Horse and Musket: Peninsular War

Had my first game of Fistful of Lead Horse and Musket yesterday. The setting was The Peninsular War. My friend Jon played a British force with Spanish support and I took control of the French.

The scenario we played had the French defending the outskirts of a larger town, while the British and their Spanish allies were tasked with attacking the town to gain a foothold.

We played the game with one of the optional rules of having single mini heroes and small groups of three (which rules wise functioned in exactly the same way as the heroes), which gave the appearance of larger forces.

This being our first game I really wanted to try out the different rules, which meant minis charging into close combat but not having enough movement etc. We quickly got the hang of the rules and had a blast with the game, we love the card mechanics and the special cards.

The game ended with a clear victory to the British, with the hero of the day being the Spanish Capt. Delgado, who twice managed to survive being wounded (Queen of Hearts making a few appearances) and swiftly defeating his opponents.

Horse and Musket did not disappoint despite me having very high expectations. Highly recommended.  

Here are some pictures from our game.

A change of tactics

Towards the end of 2017 and throughout all of 2018 my painting table has felt more like a production line as I have shifted from one project to another. During that time I have also had a few commissions, but on the whole my inability to focus on a period/setting/ruleset is the main culprit.

I have painted and sold the following armies since the beginning of the year:

Napoleonic Austrians
Napoleonic French
WW2 Blitzkrieg Germans
WW2 Waffen SS
ACW Union
ACW Confederacy

All of them were only used a couple of times, and the ACW ones were never used before I sold them. While I have always made a profit on the armies I have sold, I have lost all energy towards painting armies for the time being.

It made me think about what I really wanted to do, and the answer was minor skirmishes in a long range of settings, but using more or less the same set of rules. Having looked around, my first answer was to use Sharp Practice with half sized units, but then I came across Fistful of Lead and it's black powder variant Horse and Muskets. This I what I have been looking for. A flexible ruleset, where one can still have heroes and small units.

While I have yet to play my first game, I have started to paint some Napoleonic Peninsular War minis. Each side will consist of 4-5 groups of 3 men and 3-4 heroes. The groups will not have multiple wounds like the heroes, but rather one man will count as a wound and be removed when the group suffers a wound. This really fits what I want to play.

But have already been looking at Gringo40s 28mm Maximilian Adventure and Mexican Revolution. With units of 3 men I am looking to get between 15-20 minis per side, a lot easier to do than 40-70 that I have previously done. Other projects I can imagine is Boer War, Indian Mutiny, 1st Anglo-Afghan War, and FIW all now a lot cheaper and easier to get into with the limited amount of minis needed. I plan on using my huge collection of Gothic Horror models with the rules as well.

I will still be play Sharp Practice with my Retreat from Moscow armies, Bolt Action with my Hungarians and Russians and Draculas America, but Fistful of Lead looks to be what I have been looking for. 

American Civil War - Armies for sale

I have been busy painting and it has therefore been a long time since I last posted.

I have two armies for the American Civil War that I am putting up for sale. These are freshly painted to a very good/high tabletop standard.

The minis are all Perry plastics from their different sets. Each army is identical, with the exception that the CSA has one more officer.

The armies have been made and based with Sharp Practice in mind, but can of course be used for other games. All minis are individually based on 25mm washers for infantry and 20x45mm for cavalry.

Each army consists of the following (for Sharp Practice):

• 4 officers (1 is mounted) (CSA has 5 officers with 1 mounted)
• 5 groups of 8 infantry
• 2 groups of 6 skirmishers
• 1 group of 8 cavalry
• 1 artillery with 5 crew and 1 officer
• 1 musician
• 1 colours bearer

Total US army: 63 infantry + 9 cavalry
Total CS army: 64 infantry + 9 cavalry

I am looking to get £600 for both armies. Postage within the EU depends on the total weight, but if I can keep it under 2kg then it is £15. Otherwise it will be £35.

Bolt Action and Bolt Action Vietnam

Looking at my blog the other day I realised that it has been over two months since my last post.
So what have I been doing? First of all I attented the Bolt Action tournament and met a lot of really nice guys. It also confirmed to me that Bolt Action is just a very nice game, that can be played very casually.

After returning from the tournament, I finished up my Russian BA army, and made the decision to sell my Blitzkrieg Germans - the reason being that I wanted to get into Konflikt '47. I made a huge order for some Russian and German Konflikt '47 models.

My Blitzkrieg Germans were sold within a couple of days and I decided to use some of the money on a late war Waffen SS army, that I thought would be more fitting for Konflikt '47.

My friend Michael who normally does not like to play historically based squad games, was persuaded to give BA a try. And to his surprise he was hooked. So when I had finished with the Konflikt' 47 models we tried a few games with them and the Blitzkrieg Germans and Russians, but found out that the normal BA rules just play better, so for now Konflikt '47 has been scrapped.

I went to another BA tournament on June 1st and brought my friend Michael with my. May had been spent painting my Waffen SS and Michael's US Airborne, so we were eager to give them a go.
Funny thing is that I did not really like the look of my Waffen SS army. All the different camouflage patterns that I had painted made the army look very incohisive to me, and when the army itself did not play well, I decided to sell again.

The Waffen SS minis were sold quickly and this time I wanted to get an army that would both look good, cohesive, play differently than the Germans and if possible an army that would not be one that a lot of other players brought to the table. After a lot of thinking and looking at minis I made the decision to go for Hungarians - and placed an order with Great Escape Games for their newly released Hungarians and Mad Bob Miniatures for some Hungarian vehicles. Looking very much forward to painting them.

During May I also got the urge to try and make something with the Vietnam War. And then I stumbled upon an article about adapting BA for Vietnam.

Around 6 -7 years ago I owned some The Assault Group Vietnam minis and I decided to invest in some of their figures again - the others having been given away. I also placed an order with Sarissa for some of their Far East buildings. These were very easy to build and paint. I choose to add some soaked towels to the roofs to make them look more natural.

The minis will also be used for a new roleplaying campaign - Tour of Darkness - that we are starting up.

Last week I finished the Viet Cong minis, but then had to concentrate on getting some of the other minis painting for our Tour of Darkness game, before painting up the GIs and NVA minis.

I think that the BA Vietnam game will be a lot different than normal BA as there will be almost no vehicles and the VC will have some very different National Characteristic rules.

So despite the blog not being update for a long time, I have been very active hobby wise. Painting up an army for Bolt Action to a very good standard is something that I do in about a weeks time, and this has lead to some inquiries from people in the Danish gaming community about whether I can paint their army for them. This is something I like to do, as it helps finance the next project that I want to try.

Therefore if anyone like the look of the minis and would like me to paint for them let me know in the comments.