New Falcon Civil War Reinforcements

 Last week in the middle of the night, I realized that it had been a long time since I checked Ebay for Falcon Civil War figures.

Next morning while drinking my morning coffee I went onto Ebay and found 8 Falcon ACW sets for sale. They were in lots of 2, and priced reasonably enough that I just bought all four lots. There were 5 sets of infantry that I didn't have, and 3 sets of cavalry. 

I was a little disappointed that there were no command packs or special sets such as militia or USCTs, but that is minor. With the cavalry I got two sets of cavalry in hats with shotguns. As my cavalry will be units of three, using Battle Cry size units, that will give me two units with two spare horsemen. I am thinking of converting these two figures into generals for both sides.

I was concerned that when I first opened the box, several of the packages had some kind of residual in the package. I was afraid it was "lead rot" (although after I read that they are made with the finest lead free pewter). After opening the worst of lot, I realized that it was just the foam in the package had disintegrated.

AI Toy Soldier Action

 After seeing several videos of animated toy soldiers on Facebook, I wanted to give it a go.

The first picture I used for animating.

This last one was really fun; Vikings vs Bunnies.
The animations mpeg videos: I converted them to gif, as I've used gif files before and if I want I can get individual pictures from them. I just hope this won't distract me too much from my gaming, as I was just getting back on track with my 2mm games.

Another 2mm Midnight Madness Wargame

The two armies drawn up. Red is the aggressor.

End of turn two. I decided at this point to take a photo at the end of each turn, more for my own pleasure than for blog.

End of 4. First blood to blue army.

End of turn 5: red has lost 3 infantry and 1 cavalry to blue's loss of 1 infantry and 1 cavalry.

Turn 6, action picks up. It's a bad turn for red; they lose half their cavalry 

Turn 7 for red: I do something I have never done in a game. I spend red's turn consolidating their line and try to bring up reinforcements.

Blue gathers their forces to launch an attack on their right.

Turn 10: blue's attack on the right is devastating.  Red loses three infantry units.

Turn 11: Red launches a counterattack on the blue cavalry on their left. The red battery eliminates one cavalry unit, another is force to retreat.

The blue's artillery fire on the strong red artillery and infantry with great effect. 2 infantry units eliminated and the 2 artillery batteries are forced to retreat.

The beginning of turn 12. Red has lost over 50% of the army. I had decided a turn 8 to have 12 turns in this game (so I could go back to bed!) Red could continue to fight and maybe do a little more damage to blue, but then would've been exposed to blue's return fire. They chose to retreat.
This game has me thinking of starting a campaign game. I have already started to work it out in my mind: now to start putting it to paper.

 

Another Late Night 2mm Wargame

Once again I woke up in the middle of the night. I thought of my 2mm games and Horse & Musket 2.0 rules.  I started thinking of different ways to deploy the armies, based on the results of the last game.  It was worth getting up and trying a couple of ideas. 
The red army grouped the arillery into two batteries and the cavalry  was grouped towards the center.

The blue army spread across the entire army, with their cavalry grouped on both wings.

Both armies moved their artillery forward to bring their artillery into action.

In this game, the early part of the game was maneuvering units and artillery trying to find weak spots in the opponents line.

Eventually the blue cavalry on the left charged forward and pushed back the red army's rightmost units. This action started both armies battling in earnest.

Eventually the blue army pushed back the red army. The red army could have continued the battle. While the blue army had more units, they were spread out. However, the blue army still had all their artillery and they could have held back any attack by the red army. The red army chose to retreat.

I have really enjoyed the last couple of games. I've been thinking through the moves ( unlike my "No Brain Wargames!) and want to do more work  on the 2mm armies. And while I haven't used any terrain features, I also thought that people will spend a lifetime playing Chess, and still be engrossed with the game. 

 

Midnight 2mm Wargame

A few nights ago I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep.   I got up and set up a wargame, using Chris Salander's Horse & Musket 2.0 rules. In this game some units were mixed arms. I also played the rules as written (mostly), trying not to use my own house rules.

In this game some interesting  (to me) events happened. In this particular photo 2 red cavalry (the unit marked by white dice) attacked a unit of 2 blue artillery.

The red cavalry gets to roll 4 dice. They kill one of the artillery units, and force the other to retreat 2 spaces. The artillery retreats to it's baseline, where there is one infantry unit. Next to the baseline where the artillery retreated can be seen 2 wagons; to capture the wagons and hold them one complete turn is the objective of both sides. However, as the rules are written, an infantry stand must be present to win the victory.

Next move the red cavalry (marked by the red dice) charges through the gap and attacks the blue infantry and artillery...

...and eliminates both units. The next move the red cavalry could attack the wagons, but would still need an infantry unit to come up to secure the victory.

A strong force of 3 cavalry and 1 infantry (the lower black dice) hits the red cavalry 's flank. Unfortunately for the blue, out of 7 dice thrown, not one kill or retreat result comes up!

On the red's next move I did something I rarely do during games; I had the red cavalry retreat, so it wouldn't be cut off in the next blue move.

In the end, the blue army got the better of the red army, and closed in on the red's headquarters (represented by the wagons). 

The red army at this point decides to retreat and live to fight another day. 
I found that by mixing the units up instead of grouping them by arms,  made for a more exciting game. In this game artillery actually played a more decisive roll than in previous games. One blue artillery piece was a thorn in the side of the red army. It was finally eliminated, but the red army was distracted by it and misused units trying to eliminate it.

The armies were returned to their cigar box. Hopefully they will see action again soon.
(By the way, this report is being written in the middle of the night. Once again I couldn't sleep!)