Terrain Tuesday - tents …..

Simple Renedra tents for ACW this week! 

Cheers

Matt

Terrain Tuesday Artillery Redoubt Fortification

Terrain Tuesday

This terrain Tuesday I am working on another two pieces, one is from my Napoleonic project drawer, the other is from my WW2 20mm project drawer. 

The first piece is a 28mm Horse and Musket to ACW fortified redoubt, I originally made five of these for my Borodino demonstration game  in 2012. I only used four of them for the game as I decided to make the Raevsky redoubt as its own stand alone piece. This piece has been half finished in the terrain drawer for 8 years, about time it departed, as you can see flock is still drying!

cheers

Matt

Confederate Marines

The last remnants of 2019 projects are leaving my table this week, first up a rebase and touch up of some Confederate Marines that suffered during our move from Australia to France. Basically highlighted and touched up the scratches and dings and re-flocked the base.

The figures are from the first corps range and are the only 28mm confederate marines I know of on the market. They were originally built for our clubs Atlanta campaigns.

A rare unit, as they mostly only acted in companies, serving the the ships and gunboats with the Navy. But they served on land was along with ex ship crews at the siege of Atlanta, they were formed into a unit and manned Fort Ogeechee, manning the guns and defending the bastions until the Atlantas surrender. The other battles that they served on land include Fort Fischer and at Drewy's Bluff after the scuttling of the Viginia-Merrimac. The last battle they served in was at Saylors creek, a battalion was formed with ex naval personnel and marines defending the James River fortifications.

The flag references a 1861 company flag, as I am unaware of any marine unit or dismounted ship crew ever carrying a flag on land and is hand painted. These chaps will join the sale of my ACW collection in the coming months.

Cheers

Matt

ref Marine Corps Gazette, June 1978 Col T.J Saxon

1st Louisiana Wheats Tigers Battalion

1st Louisiana Volunteers Wheats Tigers

Off the painting desk this week before my eyes go crossed from plaid, I finished off a quite paint job of some ACW figures I had in my "painting sometimes" pile, or draw to be more correct. From time to time while in the middle of a project and not feeling inspired I will pick up something very simple and paint it, from this pile of lead, then normally sell it, because I am no longer playing the period. This is the case for these chaps as I already have a battalion in my collection so surplus now to my needs. The 28mm miniatures are sculpted by the talented Mark Fenton, and are sold by Adventure time Miniatures through Elite Miniatures Australia, I think they are some of the finest sculpted ACW figures on the market today.


The 1st Louisiana tigers had a bad reputation during the war, being raised from "the lowest scum of the lower Mississippi...adventurous wharf rats, thieves and outcasts...and bad characters generally." 

But I think almost all confederate players will have an entire battalion in their collection. I doubt as do historians that the entire battalion ever wore the Zouave uniform, as each company was raised independently,  but wargamers being wargamers will paint the entire battalion looking that way. Some still even paint the uniform in brown, which as far as I know has been disproved, being blue that has faded to a brown as the dye was of bad quality. 

This range is also available from Adventure Miniatures sold by Elite Miniatures Australia. Here

Enjoy 

Cheers

Matt

AWI and ACW plastic church

Off the table a quick build for my AWI and ACW collection, the plastic Renedra church, all because of the Guild competition it was finally finished!

The “Bonnie Blue Flag” ACW weekend in July

 July is our clubs annual ACW and mid-19^th century bash where a few of us roll out our games for two days of gaming in the period.

Boyd, Rich, John, Dave, Mat and I played two games of 28mm ACW using Jonny Reb III rules over the two days.

On the First day we played a little round top scenario by Scott Mingus. Boyd and Richard commanded the Union, the confederates were commanded by John and I.  The Confederate attack had early success when John’s long range shooting caused a number of casualties on the unit beside the 20^th Maine, who fell back in disorder, the confederates moved forward and received and gave moving fires for two turns, the union sharpshooters commanded by Richard really whittled down the confederates so much that one Confederate Regt failed morale and ran off the table leaving the others to continue the assault, mostly cracking rolling by Richard (by the 20^th Maine) seen another off triggering a Brigade Morale test which I promptly failed….1s pick up remainder  of brigade….the follow up brigade fared no better and the game ended around 2pm, time to set up for the next day!

The second day Boyd, Richard and Dave commanded the Union against, the confederate commanders John, Mat and I. The game was a fictional game based on a counterattack by the union against the tired Confederate centre around the Wheatfield’s along Plum Run on the second day of Gettysburg.

The Confederates had a +1 disadvantage to all morale rolls, which is ok early but once the casualties start…….. The Union had a +1 firing modifier which really tolled if they rolled well. The Union  were a little worried as they advanced but their artillery done great damage on a number of units, one battery actually rolled all sixes and all but wiped out a small 12 figure batn, who promptly routed and took one other with them in the process, leaving a gaping hole between two brigades. The union advance on the right was extremely successful with two confederate batns totally destroyed and two others routing leaving a gaping hole in the line, the union were finally blunted and Johns troops counterattacked which was quite good to see, whoever the entire left flank of the confederates collapsed after two batns routed and the remainder of the brigade become shaken and then finally routed, this caused morale rolls all through my brigade which became shaken and finally routed leaving the hill and the fields to the union troops…….must get myself some new dice I think!

On Sunday a second game ran behind us with around ten players playing a Kriegspiel wild west game, that always seemed on the edge of anarchy! The town was aptly named “Profanity.”   My favourite recollections coming from that general direction;

Cowboy Player “ I’m going for a long range snap shot”

Gamemaster “ well it is extreme range and there are Mexican civilians in the way”

Cowboy player “ that’s ok”

Gamemaster rolls dice

Mexican cowboy “ok, who shot the women and baby, now my gang of Mexicans will be very angry”

Cowboy player “I cannot see anything to shoot, can I shoot the sheep?”

Cowboy Player “I am going to hide in this building”

Gamemaster “it’s on fire”

Cowboy Player “that’s fine”

Gamemaster “OK, now you do know that you have a bag of the tnt with you…….oh shit (boom)”

Player “damn Pinkertons, how come they shoot so well”

Gamemaster “well they aim, they are using rifles, and you are on you galloping horse, with a pair of pistols trying to shoot up to a two story window with a verandah in the way”

It was as funny as it sounds…….

Day two union assault a confederate siege gun position, rules JonnyReb III

Cheers

Matt

ACW Limber out of Ammo

These are actually repaints as they tend to get knocked about during our ACW games, in Jonny Reb double or tripple sixs result in a out of ammo marker being placed next to the . Boyd and I prefer these than simple cardboard cut pieces, they are available from Eureka miniatures, made for 15mm and 28mm Fire and Fury.

The two limbers are From redoubt I think

http://eurekamin.com.au/product_info.php?products_id=1359

cheers
matt

ACW ironclads

Well such a beutiful day on Sunday I decided to take some photos after I finished preparing the garden beds for spring planting. I managed to get my ACW 1/1200th Langton ACW ships out and take a few photos so I thought I would share them. A bought a few of these for a river fight game for the ACW weekend, but they never managed to make it onto the table. I enjoyed painting these and after undercoating I think I painted all four in about two hours, a basic colour then a wash in devlan mud, and I am very pleased how they came out, I am thinking about returning and adding stays to the funnels with brush bristles and perhaps flags.

here they are
CSS Albermarle



Uss Cairo


USS Benton


USS Virginia



cheers
Matt