Impact 2012

Last weekend the Hired Guns from Uden organized their first convention: Impact 2012. This resulted in an attractive if small convention. About a hundred people attended, which can be considered a small number even by Dutch standards. Partly caused by the fact that this was the first time as well as the fact that another Dutch club, FIGZ, unfortunately  decided to use the same date for their Con.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed myself playing, explaining and enjoying the venue´s excellent coffee, which was a basic need really. The day before I attended the Highlands Rock & Blues Festival. Here you see me still fit and fresh listening to Wishbone Ash....

However, since I subsequently did not meet my bed before 1:30 AM on the same Sunday morning as I attended Impact by 16:00 PM I was actually quite knackered. Despite some lack of sleep and consciousness we hosted a 20mm SYW game with the Black Powder rules. Here are some pictures.

A few impressions of the painting contest:

Koen passing his stern but just judgement...

Sander´s winning entry. 

Some more entries. 

And finally a less-than-perfect but quite dynamic image of my cuirassiers charging through a corn field; most likely with disastrous results but with great panache nonetheless.

Here is some local press coverage.

Wellington: the years of the sword

While I had never before encountered the name of Elizabeth Longford, finding this little book of hers in a magnificent secondhand bookstore in Den Bosch for a few euros proved a pleasant coincidence. 

In some 600 pages the youth and earlier years of Arthur Wellesley´s life are narrated in lively detail. From his distant parents, his youthful ambitions as a violinist and his stay with the Ladies of Llangollen (a curious pair that might have been Europe´s first acknowedged lesbians) to his years in India, his striving for command and his first successes there and his first brief political career, the campaigns in Portugal and Spain and his ambassadorship in Paris you will get a interesting take on this strangely modest and at the same time deeply arrogant man. His thoroughness and competence set off against his often awkward social behaviour, clunky marriage and blunt speech must have been a challenge for his contemporaries to deal with. It left him with numerous admirers nevertheless, male as well as female for whom his awkwardness obviously meant nothing in the light of his enormous successes.

The storytelling is colourful, filled with anecdotes and manages to describe the battles and crises in absorbing detail. It takes a skilled writer to create tension while describing a plot everybody knows already, but mrs Longford pulls it off in her book with the same success as for example Jonathan Parshell in "Shattered Sword", his book about Midway.

The book ends with the Hundred Days and the Waterloo Campaign, after which Wellington terminated his military career and entered politics. But that, as has been said elsewhere, is a different story for a different book.

While I am not particularly interested in the Napoleonic period I was still curious for Wellington, having read more about the man who lost the battle of Waterloo than about the man who won it. This has now been thoroughly and pleasantly corrected. A recommendable book!

Incidentally Elizabeth Longford was connected to Wellington by more than interest alone, since she was actually married to one of the Pakenhams, descendant of Lady Wellington, nee Pakenham. Wikipedia has some more things to tell about her.

Wellington: The years of the sword by Elizabeth Longford

Paperback: 672 pages
Publisher: Panther Books Ltd 1971

Dystopian Bog-A-Ten

Last week we played a massive battle with the Dystopian Wars rules. We decided to mix it up with the classic demo game Bog-A-Ten. If you have never heard of it, click on the link for this magnificent little demo.

We managed to fit 5 players in a day long hunt for the golden Secret of Atlantis, hidden in the Atlantean temple on the center island. Players were tasked with finding clues on the island, using their land troops to battle hostile forts, dinosaurs and erupting volcanoes. All ships were issued the ability to carry tanks and to land their Assault Points as Marines on the islands.

 Here you see the table at the start of the game, still very neat.....

Japanese flyer firing at the fortification on the island in the background.

Another overview of the table from the opposite side. Note the KoB fleet landing tanks on the island in the foreground.

Covenant flyers landing walkers on an island, looking for clues to enter the Temple at a later stage.

The central island with the Atlantean Temple, still peaceful at this point...

Sea monsters attacking Brittannian cruiser. Weren´t these an extinct species you ask? Well, after this fight they were....

Various fleets converging on the island in a last bid for the Endgame.

The chaotic battle at the end. Note the tanks and walkers from various factions slugging it out. The cardboard counters are infantry (AP) landing on the island as marines.

And the Winner! Officially he had to exit the table as well, but it was almost five o´clock and the convention was closing, so we decided that first grabs determined the winner.

As this game was a testrun for the Great Garden Battle for this summer, I can look forward to another run in a few months. The rules worked quite well, only requiring some tuning down of hostile cities and monsters.

A very enjoyable day by all accounts!

Cuirassiers!

As I wrote earlier I am planning to expand my 18th century cavalry options. For this I need more hussars and dragoons, but especially the powerhouse of all 18th century shocktroops: the cuirassiers.  

Of course no cuirassiers are made in 1/72 plastic and even metals are rare. I found the Outland games ones but so far have failed to acquire any. So I turned to conversions. 

I started with Zvezda and HaT Napoleonic Russian Cuirassiers, removed their heads and replaced them with heads from the Imex AWI British infantry. The horse harness seemed appropriate enough and so a further paintjob led to the results below. The one with the raised sword is Zvezda, the other one HaT. After the headswap and the paintjob they look remarkably similar and I am quite pleased with them. Another 22 to go to finish the two Cuirassier units I have planned. 

Hussars and dragoons are to follow. These are both made by Zvezda for the Seven Years War and the Great Northern War. Wait and see! 

More 18th Century 1/72 goodness

Originally I started collecting 18th Cnt figures to play the AWI with the Black Powder rules. These rules can handle a tremendous amount of figures and still (provided you have enough table space) produce enjoyable games. For nostalgic as well as monetary reasons I decided on 1/72 plastic, reinforced here and there with 20mm metals. 

Over the years the collection has grown nicely and lately I have been expanding it into the wider 18th Century´s theatre of (fictional) war. Here are the latest additions: 

Notably absent in the Kronstadt game (I didn´t get them finished in time) are British and French pioneers. These hail from the Revell SYW Austrian infantry set and are simply painted in their respective uniform colours.

A very nice and interesting set by the much maligned brand Strelets is the British Napoleonic Light infantry from the Egyptian Campaign. Set at the end of the 18th cnt the figures are still quite appropriate (you will note that I am no purist) for the AWI. Here are two Light Infantrymen in hats, painted for the AWI.

The other half of the set, including the officers, wears Tarleton helmets! These have become the British Legion. No one knows how the Legion´s infantry uniform looked, but I decided I liked it close to the cavalry uniform and these figures were perfect. Minus some shoulder wings here they are with an also fictional Colour. Being a Light infantry regiment, they would not have had Colours, but they look so much better with one. Don´t you agree? I thought you would.

Finally the Revell SYW Austrian dragoons expand my cavalry options. Not needed for the AWI but an 18th Cnt battlefield would not look right without masses of horse. On order are more Zvezda GNW dragoons and Russian Napoleonic cuirassiers, the latter to be converted into SYW cuirassiers. So there´s more to come!

The Bridge at Kronstadt

A few years ago I bought Tabletop Teasers Vol 1 (no Vol 2 has surfaced so far, alas!) by Charles Grant. I have wanted to play one of the scenarios for some time and now we played The Bridge at Kronstadt. Originally placed in 1805 I moved it backwards to the mid-18th century in a fictional war between the Grand Duchy of Twitterlingen and the double princedom of Doppelstein-Hupsenbach. We used Black Powder as a ruleset. 

In the scenario Twitterlingen defends the bridge across the unfordable river near the town of Kronstadt. The player will have to defend the bridge against a superior force while undermining the bridge. This will take a certain amount of time (not known to his opponent) and then he will have the emergency option of blowing up the bridge (and hopefully) destroy it. 

Here the town of Kronstadt lays serenely near the river. The old bridge spans the stream towards the village of Nieder Kronstadt. 

Nieder Kronstadt is defended by the Twitterlinger Grenadiere (if these look familiar; yes, I painted these as French for the American Revolution) supported by artillery. 

 From across the plain the large Doppelstein-Hupsenbacher army approaches the Ribbeling stream. Scouting hussars have identified several defensive positions but who knows what else is hidden behind the hills? But time is of the essence, since the dastardly Twitterlingers will undoubtedly labour to undermine the bridge. So forward! 

On the left and center massive columns march toward Kronstadt, while on the right the cavalry division made a wide sweep to turn the Twitterling flank. Having foreseen this, the Twitterlinger general had placed his cavalry and two regimants of foot behind a hill on his left flank. Here the Doppelsteiner Hussars charge the Twitterlinger Dragoons, only to be driven off with bloody losses. The subsequent charge of the Hupsenbacher Dragoon regiments swept away first the Twitterlinger cavalry, then their infantry. Already their left flank was crushed!

In the center however things progressed slowly. The Twitterlinger cannon, their only numerical superiority, caused serious disorder in the approaching Doppelstein-Hupsenbacher lines, greatly hampering their advance. Slowly but inexorably however the mass of the Doppelstein-Hupsenbacher line drew nearer....

Twitterlinger Grenadiere regard the approaching multitudes with stoic resolve.

Here the battle is starting left and center. Twitterling guns tear into the Doppelsteiner ranks.

While slowly driven back, the Twitterlinger right wing causes terrible losses amongst the Doppelsteiner troops. Stubbornly they hold on to their positions. Hupsenbach infantry meanwhile passes them by to attack Nieder Kronstadt itself. Time is pressing!

In order to force the matter, Doppelstein-Hupsenbacher cavalry charges the depleted Twitterlinger left wing which tenaciously hangs on the the village. The charge has disastrous results: both cavalry regiments are utterly blown away with deadly musketry! The charge in the center meets the same fate, losing greatly. Then the dreadful insight arrives. The unthinkable has happened! The Doppelstein-Hupsenbacher army is broken! While the Twitterlinger army has little more fight left in them, they at least have held on to the bridge. Victory for Twitterlingen! 

A great game with a great ruleset. Thanks to Folkert for a pleasant afternoon and an enjoyable defeat :o) 

Mobs, Cannon, Outhouses and demons.....

I have painted the last (for now ;o) of my Witchfinder General figures, mostly Warlord Games Miniatures reinforced with some miscellaneous stuff I had lying around. Below are the WG Clubmen in their role as Angry Villagers, traditionally equipped with pitchforks and torches. On the left you can see a plastic WG matchlock man and two lovely plastic pirates from an old Pressman boardgame I acquired years ago.

 As someone pointed out my tavern did not have a loo. Unable to cope with such a level of unrealism I felt compelled to correct this. Behold the Outhouse!

 Perhaps you´d better close the door, sir.....

A gallows for an upcoming WF scenario.

WG Saker gun and crew.

And if you roll a 6 on your Familiar roll you´ll get this! Does this look Familiar to you or not?



Massive Dystopian Wars battle

Last night we played a massive -and in retrospect a bit too ambitious for one evening- Dystopian Wars battle. Over 2000 points of Covenant prowess took on a combined Prussian/American fleet. After a three-hour slugfest I yielded the victory to the Allies, having inflicted serious damage on the Prussians but my battleship was severely damaged and my supporting squadrons largely sunk. Here are some impressions:

 My utterly worthless armoured cruisers

 The Covenant carrier, with Galen Escorts

 The CoAN Daedalus overflying a squadron of destroyers.

 The American battleship.

 Arjan´s Prussian battlegroup

 More Americans...

 The CoAN Epicurus Skyfortress.

Prussian flying cigars

The ferocious battle on the right wing where my Air Fleet mauled the Prussians. No pictures seem to have been made of the left wing where my fleet was reputedly mauled by the Americans....