More Boat News and an ECW Wargame.

    Besides starting work on more small sailboats, I did manage to get a couple of wargames in. The games made me pull out some old Practical Wargamer magazines.

    This week we had some strong storms move through, with strong winds from the south-east for two days. On Friday the wind died down and the day turned out to be a beautiful fall day. I went down to the pond to look for Odin, hoping that the winds had carried her back towards the beach. Alas, there was no sign of Odin.

    While building the new boats, I looked up Napoleonic gunboats. In one picture, there were Royal Marines sitting in the midsection of the boat. Somewhere I had seen some Peter Laing sitting Marines. I wish I had some of them; they would look good in my boats.

     I used my 2mm blocks to fight a quick battle based on Edgehill. I used The Wargame, by Peter Young as the guide. The board main feature was the ridge line the Royalists set up on. Forces were picked based on 1 stand for every 1000 men, rounded up or down. This gave the Royalists 4 stands of cavalry, 10 of infantry, and the Parliamentarians 3 cavalry and 12 infantry; Dragoons counted as cavalry.

    The Royalist cavalry charged the Parliamentarian cavalry and drove it back. They pursued and the rest of the game were occupied trying to eliminate the remains of the cavalry. The Royalists charged downhill, and at first drove back the Parliamentarian infantry. Eventually the Royalists were driven back up the hill and the Parliamentarians took the ridge and won the battle. From my limited knowledge of the English Civil War, it seemed the game played out much like the actual battle.

  The game turned out to be rather enjoyable, and I am now thinking of using a similar system to fight other historical games. In Practical Wargamer, there was an illustrator by the name of John Parke, who did illustrated battle maps. His maps has me thinking of using them for games based on his battle maps.

Two new "Odin" gunboats being built.

My battle of "Edgehill".  The Parliamentarians (grey) have taken the ridge. A unit of Royalists cavalry is attacking the Parliamentarian right flank belatedly. The Royalists have lost too many units and cannot  recover.  I had no intention of reporting on this game, so only have this one photo of the end of the game.

 

New Peter Laing ECW Figures and another No Brain Game

Today I got two packages in. One was a small lot of 1st generation Minifigs Napoleonics, the other a lot of Peter Laing ECW figures. While I already have many of the ECW infantry, the main reason I bought this lot was to get 40 cavalry figures that were new to me.

Three of the new ECW cavalry figures I just received.

I also got 10 each of these ECW peasants; another one of my favorite Peter Laing figures.

The seller sent this SAS figure along "to guard the package"! 

I wanted to fight my new Mahdi army. Their opponents were my Arab army.

The Mahdi first contact is devastating, killing 8 of the Arabs.

Still, the Arabs manage to force back the Mahdi tribesmen.

In the center, three Mahdi archers hit a unit of Arab archers, killing one and forcing the other two to retreat....

...which exposes the Arab chieftain to another Mahdi unit with three archers. However, instead of  attacking the Chieftain, they go after the unit of Arabs to the right of the Chieftain. It was a wasted effort as they missed anyways.

The Arab Chieftain now started bringing all his men towards the center of the line.

However, the Mahdi forces pushes through the center and close on the Chieftain.

At this point the Arabs realize the battle is lost and falls back.

The Mahdi general, once a lowly cavalryman in the Ottoman Turk army, is now a general leading a victorious army.

A New Dog and ECW Unit

        We decided to get a new dog. While the original plan was no new pets. It was my wife who asked if we could get another dog. My only stipulation was that it had to be a rescue dog. There is a Jack Russell Terrier rescue in our state, so we started the adoption proceeding. While returning from our vacation in Maryland, we swung by the rescue and picked up our newest family member, Jerry. Needless to say, the last couple of weeks have been adjusting to the quirks of a new dog, and him adjusting to us. I have had little time for wargaming.

    However, while on vacation I started thinking of making larger units if I was to continue with an English Civil War game. I decided to raise an experimental regiment to test out some ideas. The trouble was how to base the figures. As most infantry formations had musketeers on the end with pikemen in the middle, basing them side by side wouldn't work out well. So I decided to base the one in front of the other. I also wanted to have a standard bearer. At first the plan was to have a pikeman with the flag. However, I do have quite a few nice command figures and it seemed a shame that I don't use the in my regular gaming. So I made a command stand. If I use the BATTLELORE variants I used in my last game, the command stand wouldn't count except as a marker. Of course if I wanted a longer game, it could be that a unit takes 5 hits instead of the usual 4. Below is a few shots of the regiment. They need their coat of varnish and I still haven't got a flag for them yet.

    

Jerry, our newest member of the family.

A typical jack, Jerry needs plenty of exercise, which tends to cut into my war-game time.

My experimental ECW regiment. If I raise more regiments, they will each get a different color uniform.

This is how I based the figures. I also put each figure on a washer. That way if I ever want to rebase them or use them individually, they will be ready for action.

Peter Laing English Civil War

   My wife and I had discussed that when our dog died, we wouldn't get another dog.  Surprisingly, my wife changed her mind and wants another dog ( I thought it would be me who would beg for another dog). We have been spending  much of our free time contacting different rescue groups looking for a new dog.  This has been distracting me from my gaming.

    When I got home from work, once again I switched gears from the semi-flats back to Peter Laings. I had bought several lots over the last couple of months. However, I just put them aside without looking at them. They consist of Medieval spearmen, crossbowmen and axemen.   I also brought out my Peter Laing ECW figures. I then decided to try to work on getting an ECW game together.  I want to try to use some rule variants for BATTLELORE that I found on line.  Instead of trying to paint the armies, I spray painted the two different armies; grey for the Parliamentarians, white for the Royalists. I do have some painted figures to use, too.  Both armies have 4 infantry and 4 cavalry units.

The Royalist Army.

The Parliamentarian army.

The Royalist infantry closes in on the Parliamentarian Army

The Royalists are pushed back.

The Royalists counterattack.

The Royalist cavalry hits both flanks.

The Parliamentarian foot continue to push the Royalists back.

The Royalist cavalry continue to push forward.

The Royalist cavalry on the right sees a gap in the line and charges through it, heading for the enemies wagon train.

As the cavalry charges the train, they see the Parliamentarian General. They cut him down.

The Parliamentarian cavalry counterattacks. The cavalry at the top left forces the Royalist cavalry to retreat. It then makes the mistake of on it's followup attack attacking the infantry instead.  It's dice roll would have wiped out the Royalist cavalry.

The royalist cavalry on the upper left forces one Parliamentarian cavalry off the field. The Royalist cavalry on the right counterattacks and wipes out the cavalry unit. The Parliamentarians are now down three units (2 cavalry and the General). To lose one more means the battle is lost.

The Parliamentarian cavalry defeats one of the Royalist cavalry.

The Royalist cavalry forces another unit of Parliamentarian cavalry off the field. The Royalists  have won the day.

It was good getting a game in. The rules worked out for this game. I'm not sure they are really a good representation of the period. Perhaps my Peter Laing ECW figures will get more use in the future.

Peter Laing ECW Cavalryman Mold; the 64th Time is the Charm

     The Peter Laing mold  made before going on vacation was tried out today.  After a little work on the mold, the figures were the best I have managed to cast. Of course, the master was painted with a thick coat of enamel paint that I couldn't remove and the base was flocked, so there is no detail to the figure. Still, for my project they will do fine. The pictures are poor as I still haven't found my camera and used my cell phone to take the pictures.

New Inspiration for Wargaming

      My wife and I returned from our week's camping  in New York.  We had just about the whole campground to ourselves and I got some reading done on the English Civil War. This has got me wanting to do a ECW war-game. Hopefully my copy of "One Hour Wargames" will be mailed soon. Before leaving for vacation I also made a mold of a Peter Laing ECW cavalryman, as I have very few of them, and it seems in many ECW battles there were large number of cavalry. The mold looks promising and hopefully I can get some casting done in the next coupe of days.

    While on vacation we managed to visit Olana, the home of Frederic E. Church, a Hudson River School painter.  He built his home on a hilltop overlooking the Hudson River. One of my interests is the painters of the Hudson River School, so this was an enjoyable day for me. The photos below were taken with my cellphone and don't do justice to the views. The good photos are on my wife's camera, which still needs to be downloaded.

 

Olana,  Frederic E. Church's home.

A view of the Catskills Mountains from Olana.

Our home away from home. One night my wife woke me to point out two deer outside our camper. She  saw 5 throughout the night grazing in the field we were camped at. One week just wasn't enough!

Unusual Wargaming Inspiration

  My wife and I are on vacation this week and are preparing to go camping one last time. My wife wants to go to the "Sheep & Yarn Festival" in Rhinebeck, NY. For me it was an excuse to try out our new camper for the week. Also, it is close to Sleepy Hollow, of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" fame. We have visited Sleepy Hollow before, but I might try to get there this week.

    Now Halloween is my favorite time of the year, and with my wife working Saturday I spent the day watching ghost stories on Youtube. One I watched was from a series from England named "A Ghost Story for Christmas". This story was called "A View from a Hill". At one point the main characters were standing on a hilltop viewing the surrounding country side and one pointed out a village and  mentioned of "some battle fought in the Civil War". The scene made me think of what the battle would have looked like from that vantage point.  I also watched "Matthew Hopkins; Witchfinder General" starring Vincent Price. This movie took place during the English Civil War. I  now find myself wanting to use my Peter Laing ECW. I don't have many figures but I have also ordered "One Hour Wargames" by Neil Thomas. Based on Bob Cordery's review, it seems like the rules call for a small number of figures, and the rules are very basic. The book is not yet available in the states, but hopefully by the time we return from vacation I will have some idea of when the book will be shipped.

   I still haven't found my camera but borrowed my wife's camera to take some shots of the Minifigs/Hinchcliffe? landscape pieces.

The bridge assembled and painted. Forgive the poor quality of the pictures; it's been a couple of  years since using the camera.

The brick wall, with a Peter Laing peasant behind for scale. The picture is from slightly above, which makes the wall shorter than it actually is.

The hedgerows. Unfortunately the SD card at this point was full and I couldn't take a photo of the stonewall.  These pieces would be good for my ECW wargame.  I am thinking of trying to cut a sample down to 1 inch long pieces to see if they could be useful at this length. As I have about 24 pieces of each, the loss of one wouldn't be too bad.

A Couple of "New" Peter Laings

I recently won two lots of Peter Laing English Civil War figures. For me the best figures are two different "peasant" figures. 

On left: F514 Peasant with billhook. Figure on right: F513 Peasant with cudgel.

For me these figures have great potential. Besides ECW peasants, I could see them as Irish rebels from the 1798 rebellion. On the bizarre side,  maybe leprechauns guarding their gold.  That idea is from a campaign I've been thinking of for a while.