More minis arriving

This week has seen the arrival of my order from Firestorm Games for The Bedlam Brotherhood and Victorian Zombies.

Last week my order directly from Westwind arrived, which meant that some of the old Gothic Horror minis would be able to take the field shortly. My order was for the Hungarian Vampire Slayers blister pack (they will be used as Wulfen Jaegers) and Asylum Inmates, which will be used as regular brothers for the Bedlam Brotherhood.

The old Gothic Horror minis come with their pewter base, so I first had to cut that of. This turned out to be quite a task as some of the minis wear robes making the area that needs to be separated from the base larger and therefore more difficult to cut through. Some of the Asylum Inmates also have foot chains and have bare feet, so I had to be careful not to literally cut any of their toes of.

They have been prepared and primed here and I have started the painting of the Asylum Inmates.

Second game of 1812 - Retreat from Moscow

Wednesday my friend Michael and I had our second game of 1812 – Retreat from Moscow. This was still very much a test game as we had changed the rules/modifers a bit to ensure the effiency of cavalry.

Since our first game I had purchased a 2’x4’ board to add to the overall gaming table, giving us a 6’x4’ on which to play. With an increase in the playing surface we also thought that we would increase the amount of point with which to create our army lists for. We decided on 500 pts – I don’t really have figures to field for more points.

Armies

Russian army

Gen. Platov - Cossack Cavalry Officer
- Guard (Elite)
Cossack Cavalry unit (10)
- Guard (Elite)
Jaeger Officer
- Elite
Jaeger  unit(6)
- Elite
Jaeger unit (6)
- Elite
Cossack Infantry unit (10)

French army

Marshall Ney – Regular Officer

Grande Armée regular unit (7)

Grande Armée regular unit (7)

Grenadier unit (8)

Chasseur Officer

Chasseur unit (6)

Chasseur unit (6)

Light Cavalry unit (6)
- Elite

Objectives

For this game we also decided to roll for objectives instead of just a normal “go kill the enemy” that we had played in our first game. Michael got “Defend” meaning that he had to defend the large hut at one end of the table and make sure that I did not get any of my units within 4” of it. I rolled “Scouting Mission”, which meant that I had to scout each 2’x2’ section of the board – effectively have a unit in a section by the end of the round meant that the section had been scouted.

Side Plots

In order to add another dimension to the game we rolled for officer Side Plots. Michael got “Capture”, where his officer had to free a prisoner that I had placed on the table. The officer he selected for this was the unpainted Gen. Platov and I therefore placed a Cossack Cavalry man in my end of the board.
I rolled “Authority” for my Marshal Ney officer, which meant that in order to succeed all my Regular Troops could not Flee or Rout – impossible I thought.

The Game

Michael’s Cossack Infantry started the game in reserve and actually ended up never getting on the table. It was a fun game, and proved that the rules changes in regards to the efficiency of cavalry worked. I made a mistake of getting my Light Cavalry into melee with Michael Cossack Cavalry and lost the entire unit in the first round. He then proceeded to kill off my Grenadier unit and made Marshall Ney rout. My Chasseur units and one of my Regular Infantry units lunged forward in order to scout the table areas, but were in the end shot down by the Jaeger units and failed their Reaction roll tests. Michael had at this point freed the prisoner and his Jaeger units had prevented me from getting close to the building he had to defend. The game was over in little more than an hour, but it had been fun. 

The Cavalry charge with a lance was devastating, and we decided that the +2 bonus to attack roll was +1 too much. Otherwise the rules seemed to flow rather well, but of course we forgot a few things but definitely remember more than the first time.

Here are some pictures of the game (they turned out darker than intended, which is a shame):

Board project - Close to the finish line

My board project is coming close to the end. I have not painted any miniatures or done anything else hobbywise but work on the buiildings and different scatter terrain; pallets, crates, etc.

Yesterday evening I was finished. So I lined up everything, to see what the finished board would look like and if there was enough terrain pieces. I would still love to get an old locomotive and some wagons, but have been unable to find any that would not be very expensive. In the end I have not quite ended up with my version of the London Necropolis station, but more a goods station. I have added a coffin in the main building though.

So unless I decide to do more about the interior of the buildings, I only have to print some Empire of the Dead posters, similar to what I have done for my London Docks board, and glue them onto the buildings.

Here are a bunch of pictures that I took yesterday. Everything except the rail tracks is scratchbuilt, and I think I have spent roughly 60-70 hours making the board.

More minis

Monday two separate packages arrived for me. One from Perry Miniatures and one from Front Rank Miniatures.

The Perry ones are all for my French force. I felt that I was lacking in suitable minis for stragglers and the relatively new releases from around Christmas looked very good.

The Front Rank ones are on the contrary all Russians. I needed a Cossack leader and thought that their General Platov looks immense. With 12 Jaegers I also felt that I was a bit short, so I found 5 suitable figures - four normal ones and one officer.

They have now been based and primed (image is from before they where primed). Looking very much forward to starting painting them.

Board project - WIP 2

Been busy with my new Empire of the Dead board. The buildings have been given the first layer of paint, but a still a bit away from being finished. The board itself is however almost complete. It took me forever to get the flocking right, and I think I must have flocked it 5-6 times, but in the end I like the result.

The platforms have now gotten sets on them. For this I used the exact same materials and method as I did on my London Docks board.

Anyway here is a picture.

First game of 1812 - Retreat from Moscow

Sunday turned out to be the first time my friend Michael and I tried the 1812 - Retreat from Moscow rules that I have created - based on Muskets and Tomahawks. It would also be the first time that I would actually get to game with my Retreat from Moscow miniatures, so I was very excited.

Neither of us had ever tried playing a historical wargame before and never played with units but only with individual figures.

Everytime you try a new game you're bound to forget things and make mistakes and this was no exception. We for instance forgot to activate our Officers when their troop type card came up and therefore only activated them on their relevant Forward Boys! card.

Overall I thought that the mechanics made the game flow. I like the look of the game and the table, but I need another 2' x 4' section I think. There were however a few issues, that we agreed had to be looked at.

- Cavalry has no obvious advantage over Infantry, so this was a major point in Michael labeling the Cossacks as pretty useless despite their 8" movement.
- With the exception of my Chasseur unit all other units in the French army was regulars and would more or less activate at the same time. With their Regular Morale they were a bit to study for my liking.

With these things buzzing in my mind I started looking at how other rulesets deal with Cavalry vs. Infantry to see if any of it could be adapted to my ruleset. By chance I came across this blog: http://twomarshals.blogspot.dk/ and to my surprise here was someone who had been looking at adapting the M&T rules to Napoleonics.

I gave it a read through and posted a reply to him about what he would do for Cavalry vs. Infantry. I have now placed most of these rules into my ruleset and hope to have a play test within the next week. So thanks a lot Alan for your blog.

Below are a few images from before the game started and even fewer from the game itself. We were concentrating on the rules so I forgot to take more pictures.