Sickles' salient, Gettysburg day 2. Rematch

 Our rematch of this game was played out at one of the player's homes, with him leaving his co command of the confederate forces to umpire. The previous umpire joined me in commanding the union troops.

We extended the table slightly to include the Round Tops and added troops accordingly.

The confederate commander on this occasion decided to completely ignore the peach orchard and instead swung his whole force on a wide sweeping advance to his right to fall upon the Devils Den and then the Round Tops. His left flank turned to form a holding line along the Plum Run stream to hold back my troops now having to reorientate to apply pressure out of the left flanks of the Peach Orchard and Wheat Field.

Opening positions

Left flank of my command in the Peach Orchard and Wheat field

My command area.

My right flank along the Emmitsburg road

I'm forced to redeploy as the confederates swing right.

Confederates rear turn to block me whilst their main attack goes in.

More redeployment of my troops.

Confederate attack on the Union left begins.

View from behind Devils Den.

Rebels close in.

Devils Den falls to the Confederates

Union centre turns to form a new defensive front.

Union left under intense pressure.

Union reinforcements arrive to try and shore up the left flank.

Union troops on Little Round Top

Stand-off across Plum Run stream.

Attacking the confederate rear guard.

Corner of the Wheat field

Confederates swarm up the slopes of Round Top

Confederates push on to Little Round Top

With Round Top in rebel hands Little Round Top comes under intense pressure.

What can I say about this game? The confederate player did something we weren't expecting and then had such a run with his dice rolls that both sides checked them for "issues". No matter what my co commander on our left flank, and to a slightly lesser extent myself, tried to do he always got the better of us and rolled up the union flank with seeming ease.

Despite this it was a great day's gaming with a very nice lunch thrown in by our host's very understanding wife.

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.

15/18mm American Civil War: Update 7, Another infantry brigade and fences.

So a quick update this time. The Union infantry won over the British napoleonic heavy dragoons in the next to get painted competition.

Again these are Blue Moon miniatures and this time there are eight bases, so in Brigade Fire & Fury either 1200 or 1600 men.

A slight change to the colours used this time. For a bit of variety I used Vallejo 965 Prussian Blue for the jackets instead of my usual Dark Prussian Blue, and the blanket rolls were painted in a mix of Vallejo 875 Beige Brown and 990 Light Grey. The varnish, supposedly a satin, went a bit too glossy on these so they will get hit with a matt one once I buy some more.

Additionally I painted up six casualties from Old Glory 15s to act as disorder markers.

Another thing that slowed down the work on these was the manufacture of my first snake fencing. I used matchsticks based on tongue depressors. Slightly oversized for the figures, hence only three rails high. But I think they look OK for a first attempt.

Tony.

15/18mm American Civil War: Update 6, More troops plus some Terrain.

Another update on the ACW project.

Finished another seven base unit of Union troops, so another brigade for Fire & Fury. This time the figures are all Blue Moon ( US here, UK here ).

Figures by Blue Moon

Seven bases so either 1050 or 1400 men depending on scale being used in Brigade F&F

Also completed are the hasty fieldworks from TimeCast. These resin castings were primed with Vallejo Grey Surface Primer before base coating with a Crown Paints tester pot from their Period collection called Gramophone. This colour is the same as I used on my riverbanks and bridges as the closest match I could find to my Hotz mud tracks. The logs were painted Vallejo 872 Chocolate Brown with the cut surfaces Vallejo 929 Light Brown, before everything was washed with Vallejo Sepia Wash. Any rocks were painted Vallejo 992 Neutral Grey then washed with Citadel Nuln Oil. A bit of flock and they were finished.

TimeCast Hasty fieldworks.

With some figures for scale.

Next the fences from Ironclad Miniatures. Once again these are resin casts and were primed with Vallejo Grey Surface Primer. The woodwork was painted with Vallejo 929 Light Brown and the earth with Crown Period Gramophone. An overall wash with Vallejo Sepia Wash was applied before the earth was dry brushed with the original colour and the fences with Vallejo 886 Grey Green. Two sizes of flock was applied and almost an afterthought the gate hinges painted in Vallejo 863 Gunmetal Grey.

Ironcast Miniatures' fences.

With figures for scale.

So with these completed my Union force now looks like this.

I have a few casualty figures primed for using as disorder markers and then comes the decision, more infantry or swap periods and get my British Napoleonic Heavy Dragoon regiment painted....?

Tony.

15/18mm American Civil War: Update 5, River and Bridges.

So update 5, more terrain. At the end of the last update I showed the terrain from, amongst others, TimeCast that I had bought, now it was time to get it painted.

Terrain items bought at Hammerhead.

The three bridges, two wooden, one stone, are resin whilst the river sections are latex rubber. The resin items had their bases sanded to level them and then they and the river pieces where washed and left to dry.

The bridges were under-coated grey, areas block painted, washes applied and then dry-brushed. Muddy track parts of the castings were painted to match the felt tracks I had got from Hotz Mats, seen below with Hotz Mats fields and some troops for scale.

Hotz Mats felt tracks and fields.

Bank areas were flocked and finally the water areas were painted, more on the colour later. They were then matt varnished and after drying the water areas were given a coat of Humbrol Clear Gloss varnish.

Finished bridges

Bridges with troop stand for scale.

So now the rivers and what colour to paint them. I knew I didn't want bright blue as these would be used mostly for ACW games with lots of wooded areas nearby in most cases. I tried a sandy colour with a blue wash, didn't look right. A sandy base with a green wash, again wrong. Dark centre with lighter sides? nope. Grey green? no. Finally settled on a single colour, that being Vallejo 887 Brown Violet, the same colour I use for my WWI british aircraft. The only variation was the centre of the ford sections which I painted a sandy colour before washing with a thinned brown violet and adding a few small rocks.

I didn't prime the river sections as the TimeCast website said this was not required. The banks were base-coated the same colour as that used to do the mud track and bank parts of the bridges before getting an Agrax Earthshade wash then dry brush with the base-coat. I then painted in the river itself before applying a couple of coats of brush on acrylic gloss varnish then a coat of Humbrol Clear Gloss (applying the gloss varnish at this point was stupid in hindsight). I then flocked the banks before realising that to seal these with spray matt varnish I was going to have to mask all the gloss water sections or spray the entirety matt and redo the gloss, see previous comment about hindsight!

In the end I sprayed the whole thing and when dried reapplied a coat of Humbrol Clear Gloss to the water areas, plus a little on the crossings of the fords to give a wet effect.

Finished river and ford sections, light gives a helpful reflection.

I'm not entirely happy with how the river came out. My error with the varnishing order has meant there are possibly too many layers of paint/varnish on what are very flexible pieces and some very fine crack lines can been seen in the river surfaces. I may have to strip these back at some point in the future an redo applying the lessons learned. If they had been non flexible river sections or a larger scale I probably would have approached them completely differently and used some form of water effects. Hopefully if I store them correctly they will survive for a while.

One last thing I knocked up quickly were some markers to denote Heavy Casualties for Fire & Fury. As I haven't got any suitable miniatures I decided to use a simple flag on a base indicate this. A bit of research led to discover that both sides utilised a plain yellow flag to identify field hospitals (a green edge was added late in the war by the Union) so this is what I went for.

Heavy casualty markers.

Next, finish those seven bases of infantry before tackling the earthworks and fences.

Tony.

15/18mm American Civil War: Update 4, Infantry units.

A quick update on progress with the ACW collection. Things slowed down a bit as I have been busy with some non wargaming projects but here are the latest completed units.

This unit is made up of AB figures and featured in my Painting 18mm American Civil War Union post.

These are also AB figures except for the regimental standard bearer who is Blue Moon.

Next up are another seven bases of Blue Moon infantry and some more terrain, this time field works, rivers and bridges from TimeCast and fences from Ironclad Miniatures

More terrain

Tony.