal. The Beasts’ lord was a force to be reckoned with and began to sell his life dearly. Feluvian’s Sea Guard charged the Beastlord in the flank but due to some foul magic items, he was just too hard to wound and continued to slay the Sword Masters.”

“Calandras began to fear total loss of the Sword Masters and started to position himself for a charge into the fray whilst at the same time Feluvian had an epiphany and ceased focusing on the Beastlord, instead focusing on the creature’s chariot and the Razorgor pulling it. The combat quickly turned; the Beastlord was defeated and run down by the Sword Masters. On our right, the Chracian Chariot had been bogged down by the Beast Chariot and Ungors. They were able to defeat the chariot, but at great cost. The bolt thrower on our right was then able to kill the chariot and more Ungors. As the battle wound down, we had slain all but three Bestigors, one Ungor, and possibly a heavily wounded Razorgor.” The herald let out a long breath of relief, having recounted the battle. Now, however, he began to wonder how the powerful mage lord would take the news.

“I see. Well, it would appear that Calandras’ tactics were sound though it would also seem the Beasts’ lack of fury played an equal part in their defeat. Indeed, the loss of the Sword Masters comes as a strong blow but one must weigh the fact that Calandras may have broken the Beasts’ back in that region. Perhaps it is fortuitous, then, and Prince Tethelion will benefit from this victory. I shall report to Prince Laethelas immediately. You have done well, herald. Now, you must return with all alacrity to Calandras and warn him that the Vampires are also about. Calandras must make ready, for I foresee another battle in his future and the Vampires will not be so easily bested. Go now, time is precious!” Folariath rushed the herald out and signaled his men to provide a fresh horse.

A victory had been won, albeit at a heavy price. Another battle, one more ominous than the skirmish that had just taken place, was looming like a dark cloud on the horizon.

Painted Renegade Imperial Guard Officers

2011-01-14T08:00:00.000-06:00

There isn't much to say about these. I've painted up a couple of officers for the renegade Imperial Guard Warhammer 40,000 army I'm working on.

First up is the platoon level officer, the Lieutenant commanding First Platoon, Company A of the Palace Guard regiment. Officers, naturally, purchase their own uniforms and have some latitude in their design. This particular Lieutenant seems to have sprung for an unusually fancy uniform for someone of his rank. He must be either unusually wealthy or unusually vain. Since my Guard army is all wearing long coats, I figure it must be cold where they're from, so with these officers I tried to add the little touch of making their cheeks and noses look a little reddened. I'm not sure how noticeable that will be, though.

And here are some pictures of the Captain commanding Company A. He used to be a private in the cavalry, the sad fate of many youngest sons of noble houses who don't have the money to become officers. However, as a reward for a great act of gallantry, he was gifted an officer's commission as an Ensign. As there were no vacancies in the Cavalry, and because the possibilities for advancement are greater in the Infantry, he accepted an open position leading an infantry squad. Through his great heroism, he has since managed to work his way up to Captain. However, he has kept and still wears the pelisse from his cavalry uniform, either as a good luck charm, or maybe just for the extra warmth. Also, it's probably pretty valuable.

As always, let me know what you think. I welcome and appreciate comments, either on the painting or the background stories.