Fistful of Lead: Horse & Musket

After weeks of work, we finally played our first game of Fistful of Lead: Horse & Musket with our Napoleonic figures. It occurs to me that despite Napoleonic skirmish being a major thing in the writings of Donald Featherstone and the British wargaming magazines I used to read in my youth, this was the first Napoleonic skirmish game that I have actually played.

I used the scenario from a Sharp Practice campaign (which FG and I used to fight our Sludge campaign), pitting three squads of French soldiers - the 26th of the Line, the Legion du Midi, and the Hanoverian Legion - against two of British - the famous 95th Rifles. The Rifles had the advantage of range, and started hidden and in cover.

The rules were easy to pick up and remember, but despite only giving the Leader and Second traits (instead of giving every figure traits as per the rules) we had difficulty remembering to use them. The need to spend a full turn reloading after each shot made shooting less effective than in more modern games, so the French decided to force the issue with a bold advance into hand-to-hand combat. This turned out badly for them, and they fell back from the village.

Overall the rules are fun and quick, although I find that the use of a d10, while OK in shooting, makes hand-to-hand combat too swingy. I enjoyed the rules enough to want to expand my collection so I can provide both sides for a game that I can take to future conventions.

A Fistful of Sludge

With only FG and I free for our September game, we decided to try out the Fistful of Lead: Horse & Musket rules, but with our Sludge figures.

The rules are pretty straightforward, but with each of us running two squads, we had to reduce the number of traits for the figures.

In the photos you can see the 32mm discs that I bought to use to indicate if a figure's weapon was loaded; fortuitously, they also fit a 20mm square base, which is what my Sludge figures are based on.

Empires at War 28mm Spanish/Italian Set

For our Peninsular War skirmish project, I bought a set of MDF buildings from Empires at War.

These are excellent kits. I bought the "prepainted" version, which meant that the external faces of the walls were coated with a textured sandstone coloured paint. This served as both a primer and basecoat for the walls. Once assembled, I used a large make-up sponge to dab white paint over the surfaces, avoiding the bases of the walls and around doors and windows, which gave a weathered look to the buildings.

The pantile roofs were styrene sheets, while the spines of the roofs were provided in the form of a coloured, scored dowels; a coat of watered-down red-brown craft paint tied the two together, and provided the weathering effect.

One of the packs came with a frame missing, and so I couldn't build a storage bin on the side of the building, and had to make my own doors out of balsa - but it was an easy fix.

I will certainly buy from the range if I want to expand my collection of pantile roof buildings.

Perry Miniatures Elite Companies French Infantry 1807-14 again

Here are five more figures from Perry's box set, painted as voltigeurs of the 26th Regiment of the Line. I have chosen this unit as it was brigaded with the Legion du Midi, which I have painted earlier. While the uniforms are of the same cut, these guys were harder to paint due to the piping on their uniforms.

With these guys done, we are on track for a game of Fistful of Lead in October.

Printable Scenery Country Low Walls

With our recent focus on 28mm skirmish wargaming, I wanted to add a set of low stone walls to my terrain collection. I wanted something that would work for both Northern Europe and Iberia, and preferably for both 28mm and 20mm.

I ended up getting a set of Country Low Walls from Printable Scenery. The seller I bought it from printed it at a resolution where you can see the print lines. To avoid emphasising the print lines, I dispensed with washing, and  highlighted by dabbing instead of drybrushing.

The walls are scaled for 28mm, but as my figures are based on slotta bases, the walls reached just to their waists.

I primed the pieces grey, picked out individual stones in red brown, yellow brown, dark green, and dark grey, then dabbed the whole thing with medium grey. This helps the walls blend with both the green mat I use for our Northern European games, and also the arid map we use for our Iberian games.

In terms of height the walls work well for 20mm, as shown by these Spanish Civil War figures from Minairons Miniatures. The individual stones do look a little big though.

As part of research for buying and painting the walls I read a few websites on dry stone walls in Europe. It's a rather fascinating subject and worth learning about if you have some free time.

Battletech Alpha Strike and Tacta

We had a total of five players for our August session, and we decided to play another multi-player game of Battletech Alpha Strike, which was always a crowd favourite since everyone loves to have a chance to field their mechs.

For my part I though it was a chance for me to field my ZOD force. I picked a few units from the Battletech Master Unit List that looked close to the models I have, and we just went head-to-head.

 

Afterwards, we played a game of Tacta, which I enjoyed so much that I think I will get a copy of.

Battlefleet Gothic

 

FG and I got together for a game of Battlefleet Gothic a couple of weeks back. I have always liked to try the game, but never got around to actually acquiring the stuff required for a game, so this was all FG's efforts.

He had printed an Imperial and a Chaos fleet at 50% scale, and painted them. I thought they looked very effective at this scale - they certainly are more in line with the sci-fi starships we already have in our collection.

The basic rules were easy to pick up, but no doubt there are depths to these rules that are beyond me now.