Friday, February 24

ECW eye candy and the knotty question of depth...

Recent posts have discussed the question of basing, and numbers of figures per base for my burgeoning* ECW project..  and some very enjoyably commentary and banter ensued..  but whilst doing my usual browse of the interweb this lunchtime I saw these on the hugely talented Iron Mitten's blog page [clicky]..

Copyright Iron Mitten

I'm not going to do it, for all the reasons previously described, but isn't that a cracking looking unit and how fine does three ranks look!? They are by the way - the Earl of Manchester's Regiment of Foote

Copyright Iron Mitten

...by way of a contrast here they are in their previous basing incarnation...  still stupendous - so the decision to go with two ranks is still safe...  in this case two ranks of two...  but nonetheless...  he did have one handy little tip though which is to add an extra pikeman to the pike bases just to give a really crammed, dense, effect..  brilliant... 

Copyright Iron Mitten

* burgeoning it is, as well, since the first regiment in my project await paint even as we speak, having gone through, and now completed, the entirely hideous process of gluing on heads and pikes - if I wanted to make models I'd buy an Airfix kit for Heaven's sake... they have been spray painted - none of the aforementioned heads or pikes fell off - hopefully I'll have some time to start this weekend..

Thursday, February 23

Recommended!

...just read this and gave it a 9/10.. even better value at the daily deal price! 😀

Fill yer boots [clicky]...   


Wednesday, February 15

Kernstown....

While I wait for bases and pikes to arrive for the emergent English Civil war Project, just a little post to tidy up this phase of the "other Civil war" project.. 

My American Civil War project is based round the Battle of Kernstown - not one of the better known battles of the war, but it is best known as the only battle Stonewall Jackson 'lost'.. whilst doing my research for the last Union regiment I found this book online and it's amazing reading..    recommended if you have any interest in the conflict...

...the following is an extract dealing with the specific regiments in my project, and their part in the battle..  I've put linkages to the posts featuring the units where relevant...


•  •  •

"The Battle of Kernstown, entered its second phase when Colonel Nathan Kimball [clicky], weary of the dominance of Jackson’s cannons, sent Tyler’s 2,300-man brigade to silence them.

Tyler.. ran headlong into the lead regiment of the Stonewall Brigade - the 27th Virginia [clicky] - badly outnumbered, these 200 men .. fell back behind a half-mile-long, shoulder-high stone wall that ran east to west and rose and fell with the broken landscape.


Tyler’s opening gambit.. was a grievous mistake.. To take his men more efficiently through the wood, he had formed them in “column by divisions.”.. instead of long, linear, two-man-deep battle lines.. Two companies made up the front line; behind them stretched the other forty-eight companies in twenty-four lines.. in that configuration they indeed moved easily through the woods on the northern part of Sandy Ridge.

Minutes later.. Tyler’s lead companies found themselves at the edge of the leafless wood, looking 150 yards across open ground to the stone wall, from which poured volley after volley of musket fire... while their rebel opponents shouted “Bull Run!”.. Jackson’s artillery opened up with canister on the Federal left, and Union soldiers, who were not trained to fight in a box formation, immediately found themselves in serious trouble. Once the firing started, it was almost impossible, because of the noise, smoke, and confusion, to shake themselves out into conventional battle lines by companies and regiments.... The fire was so hot that the 110th Pennsylvania fled backward through the ranks of the 29th Ohio just behind them

Jackson saw that he needed more soldiers, and began to feed the fight. Under his orders, Lieutenant Colonel John Patton and the 21st Virginia Regiment [clicky], 270 men strong, advanced to the stone wall, where they poured a hot fire into the Union ranks. .. two regiments against five.

Tyler’s first, unsuccessful assault had been on the eastern end of the stone wall. Now he noticed that the western end was undefended, and ordered an attack there... 23rd and 27th Virginia Regiments [clicky] coming forward after being cannonaded for the better part of two hours, saw the same weakness .. a deadly footrace. The [Union] 1st West Virginia .. from the north, while the [Confederate] Virginia boys lunged from the south. The Confederates won, by seconds. They set up quickly behind the wall, 500 of them, opening up with their smoothbores loaded with “buck and ball” (a bullet attached to three pieces of buckshot that combined the characteristics of a musket and a shotgun) on the West Virginians, who were only fifty yards away. At point-blank range, the effect .. was deadly.

Tyler .. had been repulsed twice... Confederates .. began to bring additional regiments to the wall. Brigadier General Richard Garnett [clicky] finally arrived .. with the rest of his Stonewall Brigade, and inserted the 33rd Virginia [clicky] just to the right of the 21st Virginia Regiment [clicky] ... 2nd Virginia [clicky] came up, too, as did the Irish Battalion, to fill another gap in the wall. The Federals, meanwhile, had managed to untangle themselves into disorganized clots of men at the edge of the woods, 150 to 200 yards from the stone wall.. able, from behind trees and rocks and declivities, to deliver a constant stream of fire. Along the wall, the Confederate soldiers who fell almost invariably did so with horrible head wounds, many of them lethal, caused by huge .59-caliber minié balls..

By 4:30 p.m., a little more than half an hour into the fight, Jackson’s 1,200 men behind the wall had created a stalemate with the larger force, which was disorganized and strung out along a four-hundred-yard front that was fifty to five hundred yards from the stone wall.

Jackson had .. had less than half the troops his enemy had on the battlefield. His men were armed with smoothbores, while all but three Federal regiments had far more accurate rifled muskets. He had only three rifled cannons against the Union’s fourteen. .. he still had three regiments in reserve and less than two hours of daylight, and the odds had gone up considerably for a drawn battle - one that would accomplish everything he had been ordered by Johnston to do, and more.

At .. around 4:30 p.m. .. Kimball [clicky] gathered up regiments on his unthreatened left and sent them  into the fight at the eastern end of his battle line. .. at the wall, the last hour of the fight.. Kimball’s fresh troops were shouldering into Jackson’s bone-tired, battle-weary force. For Jackson it was a race to darkness. The fighting at the wall, brutal and constant for a full hour, now turned desperate.

At about 5:30 p.m, as the sun was setting .. the Confederate soldiers at the wall began to run out of ammunition. It began .. with the courageous 27th Virginia [clicky] , the men who had started the fight at the stone wall. They had carried only forty to sixty rounds in their cartridge boxes to begin with, and whatever ammunition the valley army had was sitting several miles away, back on the valley pike .. Fresh, well-armed Federal regiments were coming up to replace regiments that were themselves running out of bullets. Kimball was beginning, at last, to use his numerical advantage to extend his line.

..two fresh [Union] Indiana regiments, the 13th [clicky] and 14th [clicky], hit the eastern part of the wall, whose defenders had virtually no ammunition left. Fearing envelopment, Garnett, at about 6:00 p.m., called retreat. .. Jackson, incredulous, then rode back and forth .. loudly exhorting the men back into battle. .. he was too late, as were the reserve 5th and 42nd Virginia Regiments he had summoned, who arrived at about 6:30 p.m but could do no more than help cover the retreat.

..the rest was messy. Men fell back in disorder; regiments fell apart in the oncoming darkness; the army became formless. The Union cavalry for once showed some aggressiveness, riding around the disintegrating Confederate left flank and rounding up several hundred prisoners, who were later paraded through the streets of Winchester. .. Jackson ordered the bloodied army into bivouac about five miles south of the battlefield.
•  •  •

"Jackson’s men .. had marched twelve to fifteen miles in the morning, had been subjected to galling artillery fire, then had stood with astounding bravery at a stone wall for two hours under a barrage of Union lead. They had fought to their last bullet .. The almost universal feeling was that with ammunition they would have held. “The . . . little army had been heavily engaged, and although confronted by large odds, held its own, and only retired after shooting all its ammunition away,” wrote John Worsham of the 21st Virginia Regiment [clicky]. “It seems to me that the 21st Virginia would have held its line indefinitely if it had been supplied with ammunition. It was a regular stand-up fight with us, and as stated the men . . . fought as I never saw any fighting during the war.""

Amazing...

From "Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson" by S C Gwynne - read it here... [Clicky]

Sunday, February 12

No plan survives..

.... first contact with the enemy.. 😀

Paul at Tumbling Dice was as good as his word and the day after the email saying they had been dispatched, a padded envelop dropped on the mat at Chateau Steve the Wargamer..  ordered lunch time Thursday and in my sweaty hands by Saturday lunchtime..  not bad!

So with time to spare the bag was opened for a more detailed look this morning, and the first thing that struck me was 'wow, these are nice!'. Second thing that struck me was the sight of the somewhat macabre little bag of heads that came in each ziploc (the figures come with separate heads). In the case of the pike men, they are cast with open hands for either your own, or the supplied soft metal, pikes. Third thought, though, was that it might be a bit of struggle to go with my planned basing..!


I had envisaged 30mm bases for this project as all my projects are based on either 30mm or 50mm squares. 50mm was clearly going to be too big (not only in width but also depth).. a regimental frontage of 20cm is big, but not only that, two ranks is a bit thing on 50mm depth, and I'm really not sure I want to go to 3 ranks (even though it is far more realistic for the deployments of the time)..

So first experiment was with the 30mm square bases.. not six per base then (what was I thinking..) but four per base - click to embigen - these are from packs ECW2 (musketeers on the wings) and ECW4 (pikes) all of these are early period English Civil War, so far more armour than there would have been later, and you'll also note the musket rest which was also discarded fairly quickly as the wars progressed.. The drummer and officer holding sword aloft (lovely figure!) are from ECW31 (the command pack - which comes with moulded flags)


...bases are large and were all clipped to get them on the stands..  the musketeers firing bases are big though, and squeeze the available space to the maximum..


So...  time to take the experiment further and the next logical step is 40mm..


..better! Still no room for 6 per base but much better.. it also allowed room to fit an ensign/standard bearer so the command stand in the middle has five figures..


...or, I have a separate smaller command stand in front, allowing an additional pike on the central base (replacing the drummer), but leaving the ensign in the main body..


..that's it I think..


...better get an order in for some 40mm square bases as these lot are already on the painting sticks ready for undercoat..!  

By the by, I'm going to use Edgehill as the source for my units, and these guys are destined to become Charles Gerard's Regiment of Foot, this regiment served in Charles Gerard's brigade under the command of Sir Jacob Astley ..  the following borrowed from Iron Mitten's blog page [clicky] simply because it is a lovely, lovely, picture..  he's a talented bloke and I hope he doesn't mind!

Copyright Iron Mitten

Friday, February 10

Here we go..!

..no turning back...  😏

Tuesday, February 7

13th Indiana

The veritable painting frenzy that 2017 is thus far, continues with the arrival in the ranks of the Union Army of the 13th Indiana.. 
Robert "Sandy" Sanford Foster (courtesy Wikipedia)
The 13th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment was organised at Indianapolis from volunteers in camp and was originally mustered for state service for one year, but was one of the first four regiments who extended that to three years. They were mustered into service on June 19, 1861.

Their commanding officer at Kernstown was Robert "Sandy" Sandford Foster (left) who was born in Vernon, Indiana in 1834; his pre-war career was as a tinner (or tin-smith).

Foster had enlisted as a private in the Indiana volunteers at the start of the war but was quickly promoted to captain in the 11th Indiana Infantry Regiment where he saw action at the Battle of Rich Mountain.

After these battles he was transferred to the 13th first as a major but shortly after was promoted to colonel (April 30, 1862) - from private to Colonel in a year, and still only 28 not bad for a tin-smith!


Foster went on to lead the regiment throughout Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign of 1862 until his regiment was transferred to southeast Virginia a few months after Kernstown (which is the focus for this wargame project).


The regiment went on to extensive action and was eventually mustered out on September 5, 1865. Apropos of nothing Foster was given a Brigade after the transfer to south east Virginia, but ended the war as a (brevetted) major general with a divisional command, interestingly he was also as a member of the commission which tried the Lincoln Conspirators. He retired from the army in September 1865 and lived to 1903.


During the war the the 13th Indiana Infantry lost 3 officers and 104 enlisted men killed and mortally wounded, and 2 officers and 146 enlisted men by disease. Total 255.


Figures as ever are by Newline, and their completion brings something of a halt to the project for the time being as I now have 1 regiment of horse, six regiments of foot, and one battery of artillery a side..  quite enough for a decent game on a six foot table..  I can see more of all types in the future but now I want to get the English Civil War project off the ground..!

Friday, February 3

Bear with...

....normal service will be resumed just as soon as this irritating thing called "life" gets out of the way and gives me a breather...

...so (and my English teacher told me never to start a sentence with so, but so what.. 😏) stay tuned for ....
  • the 13th Indiana are painted and ready to join the Union ranks - also spray coated - just need to base them and terrain the bases... oh, and tidy up the unit history to go with the post..
  • not knowing what has come over me the dhow has also received successive dry brushes of dustier and dustier brown - next step the boom and sail (lateen) and some minimal/basic rigging before it joins the forces of the Mhadi - almost 12 months after the last post [clicky].. 
  • I have also completed my first draft of the English Civil War rules I'll use - I gave up trying to find a commercial set, and have adapted the Will McNally SYW rules (that were also adapted/used for WSS) - they work for me and so I'm not going to lose any sleep over "trying something new"...  either way, with a basing decision made it's time to start thinking about purchasing some little metal men!

Proposed basing for the new ECW project... mass is for militia/clubmen/highlanders... for "hedgehog" read stand of foot preparing to 'receive horse'... horse will deploy in line or column - two figures per base, four bases per unit

DG and I have played the Late Arrivals scenario from One Hour Wargames almost twice now - the second game is on turn 9 (out of 15) - two very different games I think it safe to say! I'll put together a post on it soon...

Laters..  life is calling... 😏