Faugh a Ballagh!

“Your soldier’s heart almost stood still as he watched those sons of Erin fearlessly rush to their deaths. The brilliant assault on Marye’s Heights of their Irish brigade was beyond description. We forgot they were fighting us and cheer after cheer at their fearlessness went up all along our lines!”

General George Pickett, writing to his Fiancée.

"The boys that wore the green" was their nickname, the famed Irish Brigade. Part of this brigade was the 69th, or as General Robert E. Lee nicknamed them during the fighting at Fredericksburg; "The Fighting 69th".

I modelled them after the scenes from the movies Gods & Generals, in greatcoats assaulting the Confederate defences at Fredericksburg. The regiment was almost annihilated during this assault. The figures from Redoubt Enterprises are hell to work with, but after cleaning and of course, painting i think they look alright! Not all negative, a good thing about these Redoubt figures is that they come with seperate heads, so you can add some variation to them.

The grass tufts are late fall tufts from Silflor.

Currently i'm working on the 2nd Wisconsin Regiment, part of the Iron Brigade. Another positive thing about those Redoubt figures is that they paint nicely and pretty fast. Also, the casting of those Iron Brigade models is alot better then the ones with overcoats. Probably a popularity thing ...

Oh yeah, before i forget. Merry Christmas and of course ... a happy newyear. Don't drink and drive.

Battle Report #1: Battle of Cape Matapan

I had the rulebook in my closet for a long time... yesterday we played our first game using these rules. We kept it simple by using only ships and no aircraft. We didn't use the advanced rules. Well... to be honest... i liked Axis & Allies War at Sea but this is just ... waaay better. We used A&A mini's which are at a scale of 1/1800th. We really should decide if we go with the Skytrex 1/3000th mini's or go with GHQ's fantastically detailed 1/2400th scale.

  The scenario we chose was a part of the greater Battle of Cape Matapan. 4 Royal Navy light cruisers against 3 cruisers and 1 Battleship from the Italian Navy. I was playing with the Royal Navy. Things looked very dark for me. My objective was to hold on for 8 turns without losing a ship. Silly me, i turned around and started targeting the Battleship.

  HMS Orion was annihilated in a single short range salvo from the Italian battleship Vittorio Veneto while my other cruisers got beaten up by the Italian cruisers. I was unable to damage any cruisers thanks to some bad throwing and all my guns having the 'weak' penalty.

  I was able to damage the Veneto but lost 2 of my cruisers in the process. HMS Perth got in close for torpedoes and was able to damage the Italian cruisers Bolzano almost crippling it, but being surrounded by 2 cruisers from the Italian Navy i didn't stand a chance.

  HMS Perth surrendered and we considered it to be a crushing victory for the Regia Marina!

  What have we learned from this game? Well, it's a fun game, the rules are great so far. We need to buy new models. We need a bigger table. And of course, should we buy the rulebook 'Age of Dreadnoughts' too? Oh yeah, i forgot, things I should remember for the next time; Italy had some evil cruisers during World War II. Lucky for us their High Command wasn't of the quality they should've been...

Advance the colors! Advance the colors! Charge!

"I doubt whether it had an equal, and certainly no superior among all the regiments of the Army of the Potomac."

The next regiment is ready... The 5th New York, one of the most famous units of the American Civil War.

  I've done the basing and tufts the same way as the previous regiment, only for the flags I tried some tips from one of my followers. To be honest, it didn't work out like I have hoped :-( But many thanks for the tips, MiniMike!

  They turned out pretty good i think, while finishing these i had some ideas for the 6th (and probably last) regiment. I'm thinking to go with the 1st Minnesota Volunteers. They entered hell at Gettysburg and few returned from it, only to receive eternal glory.

"Not only were men wounded, or killed, they were riddled."

  For some good history on the 5th NY, check out this site. It has everything you need to know about these colourful troops. Here are some more picies, enjoy!

20th Maine to the front!

  Finally! My first 100% completed ACW 28mm regiment! Remember when i said that i still needed to flag and base all my figures? It's an ongoing process at the moment...

  Part of V Corps, Army of the Potomac. These guys became famous during the Battle of Gettysburg, defending Little Round Top and finally charging down the hill almost destroying the 15th Alabama. Col. Joshua L. Chamberlain became famous after the charge. Historians are still arguing whether he ordered the charge not.

  Anyway, here are some pictures of the entire completed regiment. I'm not to happy with the flags to be honest, you can see some parts of the flag not being glued well together. If somebody has some tips how to do this properly, let me know! Otherwise, all in all, i'm pretty proud of myself. Never tought that i could paint like this...

 

Marching through the fields of glory...

  I really got to make some kind of schedule because my initial planning always seem to get fubar'ed. I was hoping to start my Berdan Sharpshooters or my Iron Brigade but thanks to an eager gaming buddy I started basing my first 3 ACW-regiments. He really wants to play some ACW and I still have so much work to do... I need to paint up one more regiment, base about 30 trees, alot of Renedra worm fences need some paint and what's a battle without artillery... right, i need to do those too. 

  I'm quite happy with the basing of my figures. Working in a lab has some advantages, like... sieving sand to different fractions. 1mm, 0.5mm, etc... no need to buy those overprices basing grit packages! I use Vallejo White Pumice flocked with some small and medium sized grit. Basecoat is Vallejo 872, Chocolat Brown, then a heavy drybrush of Flat Earth 983, a medium drybrush of Light Brown 929, light drybrush of 914 Green Ochre and then some touches of Iraqi Sand.

  The Grass Tufts are from Silfor, they are summer tufts. The single colored ones and the 2-color ones. I also used some summer-flowers. For my Irish Brigade at Fredericksburg i'm gonna use Late Fall tufts, long and medium sized ones. A pictures of that one will be up shortly.

Another quick purchase

Friday was gaming day, i had to play a demo with a colleague from work; Flames of War. 

10 Soviet T34 against 4 Marder II's and a Tiger. With some tweaked rules for faster play and quick action (all in favor of those pesky Russians) it was a succes. He will place an order worthy of 200€! Hurrah! My Germans got beaten the shiz out of them. 3 outta 4 PAK's got destroyed and the crew of my Tiger bailed on me! Funny how T34's cannot destroy it :-)

To add some flavour to this game a quickly bought a Citadel Battlemat. Around 25€. I'm gonna airbrush & drybrush it a little bit to add some more variation in the green cause it's a little too dark for my taste. Add some trees and a hill and it's perfect for those quick 1500 point battles.

For those of you who don't know what i'm talking about, yes it's a GW product and no, it's not really THAT expensive :-)

STOP! Picture time!