The Road to Bull Run – 17 July 1861 – Near Dranesville, Northern Virginia

An advance party of the Colonel Ambrose Burnside Federal Column comprised of Colonel John Slocomb 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers has been order to take a crossing in preparation for the movement of the Union Army of Northeastern Virginia against the Rebel encampment at Manassas Junction.

The advance party, consisting of four squads of Company B and one Company H of the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers moved in the early morning hours ahead of the main force. Shortly after sunrise near Dranesville, Virginia the advance party encountered the most northern detachment of Confederate Army of the Potomac, the First Louisiana Special Battalion at a small bridge crossing Difficult Creek. The First Louisiana Special Battalion under Major Roberdeau Wheat, consisting of three squads of Tiger Rifles and one squad from the Catahoula Guerrillas and one squad of Swedish Jagers (A Mercenary Unit Recruited on the Docks of New Orleans).

Deployed North and West of the old Arlington House, a European Style Villa, Captain Jimbo Fitzgerald, a cagy veteran with vast experience in all forms of miniature combat, deployed the Swedish Jagers in a wood line and the squad of Catahoula Guerrillas moved along the small track that served as the road for the locals. Captain Mark deployed his three sections of Tiger Rifles to the north and east of the Arlington House in parade ground formations.

The 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers were deployed in two divisions, the jolly Bavarian Captain Conan commanding the section of the Kent Guard and one section of the Company B on the west side of the road north of the White Farmstead. Captain Andy with three sections of the Company B faced off against Captain Mark on the east side of the road.

The terrain was almost evenly divided on the west side of the battlefield by a line of trees on the north side of Difficult Creek. On the east side of the road the White Farmstead dominated the center with solid stone fence along the east west road. A decent sized open field bordered on the south by heavy woods and the Arlington house and on the north by the stonewall filled the south eastern corner of the battlefield.

The Jolly Bavarian and Captain Jimbo had a race for the stonewall while Captain Andy and Captain Mark sprinted at a dead ahead slow speed for the wood line.

The section of Company B under Captain Conan made it easily to the stone wall leaving the mercenary Swedish Jagers caught out in the open. The Catahoula Guerrillas moved ahead to take the split rail fence along the intersection ahead of the slow moving Kent Guard.
On the west side neither Captain Andy or Mark could motivate their troops to do anything beside stand and look pretty.

A protracted firefight between the squad of Rhode Islanders behind the stonewall and Swedes continued for several minutes as the Kentish Guard got their dander up and charged the Catahoula Guerrillas who decided an all out retreat, I mean strategic redeployment to the south was in the best interest.

Captain Mark finally got his first squad of Tiger Rifles to march in parade ground perfection forward and Captain Andy also got his boys to move along in more of a gaggle than a block. The Tiger Rifles took the first volley and the first squad of Company B seemed to disappear. The second squad of Company B fired through the wood line into a squad of Tiger Rifles.

A squad from Captain Andy’s Company B moved up on the Catahoula Guerrillas and both the Kent Guard and the squad from Company B fired multiple volleys. In an unexpected moment the squad form Company B moved forward one additional turn pulling itself out of position as it fired one last volley into the already decimated Catahoula Guerrillas.

Captain Mark finally got his Tiger Rifles to move forward and fire multiple volleys into the remaining squad on the west side of the road. Outnumbered three to one the lone section of Company B on the west side of the road hit the road as the Rhode islanders Skedaddled, leaving what is left of the Kentish Guard, two heavily damaged sections of Company B against the basically untouched Tiger Rifles.
As the Tiger Rifles swung to the East it caught a squad of Company B on a small hill and several squads of Tigers fired volleys into Company B. The next squad of Company B disappeared in hail of musket balls, leaving two heavily damaged squads.
As the Tiger Rifles moved forward another volley fire was leveled at the last squad of Company B and they skedaddled quickly after the fire. The Kentish Guard attempted to with draw under fire.
Lacking orders to advance the First Louisiana Special Battalion looked to their wounded as they controlled the battlefield.

A couple notes on Gameplay:

I play tested this game several times and had virtually no problem moving squads around, of course Jim and Mark as well as Andy had an average move of what seemed like 2 inches for the first couple of turns. Is it a problem in scenario if one or both sides cannot role at least average dice.

During the play test we started with eight squads and a half section of artillery a side, each time we ran the scenario we scaled it back, I think however I took it one step to far with five squads a side, should have been six.

Players easily controlled three squads a piece and I think that is a nice number for players to control.

Will be working on adding three more squads for the Kentish Guard and four Squads for the First Louisana Special Battalion before starting new Companies. In addition I need to finish the Union Artillery even though I don't expect to use them very often.

An Extra Figure

So in the middle of painting Austrian and French Artillerists I took a 8 minute break to paint a Clan War figure I had laying around.

Not kidding eight minute paint job. It took longer to get the ballast on the base than it did to paint the figure.

Looking Ahead to 2012

As October 15th comes to a close I am looking ahead to next year. Gaming wise this year has been a disaster to say the least with a total lack of time and ability to push lead minimized by the personal issues that have haunted my footsteps. But the end of a number of issues is in sight, there is light at the end of the proverbial tunnel and it doesn't appear to be an oncoming train. So yes I have thought about my projects for next year.

I will be running two games at Con of the North and partcipating in a couple of others. The first game is a 25mm Brother against Brother Scenario for my 1861 (Early War) collection of figures I am painting up. The second game is a 25mm Horse Musket and Gun scenario featuring my French and Austrian Collection in one of the lesser know battles of the 100 Days Campaign, la Suffel. So I am busily painting up figures for both of those games. In addition I am working on adding enough terrain to make those an interesting as possible and still be playable. No Roman Hedges in my future.

My next project is my 1862 Battles on the Peninsula game I am looking to run, hopefully at a spring ReCon. I am working slowly on figures for that as well. My plan is to use the ACW variant of Rank and File, but if Horse Musket and Gun works I may just stick with that in effort to not teach people too many rule sets.

Speaking of Horse Musket and Gun I plan on doing far more work on that over the winter. Many discussions with Kelley and what's left of the group in Stuttgart really made me reconsider how some of the mechanics are working. The result of these email exchanges have lead me to consider making two rule sets rather than one. The First Rule Set is for Mass Battles the second is more of smaller skirmish (small action not 1 to 1) game. I have been trying to combine the two into one game and honestly I think that has been my problem.

With that in mind I am going to attempt and run what I hope will be a large 25mm Napoleonics game on Saturday June 16th. My goal is to have a table 30 to 40 feet long and 3 five foot wide sections as the field of battle. That is a lot of space, the question is do we have enough figures and more importantly enough players to make it worth while.

On the figure side of that question, I have just shy of a Corps of French Infantry, light Artillery, Command and Cavalry. I will be adding 6 more battalions of painted French from the Old Glory Painted, leaving me short six battalions of Legere for a French Corps and a Division from the Second Corps. Artillery well I am going to have to bite the bullet and buy some more figures, probably a mix of War Games Foundry and Old Glory 1st Edition. Legere however is a tough question, I wouldn't mine some of the Plastics, but man are the poses hideous. In the Vitrix I figure I would be throwing out 1/3 of the figures.

I also have a division of Minor and by Minor I mean minor, French Allied. You got to love the minor Confederation of the Rhine states. With them and the other figures I am planning on buying that should give me two full French Corps. Fitz has a Division of French, short Artillery. Keith and Violence both have a Brigade of Bavarians. Joel Gregory has a French Corps.

On the Allied Side I have a workable Austrian Corps. Fitz has a Russian Corps, short Artillery, Joel Gregory has two Prussian Brigades and a mix of Austrians.

Jim has informed me he has 300 to 400 unpainted Prussians, BJ and Ray have decided to paint Russians and I have way to much unpainted and half-painted lead.

So if we get everyone to show up it could be well worth while game. Especially as a couple of other players hem and haw about participating.

I am also painting up a good deal of Austrians and Swedes for the Era of the War of Austrian Succession. Yeah I know Swedes foe the Hat's War, I love punishment. I have a good Start on an Austrian Brigade and Swedish Battalion. I am hoping to try a game of BaR by the end of next year. As a continuation of this I have a French Brigade and a British Brigade technically for the F&IW but who's counting.

I am really taking a long hard look at my AWI collection and wondering what to do with it, as the Wilderness Wars Rule seem to be too fundamentally flawed to continue with and I have way to many figures painted. Maybe a BaR variant?

Well off to bed, after listing a small sample of what i will be working on for 2012, and I am already looking at 2013 with reverence and awe, as the 200, 150, and 70th anniversaries. I see Gettysburg, Leipzig and North Africa in my future.

The Plan for November

As I continue to concentrate on 25mm figures I have decided I need a plan or at least a theme for each month in an effort to convince me to paint more figures.

For November it is 25mm Napoleonic Artillerists. Or maybe Artillerists in General, but for now Napoleonic Artillerists.

On the Napoleonic Front I have about 100 Austrian Artillerists and 24 French Artillerists laying around waiting for paint. Obviously I don't need 100 Austrians but a good 40 wouldn't hurt. I am going to have to pick up some additional French Artillerists, but I guy has to do what a guy has to do. For the Seven years war I have about 30 Prussian and 30 Austrian Artillerists

Maybe I can convince my friends they two need artillerists painted and November is the month for it.

Accomplishments for the Weekend - Part 2

My second project for the weekend was to paint the remaining 9 of 10 Swedish Jager's in Schwarter's Company for the Seven Year's War.

Again an easy figure to paint, starting with a black primer, Snot Green for the pants, shirts,and jackets, White, burnt umber for the undercoat of the faces, bestial brown for the muskets, snakebite brown for the leather, a couple of flesh colors, bleached bown for the gloves, gun metal, and brass highlights. In all each figure took about 10 to paint once the Snot Green was completed.

Accomplishments for the Weekend - Part 1

I almost completed my son's new Tau Empire Fire Team. Eight of twelve Tau and both drones completed.




The figures were extremely easy to paint, while not Games Workshop magazine quality, it still a very acceptable finish.



I started with a black primer, used Africa Brown for the hoofs, Brunt Sienna for the lower legs, than used vermin brown to highlight the skin, leather suit (nor sure what it actually is.) I then used Vomit Brown for the Armor and Weapons. Followed by highlights of Brass and Red. With some Bleached Bone for the straps and unit markings.

For the Tau Skin it was a fairly simple procedure. I started out with a slightly waterred down Shadow grey over the black primer. I than dry brushed on a 50/50 mix of space wolf Grey and and water. That's it.

The figures look well together as a goup and pretty sharp singally.

Some Bad Pictures

The first is a picture of Schwarter's Company of Light Infantry from the Swedish Army in the Seven Year's War Era.



























The Second Picture is Swedish Artillery, Light Artillery Battery of two Cannons, from the era of the War of Austrian Succession until the Seven Years War.























The third is 12 of 16 figures (need more bases ) of the Liv Company of the Narke-Varmlands Infantry Regiment for the Era around the War of Austrian Succession. They wore red pants during the Seven Years War.






















Yes someday I will figure out how to take pictures of figures, obviousily not today, but someday.