Black Powder ACW at Entoyment

It's been a while since I have posted, mainly due to being either very busy or rather ill again. So, here goes again. I have done a bit of gaming, a bit of painting and a bit of struggling not to snap peoples heads off when they annoy me.

Highlight of the gaming came last Sunday when we had a trip to Entoyment in Poole to play a Black Powder ACW game of the Battle of Fredericksburg. Panjo, Nathan, my son Christopher and I all went up and played with several other like-minded lunatics gamers. The sensible ones picked the Confederate side, while the fools went for the blue coats. I was in the middle of the Confederate line, just to the right of the sunken road/stone wall on the heights. Christopher was to my right and Nathan was on the far right with lots of very static cavalry. The far left was ably commanded by Mel while my immediate left was commanded by Lee(not the real one), Mel's husband. There is a better report of the game on their blog, Battlebunker.

Hood's Division stands ready to see off Billy Yank

 I had command of Hood's and Pickett's divisions of Jackson's Corps. Spread thin was the thought that came to mind, I had very very few reserves to support my thin front line.

Early commanded the far right, waiting on Stuarts cavalry

 As more and more Union types crossed the river we all sat and waited for Stuart to spring into action. It turned out to be a long wait as rasping Nathan "Wandering Star" Marvin kept rolling 11's on his command rolls.

Damn Yankees just kept on coming!

 Meanwhile his opposite number had similar issues as he kept moving alternate brigades each turn.

Longstreet's Division goes to sleep in their sunken road.

 Lee(not the real one) commanded loads of troops holding the most defensible position on the table. Sensibly the Union boys stayed as far away from him as they could and all headed for my thin line of grey clad fighting men. It was so quiet on Lee's(not the real one) section that he even told his men to have a nap!

Union troops filtering through Fredericksburg

Facing Mel was Jamie, her son. There is no love lost between those two when it comes to wargames.  He kept on charging and she kept on slapping him back down the hill. Luca faced Lee(not the real one) initially, but quickly moved over to charge Pickett's thin line.

More yanks crossing the river, there are a lot of cavalry over there!

Over on the right Stuart failed to move again and the Yank cavalry streamed over the river and prepared to do some damage. However, once over the river everything seemed to slow down over that side.

That's not gun smoke, it's Longstreet's troops having a cigar break!

 On the left Lee's(not the real one) men had woken up and lit the "fine southern tobacco" cigars provided by General Longstreet. They are not firing, well not going by the lack of damage caused anyway!

Stuart finally moves forward....a bit

  Stuart finally moved forwards, once! The next turn saw yet another blunder by raspy Nathan and the cavalry all moved left to stand in front of their own infantry so they couldn't fire. Something about not letting them get any of the glory I think.

Pickett's Division is holding against ever increasing odds

 Meanwhile Pickett was fighting a valiant defence against ever increasing odds. His position was the weakest of the hill top defenders, with a stone wall to his left and a fence to his right, but no cover for his troops at all. Despite the best efforts of the masses of blue coats he was managing to hold while he waited for Lee(not the real one) to do anything.........

Oh look, there is still nobody attacking Ransom's Division!

 As my troops weathered the storm my left flank was eerily quiet. Except for the sound of coffee being drunk and cigars being lit that is. Nobody there Lee(not the real one), any chance of you passing a command roll today?

Finally Lee(not the General) springs(wanders) into action!

 Shock and horror, Lee(not the real one) moved some troops to support Pickett. To be fair the timing was fortuitous as my unit was forced to fall back the very next turn, but don't believe him if he says he planned it like that. The next turn say a sweeping advance by Lee(not the real one), but it wasn't planned. He rolled a command blunder and his troops decided to charge forwards!

Lucky timing though as it enabled the fresh, well rested, nicotine charged troops to roll up the flanks of the attacks to both sides of them and win the day.

All in all it was a cracking day with great company and a fun scenario. Thanks to Paul and Carl for letting us play with their troops and putting on a great game. More thanks to Pete and Entoyment for hosting us. I can thoroughly recommend a visit to the shop as it is an Aladdin's cave for wargamers! Extra thanks to all the other gamers, even static Lee(not the real one)!  😉 Good to meet you.

Another update already?

Yes, I'm here again.  I had a really bad night again last night and hardly slept at all until gone 6am.  Then I was up again by 11, so people can expect grumpiness for the rest of the day.

Bad news is Tina worries, but it's just a lack of working medication.  Hopefully the new tablets that I get tomorrow will have an effect.

Good news is I focused myself and painted, and painted, and glued figures together, and painted, and listened to Black Sabbath!  Yes, I had it playing loud and yes, I had my headphones on.  Usually I listen to my music loud as I like rock/heavy metal, so I found this picture quite amusing.

Anyway, back to the results of the lack of sleep.  I have had some painted but unbased Napoleonic figures here for a while and, due to my lack of interest in the period, I didn't know what they were.  A bit of research later and I found they were Westphalian infantry.  There were enough painted to make a unit of line infantry, another of Grenadiers and then 4 painted and 19 unpainted from another manufacturer. 

 These are the first of the pre-painted ones, which I believe are the 1st Battalion of the 3rd (or possibly 4th) Infantry Regiment as the unit facings are pale blue.  This is based on a quick check in the Osprey publication Men-at-Arms 44, Napoleons German Allies(1).  To be accurate the grenadiers should probably be in shakos, but they are in bearskins.  I just based them so don't blame me.  ;-)


This is the second pre-painted unit.  These are Westphalian Grenadier-Gardes I think.  For some reason there are 27 of these, so they have 7 bases instead of 6.  Again, I just based them.

But I also started painting some a few days ago.  While it's a bit of a stretch, hell it's a massive stretch, to say that I enjoyed painting them, they weren't as bad as I expected.  So I cracked on and persevered and made myself do them.  I have painted them up to match the 4 painted ones, one each of a grenadier and voltiguer plus 2 line infantry.  Hopefully you can't pick them out from the 19 I painted.

The standards are from Warflag/Napflag.  I got my local stationers/ink shop, Refresh Cartridges,  to print them on their fancy laser printer and it's well worth the extra few pence they cost.   It helps that the main bloke in the shop is a mate and gamer mind.

In between and while waiting for glue/ink/paint to dry I also put together 30 plastic medievals for my Lion Rampant force.

So a couple of bad nights have seen me paint up an infantry unit, then base it as well as two additional units and stick 30 figures together.  Insomnia sometimes pays off.  I also listened to lots of loud music, which is always good.  Unless you have a headache.  

Now I am going to go and make a cuppa and chill out for a bit.  I still feel like crap but hope for a better day than yesterday.  Catch you all next time.

PS.   I am also looking to get some finials for the flag poles.  Is that right for Westphalians?

Busy busy busy

Its been longer than I had thought since I posted here.  I have played a few games since my last post, I have painted more figures and I have watched some rugby.  I have also been feeling pretty sick in between these, so things have fallen a bit behind schedule.

The table we played on

Games played since my last post have been many and varied.  Tuesday last week saw four of us gather at Casa del Stumpy again.  The usual trio of Nathan, Gus and myself were joined by the sizeable addition of Pingu.  ACW Black Powder was the order of the day, but I forgot my camera again.  I guess the only thing that could be worse than forgetting your camera would be to take it and then leave it there when you are going away on holiday on the Thursday, but who would do such a thing?

Rebs smash into the Blue Line

 Luckily Nathan managed to take a few photos, so I have nicked some from his blog.  The game went well, at least it did for Gus and I commanding the gallant defenders of the Union.  Despite being militia, untried and outnumbered, Gus' brigade managed to see of the rebellious Southerners despite their repeated charges and advantage of numbers.

Reb Cavalry vs dismounted Union Cavalry

What really happened was every time Gus fired or fought he managed to roll a 6, disordering the Reb unit.  Every single time.
 This meant that despite their superiority in capability and numbers, the Rebs tended to be fighting at a disadvantage due to the defender holding behind either a wall or fence.

Union reinforcements arrive

In addition to Gus and his jammy dice, Pingu managed to roll very low numbers for the Confederate generals, so they were failing orders and the additional brigades didn't come on it time to help.

So, the battle ended with the Rebs skedaddling back to their Southern homes while the Union boys held the ground and had some sippin' whiskey.

The quiet left flank

The game was enjoyed, but I am still not convinced that Black Powder does it for me.  I prefer Fire and Fury for ACW, Maurice for AWI and They don't like it up 'em for Colonial.  Nothing bad about the rules, they just don't do it for me I'm afraid.

Panjo looks at Gus with disgust after another 6!

 After the quick resolution of the wargame, we adjourned downstairs to play Pandemic.  This co-operative game requires the team to work together to counter the spread of nasty germs and virus type things.  We managed to win both games, the first with 1 card left in the deck, the second with 3 cards left, so we are getting better at it.

 
The next gaming was on Monday night this week, where the next round of the Dux campaign was taking place.  Nathan was still gathering replacements from the defeat he had suffered at my hands and the other Saxon lords decided to leave my lands alone and raid the other British territories.  Colin took on Andy, giving him a sound thrashing and capturing his Lord.  We are not sure what this means in terms of the campaign, but I am thinking either pay a ransom or get a new Lord for Andy.  Zob took on Pingu and, despite failing in the mission, managed to scrape a 1 point win.  This is Zob's first victory and finally gained him some loot.


Next Monday's game is Dux for me, with the most victorious Saxon lord (Colin) taking on the most victorious British lord (me!).  This could be a decider for Colin as he is rapidly gaining more men and has already gathered a large amount of loot.  I can see a Warlord appearing out of the Saxon mists, waging war on one of the British lords in an attempt to set up his own kingdom.  Unfortunately for me Colin has gained extra skirmishers as well as 2 extra warriors.  Things could be bloody on Monday night.

Saturday sees the ACW commanders gather again, but this time to go to Market Larden up in Evesham.  This gathering is being organised by members of the Wyvern Wargamers, with 30+ people getting together to play various Too Fat Lardies games.  I am looking forward to this as a day out with the lads doesn't come around that often anymore, due to work and family commitments from one or more of us each time.  So onwards and upwards, expect to see many photos (if I remember the bloody camera) and random musings next week.

Rugby has had a good few appearances in my schedule too.  No2 son and myself went up watch the Premiership final and a cracking day out it was.  Thoroughly enjoyed it, good entertainment and the boy went to the bar as he is now old enough to get 'em in.  Admittedly I was only on coke, but its still nice for somebody else to get the drinks.  The game was good too and I think the Tigers would have won even if Dylan Hartely wasn't sent off.  Last Saturday we went up and watched the first Lions match in the pub.  Another good game and he went and got the drinks again.  The cost of 2 pints and 2 cokes has prompted the (temporary) arrival of Sky Sports in this house though.  £25 for Sky Sports or £16 at the pub for each of the remaining 9 matches, the maths is easy.  So this morning we watched the Lions playing the Western Force team in Aussieland.  Not as good a showing from the Lions and I can only hope they get better as the week passes by.  Bring back the scrummaging master that is Adam Jones!  Dan Cole is good, but he's not that good.

Well that's it for now, off to paint some more Napoleonics.  I have now done over 1200 15mm figures this year, which is about as many as I did all of last year I think.   Keep rolling those dice folks, and support the British and Irish Lions......unless your an Australian.