Review, long past review

 Hi gang,

Finished up a couple more units of Russians for Blucher, a second unit of grenadiers, and the last of the line.  With these two finished, I've now got eight units / brigades done up - the planned infantry core for my initial 200 points of Russians, so I figured it was worth getting them all out for a review.

This leaves me with another unit of heavy cavalry, one of cossacks, and two batteries of guns to finish up, which is relatively easy striking distance.  I've been slightly sidetracked by some GW stuff (as I noted last post, there's a new edition of Age of Sigmar in the pipeline, and the Cub is here for the summer, so 40k is once again a thing), but I should get to these in the foreseeable future (the Cuirassiers are staring at me intently from the painting queue as I write this).  

In semi-related news, I spent a rather enjoyable morning loitering about the Virtual Joy of Six.  This is the UK based wargames show focused on 6mm that I drool over each year, but don't get to attend (what with the inconvenient ocean in the way).  This year, they did an on-line version, due to Covid.  While I missed some of the morning sessions (time zones are a thing), I did manage to catch the main panel, some painting and trader discussions, and lurk in the background of some great-looking games.  Saw a number of "faces" that are familiar from the 6mm scene and the blogosphere, and generally had myself a delightful time.  Many thanks to those who organized the event!

We've had some odd weather here lately (stonking hot, then a week of rain) which has put a bit of a damper (HA!) on outdoor gaming, but it looks like we've got a break next week.  If I can clear the decks of some work stuff, I should be able to get in a Pikemans' Lament game against a real-live opponent.  

The Cub and I have also played the first of our traditional summer 40k bonanza, and I'll get up some pics of that in a bit.

FMB

The big boys

 Hi all,

I found myself needing a beak from painting 28mm, and turned, perhaps predictably, to 6mm, specifically my Napoleonic Russians.  

I painted up a brigade of grenadiers.  The Russians fielded both dedicated grenadier regiments, and converged.  This brigade is made up of battalions from the Moscow and Kiev grenadier regiments.

Along with the grenadiers, I also painted up my first brigade of cuirassiers, made up of squadrons from the Little Russia and Novgarod regiments.

As with all of my units, these are based off of those that operated in the 1813 campaign.

As I was wrapping these up, the Victrix Vikings arrived, and promptly took over my hobby desk.  I've put together several, and will have a post on them soon.

FMB

Reinforcing Russians

Hi all,

Finished up a cavalry base for my Blucher Russians.  This is Lanskoi's brigade at Lutzen, composed of the Alexandria, White Russia, and Soum Hussars.

Uniforms were grey, black, and blue.  A somber lot, this.

Tried something a little different with this base, going for a larger number of "unit clumps" composed of a smaller number of figures.  Not sure if it sells the effect as well as the last base I did, but it's growing on me.

Turns out, 6mm pelisses (pelissae?) are kind of cute.

In Blucher, there's only two categories of Russian cavalry (three, if you include cossacks), heavy (guards and cuirrassiers) and "not-heavy", which seems to include dragoons, hussars, uhlans, etc.  I figure by sticking to an all Hussar brigade, I can run these as "lights" in any game with more granular distinctions between units.  I'll admit, I am tempted to do up a mixed cavalry brigade at some point, although the Russians seem to have mostly brigaded their cavalry by weight.

Some AoS/40k stuff is likely next, and then more historicals.  Until then, stay well.

FMB

Russians. Yes, those Russians.

Hi all,

Finished up another unit of Russian line for Blucher.



This brigade is made up of battalions from the Volhynia and Tobolsk regiments.  Per my usual approach, the growing list is based on an oob from an actual period battle (Lutzen, in this case), but I'm not setting out to specifically recreate that battle.



I used some of the "skirmishing" figures I picked up in my last Baccus order on these.  Actually not sure whether I prefer these guys in their "action pose", or just more fellows marching.  We'll see if they grow on me.  Next up for the Russians will be some Hussars.  Going to try a slightly different approach with them than I did with my dragoons;  we'll see how it turns out.

FMB

Inaugural Blucher

Hi all,

Took advantage of a bad weather day to commandeer the dining room table, and run through a trial of the Blucher rules, by Sam Mustafa.  These attracted, I think, a fair amount of attention when they came out a few years back, but for those of you unfamiliar, they're his latest run at big-battle rules for the Napoleonic period.

Glam shot for posting purposes ;)

Units are brigade to division sized, and they're designed to handle the really big battles of the period.  They're also the rules system. for which I've been painting and basing my Napoleonic Russians.  I've had the rules for a while, and picked up the cards back around Christmas, but have only now gotten things out for a game.

Laying out the armies.  Cards act as a partial blind.  You know something is there, just not what it is.

Blucher is designed to be played with or without miniatures.  Cards can serve as both an introductory game mechanic (so you don't need completed armies prior to play), but also as a partial blind in the earlier stages of the game.  I put together some quick and dirty forces (3 core Russians vs. French, with 8 infantry, 3-4 cavalry, and 2 guns apiece), slapped down some terrain, and deployed.  Due the limitations of space (I think next time I'll break out the big cardboard underlayer), the front lines deployed close enough to be discovered in the opening turns.  Part of me has been thinking that smaller bases might have been a more practical approach for the game (in that table size keys off of of unit footprint), but if I'm doing napoleonics, I'm in it for the spectacle, so bigger bases are more fun.

My poor old camera.  At least part of the pic is in focus ;)

To give some structure to the game, I had three areas operate as objectives - the two "towns", and the crossroads.  The basic idea was an attack by the French to seize a crossroads and river crossing, with the Russians moving to prevent it.

Russian main line revealed by encroaching French.

The early stages of the battle saw the French pushing towards the Russian center, and the crossroads, while their cavalry corps tried to turn the Russian right flank, and envelop.  The French did try to advance on the Russian left, but found it harder to coordinate the attack on that flank.



That flank attacked was stymied by an absolutely courageous defense conducted by a brigade composed of battalions from the Perm and Sievsk regiments, who ended up holding off a sequence of attacks by waves of cavalry throughout the whole game.  "Prepared" infantry, while immobile, gain significant advantages in combat vs. cavalry, and the French inability to coordinate infantry and cavalry together (partly due to terrain), meant they were able to hold the flank.

View from the French left.

Attrition in the centre built up, while on the Russian left, both armies were able to eventually coordinate, and the French closed to skirmish distance.  They held their ground, and began a steady harrassing fire of the Russian line.

On the Russian left.  The Tsar's men take the hill, but the French move to challenge.

Some of the mechanisms of Blucher began to assert themselves at this point.  Artillery effect is essentially ablative; your guns' firepower degrades over time, as ammunition is used up.  The effect is that while artillery can wear down infantry, or if concentrated do real damage, sooner or later, the infantry has to move in.  This happened in the game, with both sides eventually using up their ammo, and retiring their guns.  Meanwhile, on the right, the Russian brigade still held the line.

Someone is getting a medal.  This brigade held off successive charges from the French cavalry from dawn to around 2pm.

On the left, the French advantage in skirmishing (they get a bonus, as the Russians do defending in combat), took it's toll, wearing down the brigades anchoring the Russian line.  Two of them broke, and the French moved in.  In the centre, fire and combat, plus the damage done by artillery, was wearing down both sides.  The French had an edge in infantry, but the casualties to the French cavalry compensated, and both sides were getting close to their breaking point.

The Russian cavalry reserve deploys.

At this point, the Russians activated their reserves.  Blucher allows units still "hidden" to make a reserve move in the game.  As long as they don't come too close to the enemy, units can rapidly redeploy in a single turn, and become revealed.  The Russians did this to their cavalry, partly to block the French cavalry's attempt to go around the stubborn Russian brigade blocking them, and partly to hold up the French attack on the left, which was gaining momentum.

The Russian left starting to falter.  After a slow start, the French pushed hard here.

Things were getting tense.  Several Russian units were on their last legs, and if the French could push an attack home, it was likely the shaken brigades wouldn't hold.  On the other hand, the French cavalry had shattered on the Russian right, and the remnants were driven off by the Russian reserves.  The next army to lose a unit, would lose the battle.

Artillery exhausted on both sides.  It's down to the PBI.

Can the cavalry ride to the rescue?

The Russian brigade anchoring the right is hanging by a thread.

Then the French unloaded a rippling line of fire, and the Russians, stouthearted as there were, blinked first.  Puddin', who was acting as my dice roller and general advisor, rolled a trip six for one French unit, knocking out a Russian brigade.  Their whole line recoiled, and the Russians gave up the field.

Never let the 8-year old roll the dice.  Unless she's rolling for me.

Undone by skirmish fire.  I assume the general was hit, and the whole brigade panicked.

This turned out to be a ripper of a game - despite it being a rather clumsy learning experience, and not really planned out at all.  The game seems to really be about army coordination; getting your bits to act together is really important, but a constant challenge.  It feels like you're coordinating an army.  The MO mechanic (a blind dice roll acts as a limit to action, but isn't revealed until exceeded) means you are constantly having to prioritize what parts of the battle need the most attention.  Combat is attrition-based.  Your units wear down to the point where they can become vulnerable, and if you don't have reserves or a second line, a whole wing can collapse with shocking rapidity.

Left-centre at end of game.

On a knife edge.  One more turn, and those Russian cavalry would have cracked open the French on the Russian left.

There's also a ton of untapped depth to the game.  I barely touched army building, terrain, and the scenario was strictly instrumental.  There's what looks like an excellent "campaign" system to set up battles - sort of a strategic mini-game informing the tactical game on-table.  There's also the sheer depth of the period itself.   It was also surprisingly conducive to solo play; the dice introduce enough randomness that whatever side you're playing has to react to events, and with a larger table I think the impact of the reserve option will be more evident.  Definitely glad I picked the rules up, and I will keep building towards a full army.

FMb

Back to historicals, and an ask.

Hi gang,

For those of you wondering if I'm ever going to get back to historicals, fear not.  I've got some more Blucher Russians today, some Austrians to go, and some more Russians in the pipeline.

The regiments Perm and Sievsk

I have been finding, however, that my camera (which I've had longer, I think, than the blog) is really struggling to take decent pictures of the little guys.  I suspect this is a lighting issue, but absent a dedicated lightbox, I'm not sure what I can do.



I suspect that these guys will look better on the gaming table - for whatever reason, I've always gotten better shots during games than when I try to take bespoke pictures.  I've also got hopes of a trial solo game of Blucher in the next few days (a stretch of rainy weather should get me off yard duty for a bit), so fingers crossed.

On a semi-related note, the Cub has been looking through my stack of old Wargames Illustrateds, and seems to have had his imagination captured by an illustration of Rupert.  He's asked about ECW gaming, and I've been trying to tempt him with the rather lovely revamped range at Baccus.  If anyone has particularly nice pictures of ECW 6mm stuff, can recommend a good narrative overview likely to hook a precocious teen, or a solid set of relatively fast-playing rules (is there a Bolt Action for the ECW?), I'd very much appreciate the info.

Hope you are all well and safe.

FMB

A New Hope

Hi all,

Finally managed to meet up with the local historical crowd, for an honest-to-goodness historical game.  I keep pinching myself to make sure it really happened ;)

The looping river is impassable, the offshoots just irritating.

Thanks to the generosity of the Beloved, who covered both the kids' rec and the pup for the day, I was able to get out for a Napoleonics game in the area, run by the redoubtable Armchair General.  A re-fight of Friedland, the game was the last in a campaign series the local gang have been playing through (beginning with Austerlitz!).  The AG not only provided a vast array of 15mm figures, but also arranged the terrain, and managed to both umpire / rules reference and play, which kept the game moving well.

Some of the AGs many forces at play.

The rules were Napoleon's Battles, an older ruleset.  My impression is that they date from an era when people were starting to try and write more abstract rules focused on command and control, but sell them to people accustomed to tables, charts, and granular die roll modifiers.  The net result was a pretty steep learning curve, and we only got to turn 4 (IIRC).  I suspect more familiarity with the rules would speed up play (I wasn't the only new guy, at least to the rules), but what we managed to get through was fun.

My command moving up in support of the cavalry.

I had a fairly small command, which made things a lot easier, running a couple units of infantry with attached guns - call it a division.  Friedland historically was a game where the Russians started out attacking the French, and ended up disastrously defending as French reinforcements poured onto the field.  In our game we did a little better, mostly punching through the initial French defence, but I suspect had we played the game out longer, they would have rallied, and at least stalled our attack.

The Russian right flank.  Out of picture were the dastardly French.

Terrain was a huge factor in the game.  A largely impassible river (with only a few bridges) cut the table more or less in two down the middle for a good chunk of its length, and a series of smaller tributaries broke up the rest of the table.  Our attack (as I was playing Russians, of course), had to cross several of these.  They were passable, but with the addition of other constraints on terrain and movement, meant that we were basically fighting through a succession of natural barriers on a narrow front.  It pretty quickly became clear how the Russians ran into trouble in the historical event.

The guard marching.

A bit of a thrill for me was actually getting my unit of painted Russian guard on the table (not a perfect fit with their basing, but the AG accommodated).  As it turns out, they ended up the game marching to the guns, but I figure it still counts.  Given I bought the damn things back in Toronto who knows how many years ago, any use in anger will do ;)

Close enough now to move into attack column

Trails of Russian reinforcements - had the game continued, they would have played a larger role.

I have to say, the game looked great on the table - really showed off what massed 15mm can do.  Me being me, I came home all a-twitter with thoughts of digging out the rest of my AB15s.  Dinner, and a period of reflection, have me easing back a bit, but I suspect they may see the light of day yet - as a painting project, if nothing else.

The main bridge at Friedland - became something of a logistical choke point.

I have to say, I had a great time.  The group was super-welcoming to a new guy, and very patient with my sundry rules questions.  I tentatively broached the prospect of organizing a 6mm game, and seemed to get some enthusiasm in response, so I suspect a bit of planning is in order.  I'll have to take a look at what I can pull together from my collection, and think about possible rules and scenarios.  There's likely to be some painting needed as well (at least for any kind of nominally historical match-up), so that bears looking into as well.  Definitely feeling up about the prospects of more historical gaming in future, however, and assuming they have me back, will be seeing this crew again.

FMB

What I did on my Christmas holidays

Hi all,

Truth be told, I didn't do as much as I might have another year, for all the reasons noted in recent posts.  Did, however, manage to finally finish up some Napoleonic Cossacks who's been glaring at me accusingly the last month or so:

Don we now . . . 

 . . . our gay apparel?

They're intended as "Don-ish" cossacks.  While there were a few different cossack formations that formally had uniforms, it seems to have been pretty common for cossacks to wear more or less whatever they damn well pleased.  I painted some of these guys up in blue Don uniforms, some in brown, and a few in a mix.  The black shapkas tie them together well enough.  Played around with the formations too, looking for something less organized than my previous cavalry base.

In addition, the MESBG fiend I mentioned a post or two back was able to come over to the house for a few games.  We roped in the Cub, and had several Battle Companies games.  I think I only got pictures from the first, but a good time was had, and I was delighted to actually get a chance to play.

Mordor started on the hill, but opted for the better part of valor.

Rohan closing in.

Fights break out.

There can be only one.

I'm hoping to get out at some point in the next couple of weeks, as I owe a game to another buddy, and a BC campaign is getting going down at the shop, so fingers crossed on that score.  Not sure what I'll run.  The organizers are running it as a historical Arnor / Angmar fight.  I'm tempted to paint up some of the Lothlorian figs I picked up a while back, but to run them in BC I need wood elves, and I'm trying hard not to buy new stuff.  Maybe just use it as an excuse to paint up another batch of Rohan foot - with the new book, there's the potential for a non-mounted army that might be fun to try.

In the meantime, I've been prepping some more 6mm Austrians, and picking away at both some Lybian foot and Eomer, whenever I can steal a few moments.  Work starts up in a few days (I'm already deluged by emails), as does school for the kiddos, so some kind of routine will assert itself, no doubt.  Until then, enjoy whatever's left of your holiday!

FMB

Mixed bag

Hi all,

Another Russian base for Blucher finished up this week, along with a bit of an experiment.





This lot has flags from the Tchernigov and Selenguinsk regiments.  Getting into the swing of these guys, with another set on deck.  I'll ride the 6mm train until the Magpie strikes, and then shift gears, but in the meantime, seem to be getting things done.

I've also been playing around with some 6mm WWII stuff  As I think I mentioned in my last post, I was able to print out some Panzer IVs on a 3d printer last week.  I gave them a quick paint up, and based them as an experiment.







I don't know if these are great, but at a nickel a pop I can't complain.  Colours were a little dark - I tried something with the new GW contrast paints that worked, but ended up abou two shades darker than I'd anticipated.  Grist for the mill.

I've got another order in with some attempts at different positions on the turret, and we'll see how they turn out. The idea would be to use this for Rommel, and I think for the next base, I'll try to scatter in some infantry as well.  This is definitely a slow-grow project, but it's something to muck about with, and an excuse to become familiar with some of the basic 3D modelling software out there.

FMB