Monday, July 27, 2009

Austrian Artillery,Generals and upcoming painting.

On Saturday I received my latest order for Litko, bases which will be used for my 25mm Austrian Artillery and Generals and ADCs first.
The Heavy Artillery Batteries are now mounted on 2 1/2" square bases with four artillerists. Three of the four bases have a 12 lbs artillery piece and the fourth has a large diameter howitzer.
The Medium Artillery Batteries are now mounted on a 2 1/2" wide by 2" deep base with three artillerists. They have a variety of 6 lbs and 8 lbs guns.
My Light Artillery Battery is also mounted on a 2 1/2" wide by 2" deep base except it only has two artillerists on the base. I have used 2 smaller 6 lbs guns because at the moment I do not have any 3 lbs or 4 lbs guns.
For the Generals I have mounted up Two Divisional (or other Senior Commander) bases with three mounted Officers, six brigade commander bases with two mounted officers and now have an even dozen singly mounted Officers.
A couple of the single mounted officers are Generals once I pick up a few more ADC figures will be remounted as Brigade Commanders or higher. But I had to make do with what I had.
I am looking at my box of unpainted lead and trying to determine what I need to paint up next. I will be ordering a few figures from Foundry in a couple weeks to fill out my Light Division Cavalry (A couple command packs, a few packs of Dragoons/Chevaleger, and two packs of Uhlans.) But between now and when they arrive I should get something else painted, especially for the Allied Side. I think I am going to focus on a Battalion of Austrian Line Infantry for the Ruess-Greitz Regiment. I have the Command (eight figures) and 24 musketeers, which is slightly more than one battalion, so I may add in three packs of figures to complete the regiment when I order the figures.
I also have at least three battalions worth of landwehr that I should at least consider painting, a number of Jagers and Grenzers but not enough to do a battalion of either. So the Line infantry are probably my priority.
On the French Side I mostly have unpainted or half-painted guard to work on, while I remount a number of figures from Tom's Collection that I picked up a while back. While I would like a few battalions of Line and Legere I just don't currently have the figures.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Future Gaming at Chez Johnson

After the success of our last game I have received my wife’s special permission to host a game about once every two months at our house. So in pulling out the calendar and check the busy social schedule for the rest of the year, I only wish I was kidding on the busy part, here are the dates and plans for the upcoming games.

Saturday September 26th: 25mm Napoleonic Gaming using Horse Musket and Gun
Friday November 27th: American Civil War using Fire and Fury

The goal for each of these games is to have about 8 players give or take a couple. The gaming table is 16’ long and if I can get off my ass 6’ wide. If we assume a deployment space of at least 4’ wide that gives us a space for about 4 players a side. That is on the tight side of course, where 6’ is a much better deployment zone but beggars can’t be choosers.
The biggest challenge faced is parking, a downfall of living in a Rental Community I guess. There are only about half-a-dozen parking spots nearby and another dozen within a couple blocks. I would love to see some carpooling action, make life a lot easier.

The Napoleonic Game will be open game and we will use any available 25mm Napoleonic figures that are mounted similarly to mine or are close enough that we can make do. Right now between myself and Fitz I think we can field the following:
Austrian: 2 Commands / -
British: - / 1 Command
French: 3 Commands / 1 Command
Russian: - / 1 Command

That gives us roughly four commands per side. We might be a little light here and there but it should be doable. Several others have indicated an interest in painting figures and bring theirs along which would greatly “increase” the size of commands back to regulation sizes.

For the American Civil War game I have just listed Fire and Fury and not a scale. I have about six regiments of 25mm Figures painted and another six somewhat ready but needing the final detail work. Of course I have no Dismounted Cavalry and no Artillery at the moment, but that is a something fairly easily added. So that being said I would love to do the game in 25mm, but I need to get more figures painted. There is some time yet to make a decision on the final plan for this game.

As a full back plan, I have more than enough 15mm Confederates Painted (Okay I can field most of the Army of Northern Virginia at 1:33) and a decent amount of Union so if worse come to worse the game will be in 15mm.

Luther Con

HMGS-Midwest (a group out of Chicago) is hosting a new Fall Gaming Convention, in addtion to the Little Wars Spring Miniatures Convention, called Luther Con. So named because it is at Luther High School.


Luther Con – 2009! Announcing Luther Con – 2009! HMGS-Midwest in
cooperation with Black Sun Games is bringing to Chicago a TRUE LOCAL gaming
convention.
This two day gaming extravaganza is scheduled for the weekend of
Oct. 3rd and 4th (Saturday, Sunday) to be held at the Luther NorthHigh School
located in Chicago's Northwest side.
This gaming convention is meant to bring together all facets of the Chicago gaming cmmunity, historical, fantasy, and Sci Fi table top wargaming, board gaming, CCGs, and RPGs. The future of gaming is with our youth and we want to attract all to this new convention.
See the website for more details.

I certianly wish them the best of luck.