Happy Blogversary!

Well, who would have thought I could keep up these aimless rambles for seven years? Not me, that’s for sure! But, notwithstanding all that, here we are seven years down the line... I wonder how much time I’ve spent on this and related activity that might have been used differently? Well, I guess I can’t know that and it would only depress me more if I knew anyway. I’ll keep going while I think there’s some point to it, for myself or for visitors, but I do wonder sometimes if it has any real validity as an exercise. As ever, views are always welcome...
Meanwhile, a few favourite pictures from past years might be a good way to cut off pointless rambling ~

Or not, as the case may be...

The Attack on Castello San Phillipe

For our regular Monday game here in GHQ, and the first in December, Phil and I settled on an Italian Wars game using Pike & Shotte rules for only the third time as I’d recently painted up four new Command bases. It was also a good excuse to see my Palazzo and all the related buildings and extras out on the table for the first time. The game saw Phil’s Florentine’s attacking the Papal held town of San Phillipe and attempting to sack the castello. As ever, a few pictures to illustrate how the game panned out ~

Castello San Phillipe and its town environs defended by the

forces of the Papal States.

Florentine forces gather, albeit rather slowly, for the attack to

commence. The Heavy Ordnance opens fire on the defenders!

Florence's finest, though they were not to live up to the

epithet during the battle!

After initial hesitancy the Papal Gendarmes and Elmetti

advance to confront the enemy.

A strong defensive line has been established by the defenders.

Masses of mercenary Landsknechts advance on the defenders

A view along the road to the battle. Cesare is leading from the

rear I see! The shame!

The battle is hotting up now with many of the defending force

being Disordered by handgun and crossbow fire. The pike

do not seem at all keen to engage their foe!

Despite suffering losses in combat, the Papal Gendarmes and

Elmetti sweep the enemy before them! On their left flank the

battle turns against the Florentines!

At last the Disorder is cast off and the infantry begins to go on

the attack as the Florentines falter!

The Garrison of Castello San Phillipe look on as the Papal

force presses forward on the Florentine centre.

All is up for the attackers in Turn 8! The Florentine left is 

broken and the centre is driven back. San Phillipe is saved

once more!

Pike & Shotte gave us a fast flowing and enjoyable game and

may in time supplant Neil Thomas's rules as our go to choice

for the period, we shall have to see.

The figures are from our joint collections and include items from Foundry, TAG, Casting Room Miniatures, Perry Miniatures, Dixon Miniatures, Essex, Hinchliffe, Warlord Games/Pro Gloria, and Steel Fist. I was never one for mixing manufacturers much in the past, but this just seems to add to the splendid Renaissance look of the armies to me. Bases were made for us by Warbases of course while they also provided the bulk of the MDF kits I used to kit bash the various buildings. Other components came from Sally Forth, Sarissa Precision, Charlie Foxtrot, Supreme Littleness Designs, Grand Manner, and Iron Gate Scenics.
We hope to revisit the Italian Wars early on in 2019 giving Phil a chance to add another unit or two perhaps to his Florentines. As for me, I've called a halt to Papal expansion and am back to painting extra units for our AWI games, the 3rd Continental Dragoons at present as I've had the dismounted versions for 20 years but never got around to adding the mounted versions! Typical wargamer I suspect, my attention wandered off to something newer and shinnier!

Loyalist Militia for the AWI

I have been working on a new unit for my AWI collection recently using the Foundry figures I recently purchased. I wanted a generic unit to represent the Loyalist Militias who rallied to the Crown’s cause to supplement my more organised Loyalist and British Regulars in my force. I wanted a rather motley appearance, with a nod to both uniformity and local supply, so I chose a mixture of American figures from three packs: Command; Uniformed Militia marching; and Minute Men marching. I chose a brown faced red uniform for the uniformed figures, painting all those first, then turning to the  Minute Men figures in more civilian dress, though I did try to make a nod to uniforms in the shape of red waistcoats where I could. For their Colour I ordered a ‘Make your Own’ version from Flags of War, a red field with the motto ‘God Save The King’ - a very hard choice for a life long republican! Anyway, here they are, see what you think ~

Loyalist Militia ~ a Standard Unit in Black Powder

A 'Make You Own' colour ~ from Flags of War

Mixing Uniform and Civilian dress

And again, a mix of dress

I had four figures left over from the Command pack but no other figures, so as I’d missed Warfare due to illness I decided to treat myself to some figures from Perry Miniatures to make up another American unit. I chose Firing Line figures, one pack in uniform coats and one in Hunting Shirts. In addition I ordered the Mounted Officers in cut down coats and three packs of Volunteers of Ireland, the latter whose flag I also had bought from Flags of War. They are all cleaned up and spray undercoated white now, ready to take their place in the painting queue!The Lead Pimple never seems to diminish these days you know, strange that...

Action Replay!

No game here in GHQ this week as it was my turn to travel to Phil’s for the third game in our ongoing Fall of the Reich campaign. Phil has blogged our efforts so I hope you will pop over to his site News From the Front, via the side bar link, as I always admire the look of his games. Last week though we did play an ACW game in GHQ, a slightly expanded version of the Wednesday night game Jon and I had fought the week before. Again the game was pretty much nip and tuck right to the end of the allotted 12 Turns. While the Union, commanded by old  Useless S Bykleigh, could not quite pull of a clear victory, they did manage to turn back the Rebel tide! Phil 'Mudwall' Robinson did concede that his army would quit the field due to their overall position at the game’s conclusion, so a winning draw for the Union! I took a handful of pictures just to give a feel for the action ~

Opening moves see the Rebs attacking all along the Union front. Some Union

troops are slow to march out of camp!

The Union camp is strangely calm now the boys have finally moved off to

march to the scene of the fighting!

The Rebs are pinning the Union left flank while attacking the centre and right

vigorously! Old Useless is quite concerned at this stage that his centre may

crumble.

As it happens the centre holds firm against the odds as Reserves arrive in the

nick of time! The Reb right is forced back and some regiments in their centre

are Whipped!

The Reb's left flank crumbles away and 'Mudwall Robinson' orders a tactical

withdrawal, leaving old Useless in possession of the field!

Buoyed up by those two ACW games I have finally got around to cleaning up the three Regiment’s worth of Dixon Miniatures I bought way back last year. I now replace the cast on flagstaffs with wire pikes as I’ve had old ones simply fail if you just caught them. It’s a bit fiddly for me, but much easier than doing it post paining and basing!!! They will end up as one Union Regiment, the 20th Mass, and two Confederate ones, one each from Virginia and Georgia to make up those State's Brigade numbers. I hope to get one at least done before the year’s end...

Further AWI additions and related ponderings...

Phil has recently finished painting up the last of the AWI gun sets I bought in the summer on a visit to Foundry in East Stoke ~

Of course, the set was sculpted by one of the Perry twins while they were working for Foundry and before they set up their own rival figure business. As I’ve said before, I really do prefer painting their Foundry sculpts over their own Perry Miniatures figures, but I recognise that’s a matter purely of personal preference as well as the rather larger range the latter offer now.
As it happens, as I didn’t make Warfare due to illness, I have just ordered some figures from Perry Miniatures for the AWI expansion project: Volunteers of Ireland; American Firing Line in a mix of uniforms and Hunting shirts; and lastly, Mounted Officers in cut down coats. None of these were in their earlier range, so I bit the bullet and steeled myself for the painful business of cleaning up hundreds of vent runs and irritating bits of flash, not to mention the awful packing material they use, which sticks to all those offending bits!
At present though I’m painting up Foundry AWI figures to make a rather informal Loyalist Militia unit. I have in my mind a generic unit, so I’m using a mixture of uniformed Militia and Minute Men with Continental Command figures, as I wanted a more local cut to the dress to delineate the unit from the other units. To help with this I ordered my first AWI flags from Flags of War, from their ‘Make Your Own’ range. I chose a nice red field emblazoned with the words ‘God Save the King’. Very hard choice for a long time republican!
I notice from the Foundry website that they have a decent sale in progress until January 7th 2019. I may take advantage of this to further expand the AWI and the SYW projects, we shall have to see. I’d still like to plan a new project though beyond that and am attracted to their Casting Room Miniatures War of the Spanish Succession range, but don’t want to buy any without seeing them firsthand. If I go down this route then the SYW expansion will be curtailed, so we shall see where we go...

Command Stands for the Italian Wars

When Jon and I played our first Pike & Shotte game with my small Italian Wars collection recently we found there weren’t enough Commanders for the game to run smoothly. So, I ordered some figures from TAG and set about painting up the figures when they arrived and organised them into three Command stands to add to those I already had.
The flags each base sports were a gift from Robbie Roddis who I met for the first time at this year’s The Other Partizan. His blog, Aut Cesare Aut Nihil, lead me to discover his outstanding and inspirational Italian Wars collection. Give it a visit if you don’t know it already!

These three Command stands give me two additional commanders per side now, as I have already completed one other base earlier ~

In addition to the main TAG  Army Command stand for the Borgias ~

I plan to rebase the earlier Command base I made using Casting Room Miniatures in a similar style and size to the TAG one pictured above, but that is a little way down the to do list right now...

Reviewing the Lead Pimple

I’ve been mulling over a new project for 2019, having raised funds by selling off my 20mm Vietnam Wars collection recently. In the light of that thought I took a few moments to review the contents of the Lead Pimple here in GHQ. Here's what I found in stock in the three Really Useful boxes which I use to store the units in various stages of preparation to join the painting queue ~

Box 1 contains the Foundry/Casting Room Miniatures SYW figures I bought earlier in the year, along with a Cran Tara Ecossaise regiment to expand that game. Two new cavalry units, one French, one British; two new infantry regiments, Clare and the 23rd Foot{besides Ecossaise}; four new Command stands - three French and one British.

Box 2 contains my recent Foundry AWI purchase - 2nd Maryland, Loyalist Militia and Continental Dragoons; three Dixon Miniatures ACW regiments I bought last year; a Tsuba Miniatures band, Footsore medics for the VBCW and 1st Corps Vet and Farmer.

Box 3 contains the remnants of my FRW project: a regiment of Trent Miniatures British Light Dragoons and some Scots Greys, still waiting for a Command set!!!!! There's also a tent I picked up and a spare French cannon. 

In all that's about six months worth of painting I'd guess, making a new project seem a bit superfluous at least for now. Perhaps I shall wait and see how the year runs out before I decide what to do? Thoughts are always welcome. In the meantime, some Italian Wars Command stands to finish off first.