4th new york continental infantry regt

finally uploaded are the 4th new york in their resplendent white uniforms, coouldnt let an american unit of the awi look too neat so have added a wounded character and a variety of different tricorne variants. i just dont believe that a new nation could have clothed its troops consistently well except for thje initial enrollment. any campaigning would have shown up the flaws in a new commissariat immediately
i had a bit of trouble getting this regt to look right, i find it difficult to get the right mix for white uniforms. eventually i kept it simple with an undercoat of black followed by a vallejo stone grey coat then covered with 1-2 coats of pure white. i thought about adding more weathering to the lower legs etc, but decided against it in the end. they may a look a little stark but they will form a great contrast with the rest of the blue coated continentals


next up will be the french francoprussian dragoons, riders done just need to do the horses followed by all the other things i mentioned in the last post. unless i get distarcted again!!!!!!
aside from painting i have been reading the rules of engagement set for ww2, i have plenty of german wehrmacht and ss in 28mm and hope to take these against hals american soon. on the face of it these rules look very familiar as they incorporate many elements of warhammer and flames of war, both sets of which i have used a lot. i hope they will live up to my expectations as i have been looking for a goos playing set of ww2 rules for some time

so much for new years resolutions

well not done very well on the resolutions, which is probably typical
anyway at last have posted again
not a huge amount to say except to update on how things are going on the painting front.
first off painting wise have been really rubbish but have succeeded in rebasing an entire ECW army which took most of the winter. i have a few things to finish for them such as a saker gun and a couple of command bases
next up are the usual 4 battalions of AWI contientals and militia (2 of both) and 3 regts of ACW rebs charging.
i have also based and put together the 40 models (for £15 i might state) from perry which i have to say despite being a bit fiddly to put together, they took me over a week in between baby cuddles and work. however they are beautiful models with plenty of range of character whihc i have based individually for now, but any further sets i get will be based on 40 x 40mm bases to use in larger scale wargames
also due to a regt of french dragoons which i have been stimulated to paint by matts repeated superb brushwork.
hand in hand with this goes the new delivery that arrived on saturday which was a battalion of beautiful austro-hungarians from helion. these are the first i have bought despite drooling over the figures they produce for some time. again matts constant updated website (better than mine) has inspired me to branch out from the franco-prussian war. i will be basing these as a 20 man unit (ratio 1:50) to give a regular 1000man battalion. i hope that i will be able to paint these fairly quickly (although on past form that may not be the case).
finally i wanted to advertise one of my christmas presents from the lovely wife. This is the book by andre jouineau part of the LRT editions range in France. this book is labelled as number 1 so hopefully that means they will be expanding the range to cover other elements of the army of Napoleon III. this first volume covers the grenadiers and voltiguers of the garde. at 64 pages with 55 colour plates in the now familiar computerised format covering all ranks and troop types. overall i am very impressed with this book it is produced in a very clear format with clear illustrations to help the wargamer and painter. however the most fantastic feature of this book is the fact that it is written in both french and english, allowing for a clear understanding of the complex details often part of military history books. for those interested the book is available for £18.50 from caliver books. ISBN 9782917747049

New years resolutions

well a good christmas and new year was had by all. some nice things were in my stocking (mostly bought by myself on the behalf of relatives)
new arrivals included a box of the lovely new Perry miniatures wars of the roses platics, the new Battlefront vietnam range, some lovely pre-painted rivers and a few books, including the 1859 ruleset from bruce weigle and the new garde imperiale grenadier and voltiguer book by andre jounieu.
so with the new year it is customary to make some resolutions, so here we go
1. complete projects before starting new ones (although as far as i am concerned no army etc is ever totally complete)
2. make a concerted effort to dig into the lead mountain
3. game more often, including going to wigan wargamers club whenever possible
all this obviously has to fit in around a fulltime job and 6 week old baby but hopefully i will be able to achieve some of these goals

American 3lb Artillery

this is my first completed american artillery piece
it is a foundry piece and i have chosen to give it a 3lb gun barrel
i have painted them in a rather traditional manner and they have obviously benefitted from an efficient quartermaster as they have very dapper uniforms including gold braid around the brim of the tricorne. future gun crews will be in a much more rough and ready attire







Merry christmas to all
andy

3rd New York Continental Infantry

this is my first AWI american unit and i have painted them as the 3rd New York continental infantry regt. i have painted them as a slightly mixed bag with some smart and some wearing the ubiquitous hunting shirt. i am quite please with how they have come out, even if i still need to get some more lovely flags from mr graeme black
next up will be an american 3pdr and the 4th New York in their rather snappy white uniforms with red facings

ACW skirmishers

these are some of the ACW skirmishers i have been painting up over the last few weeks. for GAG it is quite common to have them deployed and many of the published scenarios require 6-18 of them. the rules allow skirmishers to be based individually with a small gap between each model, but in my opinion it is unimportant how they are based as long as the effect is correct. this allows some interesting dioramas.
the models used are a mixture of foundry and perry miniatures, most of the prone miniatures i picked up at phalanx a few years ago.

i tend to paint my rebs in batches using a palette of 2 greys and about 6 browns, which i hope gives a suitably random assortment of clothing that i expect the rebs would have had. i also add in occasional union trousers and canteens. despite the fact that there are numerous recorded accounts of rebs wearing union blue jackets, i have so far veered away from using them on the tabletop as i suspect that much like in real life it would lead to confusion.

in a couple of the dioramas i have used rendera plastic fence sections which are conveniently broken down and give a very dramatic positioning for skirmishers
most of the models are rebs as i posted the union ones a few weeks ago

next on the list of things to do will be some AWI continental infantry and ECW cannon

Battle of Hanover Court House

The Battle of Hanover Court House, 27th May 1862 - Scenario Book 3

The other week i played my first game of Guns at Gettysburg (GaG) in about a year. i had originally played about 2 games which had ironed out most of the gliches in learning a new ruleset, but as usual a layoff meant that had to virtually start from scratch again

The battle of hanover court house took place as Brig Gen Porters V corp extended north of Maj Gen McClellans army to allow the movement of reinforcements as part of the penisula campaign, at Peakes crossing (a railway station) confederate forces under Col Branch were defeated. However, the defeat of Maj Gen Nathaniel Banks in the Shendoah by Jackson required the reallocation of reinforcements that Porters movement was supposed to make possible

Porter initially pushed toward Hanover court house leaving a small body of troops at peakes crossing. Col Branch mistakenly thought these were the only Union troops in the area and rashly attacked achieving some initial success before Union reinforcements arrived and pushed the confederates from the field leaving over 200 rebel dead and 700 captured for a loss of 350 men

our refight involved me with the rebels and mike taking the Union forces. the scneraio requires a timescale of 8 turns for the confederates to rout or break the union forces, consisting of a single brigade with reinforcements. therefore i tried to be as aggresive as possible and kept my brigade on assault orders throughout the game. most infantry were deployed in line with a single large unit 12thNC in column hoping to punch a hole in the union centre. The union brigade remained on hold orders throughout


initally the confederate attack was sluggish as the large number of woods slowed movement until the troops were able to break into the second field opposite the union troops and engage in musketry fire. the main casualties at this point fell upon the 18th NC which i had rather rashly pushed into the battleline unsupported to face the fire of the 44th and 25th NY regts and a battery of parrots and on the union side by the loss of the 2nd maine which had also unwisely been pushed forward to occupy the Kinney house

further advances by the rebels succeeded in developing the battle line as the union reinforcements arrived on turn 4. the stalemate was broken by the assault of the 12th NC in column into the 25th NY which had since run out of ammo and which after 2 rounds of combat broke and fled to the rear on turn 7

the final turn saw further losses and both sides taking a brigade morale check which both passed resulting in a Union victory

Overall this game was very enjoyable despite coming up against a few things in the rules that i must reread. the timescale was tight but with a bit of extra planning the reb advance could have been swifter. The union player in this scenario has an easier role as the course of the battle is dictated by the rebs battle plan. overall though it was an enjoyable game and a nice introduction to GaG also apart from lots of woods not too much scenery was required