Not wargaming but.....RPGing!

 Back last year in the town where I live a new FLGS opened up, not much in the way of wargaming stock, unless you are a Games Workshop fan but some good card and board games and collectable toys etc.

What did spin out of this though was a new role playing group, mostly intending to play Dungeons and Dragons but other systems were also talked about. This was more of my wife's sort of thing as she had been a very active role player at university and in the years after, whereas I dabbled a bit at high school but not to any serious extent.

So she became involved very early and was soon gaming fairly regularly. After a while she got me involved as the group grew in size and a couple of games ran in parallel with occasional one off games slotted in when time and players permitted.

With this new hobby came the need for miniatures to represent our characters. Now there are several ways to go about this:

Buy pre made miniatures from the internet or FLGS,

Design custom miniatures on one of the varied online websites then either pay for it to be 3d printed or pay for the STL file and get it printed yourself.

Buy a pre designed STL file from one of the many online artists that produce models and get it printed yourself.

We basically went with the second option for our character figures and I had a mate from the wargaming club, who had a 3d resin printer, print them for us.

Printed by friend painted by me.

Printed by friend painted by me.

After a while we talked about the possibility of running a starter adventure at home to try and interest our son and my wife started planning to run an adventure for the group. This meant we would need monster and non player characters as well. For these we went with all three of the above options and soon realised that having our own 3d printer might prove useful, see post here.

Printed and painted by me.

Printed and painted by me.

Printed and painted by me.

Printed and painted by me.

So I now have another hobby that I'm getting really into, as well as another group of friends to game with. My wife and I even got to game together when our son was away on Cubs camp last weekend. We also get to sit down together in the evening to paint up the myriad of miniatures we seem to have 3d printed so far, she's much better at wet blending than me.

A couple of the group, having seen my painted character miniatures, asked me to paint one for them too, which seem to have gone down well.

Friends figure I painted.

Friends figure I painted.

Anyway better get back to painting more napoleonics soon :)

Tony.

Sickles' salient, Gettysburg day 2. Game at NBHW

On Friday the 15th July after approximately a three year gap the 15/18mm ACW figures were out again at New Buckenham for a return to Fire & Fury gaming. The scenario was based on day two of Gettysburg when Union General Sickles decided unilaterally to advance his division into the peach orchard, wheat field and Devils Den just to the north of Little Round Top breaking the cohesiveness of the Union defensive line, resulting in Longstreet launching an assault in this area.

As mentioned earlier the figures were 15/18mm and the rules Fire & Fury, specifically a house amended version of the original rules, with some features of Brigade Fire & Fury added in. After the aforementioned three year break we were very rusty with the rules, but by the end of the night they had started coming back to us.

I was given Sickles' command with a colleague hopefully bringing up Sykes' and Barnes' reserves soon?

Starting positions with Hood and McLaws' rebels advancing

Sykes awaiting his turn to "arrive" along with my new 3d printed fences.

Hood on my left flank advanced towards Devils Den before swinging two of his brigades with supporting artillery across the Plum Run stream towards the wheat field. McLaw's brigades charged out of the treeline to attack my troops lining the Emmitsburg road by the Peach Orchard.

This initial assault was thrown back with the confederate brigade commander, Barksdale, killed. This would turn out to be one of my few successes of the night as my cursed dice rolling from Waterloo continued to haunt me.

Zouaves turn to face Hoods approaching troops

My zouaves turned to face the threat from Hood but were thrown back by the determined charge of the confederate troops. Undaunted they gathered themselves to counter attack and launched a charge of their own, with the obvious result given my dice rolling ability.

Zouaves charge in to try and retake the wheat field.

The remaining zouaves fell back to the Wheatfield Road and commenced harassing musket fire.

Preparing to defend the Peach Orchard from McLaws

McLaws' southernmost brigades now pressed forward towards the Peach Orchard where my troops awaited, hoping for better dice rolls.

Watching Hood's troops across from Devils Den.

Over by Devils Den I pushed my brigade forward slightly but Hood's troops refrained from pushing forward too far and this area just saw some desultory artillery and long distance musketry fire for the rest of the encounter.

Syke's reserves begin to arrive...but too late.

To nobodies surprise McLaw's push on the Peach Orchard and then along the Wheatfield Road was swift with my troops defensive rolls failing miserably and Sykes' forces not able to get into position in time.

Mclaw's forces push all before them.

With time getting on the game was called here as a Confederate win, but the main objective of the evening namely getting reacquainted with the rules after a long hiatus was achieved.

Now where can I buy some new dice :)

As usual a few more pictures can be found in the clubs Facebook album

Tony.

Waterloo, Game at NBHW

Over the weekend of 17th, 18th and 19th of June at New Buckenham Historical Wargamers we re-fought the Battle of Waterloo in 28mm using the Shako II rules, with some house and scenario tweaks.

When I arrived on the Friday evening I was surprised to find that instead of having one of the two Prussian commands, as I had expected, I in fact was given General Altens 3rd Allied Division defending La Haye Sainte and the right centre of Wellington's line.

The layout

My command.

La Haye Sainte

To my front I had a mass of British and KGL artillery with British, KGL, Hanoverian and Nassau infantry behind them. I also had command of some Hanoverian and Dutch cavalry.

So all I had to do was defend the ridge and the farmhouse.

Allied centre

Sunken road

Picton at centre left

Far right, Hougoumont

For a full AAR I will link to the club's Facebook albums for the game at the end.

Overall it was a game of frustrating dice rolls.

My artillery couldn't seem to hit a barn let alone a barn door, but did fight OK in melee before all being destroyed over the course of the battle.

A few artillery hits !

My artillery missing splendidly in the centre.

Yes the point blank canister missed!

Prussians advance

French await in Plancenoit

Picton under pressure

Allied right swing down the slope.

Join between centre and right, where'd all the cannons go?

La Haye Sainte still in allied hands.

More pressure on allied left.

Looking westward down the table.

Squares it is then.

Reserve dutch gun into action.

Still held, just.

Prussians heading for the allied left.

Highlanders and Dutch fight on.

And here come the French heavies.

French advance after capturing La Haye Sainte

La Haye Sainte held on for quite a while before falling to the French Middle Guard and with my first attempt to retake being beaten off I contented myself with just preventing the French from advancing out of the farm.

It seemed all weekend that however well I rolled, sometimes really well, especially with some of my poorer units, my opponent always managed to roll one higher to defeat me. Even initiative rolls went his way when he really needed them too.

And of course the "anything but a six" call for a morale check came back to do me in again :)

Squares await the next onslaught. Look the Cumberland Hussars are still here!

Allied cavalry jostling for room...look a cannon!

Household and Dutch Belgium cavalry.

Last cannon and my Nassaus gone, that's a big hole.

Cavalry try to turn back the French tide.

By the end of the game my division had been broken, but had held on just long enough for the Brunswick troops to form a defensive position around the crossroads on the Brussels road to give the Allies a very narrow victory, much to the French players chagrin.

The Plancenoit sector.

Unfortunately for one reason or another we were short of players this year so the Prussian sector and Plancenoit were effectively abandoned after the Saturday.

Fuller AARs and many more photos can be found at the club's Facebook albums below.

Waterloo 1pm - 3pm

Waterloo 3pm - 5:50pm

Waterloo 5:30pm - 8:30pm

Waterloo Misc photos

Another great, sometimes frustrating, weekends gaming.

Tony