Perry Miniatures Spanish Guerrillas

Here are fifteen Spanish Guerillas from Perry Miniatures' plastic box set which I painted for our Fistful of Lead: Horse & Musket games. They required some filling to assemble, but as usual are a delight to paint.

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.

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.

Perry Miniatures Elite Companies French Infantry 1807-14

Not a month before Perry Miniatures announced their "Skirmish in a Box" Peninsular War skirmish set, our group decided to get into the period. Never fails.

We knew we wanted a simple and fun set of skirmish rules that didn't require a lot of figures. After some searching, I settled on Fistful of Lead: Horse & Musket - the rules seemed easy, and the card-based activation gave players interesting decisions to make, and I liked that reloading takes a full turn under these rules. Each player needed only five figures, which is a big plus for us.

Dom had about a dozen 95th Rifles pained, so I decided to paint up some "French". I settled on the Legion du Midi, which I painted a base of in 15mm years ago. Their brown uniform makes the distinctions stand out, which I thought looked really good on the tabletop.

FG took the Hanoverian Legion, and since I liked how well these miniatures painted up, I decided to do the 26th Regiment of the Line (which was brigaded with the two regiments) too. Wahj bought some Spanish guerillas from Battle Honours' 3D range, to balance the two sides.

I also purchased some dry stone walls and prepainted buildings, so hopefully we will be able to have a game in October.