End of the Longstreet Campaign

Bruce and I brought out ACW Longstreet campaign to an end on Tuesday, Bruce drew a meeting engagement and I was the defender. 

Alas, I did not listen to the set-up instructions and, once the terrain was laid, I had to march the length of my baseline to get into position while Bruce rushed to catch me out (with the help of some unexpected bad going)!

Eventually I got into position on the right side of the board and managed to more of less hold Bruce off. I was greatly added by Bruce rolling so badly that I wanted to shout "Great Scott". But that would be a mean thing to remind Scott about...

As things went poorly for Bruce on the right, I pushed forward on the left and bagged three units, which basically won the game.

Bruce then charged on the left and I managed to inflict enough damage that his troops fled the field. It was a glorious victory for the southerners, marred only by discovering that we had lost the war (arse!). Oh well, these things happen. I would certainly play this again!

Up next: More Battlelore.

Mounted Dwarves

Okay, so back to Battlelore. I painted up two units of mounted Dwarves I'm not sure what they are riding (maybe cattle?) but I wanted with a sheep-like theme given the Scottish look of these dwarves.

Lovely figures. A bit big for dwarves (bigger than the humans) but lots of character.

Up next: A passal of knights.

Some tanks

As a change of pace from Battlelore, I thought I'd post some tanks. The Shermans below were struggling with a weird paint crackling effect. Terry helpfully supplied some decals that distract the eye a bit from the crackle effect.

I also picked up some tanks from Terry's crawlspace clear out. These are 1/87-scale Roco tanks (I think) with a T-28 and T-35 below.

I've had a harder time identifying these tiny light tanks. Based on the pictures I saw on line, they aren't T-70s (which was my first guess).

There was also this 1/76-scale T-34 that I think Terry did a lovely job with the paint on.

Up next: Back to Battlelore with some mounted dwarves.

Lion Rampant at the Club

We had 10 guys out at the club last night, including newcomer Maury. Bruce hosted two scenarios for Lion Rampant. In the first game, Wiley and I managed to turn a great battlefield position into a bloody rout with bad dice.

Things started well. Then we ran into a bunch of knights who just crushed three units in three turns (bad morale dice). Very disappointing. I think we more or less had the field position right.

I bailed out before the second scenario ran. I did watch a few minutes of Chain of Command as the allies struggled to drive up the same road for a third time.

The German tank had just arrived when I left and was opening up on the troops hugging the hedges.

Up next: I picked up some tanks and I have also been moving a bunch of Battlelore figures through painting.

Dwarf pikemen

To mix things up some, I pulled out some of the Battlelore dwarves to paint. These were from the Scottish Wars expansion, I think, and are pike men.

Nice enough sculpts, although the demands of casting a robust plastic figure seems to mean the dwarf pikes are tree trunks. The figures are huge for 15mm dwarves (being taller and beefier than the humans).

I get it is fantasy and there may have been game play implications (small dwarves would look funny on the regular sized bases and would be hard to manipulate) but the name seems to cry out for smaller figures! (no idea why blogger insists on centering this section of text).

U next: Club night on Tuesday and some more mounted human knights. Then maybe some dwarf sheep-riding cavalry.

More medium foot (sigh)

I turned my attention back to the pile of medium foot in the Battlelore set. These are boring as hell to paint and there are a lot of them!

I production-lined these with varying pant and shirt colours but overall similar looks. The result is okay.

Again, the shield decals make the minis pop.

Up next: Some Dwarfs carry pike are almost done (fiddling the tartan a bit) and then the club on Tuesday.

Lions Rampant

I braved a rain storm (in Edmonton in January?) and drove out to Bruce's place to try out Lions Rampant. Bruce had painted up a bunch of 15mm figures for the game: a mix of Essex mounted and Peter Pig foot.

The game was a hoot: very light, few rules, stark choices and enough randomness that it was fun. I had a knight-heavy army and watched with alternately delight and horror as they charged off after whatever was close. Jeeez!

Very simply rules that you could explain and play with anyone. I wonder what the fantasy version is like (as I paint up my Battlelore dwarves)?

Up next: More 15mm Battlelore. First some foot then some Dwarven pikemen.