Gorham's Rangers

Hi all,

Some combination of sunshine and time seems to have gotten me painting a bit again.  I finished up my first unit of Gorham's rangers for the Muskets and Tomahawks Acadian project.  

I'll ask you to excuse the focal issues - I talked the Beloved into taking pics with her new, and much better, camera, but she's still working out the depth on macro setting.  Looks like we/she can get really crisp pics, but only at a shallow focal depth.

These guys are stock Blue Moon colonial rangers.  The extent to which the sculpts match the actual uniform is a bit iffy, but the blunt fact is that there doesn't seem to be much info out there on the uniform in the period under question, other than it changed fairly often.  While there were two distinct uniforms used in the SYW proper (one in '59, one in '61), the '45-55 period is much less clear.

In part, this seems to stem from the fact that the unit itself was changing.  Initially formed as a native unit led by officers from Massachusetts, in the decade under question the original compliment was being replaced with settler troops - mostly itinerant Scots and Irish immigrants. Kronoskaf indicates that at some point prior to the issue of the '59 uniform, they wore grey coats, and that while the peaked cap was commonly used, it wasn't always.

I've gone with a grey coat and the stock scotch bonnet for this group.  One thing I might try is some swaps with a few of the native figures I've got - heads, mostly, but maybe some other bits as well.  I'll break up the homogeneity, and give the transitional feel that seems appropriate for the time frame.

Gorham's rangers were heavily involved in the raiding and guerilla fighting that led up to, and followed, the Acadian expulsion, so at least a few units of these are appropriate.  I can see the core of the Brit force being composed of Rangers and Provincials.  Plus, they are rather nice figures, so I've no concern about painting more.

Doing these has also fired me up a bit, and I've managed to get a unit of Russian 18mm napoleonics about half done.  The next couple of weeks promise to be hectic enough that I'm unlikely to make much more progress, but should have them done by the end of July.  I'm also a bit fired up about adding some more to my French 6mm SYW army (it looks like Peter B. at Baccus is releasing Canadians!), so fingers crossed whatever painting slump / doldrums I've been struggling with has passed.

FMB

Bolt Tomahawks

Hi all,

So, been a busy week or two in Monkeyland.  We had houseguests for a few days, as my sister and brother in law, and my youngest nephew, came to visit.  It was great to see them, as it's been months since we've last seen them (on our trip to Ontario in the summer).  While here, Cub talked his cousin (a.k.a. Hammer) into trying a game of Bolt Action.  I think we may have another convert ;)

The larger red dice indicate objective buildings.

The game was objective based, with Cub's Americans looking to seize a couple of buildings from the Soviet defenders (piloted by Hammer, and consigliered by moi).

Cub wanted to break in some new tanks we'd picked up (thanks, Kyle!), and we ended up running some fairly unconventional forces, with each side fielding 200 points of infantry plus a couple tanks.  As defender, Hammer set up his units in the buildings where they could cover each other and a range of firing arcs, and waited for the American attack.

Soviet Sherman takes up an overwatch position, and searches for prey.

Early turns saw the initial American assault wave, and our reinforcements, come on the table, including the "Soviet" sherman, which took up a hull-down position behind one of the buildings.  Cub countered with his own tanks, and a first wave of infantry (plus his air observer).  The observer called in an air strike on it's earliest opportunity, but the call went unanswered for several turns.  He also jammed his tanks forward fairly aggressively (maybe a hold-over from his experiences with a Redeemer in 40k?), but in Bolt Action, that mostly gave Hammer some nice shots on their side armour.

American tanks charge in.

It took a couple of turns, but Cub's air strike eventually came in, and did its usual amount of insane damage.  By this point, however, the game was getting close to it's final turns, and the Americans still hadn't been able to mount a real attack on the objective buildings.

Air strikes thinned out the table a little.

In the end, even though the Yanks tore up the Soviets a fair bit, they couldn't take the buildings, and the game went to Hammer.  He seemed to have fun, as did the Cub, so who knows, maybe we've recruited another mini gamer?

PTRD, aka, the other Russian sniper unit.

In other news, I finally got around to finishing up the Mass. militia I've mentioned, on and off, for the last year or so.

Second half of the unit, plus officer.

This gives me a full unit of the militia, which is good, because they're one of the primary outfits operating on the British side in the Acadian campaign.

The drummer's a conceit, I admit, but still . . . 

They're not as crisp as some of the other work I've done in the scale, but honestly, I'm happy just to have them finished.  I have no idea why they were so difficult to muster motivation for, but now that they're finished, I'm actually quite jazzed to do something else on the project.

They're actually skirmishing Brit line, but the uniform is close enough.

The officer, I think, turned out reasonably well.

This guys gets all the fun secondary objectives.

With this lot done, I'll likely do either some Rangers (Gorham's were active throughout the region) or civilians, along with terrain - I want to dress up the 4Ground buildings, and a few weeks back, finally picked up some bigger resin buildings from Blue Moon (via last year's Blogger Secret Santa - thanks!), so I'd like to get them sorted for the table as well.

FMB

Check one off the bucket list.

Hi,

Over the long weekend, the family and I managed a road trip up to Cape Breton, and I had the chance to check something off my bucket list; I finally got to see the partially restored Fortress Louisbourg. While active Louisbourg was the largest fortification in North America, one of the strongest manifestations of French power on the continent, and the continental base for the French fleet after the end of the War of the Spanish Succession.  It controlled access to the mouth of the St. Lawrence, securing the northern flank of French territory, and secured French access to the Grand Banks fishery.

It was taken twice, both times due to the failure of a relief force to arrive after a multi-week siege, once by New England provincial troops supported by the British Navy (in 1745), and the second time by British Royal forces in 1758.  The latter was the first step in the conquest of New France culminating in 1759.  Louisbourg is a critical element of the birth of the modern world; the trading of the Fortress back after '45 was a key step in the formation of a separate political identity in the British colonies, and it's fall in '58 secured the British path to domination of the continent, the consequent growing tension between Britain and it's American colonies, the creation of both the United States and Canada, and everything else that flows from it.  Much of the world we know begins there.

1751 Map.  Restored portion is the NW corner.

With the kids, the trip up is about six hours, so we stayed a couple nights, and spent all of Sunday at the Fortress. The restored site is several kilometers from where you park, so they run a shuttle bus; we were on the first bus in, and the last out ;)

Parking lot is a short bus ride away.  This is the view on the approach.

About a quarter of the Fortress has been restored so far, but that includes some small outlying settlements, including a collection of fishermen's huts, boats, and supplies.

Fishing village on the outskirts.

Interior, Fisherman on left.  Asked if Puddin' could fix his shirt.

Main access to the Fortress is via the Dauphin gate, and the view as you walk in is spectacular.

Approaching the Dauphin gate.

I got a picture of the guard post, but at this point was grinning so hugely my head was about to fall off, and forgot to take some of the interior.  Behind the small gate is a drawbridge, and then the main gate, which is overlooked by the Dauphin Bastion.

Exterior guard post, Dauphin gate.  Companie Franche de la Marine guard.  Cub recognized him as one of the guys I've painted.

Two of the original Bastions have been restored, the Dauphin, and the King's.

Top of Dauphin Bastion, bay side.

Firing a gun at the Dauphin Bastion.

Dauphin Bastion, harbour side.

Just inside the Dauphin Bastion, there's a sally port tucked away - I think most of the crowd missed it.

Sally port tunnel, just inside the Dauphin Bastion.

View of the King's Bastion from the sally port.

Once inside the walls, you start to get a feel for the scope of the place.

Part of the restored town, View from one of the crossroads down to the Frederick gate (i.e., the main quay).

Louisbourg was a fairly significant settlement, as well as a fortification, and building interiors have also been restored.  They've done a fantastic job with this, showing not only residences, but manfacturing / storage / mercantile buildings as well.  Period trades and crafts are actively pursued on site - we had an interesting conversation with both the boat builders and a woman making lace.

Boatbuilders' workshop.  This is an active project; we were talking with the builders.

Lace making; as with the boat, period crafts / trades are actively pursued.

They've also made a real effort to engage the Mi'kmaq tradition, albeit primarily back at the Visitors' Centre.  The alliance with the Mi'kmaq was key to French control of the region.

Gorgeous bead-work.

While there's nothing on the scale of farming, most of the residences have mixed gardens out back, and there's smaller livestock all over the place.  Puddin' was much taken with the geese, and vice versa.

One of the house gardens.

"Fancy" kitchen, the royal engineer's house.  The Friar serving as cook was an interesting guy.

There's also a few places where they've set up displays of household goods, reconstructed from wills and other descriptions of estate.

Series of household good displays.

Marie Rose's goods.

If you go in the peak season, there's a fairly extensive staff in period dress, who both wander about as mobile "historical interpreters", and who do scheduled events throughout the day.  One of the latter was a military demo, with a fife and drum performance, musket drill, and a cannon firing.

Cannon ceremony, King's Bastion.

Administrative building for the Fortress, King's Bastion.

Readying the cannon.

I had some interesting conversations with the interpreters, including one dressed as Captain Vauquelin, who ran the British blockade to get news to France of the Fortresses imminent fate.  He gave me a couple of readings tips that are panning out well ;)

Vauquelin, naval Captain who ran the British blockade.

Another guy was dressed as one of the militia who raided Canso, from Louisbourg, in 1744.  He's carrying a captured Brown Bess (i.e., English) musket, as well as a scalping knife.  While they don't really play up issues like scalp bounties or slavery, both the exhibits and the interpreters are frank about the existence and prevalence of such practices.  Cub was a little startled to discover that kids were a favourite target for scalpers, as they brought in the same bounty with less risk.

Militia.  Note the Brown Bess, captured at Canso.

There's a visible Compagnie Franche de la Marine presence in town.

Marine officer.  Invited us to a dance.

Other daily spectacles include the marching of a criminal to the post for public humiliation and summary judgement.  The drums and cries attracted quite a crowd, including a pack of kids, most of whom enthusiastically called for the more heinous sentencing options.  Nothing like a good mob to bring people together ;)

Marching a thief to the punishment post.

I had a fantastic time.  Louisbourg is pretty much the best restored example of my favorite period of history, and I've wanted to go for more than a decade.  We spent the whole day on site, and while we hit pretty much every building (including the Inn, for a period lunch, I recommend the fish soup), there wasn't one spot in which I couldn't have spent more time; there's also a few other daily events that we missed due to overlap, including one on a soldier's life, and one for kids.

If we're still around next summer, we're definitely going back, and I'd strongly recommend a trip to anyone with an interest in the period.  The Fortress, and the process of restoration, are frankly a national treasure, and while Cape Breton is a little out of the way, it's very much worth the trip.

Needless to say, this has whet my appetite for painting up more of my Acadian project, and I've already dug out and begun sorting through the next batch of figures for painting.

FMB

Provincial Pleasures

Hi all,

In what seems to be becoming something of a litany, wow, have the last couple of weeks been busy.  I suspect it's about time I recognize that the new level of activity is less an anomaly, and more status quo, and just roll with it.

That said, I've managed to do a little painting, I've made some progress on both my ork Warboss and a Lord for my Bretonnians, but mainly managed to knock out some test figures for the Acadian project.



These are Blue Moon 18mm American Provincials, done up as Massachusetts provincials.  They're in the pre-1750s uniform, with red trousers, which makes them appropriate for Le Loutre's war and the Expulsion.  Apparently, once the 7YW got going in earnest, they switched to blue trousers instead.  No idea why.



I tried something a little different with these guys, using a wash for shading rather than just working up highlight layers.  Not 100% sold on the effect, but one thing I'm going to try and do with this project is experiment a little with techniques.

Next couple of weeks are liable to be equally short on time and progress, but I'll try to get in at least one post over the period, even if it's just a WiP.

FMB

Native Son

Hi,

Things are starting to shake down here in Monkeyland.  Finished up the orientation for Newjob yesterday, and while I'm a little sad that Cub goes back to his mom's today, the upside is that now that we're in Halifax, we'll see him again in just over a week, rather than in several months.

On the geek front, I've spent some time modelling and priming up most of 1000 points of 40k orks.  The Cub has shown some interest, so I figured we'd take him down to the local for a few trial games.  He's also been painting a few old space marines I've got kicking around.  Three cheers for GW, gateway to the hobby ;)  I helped him a little with the eyes, but the rest is his work.  Not bad for an 8-year old, and a far sight better than his efforts of a few years ago.





For myself, I've managed to paint up a few more Natives for M&T. I like how they turned out, and feel better about these than the last batch of French.  Less rush, less feel of "work".  One thing that's pretty clear about how things will operate here; in the absence of any regular gaming, my painting is less instrumental.  With no pressure to get stuff on the table, I might get less done, but will also be painting for the joy of it, which comes with it's own advantages.



I also had a chance the other night to sit down and plan out the Acadian project a little.  Historically, this is one of those "margins of empire" struggles.  It bears a similar relationship to the F&IW as that bears to the 7YW proper.  While the bulk of the literature I've seen focuses on the Ohio / Champlain corridor / St. Lawrence theatres, there was a long-running guerrilla conflict, preceding the formal outbreak of war by several years.  French marines, militia and provincials, Abenaki and Mik'maq, Massachusetts colonial militia, mercenary ranger companies, and more, along with shifting identities, and mounting violence and atrocity.  The Acadians, with close kinship ties to the Mik'maq, cultural and religious ones to the French, and economic ones to Boston and Massachusetts, were torn apart, and eventually forcibly relocated.



Before we came out here, I picked up a mess of the 18mm Blue Moon figures.  The more I paint these, the more I like them.  I think, given the often metis nature of the Acadian community, and the sometimes haphazard equipment of the informal combatants, I might try my hand at some conversions.  I've done head swaps in this scale before, when I was putting with FoW cossacks, so I'm kind of interested to see what I can cook up here.



Another thing I'm looking forward to is making some terrain.  In addition to several 4Ground buildings, I'm going to need some terrain basics - hills, trees, etc.  I've been purusing some websites out there, and will see what I can cook up.



To help get me in the mood, I've been reading Faragher's "A Great and Noble Scheme" on the morning commute.  It's a sympathetic history of the Acadians from the earliest settlements to expulsion, and stresses the various connections that both pushed the Acadians towards neutrality, and eventually made that position untenable.  I've been finding some interesting similarities to recent histories of the US RevWar and 1812.  The Acadians comprised a nativist and North American culture, distinct from the imperial cultures that fought over Acadia territory.  In many ways, they were ahead of their time, foreshadowing some of the issues that would drive later conflicts to different ends.  If you get a chance, I'd recommend reading it.

FMB