WotR Command Stands - Finished, For Now

Got the box of Perry HYW English foot today - it came with a banner for the Duke of Norfolk, so was able to finish up that stand, along with several others. Below, left to right: Duke of Buckingham; Duke of Norfolk; Earl of Northumberland; and Duke of Somerset. I should add, the Duke of Buckingham stand has a knight wearing the arms of Sir John Say. Not sure if he participated in any of the battles, but I like his arms.

Below, all of the foot command stands, so far. Front row, left to right: Duke of York; Edward IV; Earl of Warwick; and Richard III. Second row, left to right: same as in the first photo, with the Earl of Oxford on the far right.

For my own reference, I listed the battles these can be used for. Duke of York: 1st St Albans, Ludford Bridge, Wakefield (KIA). Edward IV: Northampton, Mortimer's Cross, Towton, Barnet, Tewksbury. Earl of Warwick: 1st St Albans, Ludford Bridge, Northampton, 2nd St Albans, Towton, Barnet (KIA). Richard III: Barnet, Tewksbury, Bosworth (KIA). Duke of Buckingham: 1st St Albans, Ludford Bridge, Northampton (KIA). Duke of Norfolk: Northhampton, 2nd St Albans, Towton, Barnet, Tewksbury, Bosworth (KIA). Earl of Northumberland: 1st St Albans, Northampton, Wakefield, 2nd St Albans, Towton. Duke of Somerset: 1st St Albans, Wakefield, 2nd St Albans, Towton, Hedgely Moor, Hexham (executed after battle). Earl of Oxford: Barnet, Bosworth, Stoke Field. Granted some of the titles were passed to heirs, and flags for Edward IV and Richard III are those after they were crowned. I've games 1st St Albans, Tewkesbury, and Bosworth before, using Lion Rampant, and also Hail Caesar. I plan to game some of the other battles too.

While I was revisitng this project, I went ahead and rebased onto single bases these mounted WotR characters, including Margaret of Anjou.

Taking a break from WotR for now, and will start on the longbowmen from the HYW box. I already have a lot of English knights, but never had the bowmen. Until next time, wishing you all the best.

A Couple of Richard III's

These are all Perry plastics from their Mounted and Foot MAA sets. Heraldry on the tabards are painted for effect (at arms length) rather than accuracy. I used Vallejo Game Color Bronze Fleshtone for the lions and lilies. Richard is said to have used a battle axe after being unhorsed at Bosworth. I used a poleaxe with the handle shortened and shaved down. The axe head is a bit large, but suitably heroic in proportion as Richard is said to have fought bravely in his last battle.

Magnetized his head (bareheaded and helmeted with crown). 

Also, magnetized the body onto the horse - White Surrey; and also the right arm with lance.

Added little bit of Tamiya putty to the bottom of his bowl cut to give him a little longer hair - as he's normally depicted.

I may have to add a little flesh color below the left eye - seems the wash got a bit too dark there.

Have a few more command stands to finish - awaiting a banner for the Duke of Norfolk coming in a box of Perry English HYW figs. After that, should be good on the Wars of the Roses.

Great Bargains At Our Local Bring And Buy - And An ACW Sharp Practice Game Afterwards

Longish title, I admit, but knocked out two great events on the same day. The first was a bring and buy less than 5 minutes from my place at Fort Steilacoom. The second was a Sharp Practice game just a couple miles from the fort at my buddy's place down the road. There were a lot of great bargains at the bring and buy, and I ended up picking up a box of Warlord Games Battalia Starter Army and several pre-painted buildings from Black Site Studios. Although I thought I'd never get back to ECW Pike and Shotte after selling off my large collection last year, I just couldn't pass up what this box was going for (less than the normal price of a box of 30 figs!). Plan to go with skirmish games with these, and basing them individually - possibly for Pikeman's Lament or other skirmish rules. The buildings were also bargain basement prices, and the garden walls and outhouse thrown in for free. Plan to use the buildings for a Leipzig game in the future as they appear to have the same architecture I've seen in period illustrations of the battle; mainly for aesthetics more than anything.

Here's what the bring and buy looked like this morning. It was nice seeing all the folks, most of whom I've known for many years.

Here are some pictures from the ACW Sharp Practice game later in the day. The game was based on the Battle of Honey Springs in 1863. I ran a contingent of native troops allied with Union forces, as well as an artillery battery. The scenario had the Confederates trying to reclaim one of their standards left on the field from an earlier engagement. It ended up a slugfest with the Confederates never making it to the flag. It was the first time I've played Sharp Practice in over a decade - and first time with the newer edition. It was a fun game, mainly due to my buddies knowing the rules pretty well - they are big fans of TFL rules.

My unit of 2nd Indian Home Guards in skirmish order screening a unit 1st Kansas Colored Infantry. The battle involved quite a variety of troops. The Confederates should have also had native troops, but my buddy was still painting them :).

Background and map of the battle.

Part of the Confederate battle line in the woods. My battery took out one of their cannon.

The flag too far laying in the kill zone.

Union troops advancing.

Confederates manuevering onto the table.

All in all a great day to spend with like-minded folk, and acquiring some great new projects. Hope you all are doing well!

WotR Command Stands

Working on WotR command stands. Rebased the command figures onto 20mm metal washers to go on 50mm magnetic round bases. The bases originally had some FPW multibased figures, with the bottoms having the magnetic sheets. Removing the magnetic sheets would've torn the plywood bases, so repurposed them for these command stands. Still working on a few more commands, including Richard III. The ones based are from left to right: Edward IV; the Earl of Warwick; Richard, Duke of York; and the Earl of Oxford.

Here's the bases with acrylic caulking with washers holding the spots where the removable figures will go.

Below is how I was able to carefully scrape off the acrylic caulking from the opposite (former top) side where other figures had been attached.

Well, just a quick post to show you all what I've been working on the last few days. Tomorrow, there's a bring and buy at Fort Steilacoom. After that, I'm invited to an ACW Sharp Practice game down the road from the fort. Until the next update, wishing you all the very best!

Perry WotR Infantry and Mercenaries Based

Based the figures up today. Note, most of the pikemen in the red and white livery were already painted, but added four more figures and rebased them four figs per 40mm squares to give them more of a close ordered appearance. As mentioned in the earlier post, besides the red and white liveried pikes, these are Burgundian pikes and crossbows; troops for the Duke of Norfolk; Earl of Oxford; and a few handgunners.

Burgundian pikes and crossbows below. There are already handgunners for them to join.

Burgundian pikes and the earlier painted pike with armored officer and several other pikemen to form them up into a 16-man unit.

Below are troops for the Earl of Norfolk on the left, and troops for the Earl of Oxford on the right. 

The blue stars for the Oxford livery are from an old pack of Citadel decals I've had for a long time. Luckily, they're still holding up well.

Still have a few command figures from the two boxes to work on, but these are the main ones I wanted done. Thanks again for stopping by and checking out the blog!

Perry WotR Infantry and Mercenaries - WIP

 Block painted and stained with Minwax the figures from the two boxes.

Decided to paint up a couple units in livery colors for the Duke of Norfolk - azure and tawny (blue and orange). I not only didn't have units already in these colors, but they were at quite a few battles, to include Tewksbury and Bosworth. Also, units of pikes and crossbows are in Burgundian livery; bows and pole armed guys in tawny to add to the Earl of Oxford's units; a few more pikemen in red and white livery to up the earlier unit to 16 figures, as I plan to have pikes based 4 per 40mm squared to give them a more close order look; and fiinally a small (6-figure) unit of handgunners in generic red.

Above are the figures block painted before staining.

They'll be sprayed with matte and then given highlights before basing. Until next time, thanks for stopping by and wishing you all the best!

Wars of the Roses Revisted

I recently received a copy of the Hail Caesar WotR supplement. Looks like it has all (or most) of the engagements with nice orders of battle. Also, picked up a box each of Perry WotR Infantry and European Mercenaries to add a few more units to the existing collection.

Haven't played any WotR games for some time, and the last few times were with Lion Rampant. Plan to have units with 12 and 6 figures - which works for Lion Rampant and for small units in Hail Caesar. In fact, the supplement has stats for small units. Anyway, figured I hadn't taken out the WotR figures in a long time and wanted to see if I could paint the new figures up in different livery colors. May do some up in red and black, which were used by a few lords, including the Earl of Salisbury and Duke of Buckingham. The Earls of Northumberland used the same colors, but on reversed fields, I think.

I should also mention that I'm holding off on playtesting my Imjin War Siege of Ulsan game for a little bit. Still have a lot of time before the convention in May, and didn't want to playtest it too early and lose interest in it.

Siege of Ulsan - Initial Table Set-up

Seeing some of my buddies games already being playtested for our convention in May, I was inspired (shamed) into setting up the table for the game I'm hosting there. This is the first time I've set up the Japanese fortress walls for the scenario, and may change it around, but it seems like a good location as I plan to have Japanese relief forces come on the opposite side of the table later in the game.

Right now, I just threw on all the units just to see how they'd fit. I think I'll have the foot units with 12 figures each, and the mounted a little smaller in units of 5 or 6 each.

Plan to use a modified/simplified version of Hail Caesar for most of the game. The assaulting and scaling of the fortress will be some kind of easy house rules. Again, still need to play test the game.

The fortress walls are manned by missile troops. According to historians, Kato Kiyomasa, the commander of the fortress during the siege, gave highest priority to the matchlock troops. While others were starving, he ensured they received enough rations. For the record, the siege was in the dead of winter - and quite harsh.

A playtest will need to be scheduled.

Perry Napoleonic Prussian High Command - Minus

Minus one of the figures as the pack I picked up from an ebay seller was packaged by North Star and had a duplicate figure instead of three different ones. The seller said he only had that one pack and gave me a partial refund :)  Luckily one of the figures was the old man himself, Marschall Vorwärts, Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. Missing was the guy holding a spy glass, Major General Georg von Pirch. The duplicate figure is Lieutenant General August von Gneisenau.

The Perry site has all of the figures in grey coats, but painted Gneisenau's coat in blue for variety.

Once again, I appreciate the simple Prussian uniforms, even for generals, as they make for a quick paint job and still look very nice.

Did a quick Google search for the marshal's pipe, and found that it is preserved in the National Army Museum in the UK. The pipe was lost, and later recovered, at the Battle of Ligny when the marshal's horse was shot from under him.

Well, this should be about it for now with Napoleonics. Will need to finally do a playtest for the Siege of Ulsan Imjin War game. Until next time, thanks for stopping by and wishing you all the best.

Scaling Ladders for the Siege of Ulsan

Of course, these could be used other scenarios too. Picked these 3D printed resin scaling ladders up from ebay. They're very nicely sized, however, the ladder steps are too close together to put figures onto them directly.

They look better than the balsa wood ones I scratch-builed earlier. Wanted to up the look of my game for the convention after seeing some of the other ones folks will be hosting.

The ladders on the carts are moveable, and I used brass rods for axels to allow the wheels to spin.

Still need to playtest the game, but these ladders should be it for actual terrain and figures.

Perry Duchy of Warsaw High Command

Prince Józef Antoni Poniatowski in the center, flanked by General Michal Sokolniki on his right, and General Jan Dabrowski on his left.

These figures are metals with riders and horses cast as one piece.

In his youth, the prince served in the Austrian army in their war against the Ottomans. He also fought in the Austro-Polish War in 1809, and later accompanied Napoleon in the Russian Campaign. He was made a Marshal of France by Napoleon during the Battle of Leipzig. He died while attempting to cross the Elster River at the end of the battle.

Swordpoint - EIR vs. Dacians

Well, just wrapped up playing my first game of Swordpoint at my buddy's place. I brought some of my Celt/Britons to help beef up the Dacian force. It was a fun game with 8 players - all of us playing the rules for the first time. I don't have the rules yet, but most of the others had them and had read through them already. Of course, being authored by Martin Gibbins, there is a strong WAB flavor to the rules. However, being my first time with them, it took me a few turns to figure out the sequence of play. I ran several units of Dacians, and was made the overall commander with Decebalus in my care. We played what I believe were about 3 or 4 turns, but again, the sequence of play kind of threw me off a bit. Mainly, the shooting phase being simulatenous and the movement phase following declaration of charges and reactions to the same sort of confused me a bit. Overall it was fun, and for a first time, not bad at all. Not sure when we'll be playing it again though. Here are a few pictures from the game I managed to take.

My buddies like trying out rules and have a lot of different sets. Some of which we've only played a few times before moving on to other sets.

On the paint desk, started on the Duchy of Warsaw command set. After that, plan to finally playtest my Imjin War Siege of Ulsan game. This needs to be done as I've already signed up to host it at our big convention, Enfilade, in May. Until next time, wishing you all the best and thanks for stopping in to check out the blog!