Sick again, Maelstrom Games, Parcel Farce and X-Wing

Well, here I am at home on the 2nd Saturday of the month instead of being at the Devon Wargames meeting.  My stomach is playing up again and I need to go to work tonight, so I am taking it easy today.  Stupid pancreas.

It seems my last post rather pre-empted the situation at Maelstrom Games.  My order for guns is still outstanding and they are no longer using paypal, so it looks like I am out of pocket there.  Not impressed to be honest, seems like the head honcho at Maelstrom has a bit of a reputation for this sort of thing as well.  So I am off to order some Pak 43s from another source now, probably direct from Battlefront to save any future problems.

My next company to avoid is Parcel Force.  I sold some woodworking tools on ebay for a friend last Tuesday.  Had been paid by everybody by Thursday so booked them all to go via a courier service via Parcel2Go.com.  Five items were sold, ranging from 4kg to 20kg. Three of the five were shipped by my Hermes, one by Yodel(ex-DHL) and one by Parcel Force as they were cheapest for shipping to Norway.  Yodel picked up yesterday at about midday, my Hermes were here by 3pm and Parcel Farce were here..............never.  Yes, that's right, I still have a parcel here.  Despite paying over £33 for 48 hour shipping to Norway, the parcel is still here in my dining room.  Not a good advertisement for a shipping company to be honest.  So now I have to stay up on Monday after working Sunday night in the faint hope that Parcel Farce might arrive to pick up the parcel. 

Finally something good.  After my purchase of the X-Wing game, with its two TIE fighters and single X-wing fighters, I have just received my first wave of reinforcements.  Another X-wing and TIE fighter, supported by a Y-wing and TIE advanced.  Very nice they are too, although I still see a need for some more.  Another X-wing would allow the trench run for the attack on the Death Star to be replayed.  Luke Skywalker, Wedge Antilles and Biggs Darklighter  each with an R2 unit and proton torpedoes adds up to 102 pts.  They are a trio to fear in X-wing fighters, espescially Wedge. I will also need 2 more Y-wings, to do the same mission.  Then some more TIE fighters to match them up.  I think another box set, which will give another X-wing and two more TIEs would be a good buy, followed by two more Y-wings.  Then some TIE Interceptors when they come out.  I'm not to bothered about the A-wings, I just don't like them much.  I will need a Millenium Falcon though.  I mean, who doesn't want one.

Anyway, keep playing and keep smiling.

Painting, Gaming and slow delivery

Its been a while since I last posted here, so its time for a quick rundown on what I have been up to.

Painting - I have had a few orders to do.  A bunch of US infantry on snow bases (which I stupidly forgot to photograph before sending them), some US Para gun crews and, lately, some German guns in US service.  I'm guessing these are from the latest FoW book as they are a new idea, but the order was for two Flak 88s and two Pak 88s with US crew.  More on that later.

Games - I have been playing several games lately.  Maurice is still one of my favourite games, but the last few games have been of other systems.  One new (to me) set that I have played is Medieval Warfare from Foundry.  Much as I hate to say it, I liked it.  The combat is a bit of a fiddle to work out, but the command, movement and firing is all good.  Plus the basing that I already have for my 25mm Wars of the Roses works fine for it.  Maurice has me still buying more, but finances are limited due to being off work for several weeks.  I am back at now and things are getting back on track, but its not been good for the last few months.

Purchases - Some Peter Pig AWI Continentals marching, making a new unit.  I have also been led to the dark side and ordered the new Fighting Fantasy Games "Star Wars: X-Wing" game.  Just the basic box set for now, but I can feel the pull towards more ships.  Still waiting for it to arrive, but it looks like its going to be a good filler game for Monday night games.  The box comes with two TIE fighters and one X-Wing, but more TIE's, and X-Wings as well as TIE Advanced and Y-Wings can be ordered.  The next release has the TIE Interceptor, A-Wing, Slave One and Millennium Falcon. :)

Slow Delivery - I am a fairly patient customer.  I feel that we are a bit spoilt nowadays as we see it online, order it there and then and then sit, waiting for it to arrive within a few days.  I don't mind if it takes a week or two to be posted as I don't expect people to have everything in stock all the time.  I do mind if an order sits "processing" for 4 weeks, with no notification about why its taking so long.  My first slow delivery was an order earlier this year for the Maurice rules and card set.  They were ordered from a supplier that I had used many times previously.  Order placed on June 12th, then I waited, and waited, and waited.  On July 9th I rang them to be told that they had come in that morning (amazing coincidence) and would be posted out to me the next day, which they were.

I thought about not ordering from them again, but gave them the benefit of doubt and placed another order on September 4th for two each of Battlefronts Pak 43s and Flak 88s, guns only with no crew.  I also ordered a P-47 with them.  At the same time I ordered some US gun crew from Peter Pig and scenic bases from Kerr & King.  The gun/aircraft order was the largest in terms of cost, but that didn't make any difference to delivery.  Three days later I had the Peter Pig gun crew, with the Kerr & king bases arriving the next day.  Great, awesome and thank you to both of those companies.  And yet, here I sit on October 4th still waiting for anything of the guns order.  I rang them yesterday and they have deigned to split the order and post out the Flak guns and aircraft, but the Paks are still not in stock.  So I guess my customer will just have to wait a bit longer.  Seems that Maelstrom Games are losing a customer though, which is a shame as they have been good for 4 years, but the service has definitely dropped off in the last few months.

Well, thats it for now.  I am off to try and get back into painting again, but the mojo is missing at the moment as I am feeling pretty ill.  Stupid stomach.

AWI for Maurice and Washington's Army

AWI Americans

 Having played Maurice a few times now I was inspired to start painting my Peter Pig AWI Americans.  These had been bought as a starter force for the Piggy rules "Washingtons Army", but will now also be used for Maurice.

My planned Maurice force consists of 9 Regular infantry units (4 to a base), 7 Irregular infantry (3 to a base), 2 cavalry and 3 artillery.  The figures I had already bought allowed me to make up 5 regular infantry, 3 irregular infantry, the artillery and the general, so that is what I have done so far.

7th Pennsylvania

3rd New Jersey

12th Continentals

 1st Connecticut

Lexington Militia

 The regulars are all in different uniforms, just because I can.  So far I have the 7th Pennsylvanians (Blue with red facings), the 3rd New Jersey (Buff/Blue), the 1st Connecticut (Red/Blue),  the 12th Continentals (Brown/Red) and the Lexington Militia (civilian clothing).  The irregulars are all civilian dressed too.

Continental Artillery

1st Minutemen

The planned regular units are Haslets Delaware Regt (blue/red with light infantry caps), the Green Mountain Boys (Green/Red), 3rd New York (Grey/Dark Green) and 1st New Hampshire (Green/Red with LI caps).  The irregulars will be 2 units of Indians and 2 more civilian units. 

2nd Minutemen

3rd Minutemen

 I also need to base up some Noteables, which will be general figures on a base on their own.

After all that its on to the British, who will need to be started from scratch as Gus was getting them originally.

General

How not to win a game of Maurice.

Last night I ran of game of Maurice for 4 of the lads.  To make a change I used the 15mm English Civil War figures that Colin painted many years ago.  Gus and Andy took the Parliamentarian side, with Nathan and Panjo getting the Royalists.  Gus and Nathan have played the game before, but Andy and Panjo were new to it.

The Royalists had 5 units of cavalry (2 elite and 3 trained) and 9 units of infantry (1 elite, 2 trained, 4 conscript, 2 irregular).  Their cavalry had the "Cavalier" bonus (reroll melee dice if charging enemy cavalry) while they all benefitted from "Rally to the Colours"(regulars reroll failed rally dice).  The Parliament force had gone for the quantity over quality theory.  They had 9 infantry (2 elite, 3 trained, 5 conscript), 7 cavalry (3 trained, 4 conscript) and 1 gun.  Their benefits were "Steady Lads" (regular infantry reroll combat dice when defending) and "Clerics", of which they had 5 to assign when they felt the need.

The Royalists were defending and deployed all their cavalry on the right flank, infantry in the center and secured the left flank by putting their irregular infantry in the woods.  The fatal flaw in their set up didn't come to light until near the end of the battle, but the infantry were deployed with 2 lines of 2 units, then the final 3 units in column behind them.  Now which units would you expect in the front line?  Trained and/or elite I hear you cry.  Not so says Nathan, conscripts will hold the line adequately.  So the elite and trained were in the 2nd line I hear you say?  Not so my friends, conscripts again shall hold that position.  This decision would cost the Royalists the game, along with a failure to do anything with the cavalry until it was too late.

Gus and Andy deployed 2 units of trained cavalry on their right flank, facing the woods!   The center was held by 3 lines of infantry, the difference being the front line was made up of 2 elite and 1 trained unit.  The left flank had the remaining 5 units of cavalry supported by 2 units of conscript infantry. 

The initial turns saw the Roundheads advance and engage the Royalist infantry in a firefight, before charging home.  After the initial melee the Royalists were down 1 unit (elite vs conscript) with the other on 3 disruptions.  The next turn passed and the Royalists lost another unit as the Roundheads charged again.  Then another went to sustained volleys as both sides tried to rally troops and regain cards.  It was turn 5 before the Royalist cavalry did anything, by which time the army morales were at 18 for the Roundheads and 5 (from 14) for the Royalists.  Three 6's for routed units had cost Nathan and Panjo 9 morale points.  The Royalist cavalry charged, but only 1 unit could reach.  That fought well despite being outnumbered, but still bounced back.  Then the Roundhead infantry charged again, smashing 2 more units of Royalist infantry in 2 turns and Nathan managed to roll a 5 and 6 for morale, meaning the army broke and ran. 

The use of clerics in the fights had given the Roundheads a definite edge, but if they had been up against trained or elite infantry then they wouldn't have broken either of the first two units when they did.  The failure to use their cavalry finally cost Nathan and Panjo the game.  If they had got them involved then the Roundhead infantry would have had to turn some units to cover their flank.

So all in all, a bad day for the King.  Panjo had been saying from turn 2 "Move the cavalry", but Nathan had blinkers on and could only see the infantry battle.  Gus won his first victory, having suffered 2 defeats in our previous games, but is was more down to Nathan's odd set up than anything else.  Everybody seemed to enjoy the game, I just wish I had remembered to take some pictures.

Maurice and more painting.

Despite still being ill and having to take loads of tablets, I have managed to do some painting!  

Having played Maurice at the Devon Wargames meeting, I promptly paid out and bought the rules and cards.  This has caused a dilemma though.  I now need to reorganise my 6mm Seven Years War plans, as 1 base per unit won't work for Maurice.  Ah well, more figures to paint.  I am considering rebasing from the 50x40 bases onto something a bit smaller, say 30x30, as well.  Hmm, decisions decisions. 

Painting wise, the Empress Dragoons are done but, stupidly, I packed them away without taking any photos.  I have also painted up a US beach assault force for Andy.  It was a change from my normal basing as he wanted them to look like they were on a beach, so Vallejo pumice has been used for the first time.  I was impressed with how it went on, although it tends to stick to everything!

There were a lot of figures in the box, with 26medium bases and 15 small bases.  The medic figure is nice, but there seemed to be a lot of hit figures (back left on the single base).  They are done and posted now.  The photos were taken before the matt varnish was sprayed, so they are a bit shiny.

Well, onwards and upwards.  Off to start some 15mm Prussian Landwehr now.  Oh how I love Napoleonics.

More of the same

Latest painting efforts have been more Flames of War and more Perrys Wars of the Roses.

First up are some US Para mortars, painted for a chap in Uxbridge.  Nice little unit with 101 shoulder patches. 







Then there is another 8 stand unit of Wars of the Roses infantry, painted as troops under the command of Rhys ad Thomas.  Yorkists look out, the boys are coming for you! 

Tonight I shall mostly be playing Bloody Barons with Nathan, while this weeks painting line up is French Empress Dragoons in 15mm.  Oh the Joy of it.

What I have been upto lately

Following another weekend in hospital, I managed to get some painting done . 

First up were some M18 Hellcats by Battlefront.  These are for a nice chap in Germany who has ordered from me before a few years back.  Lovely models, but surprisingly small.  They are noticeably smaller than the M10 and Sherman, but still pack a decent punch with a 76mm gun.

After the M18s I moved onto some of my own figures.  The Devon Wargames Group, that I am a member of, do a big "Christmas" game for the December meet and this year we are doing a Wars of the Roses game.  So Perry Miniatures nice plastic figures have been purchased and several are now painted.  The first unit is Sir William Carey of Cockington, a minor knight who can raise only a single unit.