The Holiday Paint table A-Z

The holidays have left me penniless. Combined with saving for a new house (with a new war room), I is broke. So, what a perfect time to make a dent in all those poor souls sitting half finished on my table. Here she is:

Could have taken a panoramic shot with my nifty camera but, eh?
a. Used and now useless brushes. Probably get recycled on the terrain side
b. Old plastic applesauce containers. They shall be wood mini Leonardo style tankettes.
c. Armorcast steam tank
d. The Boy's area
e. Barrels for terrain and resource locations
f. Landsknects mounted singularly for my Leonardo Tech game.
g. 15mm Dwarf flyer for Fantasy Commands and Colors
h. Ace Heroclix fig to be converted to Mammoth
i. Mage Knight Gatling gun off a to give my VSF Brits some extra fire power.
j. M.U.S.C.L.E. thing the Boy painted.
k. 7/8" washers I mount all my singles on.
l. a lamp post for something
m. Retro Sci Fi figs for my "Dash Dixon & the Galactic Rangers" games.
n. 10mm tank. Soon joining the ISA forces in a Crimson Skies land/air campaign
o. crossbow
p. Painted and based Viking. They haven't left the table because it's too cold to spray varnish on. They may         be here awhile.
q. Big lizard for GASLIGHT Venus game. Lizard's done. Just need to finish the coppola.
r. Old Foundry WW1 germans. Need a touch up to add to the RCW collection.
s. Flock containers
t. GW Knight getting a fresh life as a Leonardo Tech standard.
u. Old glue container that will make a fancy sci-fi thingy.
v. More Landsknects. These will end up on a group base for Renaissance battles.
w. Warmachine mechs. VSF
x. 15mm AK-47 figs for a game of the same name.
y. another Knight for the Song of Blades warbands.
z. where the paint goes
So many projects, so little time. But, as a wise man once told me "Remember, if you paint all your miniatures,...you'll die". So keep that lead pile high!

I'll be taking a break to game and paint over the next couple of weeks. Happy Holidays!

Aeronef Wednesday

I've had both the Aeronef miniatures by Brigade Models and the rules by Wessex games for a while, but never played the rules. They seems simple enough, but maybe a little too simple, so I always used a Full Thrust variant to play with sky-ships. Like a lot of wargamers, I fell in love with flying ships with "Sky Galleons of Mars" back in the late 80s. The rules were a bit cumbersome by today's standards but the idea of battleships tooling around the skies stuck.
A tipsy elf told me I'd be getting the Spartan Games "Dystopian Wars" mega-fleet in my stocking this year. I thought I'd give Aeronef a last chance before I dived into DW project.

The scenario involved a German Air Task Force making a bombing run on the English countryside in hopes of knocking out an X-Matter refining facility. Spies weren't share which town exactly, and German maps were sketchy, so best just to hit them all. The British fleet was there to stop them.
We struggled with both measuring (centimeters) as the ships crawled across the table, and the turn sequence. You do half your movement, then after everyone's gone, the other half.
The German bombing was abyssmal, but we managed to knock out 3 towns by the end. THe ero for the German side was the little Hamburg. That ship took a pounding and kept on flying. In the end she was boarded and had to surrender. The English dogs scuttled her.

The brits had there own stalwart, the Exeter. I made it my mission to pour as much lead as I could into her, but never went down. After the German fleet lost it's flagship, we headed home.
If we played again, we decided there needed to be some changes. Inches! Otherwise the ships went too slow. One move phase. With the added movement, you could drop it down. Boarding rules were weird too. Otherwise a fun game easy to use for cons.

Civil War Thursday

"Deploy behind that there wall, boys!"

I forgot how much I liked playing smaller scale Fire and Fury. As lovely as a table full of troops looks, being a able to finish a game in an evening is much more satisfying. This game, everyone commanded a division of three brigades, with some divisional artillery support and an extra cavalry unit for fun. The

Union side got some extra troops and canon to offset the Rebs combat bonuses.
It was a simple meeting engagement (a wargamers crutch, I know). My plan, on the Confederate side (we chose randomly, Kenny) was to use 2 brigades to pin down the Union on my left, take the town quickly to use as a strongpoint, then, throw most of our troops on the right and roll up.

Sweeping around the Right

Everything was going according to plan. The cavalry on the far right swept around the flank and managed to break up a couple of formations. The town was taken.

"Let's give them Blu-bellies a lickin'"

But then, an extremely obstinate Federal brigade on the Union far left (our right) refused to die. The earned the nickname "Iron Brigade". When they finally did break, the had managed to hold up the Confederate advance enough that my pinning units were destroyed, and they managed to re-deploy to counter any roll up the flank.

My poor brigades left defend the far left

In the end, it was decided the Rebs would consolidate in the town near nightfall, but ultimately fall back under cover of darkness.
We're getting ready to start an ACW campaign early next year using the "House Divided" boardgame for campaign moves and Fire and Fury for tabletop. We've done it before with great results.I've also picked up Ganesha Games "61-65" which looks great for small scale battles.