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!

Perry and Wargames Atlantic Prussian Infantry - 1813-15

The Perry figures are two units of regular line - 2nd West Prussian and 1st Silesian. The three units of Reserve are Wargames Atlantic figures with Perry commands. They are supposed to belong to the 1st and 2nd Battalions, 1st West Prussian, and 3rd Battalion, 1st East Prussian. The flags for the Reserve units are from the Warlord Games Landwehr set. EDIT: I just noticed I have the 2nd West Prussian flag (the blue one) upside down. Luckily, I scanned the flags just in case!

The Prussian (and Russian) infantry uniforms are nice - plain cuffs without piping, and no exposed lapels. There are gaiter buttons, but they are sculpted well and easy, if not tedius, to paint up.

Along with the Landwehr unit, there are now six units of Prussian foot, which should be enough for now.

The Perry set is quite old now, but still very nice figures.

The Perry and Wargames Atlantic figures match up well in both style and poses.

Have a set of Perry Prussian High Command on the way to complete the force. I'll likely have to start on the Perry Duchy of Warsaw command set with Poniatowski next. Thanks for checking out the blog, and wishing you all the best!

Perry Napoleonic Allied (Russian and Prussian) Cavalry Completed

Finally finished up these small units of 8 figures each. Had slight bug the last few days which had me mostly in bed. Nothing serious, but stayed in bed a couple days resting. Anyway, these are supposed be the Prussian Regiment No. 3 Dragoons in light blue litewka, Russian St. Petersburg and Kargopol Dragoons in pink and orange facings, respectively; Russian Tchougoulev Uhlans; and Prussian Silesian Landwehr Uhlans.

Based a few as singles for possible skirmish games.

Although 12 (or more) figure cavalry units do look more impressive, I've used 8 figure units in the past well enough.

Since I plan on trying out Valour and Fortitude, more units should work better for the game.

No sooner was I finishing up these figures, the long-awaited Perry order of Prussian infantry finally arrived. It was indeed mailed out on December 12th, but only arrived on January 7th. So, the Prussian Reserve units can finally be completed with their commands - and then on to two Prussian Line units. Hope you all are doing well - although there's been a lot of serious stuff going on these past few week, not the least those devastating fires in Southern California.

Perry Napoleonic Allied (Russian and Prussian) Cavalry - WIP

Painted the horses and facing colors. Dry-brushed various shades of brown over a black undercoat for the horses. I normally paint horses and riders separately, but glued them together so I wouldn't be confused with which ones went with which since there were several different units. 

Worked on the Russian Uhlans a bit more as they have fancier uniforms.

These are supposed to be the Tchougoulev Regiment - mainly because I liked the color combinations of their uniform and czapka.

Still haven't received my Perry order of Prussian infantry yet. Hopefully it'll show up soon. Hope you are all having a nice start to the new year.