Wargaming Again

So, its been since April that I put anything on the blog.  In the meantime, we moved from Kansas City, Missouri to Fort Collins, Colorado.  I am retired now, and we had decided a long time ago to move back to Colorado.

 I miss the guys I gamed with in Kansas City.  They are a great bunch, and I had many good times.

Since coming to Fort Collins, I have gamed with my brother, playing Arc of Fire.  I enjoyed it very much, and will paint figures for it.  I played a game of Desperado at the local game store (Gryphon Games) and that was fun also.

This weekend, my friend Brad Thorton came up and we played the first game ever with my 40mm figures painted for the ImagiNations of the Grand Duchy of Waldo and the Ruskin Palatinate.  We were using the rules All the King's Men, from the website of the same name.

http://www.allthekingsmentoysoldiers.com/

The rules were written for their 54mm figures, I hope they will excuse us for playing with the diminutive 40mm figures.

The rules are easy to play.  The units are 12 for infantry, 6 for skirmishers or cavalry.  I have no cavalry at this time, so we had equal forces:

1 grenadier unit
3 line units
1 skirmisher unit
1 gun

We ended up playing 2 games, it moves quickly.  Its a card based game, where you take two of the suits out of the deck.  Each side is then moving on either red or black cards.  Each unit starts the turn with a green marker.  When a unit is moved, it degrades to a yellow marker, and if it moves again in the turn, it goes to red.  Green units firing have successes on 4/5 and 6, yellow on 5 and 6, and red on 6.  Units can and do get activated multiple times in a turn.  At the beginning of the next turn, all the units go back to green markers.

Firing is an opposed roll, with the firing unit needing more successes than the defending unit to cause casualties.  Taking fire casualties also causes a drop in color for the unit.

Melee is an opposed roll, but both sides take all the casualties caused by the other.  The attacker, no matter what his color going in, rolls as green in melee.  At the end of the melee, both units are automatically red, no matter what color they started.

The first game was a straight up battle.

Brad was on the far side with the Grand Duchy of Waldo, I am the closer army with the Ruskin Palatinate.  This battle ended up with a definite win for the Grand Duchy of Waldo.  I used my grenadiers to charge a unit, but then a fresh unit on the other side charged them and destroyed them.  I had previously lost my skirmishers and one other unit.  If you lose half your units the game is lost.

The second battle was a little more challenging.  a river crossed the table, with a bridge in the middle.  There were two fords by the woods along the river, causing you to lose speed for the ford and the woods.  Each side's skirmishers started on the table a foot from the bridge.  I managed to put my skirmishers on the bridge, and push two units across a ford.  I caught Brad in a crossfire and defeated his units in detail.

It was a fun day, and I liked the rules.  They are a free download at the All the King's Men website.  They have more tactical decisions than you might imagine for a free set of rules, and worth a look.

ImagiNations

Again I have been awful about posting.  I have been very busy.  I retired at the end of January.  We have been getting our house ready to sell, and now have a contract pending the inspection and appraisal.  

Its an unusual house, and we love it, but its time to move back to Colorado.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLGiZy-bVqM

So, I have most of my wargaming stuff packed.  I am working on finishing up some units.

I have been working on ImagiNations in two different periods, but with the same countries.  They are the Grand Duchy of Waldo, and the Palatinate Ruskin.  Both are named after neighborhoods in Kansas City.

So the figures on the left that unpainted are 40mm grenadiers for the Palatinate Ruskin.  They are being done in NQSYW units, to use with the Charge! rules.  The cavalry in the foreground are the Grand Duchy of Waldo Light Dragoons from the late 1800s/early 1900s.  The rules are not totally decided yet, but will be old school.

I am sorry to be leaving Kansas City and the Thursday night group that games at Jaye's house.  I am looking forward to gaming with my brother and other gamers I have known for over 30 years in the Denver area.

Grand Duchy of Waldo first unit

I have become a fan of 40mm figures.  I bought Prince August Molds, and am making armies for Charge! I also was interested in the period around the end of the 1800s and beginning of the 1900s.  I bought a bunch of figures from Spencer Smith's Shiny Toy Soldier line.
They require some assembly.  You have to attach their right arm and the head.  The variety of uniforms gives you a lot of choices.
I bought figures for two sides.

This is the first unit.  Its painted in Toy Soldier style, with a shiny finish.  

Charge! Regiment finished

I finished the third company for my first Charge! regiment.  Three 16 man companies each with an officer and NCO, and a Regimental officer with flagbearer and drummer.

This brings my total to 102 figures and 2 guns with the grenadier company, light company and gun battery.

As yet I have no cavalry.  I haven't had much luck getting the cavalry molds to come out right.  I also am not sure what I am going to do for a mounted officer, which I would like to have for my infantry.

I still have another company of infantry to start painting up.  That will probably be a different coat color for a different country.

I haven't painted this many figures in years.  I find I really enjoy the whole process of casting and painting up the figures.

NQSYW Light Infantry Company

Latest addition to the forces of the Grand Duchy of Waldo, the first company of the light infantry regiment.

This brings the total forces to:

2 companies line infantry
1 company grenadier infantry
1 company light infantry
1 artillery battery

My next project is the third company for the line regiment, which will finish that unit.

NQSYW - An Afternoon Casting

I had painted all the 40mm figures that I had cast.  The weather was going to be 65 and sunny, perfect day for casting some figures for winter painting.
I recently bought another infantry mold, in a slightly different pose.  That one and my regular infantry figure were both casting well today.  I got 2 full companies of infantry, and a company of light infantry.  Actually, I just clipped the bayonets from 12 regular infantry and will paint them in dark green.
With command figures, it all came to 51 foot.
I also tried again to cast cavalry.  I thought I was doing well, until I went to cut the sprue metal off of them.  All but five had the swords break off.  Oh well, I will try that again.
All in all, a great day casting.
This will give me the final company for my regiment, and a light company.  I now also have an extra company of infantry, which will get painted with a different coat color, as I plan to start doing a second army.

NQSYW - Artillery Battery

I recently finished an artillery battery for the Grand Duchy of Waldo's army.  That brings me to 2 companies of line infantry, a company of grenadiers, and an artillery battery.  I need to finish out one more company of line infantry, some light infantry, and some cavalry.  I recently got a new cavalry mold, and I have a second mold of my main infantryman on the way.

A Morning Spent Casting

I recently got a cannon mold and 2 molds of artillerists for my NQSYW project.  I also got an order of metal in from Rotometals.  It was supposed to be in the mid-70s until around 11, so I decided to take advantage of the good weather and see if I could get a battery done.

Casting brand new molds always is a problem, but I got them to cast after some careful venting.  The cannon mold was used, and cast pretty well once it got warmed up.

So now I have enough for a battery for my Grand Duchy of Waldo force.