Dawns and Departures AWI Campaign

The redoubtable Andrew Parkes has volunteered to umpire a Sharp Practice campaign using the Dawns and Departures campaign rules. This is very welcome. Coincidentally the equally redoubtable David Lambert had organised a Sharp Practice day at Pendraken Miniatures on the outskirts of Middlesbrough, so it seemed a good idea to combine the two and get some campaign turns in 

Three (I think) days in and the Tyrannical British have attacked the brave freedom loving Americans at Hymer's Farm. There was a small force of Continentals there, augmented on the day by some irregular skirmishers. 

Initially the Continentals, with support from locals harassing from a nearby orchard caused some casualties to the British Light Infantry that were covering the main advance.

The Yankees made the Redcoats fight hard for the farm, but were eventually forced to withdraw by overwhelming numbers back along the road, leaving the farm to the depravations of the Brits. 

A good little fight and got us back into the rules. Thanks to Andy for umpiring, David for organising, and Paul for opposition. 

A theoretical two thirds.............followed by a very real and nice three and a half

So today I finished (almost) the group of "third Rank" skirmishers. That means, if you squint, I've completed two of the three units in my Sharp Practice Austro-Hungarians. The catch is the final third is another big unit of fusiliers, 24 foot plus two officers.

Here are the skirmishers - as you can see they still need the basing doing but I think I'll do the whole force at once to keep some visual homogeneity. 

This doesn't mean the project is getting to an end. Once the core force is complete I'll need another 16 points of supports to use depending on scenarios. "Luckily" the core force is about 64 points, meaning I'll normally not need much extra if facing the French forces which tend to be quite low on base force points. I figure a unit of artillery and maybe some Jager is 14 of those 16 points, leaving a few spare for the odd or scenario supports.

As an aside I had three and a half pints of Elland 1872 Porter, Champion Beer of Britain five times and one of the nicest \ strongest beers I've had in a long time. Sadly the brewery closed it's doors this month so that will most likely be the last I ever get. Sad really.

Before the beer hit me I did manage to stick together the last of the fusiliers so I will hopefully not have too many halts once the production line restarts.

I stuck together 24 Fusiliers (only 16 in this pic) plus a drummer (Musician), NCO , Colour bearer and Pioneer. They will all come in useful as support options.

Tomorrow I'm attending a Sharp Practice day at Pendraken Miniatures, hopefully my Rebellious Colonists will throw off the oppressive yolk of Perfidious Albion! 

Cheers

  

 

General Update - Get off your keyboard and man your brush!

I'm trying to spend time painting rather than playing games on the pc. Turns out this makes my modelling more productive - who would have thought?

Having finished the first unit of Austrians I ran into he soft sand a bit. Basically my desire not to get put off by a large pile of unpainted plastic and lead meant I only assembled enough to do the first unit. Now that is done I discovered I had a few issues.

Firstly I didn't have any assembled figures - easy enough to fis there are boxes of then in easy reach (gulp)

Secondly I didn't have enough 20x20mm mdf bases for a second unit anyway.

Thirdly, I've lost (or possibly used?) the white rattle-can I am using to undercoat them

This has caused an unplanned pause. Luckily I also had spent a little time ruminating over the Austrian list for Sharp Practice and decided I would like to get a group of "Third Rank" skirmishers in the basic force. Historical side note - The Austrian-Hungarian Infantry Battalions of the Napoleonic Period were a little different to many others. The Battalions didn't have a designated Light Company as seen in contemporary British and French units tasked with skirmishing. Instead the Austrians relied on taking troops from the third rank of formations and sending them out to skirmish. It's not an ideal solution to say the least. Mulling this over, I thought it would be more appropriate for my main force to use these as my skirmishers rather than the original Grenzers or Jagers. So I ordered a pack from Perry's along with some extra command etc. These arrived yesterday as I was heading out for the other supplies. I went to Pendraken for some more bases, and picked up some spray paint, so the wheels are back on. 

I've decided its easier to base and put some sand \ grit on the bases before starting to paint - part of the changes I made to the process of painting based on the first unit. 

So the next unit on the production line is the Third Rank skirmishers. I have one group of six which in true Austrian fashion is totally inadequate to screen the main unit in line but I'm thinking that is a bonus as it will encourage me to deploy in columns, at least while I try and manoeuvre.  To be honest this is probably going to be necessary anyway as the 24 man units in line are a bit unwieldy if there is any terrain or obstacle in the way. Memo to self - reread the section in Sharp Practice about changing formation!

Anyway that's all for now - I feel obliged to include a pic so here is the next group of line infantry assembled and ready for undercoat

Cheers! 

     

Austrian Update - First unit done!

 A fortnight after buying them and the first unit is (almost) done. I still need to work on the bases a bit and get some movement trays, but here is the first 24 man line Infantry unit completed. I'm quite chuffed!

They come with two Leaders, an Officer and an NCO. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not. I suspect the NCO will be useful once the action starts but as a junior leader all he can do is rally shock really. Anyway here is the boss

Almost certainly a Prohaska

I'm pretty sure I need to keep the momentum up but I need more 20x20 bases so I think the next unit will be either the Jagers or the Artillery unless I can make a quick trip to Pendraken in the next few days.

Hornblower update - Go Big or, OK just go Big

I mentioned the Napoleonic Naval Landing Party (Royal Navy of course) I was putting together for Sharp Practice. 

One of the units I think I'll take is an artillery piece. This is not much of a revelation as it's a staple of the Hornblower stories, a naval gun landed to support the sailors ashore. I have a 28mm gun on a naval carriage ready to go, which I'm classing as a "light" gun. I suspect this is actually a 6 or 9 Pdr so is possibly a medium gun in Sharpe Practice but there is a bonus in flexibility I suppose.  I based it on a 40x20mm base (just the gun) with the five crew on 20x20 bases, and chuck in a bit of based scatter gives me enough bases to fill a standard movement tray from Warbases which I like using to speed movement up. 

I was digging through the spares box and found a rather larger naval gun. This came originally from (of all places) a Dungeons and Dragons miniatures blister pack. No idea why they did it but gift horses etc. This got me thinking. In Sharp Practice you can get bigger guns, and the big ones are very intimidating indeed on the receiving end. The other factor involved is no matter the size, in game terms they all have five crew - a box I have already ticked. I figure if I can get the big gun on a 40x20 base I can swap it out with the same crew so I have the option of a heavy gun!

There is rather a lot of handwaving and fast talking that will be needed at this point as to how \ why such a big gun is ashore, as it looks like it may even be a 24 or 32 Pdr

and I will probably have to put some planking on the base to at least show willing that the crew have thought about the size and weight of the thing. 

Next I'll have to think about Deployment Points........

Hornblower update - a bit of a rethink

My initial thoughts on the makeup of my Naval Landing Party for Sharp Practice were as follows:

1 unit of 3 bases of 8 Royal Marines

1 unit of 6 skirmishing sailors with muskets

1 unit of 12 sailors with mixed weapons - boarding pikes, pistols etc.

1 Light gun and crew - I have a couple of bullocks to stand in as a limber team

The Marines were to be classed the same as normal British Line troops. The skirmishing sailors as Irregular skirmishers, and the other sailors as "Tribal" massed infantry with tomahawks as suggested on the Lard Island forum. So far so good. The sizes of the units is based more on what is available in the blisters from Perry Miniatures as much as anything else.

I've been rethinking this a bit. The proportions feel a bit wrong, particularly the preponderance of Marines over sailors, so I an thinking about a reshuffle. I'll reduce the Marines to only 2 bases of Marines and possibly using the excess to form a unit of skirmishers (Do RMs train as skirmishers???), and adding a second group of both musket armed sailors and melee types. That will change the mix up a bit and give me some options for some support points. This is all dependent on Andy Parkes agreeing to paint some more figures to match the ones he already has done, but he is a Fine Chap so I have some hope there.

What do you think?

Not getting even a bit distracted honest.................

I'm still making progress on the Austrians for Sharp Practice, and in the next few days I'm going to be working on some sailors to help with the Naval Landing Party - Hornblower et al.

However I've got an invite to Pendraken Wargames on Saturday 24th February where there is going to be a Sharp Practice day. There is no real chance of the Austrians making it in time, nor the Royal Navy, so I'm taking my AWI Continentals to face off again against Paul's Redcoats. Checking the list it's clear I really need a Deployment Point - actually I need a DP and a mobile one for my Continental Light Infantry. The first will be this nice little camp scene I've just finished, the second will probably be a Light Infantry scouting party or similar assuming inspiration strikes.

Anyway here is my Deployment Point -  a camp scene complete with small dog. 

Dogs are of course essential and this one is based on my pet mongrel from my youth. It's a well travelled dog as it was rescued from an earlier camp that I painted many years ago and he's been hanging around waiting for a new role. 

Back to Austrians - only four rankers and two Leaders and the first unit will be ready.

Cheers