Border Revier show

So today I managed to get down to the 2nd Border Reiver show of the year. This time I wasn't part of the organising, Thom and Neil G were displaying their Guards of Traitors Toll, These mean streets. The game did look spectacular and I did help moving around figures and accidentally setting fire to a building. Most of the buildings and town wall were 3d printed by Thom, most of the figures and a few of the buildings were from Neil G's collection.

Plenty of visitors to the table and lots of chatting going on. The other benefit of the show is I got to catch up with a couple of old wargaming colleagues, John, just returning to the hobby and Mick who even invited me up for a game to renew hostilities. We just need to organise a game. We last played against each other before the outbreak of Covid. Mick was there with his Middle earth game, the battle of Azanulbizar, pitching the Dwarves against Orcs. Lots of lovely old Nick Lund figures on display.

With only being able to spend a couple of hours at the show, my spending was curtailed, much to the relief of my wallet. I did pick up 3 15mm adobe buildings, should see use as a bit of table decoration for our Zama game. There were also a few grass tufts and a book of army list for future ideas.

I did pick up a couple of 3d printed dark Age huts from Thom. They were free as he had printed more than he needed. No photo as I have already started to paint them.

Pillaging in the Dark Ages

With a couple of the club members picking up the Pillage rules, I decided to pickup the new starter set  and see what it was all about. I then remembered that I had some Vikings and Saxons from an old Shore raid game I did at the Border Reiver show about 20+ years ago. All they needed was some re-basing and a little touch up. 

They are a mix of Gripping Beast, Artizan, Foundry, and Blacktree. Not bad for being around 25 years old. I've got a few more unarmoured Saxons to re-base and the Vikings could do with a couple of archers. Now the starter set comes with a sprue each of Irish and Vikings. With already having plenty of Vikings I swapped these with Mitch for a sprue of Irish. I've added these to some figures I already had from Gripping Beast, including a couple of plastic figures. I have an order in for a sprue from Wargames Atlantic and some metal figures from Footsore to give me a few mounted figures and some armoured troops.

I've nearly enough painted for a 600 point starter force. Now I just need to see of blogger will update.

Crow Scouts

After a couple of weeks struggling to get some painting time, I eventually got around to adding some more Crow scouts to the American forces. The figures are mainly Peter Pig with a few from Hovels mixed in. The extra five bases brings me up to eight for two units of four bases. As usual I also did them dismounted.

All the mounted bases

All of the dismounted bases

I also picked up the Colonel Custer model from Hovels, it also includes a dismounted version. Easy enough to paint up and will be useful as a third leader for the American cavalry.

The only other activity had been re-basing my Vikings in readiness for some games of Pillage. A couple of club members picked up the rules and seemed to enjoy them. Luckily I don't need anymore dark age figures as I have plenty of Vikings and Saxons that I can use.

Bloody Blogger

Seems we have a new issue with blogger, this time with comments. I can read a blog post but when I leave a comment it just remains 'publishing'. So apologies I'm not ignoring peoples post. I've seen some comments on facebook where others can't reply to comments on their own blog. Haven't been able to test that one out,

Pony Wars stage 1 complete

After painting up some command figures for 'B' and 'D' troops of 2nd cavalry , I did a little review and realised I had reached the end of stage 1 of this project, well actually exceeded in some parts. The initial plan was for 4 troops of US cavalry supported by 3 or 4 companies of infantry with some civilian and Crow scouts. So I actually have 6 troops of cavalry, 3 companies of infantry, some wagons, an artillery piece and the civilian and Crow scouts. For the Native Americans I wanted 40 or 50 mounted and 20 or 30 on foot. I actually have 50 bases of mounted or 100 warriors and 10 bases of foot or 10 figures. After a few play tests I don't think I'll need any more warriors on foot.

US forces

3 companies of the 9th Infantry

3 troops of 2nd cavalry

3 troops of 3rd cavalry with Crowscouts

Souix warriors

So what is in store for stage 2, well I do have the figures for 2 more companies of US infantry along with a limber for the artillery and a troop of cavalry each for the 2nd and 3rd cavalry. There are also some additional Crow scouts as well as some Apache which I may paint up with pieces of US cavalry clothing to use as Shoshoni allies, it keeps them different from the Souix and Crow. For the Souix I have enough figures for another 10 bases and a 3rd warchief. I may expand the Souix further as I had to borrow figures from Robbo to make up the numbers. I also have Thom looking into 3d printing some buffalo, if he can find a suitable STL. 

Pony Wars additions

So after Thursdays' second run out of the rules I decided to add a few more pieces to the collection. First up was a 6pdr artillery piece from Tabletop miniatures. I created a separate base for the artillery crew so that they can be removed when the gun is limbered, which I still need to paint up.

With crew

Crew removed

I also finally got around to painting a couple of bases of dismounted civilian scouts as I had a need of them in the last game. These are a mix of Tabletop and Peter Pig miniatures.

Now the Native Americans were not neglected. I painted up a few of the figures from the villagers set form Hovels miniatures along with a smoke signal set that they also produced, need to find a way to add some smoke to the model for the effect.

Now for a pony wars game you just have to have some buffalo. So I picked up a single pack from Peter Pig which gives you 6 models. I will need a few more of these and will probably add the odd pack to future orders. So here they are a very small herd, if you can call it that.

Now lets see if Blogger is still playing up as the last post seems to be either missing from quite a few feeds or just not generating interest. 

Doomed at McElvoy creek

So we had a second play test game using Fistful of Lead Bigger Battles. For this game we have 2 extra players so I did a slight re-organisation of the troops, borrowing a few figures from Robbo to make up the numbers. We also tried some random deployment using a spare template, we still ended up with Natives on one side of the table and the US cavalry on the other. So the forces were organised as follows,

Sean - 3 troops from 3rd cavalry
Robbo - 3 troops from 7th cavalry
Thom -2 troops from 2nd cavalry, Crow and Civilian scouts.

For the Natives, they were split between Neil G, George and Mitch. Each with 4 bands of Crow warriors. So the Natives had a slight advantage in numbers.

Not a battle report as such, just a few pictures to share. The game took its name from Sean and 3rd cavalry, they were on the right of the US cavalry line when they approached the village. They formed up along a creek with A troop dismounting They faced the brunt of the Natives counter attack, facing both the bands of Little Beaver and Cunning Fox. There was much laughter from everyone as 3rd cavalry made their stand as they swarmed by the Natives before eventually pulling out (running away).

In the centre, Thom with the 2nd cavalry quickly moved into the village trying to scatter the villagers. They were met head on in a fierce fight with Big Beaver who was also using some of his warriors to hold Robbo on the heights to the left of the village.

Robbo with the 7th cavalry moved to take the heights and then deployed 'A' and 'B' troops in a skirmish line. They spent most of the game exchanging fire with some of the warriors from Big Beaver. They remained quite secure on their hill.

A Band of Big Beavers warriors returning to the village

7th cavalry moving into position

Crow scouts skirmish with Souix warriors

More of Big Beaver's warriors arrive

The fighting in the village intensifies

The warriors of Cunning Fox and Little Beaver begin to skirmish with the 3rd cavalry at McElvoy Creek

3rd cavalry begin to deploy but already the natives are at their flanks

2nd cavalry struggle to get control of the village

3rd cavalry are under heavy pressure

7th cavalry repulse Souix warriors

With 3rd cavalry repulsed, the Natives begin to fall on 2nd cavalry

More native warriors swarm over McElvoy creek

It's getting hot for 2nd cavalry

A very fun game, though we need to make an amendment on the use of the lance by the Native Americans. Currently the rules allow all missed hits in combat to be re-rolled. This was devastating to the US cavalry troopers. As these bands of warriors are armed with mixed weapons we have decided to limit the re-roll to only a single dice. Still effective just not quite as devastating.

We have a 3rd play test next week and may need to get a few more figures painted up,