General Butternutts Epic Stand

So,

Today a bunch of us today got another epic Black Powder ACW game, This time around Tom was the organizer of said event. The players were as follows, Myself, Robert, Tim P and Al R being the Union side, while Tom O, Joe D and his Son Joey took up the confederates side.

The table was a small 12' x 8' and the terrain was supplied by myself, Rob and Tom. here are a few before shots.

Tom came up with an interesting way of deciding the forces, we drew randomly and each brigade had a random set of units with random skills. Once sides were decided, we rolled for our leadership of our Brigade commanders. Rob, Tim P and Al all rolled a leadership of 9, while I was to be the unlucky one with a leadership of 6!

Well, once we got under way, the North proceeded to march on in all the pageantry  that they were know for. Tim P advanced up the road, Rob and Al both advanced as well, I got lucky ad was able to moe on as well.

The Rebels advanced onto the table and took up good postions, but it was clear that the rapid union advance had caught them by surprises.

 

By turn 3 things started to get interesting, the Union had advanced across the table and started to pour fire on the Rebs. Also it came down to my brigade had to advance to support Tim P on our flank, the Union General attached to my Brigade (so I could use his Leadership) and I was successful with ordering my large unit into a firing line to start my shooting against the Rebs that were still in march column.

By the beginning of the 4th turn, things went bad for the Rebs, the Union had a good round of shooting and I even was able to get my large unit into Hand to Hand combat. they were successful and routed the Rebs on my side of the table. After the smoked cleared, it was obvious that the Union had won the day. Here are a few more shots from the game.

All in all it was a great day and it was awesome to see the game on the table. This has fired me up to get my Rebs to the table. I look forward to the next game.


TK

Bolt Action 700!

So,

Today a few of us met up at Imperial Outpost games to play some Bolt Action games. All of us (Myself, Robert, Howard, CJ ad Randy) are all playing in the Bolt Action escalation league being run in the Valley of the Sun at the local shops by the Warlord "Sarges", which is the Demo teams here in the states for Warlord.

Anyhow, we showed up to play some games, Rob brought his Fallschirmjager's out and I brought out my US Airborne. Everyone else brought out regular Americans (it seems the Americans were doing training today!). Rob wanted me to bring out my Desert buildings so that meant my Airborne were the 509th vs his Fallschirmjagers. The mission was Maximum Attrition, which is basically a kill them all sort of scenario.

The Desert Table

My force was pretty simple, three 10 man squads, one 8 man squad and a two man HQ. Rob ran small 5 man teams with double LMGs, had a Artillery Observer and a Medium machine gun as well as his HQ. Things started out good for the airborne, but by turn three, I was feeling that loosing feeling creeping up on me.

Paras advance thru town

By turn 5, the Americans started to fight back and by turn 6, it looked like the Americans would have the wind, which they did. Rob and I learned a lot during this game, especially moving into buildings, shooting from and at buildings and more importantly, Rob learned that assaulting a building is hard, damm hard by the way! Here are a few more shots from the game.

Paras advance down the street

And thru the palm tree groves

The American Paras in the south end of town.

Hey, are those guys with us up ahead?

Nope, here that distinct sound, its a MG34!

Paras in the buildings

It was a great game and we both learned a lot. Once again we got a nice compliment on how the table looked, in fact we get compliments every time we set up our stuff in the shop. As Rob says, "Okay painted figures, look better on a great looking table". I would agree!

 Now onto some items I have been working on over the last few weeks. Now some folks know, I have been doing 28mm WW2 gaming for about 13 or so years. So I have a huge collection figures. A couple of weeks ago, I decided that I needed to re base my Germans. I had some models that were painted well over ten years ago and a few that were painted a few months ago and one thing that stood out was the basing. Ten years ago I had a system for basing, but as I get older, I seem to have forgotten how I did it. So I started one night with unifying the basing and I am about half way through.Oh and I wrote down the colors I am using (Americana Burnt Umber, than Americana Mississippi Mud followed by Americana Mink Tan. Static grass is Army Painter Steppe Grass). So here are a few shots of my Germans.

Squad one, Crusader Miniatures

Squad Two, Crusader Miniatures

Squad Three, Black Tree Designs

Squad Four, Black Tree Design/Crusader Miniatures

HQ, Crusader Miniatures

MMG's, Crusader Miniatures

Medium Mortars, Crusader Miniatures

Flame Throwers, Crusader Miniatures

Captain, Black Tree Designs, attendants Crusader

So here are a few with the older basing that are waiting to get the new treatment, I also included a few pictures of some of the 1/48th scale tanks I use with the Germans.

PaK40's, Crusader Miniatures

Panzer Shrek team, Black Tree Designs, Engineers Crusader Miniatures

New Millennium Panzer IV

New Millennium 38T

Flak Panzer, New Millennium

Early Production Tiger, Tamiya 1/48th

Scale shot with Black Tree Design miniatures

New Millennium Panzer IV with Crusader Miniature for scale.

 

German painted left overs waiting for basing upgrade

Just FYI, the New Millennium tanks came pre painted and ready to go. I have been lazy in not weathering them up, but they are waiting for the elements to do there magic on them. These models were purchased about six years ago at Wallmart for $5.00 each! Between Rob and I, we must have about 30 of the vehicles, we went crazy for picking them up!

So there you go, a little Bolt Action update for you...

TK