CCN

I popped out to Bruce's on Tuesday night for a bit of French v Russian Napoleonics action. This battle was a Russian holding action that preceded the largest cavalry battle of the wars.

The first game saw Bruce open with a cavalry charge against the Russian right that I never managed to recover from. Oh, I delayed defeat, but it was a decisive thrashing (7-1?). There just wasn't much to do: couldn't fall back, couldn't move up, couldn't roll worth beans.

We switched sides and I advanced on the French right. I managed to knock Bruce off the hill and finally get my traffic jam in the centre under control. Some lucky dice with a cavalry charge really helped.

Then there was the pause as I ran out of useful cards. We both rushed reinforcements forward and Bruce set up a solid defensive line while I was forced to fart around on the left flank to burn some cards.

Eventually I won (7-6?) a narrow victory. A much better game, although some of that was down to Bruce's luck turning on him.

Up next: Some metal 1/72-scale Italians and Russian cavalry are drying and I'm working on a second wave of Italians in plastic. Then some CCA epic at the club on Tuesday.

More 1/72-scale WW2.

I finished up the rebasing of a bunch of late-war WW2 Germans that I picked up from Tim in Saskatoon. There were about 48 of these singles to flesh out the Memoir units I based last week.

This is a mix of plastics and metals and there is a lot of pose diversity here.

Not sure what the third guy below is doing ("The sauerkraut has gone off!").

I also see there are some support units that I will need to rebase. Oy!

There are some old favourites including the Esci Panzergrenadiers complete with the guy (below, left) that has the potato masher stuck in his boot (which must be uncomfortable).

I also built and painted an old Esci Italian tank I got from Terry. The running gear was a bit fiddle (back sprocket held in place by a plastic tube the diameter of a sewing pin) but I managed to make it all work. Nice decal set.

Up next: I have some CCN scheduled with Bruce tonight and then I'm working on a bunch of 20mm metal Russian cavalry I got from Tim. These guys might also serve as early war Polish cavalry. THen a bunch of Italians for the ETO and Russia.

December 1 club night

We had a pretty good turn out (13 guys?) at the club on Tuesday. Dave hosted three other guys on a WW2 game (Chain of Command?) but none of my pictures turned out worth beans. And Stephen hosted Dave and Chen in some sort of walker game (Battletech? Robotech?).

Elliot and Kevin played the new GW Warhammer 30K game, which was very pretty looking.

Bruce hosted (and took on) Phil and I using Maurice in India.

The Indian game plan was to swing some irregulars around to the left (you can see the cavalry doing so in the background of the shot above) while advancing in the middle.

We got a bit over eager in the centre after Phil bagged two cannons and I moved to contact before we finished bringing the raiders around. Bruce happily pounded the hell out of the spearmen! And we ended up with a broken-up battle. Indian morale crumbled and that was that!

Up next: Some 1/72-scale Germans, an Italian tank and then maybe some CCN.

More 1/72-scale WW2

I continued my rebasing efforts with some 1/72-scale WW2. These are some late war Germans painted by Tim in Saskatoon. There is a mixture of metals and plastics (some of the MGs).

Getting new units ready goes much faster when you don't have to paint them! Many of the metal sculpts I recognize from painting the same figures as a teenager in the mid-1980s. Tim has an amazing hand as a painter.

I'm also working on doing a bunch of individually based figures to act as casualty counters.

Up next: It is the club tomorrow and I'm keen to play something or other! Then more 1/72 Germans and perhaps an Italian tank and some troops.

Longstreet in 15mm

Bruce hosted the sixth (?) game of our ACW Longstreet campaign on Tuesday. The south was tasked with defending a railway embankment and protecting its brass band from the Yankee horde.

This very much felt like an ACW scenario. Bruce did his best to screw up the sight lines with terrain placement but I managed to get space to deploy my cannon (firing to the left of the corn field). The rest of my force was deployed to cover the flanks with a unit in reserve.

The centre was a pointless cannon duel, except Bruce lost a whole battery due to some lucky dice. His main thrust was against the right flank of the southern forces.

I did my best to thwart him with card play and slow him up so my reserves could arrive. I also swung one of my units out to create a kill zone (the only troop movement of the day for the south). At this point, Bruce had burned a lot of cards and then he ran into a streak of bad luck with the dice.

His first attack bounced, I sniped some some and then his second attack bounced. He had the right strategy but the cards and dice thwarted him. I felt kind of bad to see see the flower of Yankee youth dying in such numbers.

Eventually he made a move on the southern left, which also went poorly. To his credit, he clogged up the reserve pathway with bad terrain (jerk!). He eventually knocked the southerners off the rail embankment but then got hit with a cross fire and lost units. Out of cards, he conceded.

It had been awhile since the south won a battle and there was much rejoicing and marrying of cousins. I think the south lost two bases? This should help as the campaign mechanics are now really favouring the north (next battle is in the summer of 1864).

WW2 and AWI

I was moving a bunch of junk off my painting table in an effort to restore order. First up is a pair of 1/76-scale Matilda's from Airfix. Nice models.

They round out my WW2 desert armour collection for the British. A nice mix of models and manufacturers.

Then I jumped to some 54mm AWI casualties. These guys have been awaiting paint for awhile.

Mostly because these guys look a bit barber-shop to me... .

Up next: Some more 1/72-scale WW2 including some Italian tanks and infantry and German repaints.

More HO-scale buildings

I finished up a pair of buildings on the weekend. First up was this brownstone. This was a lovely kit retrieved from the stash in Terry's crawlspace. Lots of nice details.

I particularly liked the laundry line for the roof-top. It makes the building look lived in.

The front stoop is also nicely done (with 20mm WEG Star Wars figures for scale).

I also put together a small modular kit. Small buildings are super useful so I was happy to find this garage in the pile Terry sold me.

Up next: I can't make the club this week (conflicting meeting). I was going to build two more houses but the resin kits had a warping issue that was not worth fixing so instead I tossed them and built some tanks.