Invasion of 1910

We played a game of Black Powder for the first time and the results were satisfactory.  Oh, did I mention we were playing with... 54mm figures!?

The forces were my British and German imperial troops, each with six units infantry, three units cavalry, and two units artillery. The artillery pieces were Britains 4.7" naval guns.  The scenario was the German guns were dug in at two redoubts.  The British needed to capture just one of the redoubts for victory.  The German cavalry was required to start the game off table.

Truth be told I forgot to take pictures of the game, but everything was still in its final positions the next day so I took pics of the end game.

Long and short is that the British took a very long time to get their assault on the northern gun position ready. Meanwhile the "keep 'em honest" attack on the southern redoubt took heavy casualties, and was entirely driven off by the late arrival of the German uhlans (whom I forgot to try and activate to bring onto the board two turns in a row!). 

However, as the uhlans tried to continue across the field to assist the northern redoubt, one unit blundered off table, and a second was broken whilst trying to follow up a successful attack with a sweeping advance.  This caused the entire German cavalry brigade to break and withdrawal. Subsequently, the gun in the southern redoubt was destroyed by British artillery fire.

Things got hot around the northern redoubt but German small arms fire was ineffective (i.e., my dice went ice cold and couldn't hit ANYTHING). The British capitalized and the cavalry finally closed for melee, causing the complete breaking of the German left (and infantry brigade) which meant that the German army began a general retreat.

Sticky-tac'ing the figs to wood trays worked like a charm, by the way. 

Apologies the plastic toy redoubts are not painted or flocked. The scenario was a last minute decision.

This ended the game and although the British had "won the field" and assault on either redoubt had failed to materialize. Count this one as a costly victory for the lads in khaki? 

54mm Colonial British

Not too long ago I finished up painted the Armies in Plastic British and German imperial cavalry units in addition to the 4.7s I had acquired recently to bring the combined collection up to "table-ready" status.

This includes me converting (quite nicely, I think) some BMC-type cheapo American Civil War artillery crew members to British and German crews with a simple head swap and a little exacto knife carving (the lower crew in the below photo).



The cavalry along with the new artillery crew conversions are not gloss-coated in a "shiny toy soldier" style and I have admit I am now rethinking that look because I am quite fond of the final look.  I used my "as few paint colors as possible" plan for these as with the others which moved things long quickly.  If I had just done the horses in the same brown I could have cut probably the total work time in half. In occasional 20 minute bursts I painted 18 cavalry in about 3 weeks.

The only other thing missing is a field marshal or similar commander in chief.  My cheapest and therefore best bet is probably a BMC ACW General Grant fig that could be head swapped easily. Hesitant because I tried such a conversion before and was not satisfied with the result.  

I'm looking at setting this up as a Black Powder game because its just so wonderfully absurd.

"Altogether elegant"

Good fortune has landed me several W. Britains diecast spring-loaded breech-loading toy soldier artillery pieces, including two of the 4.7" naval guns as described in Mr. Wells' Little Wars (or at least the 1960s W. Britains' re-release version of said gun, to be specific).  Mr. Wells called these toys a "priceless gift to boyhood" and noted them "capable of hitting a toy solder nine times out of ten at a distance of nine yards" (!).

I must admit my existing gun crew look quite nicer with the four point seven than with their plastic seven pounder... I shall have to decide on whether to give this play-worn toy a coat of fresh paint or not.

Sadly, the addition of these pieces underlines the notable absence of appropriate cavalry for my British and German armies (1900-1910 period).  This can easily be cured with a purchase, but I cringe at the thought of painting cavalry (for no real reason).

1910 German Empire toy soldiers

Every once and awhile, a figure-painting project just really comes together.  I recently took advantage of a good sale at Armies in Plastic and in rather record setting time painted up a 54mm German Empire "army" of 36 infantry, 3 officers, a gun and 4 crew.  They are wearing the greenish version of "feldgrau" and pickelhaubs with tan covers which roughly corresponds to an early WW1 scheme.



The infantry all use only five colors: flesh, the "feldgrau" green, dark brown, tan, and bright green for the bases.  The figures were soaked in batches in a mason jar of SimpleGreen, then in a jar of white vinegar, then primed with white gesso.  After they were block painted, I did a "magic wash" of 3 parts water + 3 parts matte medium + one part light brown.  This gave the figures a little shading, especially around the face and hands. I then sealed with the figures by brushing on clear gloss polyurethane.

I am extremely satisfied with the end result.  The magic wash had darked the green of the unifoms a bit but the gloss coat lightened them back up again, I feel.



The gun crew were originally colonial British with pith helmets, but with the ol' exacto-knife, a few pins, and krazy glue I swapped the heads.



Since I had three boxes of infantry (60 figs) I was able to avoid using poses I wasn't very fond of (so no kneeling-shooting guys, and all the grenade throwing guys became head-swap donors for the artillery crew).   I also cut off all the bayonets since (a) they are the most bendy part of the figure and paint always chips/flakes there first, and (b) I think the figures look a little more "The Business" with out the bayonets than with.  Final count is 12 figs advancing at a walk, another 12 advancing at a run, and 12 standing/shooting.



Next up is a mirror opposing force of British with pre-1910 uniforms and pith helmets (khaki uniforms - no red tunics).  Envision using the Charge! rules and/or All the King's Men for mechanics but with a healthy dose of Wells' Little Wars for set-up and scenario design.  Also trying to decide if I want to deal with hassle of adding cavalry or not...

Little Churchyard War

Army Dark Blue and Army Red met for a rematch on the dining room table.  We again used a super-simplified house-rules version of HG Wells' Little Wars.

My son had a better time this go-around, as he seemed to do better aiming Army Red's cannon on the table than on the floor.

Highlights included: a dead-on hit on an Army Dark Blue infantryman that sent him flying backwards a good foot and a half; knocking figures off the table edge and having my son say in complete seriousness "I don't think that even hit that guy"; and hiding a guy from ever-closer cannon fire by hooking his base onto the top of a house roof - I countered by hitting the house on my next shot, sending the poor chap tumbling down.

Pretty brutal game of attrition...

I lost, in the end, although I had to coach him a little to take advantage of gains he had already earned all on his own ("I think now would be a good time to use that reserve you've cleverly kept hidden all game.")

Little Wars

I played a(n even more) simplified version of HG Wells' Little Wars with my son (age 6) this weekend.  I played an 18 figure all-infantry Army Red against his combined Army Dark Blue forces of 24 infantry and 8 cavalry.  Each side was equipped with a Playmobil cannon.  Victory would go to the first side to get three figures to the opposite bound of the playing field.  Melee was decided by simply throwing a die each with loser tipping over a figure – in the event of a tie both figs were knocked over.  Terrain was board books stacked upon eachother and some Lincoln log structures. We obeyed Wells' rule of "guns first": that is, you fired your three shots with you cannon at the top of your turn, then did all your movement, then resolved any melee. All movement was 12 inches.

He won rather convincingly but highlights (which placed us firmly in the land of play) included my hitting a cavalry figure, and then having it fall over and knock his companion over, and so forth twice more, like a row of dominos, killing four in one shot! The other trick shot was firing a dart through the doorway of the Lincoln log structure and back out the opposite side to knock over two Army Dark Blue troopers who thought themselves protected.