Battle of Bushy Run - One Hour Skirmish Wargames

Just wrapped up a great playtest for the Bushy Run game with One Hour Skirmish Wargames. Since there were only two of us, we kind of left a few of the units untested, but got enough good ideas for the game later this month at our annual Boeing Museum of Flight game day. Gave the natives the incentive to attack with the Special Capability of Bruiser. This gave them an extra draw card for both attack and defense. It was brutal, they ended up killing off enough of the Rangers and Highland Grenadiers that had both units fail their Morale tests at the end of turns. Plan to give the Grenadiers this trait for the next game. The natives also had the Fast capability of an additional 3" of movement. Otherwise, another good day with the rules.

British relief column marching west along Forbes Road to Fort Pitt. In the lead are small units of American Rangers and 60th Royal American Light Infantry. They are followed by 42nd Highlanders (Grenadiers), and 77th Highlanders.

In the woods, waiting in ambush are Delaware, Miami, Shawnee, Wyandot, Mingo and Ottawa warriors.

My buddy, Gene, ran the native - to good effect!

Natives have the Bruiser trait getting to draw the best of 3 attack cards to the defending Grenadiers 1 card.

Rangers and 60th Lights about to get the same Bruiser treatment. Cover doesn't give them another card during close combat - only for shooting. Note: the Grenadiers in the background are already dead.

The game was called a native victory after destroying two out of three British units.

On another note, I rebased all of my Napoleonic skirmishers on washers. I hope to use these same rules with them in the future. A lot of the figures were originally on washers years ago, so a return of sorts.

No fingers were damaged during the rebasing - I'm getting good at it (although it's not something to be proud of).

So much for now. Thanks for stopping in and wishing you all the best!

Preparing For The Battle of Bushy Run

It's been awhile since my last post, so figured I'd do one about what I've been up to lately. Have a playtest next Friday of a Battle of Bushy Run scenario using One Hour Skirmish rules.

This will be the first day of the battle, while the British were still marching along the trail towards Fort Pitt with relief supplies. I may do the second/final day of the battle sometime in the future. Needed a few more trees for the scenario as the battle took place in the woodlands of present-day western Pennsylvania. Found a nice set trees on Amazon which sized up well for 28mm. Only thing needed was fixing them to bases. They come ready to be put into sleeves, but I chose to use exopy putty and base them individually on 60mm round bases.

My cheap Amazon airbrush actually worked (after thorough cleaning) to paint the trunks and bases.

This is how they came in a bag of 12. Next to them are some pack horses picked up from ebay - using several of them for the scenario.

As I also plan to run this game at our annual Boeing Museum of Flight game day next month, I wanted everything able to be set up and torn down quickly. This especially so since I have the afternoon period, and we have to be out of the museum NLT 5:00pm. The afternoon period runs from 1:30-4:30pm. Thankfully, the rules are fast play and should be done well within the time frame, I hope.

I dug out an old gaming table cloth - it's actually the very first one I ever used. It's from JoAnn's, and close to 20 years old. Haven't used it in a long time, so instead of using separate pieces for the road, I went ahead and spray painted the road/trail on the cloth directly. This will make set up and tear down of the table even quicker. I actually cut off about a foot from the long edge to make it 4'6" wide. One thing noted with the recent skirmish rules I've been using is the movement rate making it hard for troops to get where they need to be. For the scenario, the natives will be able to enter the table on the long edge lined with trees, as well as the short edge at the far end of where the British are marching towards. Basically an L-shaped ambush by the natives.

Plan to have a 4-player game, but can accomodate 6 players if needed. Currently there aren't many games scheduled for the afternoon period, and we usually have a good number of attendees. For troops, the natives will be in 6-man units, as well as Rangers and 60th Royal American light infantry. The main body of the British will be two 12-man units of Highlanders (one unit being grenadiers). The astute observer will note that the facings for the Highlanders should be blue (42nd) and green (77th), but reusing the figures from my Louisbourg game when they represented the 78th Fraser Highlanders with buff facings.

Anyway, just wanted to update the blog and let you all know what I've been working on. Until next time, best wishes and good health to you all.

One-Hour Skirmish Wargame - Operation Cobra

Well it's been quite awhile since posting, but just finished a very fun game using One-Hour Skirmish rules for the first time. Although it was the first time with the rules, I wanted to add vehicles to see how the rules worked. Glad I did, as it turned out nicely. There were two German players, and along with my buddy, two American players. We all had a unit of about 10 infantry, including an HMG team, an anti-tank team, and a tank. We allowed the HMG team to make one move per player phase as a house rule. I managed to take out a Panther and a Fallshirmjager HMG team early in the game thanks to lucky card draws. Although it was the first time with the rules, everyone already had the rules and were itching to play them. The rules are well-written, straight forward, and can be picked up quickly. We played about 7 or 8 turns rather quickly with Jokers being drawn. We ended the game as a stalemate with both sides having a few casualties, but not really making any kind of breakthrough. Here are a few pictures I managed to take during the game.

Panther moving up along with Fallshirmjager support.

My Sherman and the Panther dueling. We engaged each other in a couple of turns, with the Sherman finally being able to take out the Panther.

My buddy James' M-10 peaking out behind some ruins. He managed to keep the Panzer 4 opposite him at bay.

The Panzer 4 with a marker showing 3 accumulated damage points from earlier fire.

My Sherman moving past the burning Panther. The Fallshirmjagers had a panzerschreck and panzerfaust which failed to damage the Sherman during the game.

US 4th Armored Division infantry moving towards cover.

Heer on their left flank, supporting the Panzer 4.

Some 101st guys supporting the American left; they must've not gone to England with the rest of the division after D-Day.

Fallshirmjager in defensive positions. A panzerschreck poking out of the ruins.

4th Armored infantry occupying a ruined building.

Panzer 4 and supporting infantry.

Start of the game.

All in all a really nice return to gaming with a few friends. Hope to play the rules again with a Horse and Musket scenario. Thanks for stopping by and wishing you all the best.

Old Glory Janissary Musketeers With Command

 Finished up these figures - added a few highlights since there are large areas of clothing.

Very nice, robust figures, which will work well for skirmish games. In fact, I just ordered a copy of One-Hour Skirmish Wargame rules, which I plan to use for the Napoleon in Egypt project.

One of the references used.

They match up pretty well with TAG Janissaries (middle figure pictured below).

Thanks for checking out the blog as always, and hope you all are doing well.

Fort Steilacoom Fix Bayonets Game Day

Well, just the morning period - I left after catching up with the crew and picking up the game and rule set I bought from the estate of our late gaming buddy, Dave S. (Naval Gazing blog). Here are a few pictures from the morning games.

A Moro Rebellion game run by Kevin Smyth (A Gamer's Tale blog), using One Hour Skirmish rules.

A Ravenfeast game run by our buddy who actually is the member of the Fort Steilacoom Historical Society which lets us game in the old Quarters #2.

An ACW game using Sharp Practice rules.

A Wings of War WW1 game.

The board game and AK47 Republic rules I picked up, both at a fraction of the going rate. I'm not board gamer, but it is in pristine condition (never used with all the counters unpunched), I had to get it. Hope to get into AK47 since a few of the local gamers are into it. It'll be interesting getting 15mm figures and vehicles.

A shot of the building we use, and also my buddy and his Newfoundland manning the sign in table.

All in all, a good way to spend the morning with friends - and only a five minute drive from my place.

Hope you all are having a good start to the weekend too (although being retired, weekends aren't really that different from other days for me).

Old Glory Janissary Musketeers - WIP

 Just a quick post - Minwax stain over a basic block paint job. Still need to paint the command figures.

Before the stain - with the command figures in the background.

These were on sale at a local (well about 2 hours away) store that sells a lot of "prior owned" figures. These were actually part of an estate sale from an out of state store. Anyway, figured I could use more of these if I ever revisit the Napoleon in Egypt project.

Tomorrow, I plan to stop by a game day event at Fort Steilacoom - about a mile and a half from my place. Not sure how long I'll stay, but intend to take a few pictures of the games going on - at least in the morning session. 

Ming Chinese Command Stand (North Star And TAG Figures)

Needing a command stand for the Ming contingent for the Imjin War project, ordered a pack of North Star Ming "Buntai". The mounted guy and the two halberdiers are from this pack, which also includes another halberdier and two bowmen. The guy with the animal skin cap and large axe is a TAG figure - listed as a Sui Dynasty figure. The Sui were several hundredyears earlier than the Ming, but he looked too cool not to add to the stand.

They were blocked painted, followed by Minwax staining, and then a few highlights added afterwards.

The Sui axeman has more traditional lamellar armor. The North Star guys seem to be in mail, which wasn't very common. I was thinking of grinding the mail down and using Green Stuff for lamellar or scale, but decided it wasn't worth the effort - as well as chance of making it even worse.

The helmets are pretty accurate for what Ming supposedly wore at the time; however, I wish the mounted guy had a helmet a bit more fancy.

So much for now - have some Old Glory Janissaries with muskets in the painting queue, but not in any rush to paint them at the moment. Until next time, thanks for stopping by and for your earlier well-wishes. Hope you all are doing great!