New page

I've just added a new page to track my painting progress for the Confederates at Gettysburg. I will eventually add a second page for the union forces. Hopefully these paint plan will help me keep on track, no doubt I'll get sidetracked. I see this as a long term project that will take a number of years to complete, but one i will endeavor to finish.

I've also had an invite up to Mick's at the end of September for a re fight of the battle of Antietam. Look forward to this as never re fought this particular battle.

2nd unit finished

Just adding a photos of the completed 2nd unit of my 28mm ACW. I've also painted up the 8 figures to act as skirmishers and will post some pics when I finish basing them.

Ho Ho Ho and a bottle of rum and an Ogre

A couple of photos of a female pirate I've finished off for my daughter. She did the base colours, all I did was just clear up some of the overlaps and do the highlights. More than happy with how it turned out and so is she. The figure is from Foundry's Pirate range that I picked up at the York show earlier in the year.

Next up is an Ogre from Games Workshop. I've painted this up in the colour scheme of my Blood Bowl human team, The Brickyard Brawlers. All of the other Ogres in my collection have been painted to match in with my Orc and Chaos teams. Simple paint job that I'm more than happy with.

Battle of Gildons Crossing

This is the 3rd installment of a mini fictitious campaign I've been running at the club. Following on from the Confederate victory at Bakersville, Longstreet advanced his 2 Divisions north to Gildons crossing.There he was awaiting re supply to replace much of his lost artillery. It was then in the early hours of the morning that Hampton rode in with his Cavalry the General Early had crushed the Federal forces at Cedar Creek, but that a force was marching upon Longstreet's position. His orders were to hold until reinforcements could arrive by rail.

Federal forces however were in much need of a decisive victory after receiving two bloody noses against the rebels. With a quickly assembled force they realised that Longstreet was isolated in the vicinity of Gildons crossing. They were to proceed with haste with available forces to destroy Longstreet before he could be reinforced.

Confederate forces consisted of 2 infantry divisions of 7 brigades, 2 artillery batteries and Hampton's cavalry brigade. Opposing them were 3 Federal infantry divisions of 9 brigades and 4 artillery batteries. The battle opened with the Federal forces advancing towards the rebel positions behind Gildons creek and into the town itself. The Rebels decided to contest the creek and hold until reinforcements arrived, that was until one of Mclaws' brigades crossed the creek straight into the face of 3 Federal brigades. It was then that a furious struggle ensued as the outnumbered rebels were slowly destroyed. On the Federal right the Division of Caldwell led by the Iron Brigade advanced towards the creek to be met with the rebel yell and were promptly thrown back into the woods and hotly pursued by their enemies.

Iron Brigade emerging from the woods

The rebel positions

Hampton's dismounted troopers

With the Rebels hurriedly bringing up the rest of Mclaws' division to reinforce their right flank as Federal forces quickly crossed the creek. One of his brigades smashed into the advancing federals temporarily throwing them back across the creek. It was at this point that the union artillery began to find its range and began to pummeling the 2 remaining brigades of Mclaws, eventually destroying his division. On the Federal right things were not going well. Despite the Iron brigade beginning to live up to its reputation and doggedly hanging in, the other 2 brigades of Zook and Brooke were destroyed by the advancing rebels.

Hood's division in position

Federal troops pushing the rebels back

By now things were beginning to go wrong for Longstreet. With the destruction of Mclaws' division and no sign of reinforcements, discretion became the better part of valour and he decided to break off the engagement and save the remains of his Corps. A hard fought and much needed Federal victory.

 Overall for my nephew who took on the role of Longstreet, his first ever independent command, he did okay. made a few mistakes, but at least learned from them i.e. don't attack unsupported. he was though assisted with some uncanny luck in melee, rolling 6 tens in 8 combats. Turning what should have been defeats into unlikely victories.

A few extra pictures of the battle.

Wings of War

This week at the club we put on a wings of war game. Approx 5 players a side. Now its been a while since we've played these rules and what fun was had by all. More planes were actually lost through collisions than were actually shot down. I also took along my daughter as in the past she quite likes these rules. She generally just flies around in a circle, but if you come too close she normally shoots you down. She had a kill streak of 6 going into this game. On realising that she was playing, a number of club members began tearfully reminiscing of how they each had been shot down by this little terror of the skies. Wish I'd had a camera as she roughly handled Robbo's plane before he promptly crashed into myself. Next it was Bayley who faced her wrath. Initially he thought he had escaped by the kin of his teeth when her guns jammed only to crash his plane on landing.Kill streak to 8. Eventually though she was badly shot up and ended up crashing her own plan (much to the relief of a number of grown men). As for my own game, well I was taken out of the sky by robbo before trading kills with Mick.

Iron Brigade

To add to my union forces I've decided to do the Iron Brigade next. This was prompted by seeing some relevant figures on EBay. The figures were originally produced by Tabletop miniatures back when I was a little lad. Not sure if anyone is producing these anymore. Anyway managed to pick up 27 figures for £1.80 including postage. that is less than 10p per figure.

Now these figures hold a slight sentimental nostalgia with me. When I first painted a 15mm ACW union army (passed on to my brother who promptly sold them) I painted up the Iron Brigade using these figures. Now's a chance to re do them, hopefully better. I've had to add a couple of command figures to finish the unit off. I''ll post some pictures once I finish the unit.

Work in progress

Finally a bit of sunshine and I was able to get out and take some photos. First up Loudon's foot for the ECW. These are my second Covenanter unit. The figures are all plastics from Warlord Miniatures.

Next up a couple of undead horseman. I've done some very basic conversions on some old Bretonnian Knights. Mainly a few head and arm swaps from some undead spares I had from Mantic and GW. The colour scheme is a basic dark red to keep them matched in with the rest of the army.I've started painting the next two with a further 2 more to complete the unit.

Work in progress

First up 2 pictures of my 2 unit of 28mm Confederates. Again the figures are all Perry plastics. The flag is from the boxed set until I can get around to doing some better ones. Just 8 more figures required to finish the unit.

Next up a small section of stone wall with a gate. The gate is left over from the hovels fencing that I did earlier. This section will give me about 3-4ft of stone walling for future games. Also good news on the gaming from as one of the lads has just purchased some Peter Pig figures to put together another union corps. This should give the Union a numerical advantage.

Update

Finally managed to finish Loudon's Infantry regiment to complete my brigade of Scots Infantry. These have taken some time and I had to force myself to finish them. Same old story when I'm not gaming a particular period I struggle to paint the units. Hopefully with 2 of the chaps at the club picking up Battalia box sets from Warlord, I'll get some impetus to finish the last foot regiment and 3 troops of cavalry.

Part of the distraction lately is I've been putting together some 28mm ACW (details on my other blog) and some converted undead horseman. I'll get some pictures done when the weather finally improves and I can get in the garden.