Sunday, January 31

Crusade Wargame Show 2010

A long but excellent day was had at Penarth and District Wargames Clubs Crusade show (which funnily enough is in Penarth) yesterday, this was my first opportunity to meet up with DG this year, and although it's a 3 hour drive each way (the show is in another country ie. Wales!) it's a stronger man than I who can turn up his nose at the opportunity to spend more money on wargaming items!!

Better still all the shopping listed items were obtained..!

First stop was the Newline Designs stand in order to replenish my much depleted piles of American Civil war lead. I have to say I was a little perturbed to find that one of the earlier shoppers to the stand had bought 14 American Civil War unit bags in one go! Egad, would there be anything left that I needed??!

I need not have feared - rootling around in the boxes behind the stand he managed to find enough individual packs to put together 2 bags of marching infantry in kepi, and one of marching infantry in slouch hat... I reckon that's enough to put together another four regiments of infantry... as a bonus he put two full limber sets in the fourth bag so all the artillery now has limbers...

If I finish that before the big Salute show then on my shopping list for then will be cavalry (mounted and dismounted) and of course..... ZOUAVES!

Elsewhere at the show DG's eagle eye had spotted Blitzkrieg Commander 2nd Edition - at a pound off. I like a bargain as much as the next man and I like Blitzkrieg Commander almost as much, so a copy was soon purchased!

....and before you know it there goes your spending money for the day..

...so on to the games - it seems to me that the Penarth guys like their science fiction, and it being a smaller type of show the historical game content was not enormous, even so, there were two goodies...

In my second place then was this game - good enough to have been first but for the Hexon terrain which has always looked a little too "busy" for me, even when doing it's job as well as it does here..

The game is set in Italy during WWI and represents the "Hunger Offensive" or the last Austro-Hungarian offensive of the war. This game represents part of Operation Radetzky. The game was sponsored by scarab Miniatures and features there figures (Austro-Hungarian, French and Italian), and Sloppy Jalopy trucks - the rules were a mix of "The Great War" (Warhammer) and "Through the Mud and the Blood" (by Too Fat Lardies).. nice looking game... I particularly liked the trench mortars and the anti-aircraft guns...!







...and in first place was this game which the guys were telling me had appeared at Partizan, and was appearing here for it's last appearance.. another WWI game, but this time set in the Balkans, featuring Turks and Russians in a game called "Carry on up the Caucasus". In 1915 the Russians had launched an offensive on the Turks but to their surprise, fresh reserves, and then reinforcements resulted in them being pushed back, and the Turks re-capturing much lost ground - this game is set in this period and represents a Turkish counter-attack..

Turks are by the Woodbine Design Company, Russians are by Musketeer Miniatures, and the train is by the HLBSC... the rules they were using were the Warhammer "Great War" set..





..it was the train that won this one my best game accolade!

..and that was it... a good day all round!

Thursday, January 28

Carpenter's Battery - gun crews done...

..and finally I managed to get some time the other night to finish off the gun crews to go with the recently completed guns and limbers..


As mentioned in the previous post, for these guns I went with an idea I first used with my Sudan artillery... the guns are not permanently attached to the base..

...which means I can use the guns on the back of the limber when they're not deployed, and also allows me to leave the guns as a marker in the event we get a poor morale result and the gunners decide to scarper..

These guys are so fresh off the basing table (which is a small scruffy corner of the painting table) that it's still possible to see the wet PVA glue in the pictures!

As an experiment I used two shades of grey for these guys - some of them have lighter coloured trousers, some have lighter coloured tunics, some are all the darker shade... I think they look OK.... well..... good enough for me...


Figures are 20mm & by Newline Designs - in the goodness of time I have some wooden barrels, and a wooden ammunition crate, that I found in my "tank stowage" box - I'll add these to the bases once they're done...

After that, the next stop is to complete the Union artillery, at which point we will have enough for our first table top engagement ie. two small brigades and a gun a-piece... perhaps a re-fight of the demonstration battle from Don Featherstone's "Battles with Model Soldiers" is in order...

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An interesting weekend coming up - providing the weather holds up, and it looks OK at the moment - I'm off to Wales for the day on Saturday. Some of you may remember that I attended the Crusade Wargame Show [click here] last year?? Well it's that time again so DG and I will take the opportunity to meet up and have a chat - first time since we played the second of the Raid on St Michel games...

I'm lookign forward to it, especially as I see newline designs will be attending which is surely a good reason to get enough new little metal me to replenish the severely depleted ACW lead pile.. perhaps some zouaves!! If not though, enough kepi'd marching types to build another couple of regiments of foot would go down well.. Cavalry can wait for the time being...

I've also got my mind set on the next edition of Blitzkrieg Commander - the current version met all my requirements for a good playable set that reflected what I'd read about the war. The new version has been met with universal approval by a number of the players whose blogs I follow, so I'll probably buy a set if there's someone there selling it - otherwise I'm happy to wait until Salute to save the postage!

Wednesday, January 20

Carpenter's Battery - limber..

Time for some of the heavy boys in the ACW - and this one really is very heavy...!

As per the unit histories of the other two regiments I've painted so far for the Confederacy, this unit also started off as a volunteer/militia unit.

The "Alleghany Roughs" was an infantry unit from Covington in Alleghany County, Virginia. They came into being on the 20th April, 1861. A few weeks later the unit was mustered into service at Harpers Ferry, Virginia and officially became company A of the 27th Virginia Regiment of the 1st Virginia Brigade of Infantry.

As infantry the unit fought with distinction at Manassas junction, where along with their fellow brigade companions they became known for the first time as the Stonewall Brigade.

The "Alleghany Roughs", or Company A's, first commander was Captain Thomas McAllister but due to illness, he was forced to relinquish command after Manassas to his 1st Lieutenant, Joseph Hanna Carpenter.

When reviewing this change of command, Stonewall Jackson recognised Carpenter's name as one of his former artillery students at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), and on orders from Jackson, the unit was converted from infantry to artillery.

The new unit was called the "Alleghany Artillery" but was known thereafter as "Carpenter's Battery."
The unit numbered approximately 80 men at the time of conversion to an artillery battery, fielding four iron 6-pounder guns from the foundry at Tredegar works in Richmond, Virginia.

By the time they'd got to Gettysburg the unit had acquired two 12-pounder Napoleons and two 3-inch Ordnance Rifles (which were probably captured). The battery remained at fighting strength through most of the war by the addition of new recruits and by gaining the remnants of disbanded artillery units.

Over the course of the war the battery lost 46 men killed and 124 badly wounded. At the formal surrender on the ninth day of April, 1865, the battery had only two men in attendance.

Figures are 20mm, and as per the other units so far by Newline Designs. The limber base is very heavy and I have it mounted on 2mm plastic card - for the next battery (which will be Union) I think I'm going to try and alternative basing method and mount the front pairs of horses separately to cut down on weight - in fact that may still be the plan for these guys! Let's see...

I've painted these to represent a battery of 12lb'er brass Napoleons, not strictly realistic according to some histories I've seen (including the above), but it does match the OOB I have, and these guns were the main stays of both sides artillery..

Next on the painting table are the dismounted crews and the bases to take the actual guns... I'm planning to adopt the same idea I had for the Sudan project, with the crews based on stands but the guns free standing so that I can use them to attach to the back of the limber, or swap for other types of gun once I get some, or even to allow them to be abandoned should the need arise..

Saturday, January 16

New Wargaming Catalonia booklet...

Just a quick update before I get back to the American Civil War artillery on the painting table...

Some of you may remember last year that a few of my fellow bloggers and I with an interest in such things made reference to a truly excellent (and free!) booklet from the Wargames Catalonia [click here] wargame group in Spain, called "Catalonia Stands Alone - 1713-1714: The Catalans' War"... well there's some good news....

First there is now a second edition of the booklet - you can get it [ here ] - it's been updated and added too since the issue that was published last year with new flag pages...

The next piece of news is that the group have published a second booklet for the period, and theatre of war... "Urn of Honour" is about the assault on Barcelona in 1714.. in their words "September 11, 1714, massive assault carried on by over 18,000 Two Crowns' troops on Barcelona after a 13-month-long siege - as well as the chaotic, bloody urban fighting happened in the 20 following hours - as a pretext to compile and review the information we've been able to collect about the French and Spanish infantry, dragoons and artillery battalions directly involved in that out-of-time, Stalingrad-like battle; besides, it also takes into consideration a few Catalan lesser units not studied in our first booklet (either for lack of information enough or physical space)."

Only in Catalan for the time being, but still worth getting for the excellent pictures and graphics - it will be released with English text later this year (hopefully!) You can get it from [ here ]..

...now - back to the painting table and I return you to your normal programming...

Wednesday, January 13

Tom Kitchen..

I happened on this while browsing some other blogs, and just had to share it... 
 
The figure is 1/6th scale (so slightly larger than my usual scale for this period!) and represents Tom Kitchen, who was a private in Meredith's Regiment (later the Hampshire regiment) during the Wars of the Spanish Succession. As it happens I did actually paint that regiment in January 2008 hence my interest..Thinking Smileys 
 
 
For more pictures, the background to the figure, and why it was made click [here] 
 
Elsewhere in Steve-the-Wargamers loft, ACW limbers, artillery & gunners were all under-coated this morning ready for some paint brush attention soonest...

Saturday, January 9

4th Virginia Infantry....

The juggernaut still rolls - more grist for the mills of the Shenandoah has left the painting table...

This unit represents the 4th Virginia (the flag is theirs, by the way, but from later in the war).

The 4th (their brigade nickname was the "Harmless Fourth" because they had no fights in camp!) was first assembled at Winchester, Virginia, in July, 1861. Its companies were made up of militia contingents from the counties of Wythe, Montgomery, Pulaski, Smyth, Grayson, and Rockbridge (all of these were mostly south & south west Virginia).

The Regiment consisted of the following lettered companies:

A. "Wythe Grays" (Wythe county) - Capt. William Terry - Organized in 1859, from the southwest Virginia county of Wythe
B. "Fort Lewis Volunteers" (Montgomery County) - Camp. D Edmundson
C. "Pulaski Guards" (Pulaski County) - Capt. James A Walker
D. "Smyth Blues" (Smyth County) - Capt. Albert G Pendleton
E. "Montgomery Highlanders" (Montgomery County) - Capt. C A Ronald
F. "Grayson Dare Devils" (Grayson County) - Capt. Peyton N Hale
G. "Montgomery Fencibles" (Montgomery County) - Capt R G Terry
H. "Rockbridge Grays" (Rockbridge County) - Capt. James G Updike
I. "Liberty Hall Volunteers" (Rockbridge County) - Capt. J J White - comprised almost exclusively of students, graduates and professors from Washingtpon College, Lexington, Virginia.
J. "Rockbridge Rifles" (Rockbridge County) - Capt. S H Letcher

Late in July, the "Rockbridge Rifles" transferred to the 5th Virginia. Taking its place in the 4th Regiment was company L, a unit without nickname also from the Blacksburg section of Montgomery County.

The regiment fought at First Manassas, Kernstown (as we know), and in the rest of Jackson's Valley Campaign. It then participated in many conflicts of the Army of Northern Virginia from the Seven Days' Battles to Cold Harbour, was with Early in the Shenandoah Valley, and saw action around Appomattox.

The unit reported 5 killed, 23 wounded, and 48 missing at Kernstown, by the time they got to Appomattox Courthouse on April 9 1865, the regiment surrendered with only 7 officers and 38 men (other sources say 1 and 60 but whose counting in the face of such monumental losses??), of which only 17 men were armed...

The first colonel of the 4th Virginia Infantry Regiment was Colonel James Francis Preston of Whitethorn; however, his poor health and a wound suffered at the Battle of First Manassas prevented him from carrying out his duties as regimental colonel for very long. Captain Charles A. Ronald (company E) was promoted to lieutenant colonel, and was assigned to command the 4th Virginia.

Figures are (again) Newline Designs 20mm - this time almost all from "25AC13 Infantry in slouch hat and shell jacket" though I did mix in a couple of guys in kepi.. I'm not too sure whether they'd have been wearing slouch hats, so much this early in the war, but hey, they look good..

The grey for this unit is much darker than my previous regiment - and like my previous concerns I'm not too sure whether this isn't now too dark!

Onwards and upwards however, the next units will be artillery for both sides... after that, more infantry (at least one more regiment per side) and then a regiment of cavalry each...

By the way - this is my 300th post!

Thursday, January 7

Brrrrr........

Minus 8'C around here this evening... I know there are places in the world that are colder, but it's very unusual around here...

Stopped off to check Papillon this morning and was presented with this beautiful view... OK, the fact that the car then got stuck is beside the point, a bit of digging and some welcome assistance soon saw me back on less slippery surfaces.. AIM Smileys







Tuesday, January 5

8th Ohio Infantry... part 2

As promised some much better pictures - click as usual for a much bigger view - I'm particularly happy with a couple of these, two of which show the regiment paraded with their fellow regiment (14th Indiana) in the Gibraltar Brigade...



I did a little more digging after my previous post as I wanted to know a little more about Carroll and found this here...

Depuy was the previous Colonel who Carroll took over from - one of the joys of the web is that you can get such a good insight into the sate of one of your regiments.. it's not something I've enjoyed quite as much for my other, earlier, periods... enjoy!

"October 29, 1861
H[erman] G. Depuy, Colonel, 8th Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Camp Keys, Romney, [Virginia]. To Governor William Dennison. Letter stating that being conscientious in all he did on behalf of the great struggle for constitutional freedom in their disputed country, he felt it his duty to address a few lines to Dennison regarding the regiment which he had the honor to command, that about August 1, while in command of the post at Pendleton, Maryland, his horse bolted and crushed him under a low shed, that this resulted in a serious injury to his spine and side causing partial paralysis of his whole right side, particularly his right leg, that he was entirely helpless without a staff, that he would have hopes of a final recovery if he did not have almost daily symptoms of a second stroke, that in view of his helplessness and the probability of a still worse condition hastened by the exposures of the field, he had come to the conclusion that it was his duty to resign as Colonel of the 8th Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, that in doing so, he did not lose sight of the interests of his command and would therefore state that drunkenness among officers had caused him more trouble than all other vices combined, that in view of this fact, he felt it his duty to recommend Captain Frances W. Butterfield of Company C as a suitable person to fill his place, that Butterfield was temperate to totally abstinent, well drilled, thorough, and full of ardor, that Dennison would never regret Butterfield's appointment, that he learned

from good authority that the regiment had requested Lieutenant Colonel [Charles A.] Park and Major [Franklin] Sawyer to resign in view of inefficiency and intemperance, that he would earnestly recommend Adjutant Joseph R. Swigert for Lieutenant Colonel and Wilbur F. Pearce for Major, that both men were temperate and in every way qualified, that if the regiment took a vote, Swigert and Pearce would be elected, that he believed they were the only persons whose appointment would give satisfaction, that he regretted the long separation from his command and still more regretted the necessity that now compelled him to resign a position which he so much desired to fill, that when he entered the service of his country, he entered it with an honest intention to serve it faithfully to the end of the great struggle, that if he regained his health, he would surely be in the field, that infirmity alone could prevent it, that only in the hands of Swigert and Pearce was his regiment safe for future usefulness, that he had watched the progress of intemperance while prostrated upon a bed of suffering, that while he was in immediate command, intemperance was confined to a few officers, that after he left, intemperance spread until drunkenness was actually the order of the day, that since his return, by the aid of

Butterfield, Swigert, and Pearce, he had succeeded in suppressing the "ruinous evil" and soberness, quietness, and duty were seen to be prevailing, that the total demoralization of his command grew out of the intemperance of his field officers and consequent inattention to the interest of the regiment while he was sick and absent, that Butterfield acted as Major in the Romney battle and his coolness during the terrible raking fire of the enemy's battery was remarkable, that Swigert was mounted near him, where shot and shell fell like hail, and exhibited unsurpassed bravery, that the same could be said of Pearce, and that his resignation would take place on November 9, 1861."

...anyone for a beer??

Sunday, January 3

8th Ohio Infantry

A new year so I decided on a new look to the blog... well... you can't keep standing still, can you...

Without further ado, though, and in remembrance of that totally rubbish painting total I turned in last year, the first unit has now left the painting table and is destined for the Shenandoah Valley...

These guys represent the 8th Ohio infantry who according to my web resources were formed from some of the almost 75,000 volunteers who came forward to serve for 3 months following Lincoln's speech after the Confederates bombarded Fort Sumter. All the men in this regiment came from north-eastern Ohio.

The 8th Regiment formally joined the army on June 22, 1861 (after training etc). Following their initial volunteer period many of them went on to volunteer for three years.

From July 1861 through March 1862, the 8th was part of McClellan’s army in the West Virginia Campaign, where they fought lots of skirmishes but no major battles.

In the March, commanded by colonel Samuel Spriggs "Red" Carroll (pictured above), they were moved to the Shenandoah Valley where for the first time they were brigaded with the the 4th Ohio, the 14th Indiana [click here], and 7th West Virginia Infantry - they were to continue serving together for the next two and a half years.

At Kernstown they suffered almost twenty-five percent casualties - losing forty-six men killed or wounded.

They went on to serve at Antietam, Fredericksburg, as reserves during the Chancellorsville Campaign, Gettysburg, Spotsylvania Court House & finally Cold Harbor (the regiment only had 3 weeks of its enlistment left when they were ordered to attack at Cold Harbour - harsh, to say the least).

The regiment officially mustered out of service on July 13, 1864.

For this regiment I painted up five bases (the "usual" seems to be about 4) which in Regimental Fire and Fury terms represents about 400 men... figures (as usual) are Newline Designs, 20mm.

These are rubbish photo's by the way - I'll try and get some better one's this evening! Sad Smileys

Stay tuned, as the next regiment is under-coated even as we speak - truly a veritable juggernaut has been unleashed....