Leven Miniatures 6mm ACW Buildings

I recently finished painting up a few 6mm resin American Civil War buildings produced by Leven Miniatures. I bought mine from The Wargaming Company booth at the Little Wars Convention.

Since my American Civil War miniatures are 10mm, the 6mm buildings do represent something of a compromise between the figure scale and the ground scale. Because of this they look too small for the figures, but take up a more reasonable amount of space on the table. I thought 10mm buildings would just take up too much space and dominate the rest of the terrain. Even with 6mm buildings, obviously each building needs to represent more than one building given the amount of ground it takes up. For convenience, I intend each building to represent enough buildings to be occupied by one regiment during a game.

I think the end result looks pretty good, given that there is almost always going to be this compromise between figure scale and ground scale for buildings. Even playing games in say 28mm where each figure represents an individual, buildings tend to be in scale when it comes to height, but take up a much smaller footprint than the actual building would.

This was my first time painting small scale buildings, and it was a challenge. I'm sure there are just some different techniques that could be used to make small scale buildings look a lot better than these, but I'm not sure what they are. Below you can see some pictures of the newly painted buildings along with some of my roads, fields, and an infantry regiment. Have a look and let me know what you think of the painting and the scale difference.

Black Powder American Civil War Battle Report: Daybreak at Hangman's Creek

I finally got around to trying out the American Civil War scenario from the Black Powder rulebook. Daybreak at Hangman's Creek sees a small Confederate division advancing on the town of Hangman's Creek at dawn. A small Union division is in the area, but they are not expecting trouble and most of them start off the table. All of the Union officers start in the town, and they will have to scramble to get their brigades moved up and deployed once they realize they are under attack. To the Union left of the town is a large Union camp. To the right, across the river, is a gun foundry. The Confederate objective is to capture the camp, town, or gun foundry, with a greater victory earned by capturing two or all three of them.

At the start of the game, one Union regiment is deployed in skirmish order in the fields north of town. They are allowed one free initiative move each turn until they are given an order, but the Union commanders (in the town) are not allowed to issue any orders or move until the alarm is raised. The alarm is raised at the end of any turn in which any unit fires or fights a round of close combat. The Confederates split their forces to attack all three objectives at once. They will need to advance quickly on their objectives before the Union officers have a chance to organize a proper defense if they are to secure victory.

Black Powder American Civil War Battle Report: Surprise in the Forest

A Union division and a Confederate division approach each other cautiously through a vast woodland. Each commander is performing a reconnaissance in force, probing the wilderness for signs of the enemy. As such they don't know where they will encounter the enemy or in what strength. In addition to seeing off any enemy they encounter, they will be well served by occupying and holding onto any tactically valuable positions in anticipation of a potential escalation in the fighting.

Simple 10mm Roads and Fields

I have needed some dirt roads and farm fields for my 10mm American Civil War games for a while now, but I generally find it hard to get excited about making terrain. With my limited hobby time, I didn't want to spend a ton of time making roads and fields. However, I really needed some to make convincing layouts for my games, so I decided to just try something really simple and see how it turned out.

I had a lot of felt stored up, in green and a few different shades of brown. So I figured I'd see what I could do by just starting with that as a base. With very little time or effort, I ended up with something that looks convincing enough. Not only was it quick, it was also easy enough that my almost 3 year old daughter could help with it, which meant I could actually find the time to do it.

Black Powder - Glory, Hallelujah! review

Since the release of Black Powder by Warlord Games, I've been using it to play games set in the American Civil War without difficulty. Still, I was looking forward to the release of their American Civil War supplement book, "Glory, Hallelujah!". I was interested to see how they suggested handling some of the defining aspects of the war that aren't particularly reflected in the main rules. These aspects include the different role of cavalry, presence of river gunboats, susceptibility of brigade and even division commanders to falling casualty, and varying sizes of artillery batteries (some 4 guns, some 6) and infantry regiments (which could vary greatly in size). Also, having more scenarios never hurts, though I already have plenty of scenarios I haven't played yet from other sources.

Black Powder American Civil War Battle Report: Blow the Bridge

A Union infantry division under Major General Winfield Scott Hancock has been sent to secure a strategically important bridge. The Confederate army on the other side of the river is not ready for an engagement, and needs time to either redeploy and dig in or evacuate. They have sent Major General James Longstreet with two brigades of infantry to delay the Federal advance and blow the bridge. The Union division arrives before the explosives are ready, and now the Confederates must scramble to delay the Union advance long enough to blow the vital river crossing.

Black Powder officer personality cards for American Civil War

I saw on another blog a great idea of using a deck of playing cards for assigning officer personality traits in games of Black Powder, instead of rolling on the charts. He designed some loyouts with different combinations of personality traits and portraits of fictional generals on them, then got them professionally printed onto a deck of playing cards. So instead of rolling for traits, he draw cards from the deck instead, with the added bonuses of having the card as a a handy reference during the game, and having an image to associate with your general. I decided to make a deck up for my Black Powder American Civil War games, using photographs of actual generals on the cards instead of artwork of imaginary ones.

Horse and Musket Bolt Action - with Cavalry Rules

I've taken a first pass at writing some cavalry rules for a Horse and Musket era version of Bolt Action. I have also cleaned up some of the other rules to make them more clear, and included it all below so everything is in one place.

Cavalry

Cavalry models act the same as Infantry except as noted below.
Cavalry can mount or dismount using 6" of movement. While mounted, the following rules apply:

• Orders: They cannot go Down voluntarily. They can perform an escape move when assaulted by infantry, like a recce vehicle.
• Movement: They can Advance 12" and Run 24". They cannot enter buildings. They ignore obstacles, unless deemed impassible to Cavalry.
• Shooting: Shooting attacks against them receive a +1 to hit modifier. They suffer a -1 penalty to hit rolls when shooting while mounted. When firing on the move (with an Advance order), the only weapons they can fire are those that have the Cavalry type. The only weapons they can reload while mounted are those with the Cavalry type.
• Assault: Assault damage rolls against them receive a -1 penalty. They cannot benefit from using two assault weapons together.

Horse and Musket version of Bolt Action

I was thinking lately that I don't want to have to learn a lot of different sets of rules for playing different historical periods at the same scale/level of game. That will only discourage me from getting miniatures in new periods that I don't have rules for. So I'm thinking about adapting the Warlord Games "Bolt Action" World War 2 rules to earlier periods, such as the "Horse and Musket" era, approximately 1700-1900 AD. Before getting into my specific modifications, here are some things in Bolt Action that I think need to be addressed.

1. The long reload time of muzzle loading weapons needs to be represented.
2. Rifled weapons should be more accurate than smoothbore.
3. In Bolt Action, the roll to cause damage is based on the training level of the target, which I don't think makes sense for Horse and Musket periods. Aside from being behind cover, which is already represented by cover modifiers, I don't think soldiers were trained to avoid being shot.
4. I want to be able to represent some troop types being slightly better or worse at shooting, or slightly better or worse in assault. In Bolt Action, most individuals are pretty much equal in offensive ability, but I want Grenadiers to be better in an assault than Militia, for example.
5. Assaults should probably be less instantly decisive. With the need to reload most weapons after one shot, there wouldn't be as much shooting at point blank range to end things quickly. Having to beat each other with rifle butts might cause an assault to drag on longer.
6. There needs to be some detailed rules for cavalry. I don't think cavalry is addressed in the Bolt Action rules, though there may be rules for it in one of the army book supplements. Even if there are some cavalry rules, they probably aren't to the level of detail that would be desired in a game where cavalry would be more important and prevalent.

If you can think of other areas where the Bolt Action rules might need to be altered or amended, let me know. I think those six points cover most of what needs to change, at a minimum. With the exception of cavalry rules, which I'm not sure about yet, I think all of those points can be covered with a few simple rules change, a few modifiers, and some new weapon and unit stats. My proposed changes are listed below.

Painted GHQ 10mm Civil War Confederate Stonewall Brigade Regiments

I recently finished the last two regiments I needed to complete my 10mm Confederate Stonewall Brigade. These will represent the 5th Virginia and 27th Virginia Infantry Regiments. Those designations are basically arbitrary, though. I haven't labelled the units in any way, so they could really be any Confederate regiments, except that one of them has a Virginia state flag. The pictures are below. As always, click the pictures for larger versions.

Black Powder American Civil War Battle Report

The Confederate Division under Major General James Longstreet has successfully held their position on the battlefield, while unfortunately the rest of the Confederate army has fallen back. The swift but somewhat disorganized Union pursuit of the fleeing Confederates has put Longstreet's division in danger of being cut off from the rest of the army. They currently find themselves surrounded by Union forces, and must attempt to break out and re-join their retreating army. The game was played using the Breakout Scenario I have previously posted on this blog.

Black Powder Scenario - Breakout

This scenario for Black Powder was designed for my American Civil War armies, but I'm sure it could be generalized to other periods easily. We play using all distances in centimeters instead of inches, so playing this scenario in the normal scale of Black Powder would require a larger table. I've played it once and it worked out pretty well, though it might work out better to give the Union player the first turn. In our game, I think if the Confederate player had rolled better command rolls on his first turn, the game might have been over very quickly. I will write up and post a battle report of the game in the near future, but for now have a look at the scenario rules.

Black Powder American Civil War Battle Report

The Story
This was a pretty simple concept. Forward elements of the Union and Confederate armies have encountered each other, and both are now rushing to claim the best ground before the enemy can take it. There is a large hill between the two forces that is the obvious choice, so both sides are attempting to control the hill and drive off the enemy. It turned out to be a very dramatic and fast-paced game that came right down to the wire.

Painted 10mm GHQ Confederate Stonewall Brigade Regiments

Today I've just got some pictures of two recently finished regiments to add to my Confederate Stonewall brigade. The miniatures are 10mm GHQ from the pack "Marching in Shell Jacket & Forage Cap (CSA)", with some command figures from other packs. I still have two more regiments to finish before my Stonewall Brigade is complete. I've already done the Rockbridge Artillery and General "Stonewall" Jackson himself.

Black Powder American Civil War Battle Report

The Story
A detachment of two Union Infantry Brigades, and some accompanying Cavalry, is ordered to return with all possible speed to meet up with the main body of their army. They march almost non-stop, with very little food or sleep. Through skillful maneuvering, a small force of Confederates has managed to get behind the Union detachment and deploy between them and their destination. Hungry and exhausted, the Union soldiers come upon the Confederates. They outnumber the enemy, but are already in bad shape. Nevertheless, they have no choice but to fight their way through the enemy to meet back up with their army.

GHQ Painted 10mm General Stonewall Jackson

This is just a quick post to show off some pictures of my completed 10mm GHQ Brigadier General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. This command stand will be for my Confederate Stonewall infantry brigade, which I'm currently working on painting up.

GHQ Painted 10mm Confederate Rockbridge Artillery Battery

I completed my version of the Rockbridge Artillery Battery, which was part of the Stonewall brigade of infantry, for my 10mm Confederate army. It originally contained cannons taken from the Virginia Military Institute, which had gun carriages painted red. They were probably quickly repainted, but I've portrayed them red to add a little variety and make this battery stand out more on the table.

GHQ Painted Confederate 33rd Virginia Infantry Regiment

The next brigade I'm working on for my 10mm American Civil War forces is the Confederate Stonewall Brigade. I started out with the 33rd Virginia. I found some information about the uniforms worn by the 33rd Virginia at first Bull Run which said they had worn dark blue frock coats and white belts. I decided to paint my 33rd Virginia this way to add some variety to the brigade, and I like the look of the white belts. Here are some pictures of the finished regiment.

Finding Gamers

I have a group of friends I game with about once a month. With everyone being on different schedules and not living very close anymore, this is about all we can manage. Of course, I wish I could play more. But that would only really be practical if I knew some players that lived much closer, and were on a similar schedule, so we could maybe get a game in on a week night.

In addition to not playing very often, my gaming group almost exclusively plays Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000. Over the years, I've started to become more interested in trying out other kinds of games. If you've been following my blog you'll know that I'm interested in historical gaming, especially in the American Civil War and other "horse and musket" wars. I would also really like to get back into RPGs, and would really like to find a group to play Pendragon or the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying game with.

Unfortunately, I don't really know how to go about finding other players for historical games or RPGs. The group I play with now are all people I was friends with before, and we got into gaming together. Or they were a friend who joined in later when some of us were already heavily into 40k and fantasy. So I haven't had to find other gamers to play some particular thing I was interested in before.

I've tried getting the current gaming group interested in those other things I am interested in, but to no avail. For the most part, they only want to play Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000. And who can blame them? After all the money and time spent creating multiple armies for those games, they only get to game with them at most once a month, usually less. So maybe 10 or 12 games each year between the two systems. And with multiple armies per game, each army might only be played once or twice a year. So already the gaming is stretched pretty thin without using up gaming time trying out new things.

Nevertheless, that doesn't prevent me from wanting to try out other games. So lately I've been trying to find other gamers who are interested in the types of games I want to play. I've had some mixed success. At first I did a lot of looking for gaming message boards (including official company ones like the Fantasy Flight Games message boards) and posting or searching for posts about gaming in my area. That didn't work all that well, because there are so many boards out there, and many people don't use them, and any people using them are spread all over the world.

One thing that has worked out was searching on meetup.com. The site is not gaming related, and is used in general for any kind of meeting groups that are looking for interested people. The group pays a small fee to be listed on the site, and then it can post meetings for the group. Members can search groups by location and keywords, join groups they are interested in, RSVP to their meetings, and post in their individual message boards, etc.

I did manage to find some groups on meetup.com that are in my general vicinity and that do historical gaming, though none of them are using the Black Powder rules, which I like. I haven't found any groups or individuals interested in playing Pendragon or Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, though there are a lot of Dungeons and Dragons groups. So if you are looking for some people to game with, I would recommend checking there. It's really quick to do a search for groups that are in your area and see all their upcoming and past meetups to get an idea of what kind of games they play.

I also found out that a gaming store near me does some open gaming nights for Warhammer and Warhammer 40K on week nights, so I might stop in some time and try to get a quick game in after work. Also, that store has a guy who does games of Ambush Alley or Tomorrow's War every other weekend. I'm really hoping to make it up there for one of those games, and I'm really interested to see those rules in action. I'd actually be interested to know if the Tomorrow's War rules can be used with the 40K miniatures I already have. I like the 40K miniatures and background, but sometimes the rules just don't allow the kind of story and mission driven games I would like to be playing in that universe.

So, I've had some success so far in searching out others who share some of my same gaming interests. The internet seems like a double edged sword in this respect. It has allowed me to find out about all kinds of gaming, miniatures, and rules that I would never have known existed without the internet, since I certainly wouldn't have seen them in person. I played Warhammer 40k for a long time before I had any idea that people did a similar kind of gaming in historical periods. On the other hand, since I didn't find out about these things by seeing them at a local gaming store, that means there's no telling if anyone near me will have the same interests. So it may just allow me to find out about all kinds of great games that I'll never get to play.

If anyone out there has any tips or suggestions for finding like-minded gamers, please leave a comment. It might help me or someone else who happens to read the blog.

GHQ Painted Iron Brigade Regiments

I've completed my 10mm Iron Brigade by painting up the final two regiments, plus a brigade command stand. You can see the previous three regiments (composed of Perrin miniatures) here. For these two regiments I used my usual GHQ miniatures. I used two packs of Firing Iron Brigade and two of Iron Brigade Skirmishers to get a mix have standing and kneeling figures, and to have some skirmishers left over for casualty bases. The command stand has one Perrin figure holding the flag, but the rest are GHQ.