More For Russian Civil War

 Still enthused by our playtests so getting some more of these completed, its eating into the Lead Mountain so must be positive.

Chum Chris Charlton built this particular cart for me, a kit from one of the MDF manufacturers, modelling not really my thing.

I already have a red Tchanka or machine gun cart so wanted a White one too. Bit of a mix of models.

The horses are from three manufacturers including Perrys and Foundry.

The Maxim and gunner are Copplestone and the cart crew from Colonel Bills.

The crew are painted as Don Cossacks. I stuck a pile of ammo boxes under the gunner to give him and the MG a good seat.

Ideally I would like a further one for my partisans/anarchists at some point.

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With a forthcoming game involving the Far Eastern Troops I also wanted to finish off my Chahar Mongols, so an addition of four troopers and a leader gives me two units of 8 with their own command.

The Anarchists also got a bunch more figures, the foot figures are all Copplestone from the Partisan pack and the Leaders are Nestor Mahkno himself accompanied by the Black flag of anarchism these will give me a regiment of 3 companies and a leader plus MG which feels like a rounded force with the possible exception of a Tchanka at some point. Watch out for these in our forth coming game.

So some good progress with these, despite some new purchases the Lead Pile for this project remains reasuringly small, unlike some of the others.

Thanks for reading, see you soon.

Drumnadrochit 1746 First Sharp Practice for the Jacobites AAR

 So we finally have enough (More than enough of some as you will see) for a game with the 1745 collection.

Using the majority of both our collections Chris set up a pretty big game by Sharp Practice standards abd went with all units deployed on table to get things going quicker.

The Jacobites started with two clan regiments each of 3 x 10 figures with one leader and 2 x 24 regular formations, one of Royal Eccossais and one of Irish Piquetes. They also had a light gun.

113 figures, pretty impressive.

The Hanovarians started with 3 formations of 24 foot supported by 2 guns, a 16 man formation of black watch highlanders and 16 man formation of cavalry.

114 figures. Just outnumbering the Jacobites.

Chris and I commanded a Highland regiment and regular formation each whilst Steve and Chris Flowers had the Hanovarians.

First out of the blocks were Chris's highlanders charging straight at the massed infantry deployed across their front.

Chris made the guns commanded by any officer within command range so first card out for the Hanovarians saw 12 dice from the first gun, predictably this devasted the oncoming highlanders, the second British card saw more artillery fire and the first volley from the British and Chris's highlanders were reeling back in disarray before anything else got moving. 

This little vignette of a Hessian grenadier with Edinburgh urchins is a charming charity set painted by Chris.

The return fire from our lighter gun does a small amount of damage but nothing to write home about.

Undaunted my Highlanders continue to march forward. 

Chris's are not stopping this side of Inverness at this rate.

The Government reserve now begins to move into position (yes a quarter of our force gone and they haven't deployed their reserve yet) 

Meanwhile my Highlanders take two blasts of cannon fire and I pull them back to try a different approach.

The Royal Ecossaise are marching across the hill on the left masked by woods in a hope to get close enough to cause some damage.

Taken as a whole things are not looking too good for the Jacobites. 

Another hit to Chris's Highlanders as the Irish march past them and they are off again.

One group of Ecossaise break off to protect my flank while the rest line out to prepare to fire into the govornment forces.

My Highlanders have pulled back, the shock only effects forward movement, I hope to get them up the flank to support the Royal Ecossaise but I cant get the volume of shock down enough to get any reasonable movement.

Chris's Irish meanwhile have opened up on the Government line, at last the Jacobites are inflicting damage, however one formation against two supported by cannon is too one sided to last.

Realising the Royal Scots are exposed I realine them so they line the edge of a small wood facing the government highlanders

My first group of Scots has fired at the highlanders with little effect, the gun firing in return did rather better!

With the Highlanders very badly mauled its down to the regulars to shoulder the burden and the Irish prepare to trade volleys and buy us some time.

The light gun continues to add its less lethal support.

Chris's highlanders will clearly be playing no further part in the game.

Its unlikely that mine will with 3 inches of movement coming off every roll. They are doing their best though.

The Irish are now taking almost the full force of the British command and casualties and shock are mounting alarmingly.

My Royal Ecossais now open a volley onto the Black Watch and damage quickly mounts, at last we are in the game.

Unfortunately the tenacious Irish have taken too many hits and the formation breaks with the left hand group forced back.

Things are looking pretty bleak.

My Ecossaise have forced back the Black Watch and the Hanovarians lose their first Morale point, but nobody is coming to support the Scots regulars and Chris has wheeled his gun to rake their line.

As the gun and Black Watch fire together (their commander can command both) a huge amount of shock builds on the Royal Scots and the right hand unit is pushed back.

This depletes the last of our force morale, no doubt the stout Ecossaise surrendered whilst the rest of the Jacobite force fled the field.

As a first run out we learned a lot. The sides need evening out, too many guns which are devastating. The Highlanders need to be able to move quicker. Pre deployment speeds things up and gives a more traditional game but massively helps the defender, who in this case outnumbered the attacker.

A fabulous looking game even if a bit one sided. I am certain we can still make SP2 work for the 45, better luck next time

October workbench

 A few more figures for the forthcoming big Russian Civil War bash.

I picked up 3 Chahar Mongols and 2 Officers to finish off the 12 I have giving me an officer and 2 units of 8.

The Chinese officers I think have mixed in OK. 

Having seen someone else pint these in red coats I did some double checking and found the reference I was looking for in a memoir referring to all Ungern Sternberg's troops leaving Urga with new blue Deals on. So blue it is, the yellow cap cloth and shoulder boards are the traditional colour of the far eastern Cossacks.

The Red MG crew just got a slightly altered paint job and are now a Partisan MG crew. More compatriots for Makhno and his anarchists.

I also picked up a pack of 10 Copplestone Partisans, lovely figures these, although disappointing that three figures are identical.

Some particularly nice figures here, I do like how the salmon shirts came out too.

To bring my tribal Mongols up to strength I have pressed these 4 plastic figures into service with the odd modern rifle mixed in. a reasonable fit for the rest rather than ideal but it does the job.

Lastly a White Officer, the last game showed me I need more leaders so here is the first. He came out OK, a simple enough paint job.

A few more to follow, I certainly need to add to the leaders so watch this space for those in particular.

Thanks for stopping by.