My Current Projects

I guess honestly the death of our beloved cat, Piglet, has been hitting me harder than I thought. Well, not harder than I thought, but for longer. I sure do miss that fluffy bastard. So I've been throwing myself into the hobby with a lot more enthusiasm lately, I guess trying to stay busy and distract myself.

But yeah, I sold some of my old, unused gaming stuff, and with it bought some 15mm miniatures for Beneath the Lily Banner, the ruleset covering the years 1680 to about 1750, maybe 1760 or so? So the first half of Empire: Total War, haha. My previous post covers it more, but here are pictures of the three infantry battalions that I've finished painting, still need banners.

The blue-uniformed battalions are Bavarians.

While the grey-coated ones are French.

Not content with this project, I'm finally getting my Imperial Fists on! I got a Great deal on the Assault on Black Reach starter set from a friend in SA, but until I get that (soon hopefully,) I didn't have anything to do, 40k related (besides work on my guard heavy weapons, but they're so goddamn boring, ugh), so I bought the new Tactical Squad:

Gave the Sergeant an actual bolter with his chainsword, gotta take full advantage of the Imperial Fist bolter drill rules. These are still very much a work in progress, but lemme tell you: Buy the Army Painter spray paint for whatever color marine army you're going to play. It will save you so much time. Especially if you're painting something as crappy to work with as yellow.

The other secret is my Micron pen. It's got a .2mm head on it, and that's how I did all the black lines on the models. Another Tremendous saver of time and effort. (It's also how I did the script on the purity seals, though I'm not sure the pictures show them that well)

Not content with these two other projects, I let my newfound compatriots at Great Hall Games seduce me with the game Bloody Big Battles. (I'm a sucker for alliteration.) A historical ruleset for battles between 1840 and 1905, it covers the Age of Rifles. Each base is 1,000 men, and the groups of bases in a unit represent either a brigade or a division, depending on how many. The scale of the game is really big, and you can refight the entire three day battle of gettysburg in three or four hours. So HERE you can see my Prussians for the Franco-Prussian war. I also got a French army pack of the same size, in 10mm. "10mm?" you say to yourself, "I can't even Concieve of minis so small!" Well...

They look incredibly easy to paint, you don't have to put much detail on such a small model, and they look great on the table.

This is the Army pack. Four infantry divisions, 5 bases of horses (I don't know how the cavalry was organized, cut me some slack,) and 3 cannons still in the bag. the equivalent of 26,000 men or thereabouts. 

So that's what I'm working on these days, haha. If anybody ever wants to join me in Austin to check out the historical gaming scene, the guys are friendly and they'll let you sit down and join in even if you don't have much experience. Most of them have models enough to share, it all depends on what takes your fancy.

And with my new Imperial Fists company beginning to take shape, I'm hoping to get some more 40k games in under my belt before long, especially with summer just around the corner.

Beneath the Lily Banners- Wargaming from 1680 to the mid 1700s

The Beneath the Lily Banners players in Austin are an incredible group of guys. They let me, with no knowledge of the rules, no miniatures of my own, and very limited knowledge of the period in question, just hover over their game, ask questions, and made me feel incredibly welcome. They invited me to actually play in the next game, which I did!

It was this weird, incredibly fortuitous thing, that I'd just used some of my store credit to buy a bunch of minis for that exact period, intending to use them for another, half assed, barely thought out project. Well now I have a better, higher use to put them too! I'm going to have a force of French and Bavarians. (Background, the period we're playing is the War of the Spanish Succession. The heir to the throne of France was also named heir to the Spanish crown upon the death of their king. England, Holland, the Austrians and most of the Germanies were like "Oh shit, a Franco-Spanish super power would bone us all!" and went to war to keep that from happening.)

Here, you see the field of battle from both sides. The objective was the bridge, and the winner whoever held it. The river was unfordable, and all reinforcements moved onto the table by way of the roads at the table edges.

Some of Jeff's (I'm almost certain his name was Jeff) fantastic Austrians. I love the banners, I wish we had color ink in our printer haha.

Another of the players there had Austrians of their own. This was the era before an army had a set 'infantry' uniform, so while Most french battalions had white or grey coats, with different colors of cuffs and facings, some wore blue coats, while the Irish and Scottish regiments in the service of France (long story) wore red coats. 

(And to add to the confusion, Austrians also tended towards white and grey coated troops. Look at the banners, the Austrians have that black eagle, the French (below) have those striking regimental flags in quarters)

Rank upon serried rank of French soldiery, the pride of the Sun King at the height of French royal power, in the era when French arms reigned supreme.

Above, and below this line of text, you see the initial deployments for both sides. Each general deployed their cavalry, with a few battalions of infantry and some light guns as the advanced guard. 

Our plan was to push our best troops to the bridge as fast as possible. I commanded the French Right wing, which was made up of Dragoons (who are NOT cavalry the same way Cuirassiers and heavy horse are, they aren't supposed to fight mounted against anything but routing infantry), and a bunch of utterly raw conscripts. I was supposed to delay the enemy while the real fight happened to our left.

The initial contact was made by the opposing wings of Cavalry. 

Here, the French Dragoons under my command have the extraordinary luck of catching the enemy heavy horse in a column of manoeuvre, unprepared to fight. Punching well above their weight, the dragoons manage to push them back, eventually routing their foe, clearing the road over the hill for the infantry to advance.

(My favorite French flag)

The Savoy troops to my front turned to their right, as if to advance on the bridge.

They were shortly to turn to the left and form the center of the Austrian/Savoyard battle line.

The French left flank, featuring a cavalry clash where I'm pretty sure the Austrian dragoons kicked our own heavy cavalry from one end of the field to the other. You can see the commanding position our guns had on the hill in the center there, while the redcoated battalion of Irish expatriates was to shortly bear the brunt of the enemy's cavalry.

Here, and below, you see the Savoyard reinforcements I was facing, march across the field into position.

My own brave troops march over the hill, drums pounding and banners flying.

If only they weren't raw recruits. So many negative modifiers to my dice rolls..

Once our battle lines closed, my own casualties quickly mounted in the face of the trained Savoyard musketeers.

Here, and in the next few pictures, you can really get a sense of the main forces for each army advancing on the bridge.

The French infantry speeds towards the bridge, but...

... The Austrian columns reach the bridge first, and because of time constraints, the game ended. I would have preferred to fight for several more hours, honestly. My own flank was caving in, but all our best forces had yet to engage. The Austrians and the French, both, had 7 or 8 battalions of infantry each that had not done anything but follow the road to the bridge.

I still had an absolute blast, and look forward very much to our next game.