WPBC Reports: Soviet's Escalate Tensions

 

The Earl Pigs Out

 Return with us now to those golden days of yesteryear in the world of Outlandisha, for our next installment in the Outlandishian Chronicles.

 

I know it’s been a long time since we visited this land, so a quick summary follows.  Our two main protagonists are Count William and the Earl D’Greer.  They hated each other for decades and fought minor border scrimmages, recently the Count launched an all out assault that ended up with him controlling about ½ of the Earl’s lands.  The Earl, despite his bluster has not managed a single battlefield victory, and realizing that he probably won’t, and having a hankering for a hunk of ham, has decided to launch a raid on one of the Count’s forward supply locations.  

 

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I don’t have a go-to set of skirmish rules, so I’m going with D&D fifth edition, modified of course.  They should work well for this era, I hope.

 

The cast of characters

 

The Earl’s raiders, mostly scum and bandits are commanded by Captain A. Noid, a loyal lacky of the Earl, who was tasked with this mission as punishment for his less than stellar performance on the battlefield.

As always click to enlarge on all the photos

From left to right, Captain A. Noid, Titus (bandit captain), Grogg, Easie, Melvon, Alvon

 

The Count’s defenders are command by Captain TBD supported a mix of town guards, and soldiers who committed some infraction to warrant such a lowly assignment, sheep herders and laborers, a much more fragile group.

 

From left to right, Captain TBD, Private Hardy, Private Arnolt, Sgt. Doh-Nuts, Constable BoogerHook, Constable Laurel, Cooper the laborer, Farmer John, Farmer Stu.

While it might not look like it, it's actually night time with significantly reduced visibility.  And with that, let the foolishness begin.

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Slowly the raiders advanced, they knew the general location of the supply cache, and the stench from the pigs and sheep helped guide them through the dark.  As the smell grew stronger each member of the party began to see shapes of guards, sheep, and wagons appear out of the gloom.  Meanwhile, the guards were apparently even more inept than expected as not a one of them noticed the raiders approach.

Vultures eye view

"Surely it can't be this easy", mused Captain A. Noid

The Raiders advanced in a rush on their unsuspecting victims.

Titus moved to the Wagon intending to attack the laborer but as he advanced Arnolt came into view and he opted to fire an arrow at him, to no effect, the darkness throwing off his range estimate.  Melvon advanced on Boogerhook, swinging her blade and doing no damage. Grogg charged forward and took cover behind one of the sheep.  Easie advanced on Cooper, swinging her Great Ax and doing considerable damage.  Alvon advanced on Boogerhook and also missed.  And Finally Captain A. Noid (he rolled the lowest initiatve roll of all the raiders) moved into contact with Cooper and finished him off with his Great Sword.  First Blood to the Raiders, but not nearly as bloody as it should have been.  Now that the element of surprised is lost, the defenders will be able to fight back in the next round.

This one probably needs enlarged, rather busy

For the second round all parties can act.

Captain TBD of the defenders advances cautiously.  Laurel of the defenders, hearing the screams of his friend Boogerhook adanvaces toward his location, taking cover behind the pack mule.  Titus of the raiders fires and arrow and hits Arnolt.  Hardy (defender) advances on Captain A. Noid striking with his spear and hitting (rolled a natural 20 – critical hit).  Arnolt  (defender) fires an arrow at Titus, missing.  Melvon (raider) swings at Boogerhook and misses, again.  Grogg (raider) advances towards Laurel and hits.  Easie (raider) moves around Titus to attack Hardy, and misses.  Sargent Doh-Nuts (defender)  advances towards Easie, swings his hammer and hits.  Farmer Stu (defender) advances to defend the honor of his sheep.  Alvon (raider) takes a swing at Boogerhook and misses (that’s the 4^th time someone has missed boogerhook).  Captain A. Noid (raider) swings at Hardy and hits, Hardy isn’t looking to hardy at the moment.  Farmer John (defender) rushes to the pig stye.  And lastly Boogerhook (defender) takes a swipe at Alvon and hits.

Still only one casualty so far, but a couple of defenders are looking rough.

The Earl's raiders get closer to the live stock and sheep are getting really nervous, they've heard stories about the Earl.

Captain TBD (defender) moves into contact with Easie and hits with his great sword.  Laurel (defender) hits Grogg.  Titus (raider) drops his bow and charges into contact with Arnolt, hitting him with his sword.  Hardy (defender) stabs at Easie with his spear, finishing her off.  Arnolt (defender) draws his sword and engages Titus, hitting him.  Melvon (raider) swings at Boogerhook and misses.  Grogg (raider) swings at Laurel and hits.  Sargeant Doh-Nuts (defender) moves into contact with Captain A. Noid and hits with his hammer.  Farmer Stu (defender) moves into contact with Titus and stabs him with his pitchfork.  Alvon (raider) swings at Boogerhook and actually hits! (Boogerhook had 5 attacks miss him before taking his first hit, which due to poor die rolling was little more than a scratch).  Captain A. Noid (raider) swings at Hardy and misses.  Farmer John (defender) moves into contact with Grogg and misses.  Boogerhook (defender) attacks Alvon and hits.

Everyone is finally engaged at this point.  Let the slug fest continue.

Captain TBD (defender) moved into contact with Captain A. Noid and whiffed, nearly dropping his sword as he missed by a mile.  Laurel (defender) thrust his spear at Grogg, dropping him to his knees.  Titus (raider) swings at Farmer Stu and his pesky pitchfork and connects, as Farmer Stu looks a little wobbly.  Hardy (defender) strikes at Captain A. Noid and misses. Arnolt (defender) swings at Titus and connects.  Melvon (Raider) swings at Boogerhook and misses (again).  Sargeant Doh-Nuts (defender) swings his hammer at Captain A. Noid which harmlessly passes through open air.  Farmer Stu’s (defender) pitchf ork clatters harmlessly against Titus’ armor.  Buggerhook (defender) misses Alvon by a country mile.

Captain TBD (defender) again swings at Captain A. Noid, finally getting a fairly solid hit.  Laurel (defender) moves into contact with Alvon to try to take the pressure off Boogerhook, missing badly.   Titus (raider) hits Arnolt, finally finishing him off.  Hardy (defender) swings and misses Captain A. Noid.  Melvon (raider) hits Boogerhook whose knees start to buckle but then seem to find the strength to remain upright.  Sergeant Doh-Nuts takes another swing at Captain A. Noid, and misses again.  Farmer Stu (defender) and his trust pitch fork land a hit on Titus.  Alvon (raider) again fails to hit Boogerhook.  Captain TBD (raider) attempts to finish off Hardy and misses.  Farmer John (defender) moves into contact with Malvon and hits.  Boogerhook (defender) swings at Malvon and hits, finishing her off.

Captain TBD (defender) hits Captain A. Noid.  Laurel (defender) finishes off Alvon.  Titus (raider) finally finishes off pesky farmer Stu and realizing the he and Captain A. Noid are the only surviving raiders he stealthily moves to hid amongst the crates of supplies.  Hardy (defender) gets a solid spear strike and Captain A. Noid.  Sergeant Doh-Nuts misses, again.  Captain A. Noid (raider) finishes off Hardy, breaking the encirclement and giving him an escape route to ‘run away’- as he moved out of combat both Sergeant Doh-Nuts and Captain TBD had opportunity attacks, which they both failed.  Farmer John and Boogerhook were busy going through the pockets of the deceased Alvon and Malvon.

If you enlarge this you can see Captain A. Noid running between the crates and the tree, while Titus hides among the crates.

Captain A. Noid continued to run off as fast as his plate armor would allow him to.  The surviving defenders all gave pursuit.  Titus managed to remain undetected as the defenders ran past him (he rolled a natural 20).

 

Once Titus was reasonably sure it was safe, he crept out of his hiding spot and began loading up the wagon with livestock and secured the pack mule.  Surely the Earl will reward him well for actually having success?

 

Titus with his spoils set out before the defenders return 

Well, the Earl’s forces pulled it off.  I actually didn’t expect it to be that close.  While the defenders had more troops, most of them only had 6 -9 Hit points, so either Captain A. Noid, or Titus should have been able to dispatch them with just one hit… but not when they rolled 1’s and 2’s for damage. The raiders had the advantage in hit points, with Titus alone having 50 and Captain A. Noid having 47.   I think the inability of either Melvon or Alvon to hit Boogerhook in the first 2 rounds also played a big part in slowing down the raiders and making this much closer than I expected. Anyway, it was a nice diversion, and gave me an excuse to actually use the pigsty. 

Maybe the Earl has found a new tactic?  He is at heart, a thief anyway.

So much lead, so little time.

MBA Figures

 That's The Miniature Building Authority, not Masters of Business Administration.  While known primarily for the fantastic buildings, they do have a small line of miniature figures.  

One of the things I miss about not having been to a convention in 3 years is not being able to peruse the MBA set up, with the castle and all of the truly unique figures they populated it with (many of them from Monty Pythons The Holy Grail as I recall).

I picked these up at one of the Historicon conventions back when it was still being held at the Lancaster Host.  So it's about time they received some paint.

As always, click to enlarge.

And here's the close up of the two stars of the gaggle.

Constable Booger-Hook of the town guard

And Constable Doh!-Nuts.  I couldn't find the right color for a glazed donut, but this comes close.

Look for them to make an appearance on the gaming table soon in an upcoming installment of the Outlandishian Tales.   With such Stalwart and alert men guarding the Counts supplies, maybe the Earl can actually pull off a pig raid?  Heaven knows he hasn't done anything on the battlefield that could be considered successful.

So much lead, so little time.

 

Kiev Grenadiers

 Wow, 2nd post of the month.  Pretty lame, but not as lame as last month.

Getting back to the one true scale and the one true era, below we see the Kiev Grenadiers, recently deployed to 'the' front, whichever front that is.

As with almost all my Russian Napoleonic figures, the figures are from Front Rank.

The Regiment formed up in Column.  No doubt in preparation to advance and introduce some uncouth French interlopers to the fine art of the bayonet.

The 1st Battalion in line.  The musket may be a lazy fellow, but it does come in handy when you can't get to bayonet range with a slippery opponent.

The 3rd Battalion also in line.

That's all for now.  I have grandiose plans for next month.  We'll see if workload and the weather allow me to get to them.

Speaking of weather, I hope you're all situated for Winter.  My arthritis is telling me it's going to a damp one, and since we normally I get first snow in October, I guess we'll find out soon.

So much lead, so little time.

Old Stuff

Hello, it's been a while.

As my efforts to clean up the game room to the point where I can actually walk all the way around the table without stepping on any figures progress, I uncovered the below treasures from a decade ago or more.

Way back when Flames of War first came out it rekindled my interest in WWII, which resulted in the below.  Unlike so many of my collections, a fair number of these actually saw some action on the table top, once or twice.

Earlier this year I sold off all of the unpainted American forces, but these German figures still remain, at least for now.  I was a little surprised at the number of German figures I had once I had them all laid out on the table.

And with that, on to the pictures, in no coherent order.  Almost all of these are Flames of War miniatures, with a few odd Command Decision figures (from the 1990's)

A battery of 3 Nebelwerfer's and 2 75mm Anti-Tank guns.

A recon element.  Two sdkfz 222 and one sdkfz222 (Rad) and 8 motorcycle/sidecars.  Motorcycles and Machine Guns, how can you not love that combination.

Self propelled anti-aircraft and more transports.

More soft skin vehicles.  Kubelwagen on the front left, Schwimwagen on the front right.  

Some Infantry and Engineers 

Mortar's, Machine Guns, and I think that's a Panzerbuchse.  It's been a long time since I looked at these and I'm not sure.

5 Panzer III G's.  They look a little better if you enlarge them.

5 Panzer III J's, (late war) if my notes on the bottom of them are correct

Three Panzer III L's.  If you click and englarge you should be able to see the 9th Panzer Division insignia near the driver's vision block.

Two Stug G's, and two Hornisee

More trucks

Finally, some of the big guns.  Three Panzer IVF2's and one Panzer IVG

Five Panzer IVF1's

A platoon of 4 Panzerwerfer's

I also found these which seem to be the only American Infantry I got around to painting.  A couple of Engineer stands, 3 bazooka teams and 2 heavy machine guns.

But wait, there's Mooore!

These are from Command Decision, two Panzer III E, and one Panzer II (I think).

US vehicles, from Command Decision as well.

That's all for now.

So much lead, so little time

Where did August Go?

 It's hard to believe that August is almost is gone.  So, I figured I better get at least one quick post in.  Activity on the Hobby front has been slow, many distractions when you live in 'Vacation Wonderland', at least according to the State commercials that's what we are.  

Below is the second item I ordered from the 3Degos folks (the first being the pig stye shown several post ago).

This is another figure I'll probably never use on the table, but I still like the look of it.  It's a 3D print, the oxen came in 2 parts, which didn't match up very well and required a lot more filing and sanding then I had the patience for.  Still, for the price I think it was a great deal and I shouldn't really complain.

On the painting table I just primed up a Regiment of Russian Grenadiers.  If next week is as rainy and dreary as the forecast says it will be, they may show up soon.

Take care and remember to find time to play with your toys.

So much lead, so little time.

Back to the Beginning

 It's been a while since I got back to the main reason I started this blog, which was to document the progress of the Borodino project for 2012.  That project is long done, and I hate to say was also somewhat disappointing in how it played at Historicon.

I have enjoyed my various diversions since then, and I'm really enjoying the Cold War era shenanigans with the Eurica campaign right now.

But Napoleonic's are how I really entered the hobby, and it is about time I got back to them.  (Plus, the Russian Troops were plotting a Palace Uprising since most of the Napoleonic I've painted the last several years were French - and the Czar doesn't like Palace Uprisings). My initially plan was to build the entire Russian 2nd Army of the West as it was structured for Borodino.  I'm not sure that I'm still that ambitious at this point in my life, but I do have a fair amount of unpainted Front Rank Figures laying around.  

So.....  

It's been so long since I painted a unit of these I almost forgot how.  Figures are Front Rank.  Flags are GMB.

1st Battalion

I may have gotten a little heavy handed with the magic wash on these fellows

3rd Battalion

Not my best work, but I had fun painting them.  

Until next time, take care.

So much lead, so little time.

Well, that's different

 Happy Summer!  Not much going on regarding the gaming front, but I did manage to find a rather unique (at least I think so) figure when I was digging out my Russians.  

This fellow has been getting stepped over (and on) for probably about 10 years. So he definitely deserved to get some paint slapped on him.  I thought the figure was from Black Tree Designs, but I just did a quick search of their site and couldn't find it, so I'm not sure where it came from.

He may have some potential uses in our Imagination campaign.

And for something a little less unique, we finish with these.  I have no idea who the manufacturer is and wouldn't want to guess.

Next up, some proper painting of a proper figures.

So much lead, so little time

Where did these come from?

 As mentioned in the last post, the painting table clean up project is mostly completed.  Below are the last two blister packs I uncovered on the table.  

At first I couldn't recall ever buying any French Guard Artillery, but then the cobwebs cleared and I remembered that I bought these at Cold Wars 2020 (my last convention).  At the time I seemed to think it was a great deal, I think I paid around $10 for each of them.  At least now I can finally say that I have some French Old Guard troops.

Just about all, if not all, additions to the Napoleonic forces for the last 2 or 3 years have been French.  My Russian troops have informed me that unless the Russian Rosters are increased soon, there may be a Palace Uprising - something that all Czar's live in fear of.  And heaven knows I have plenty of Russian lead laying around.  

Figures are from Warlord Games.  

For my Napoleonic figures I normally use joint compound/drywall spackle to coat the bases for texture.  This was a new container of 'lightweight' spackling and it didn't give the same results as the old variety. But I guess it will do.

slightly different view

That's all for now.  Stay safe and enjoy the summer.  

So much lead, so little time

Cossacks

 It's been gloomy and damp with precipitation of some sort every day this week.  So, not much getting done in the yard which has allowed the 'clean the painting table' project to move forward.  The good news is that we seem to be far enough North that the winds aren't bringing us any of the Canadian smoke.

About 50% of the painting table top is now visible, and most of what is left is either space fighters/bombers or 6mm Infantry.  (I hate painting 6mm infantry)

These were the last of the loose figures.  It took a while to locate the treasure chest amongst the clutter, but I finally found it.

Figures are from Eureka, I think.  These were part of a vignette as I recall. I think it was called 'Cossacks Looting' or something like that.  A couple of the figures really have a lot of detail that the camera doesn't do justice too, especially as dark as the gloomy weather is making my gaming room.

And for the folks that are part of our Napoleonic ImagiNation game, the final photo sums up some of the action from last week.

just a little something to brighten the Yurt

Dancing a little jig

Fine wine and full saddle of loot.. I mean purchases.  What more could you ask for.

The photo and brushwork don't do this one justice.  The poor horse is so loaded down our spry young cossack lad has to walk.  But at least he has a duck to keep him company.  Looks like momma's getting a new mirror.

There really is a lot of detail in this sculpt.

Nice to see they're doing a 2-man lift on any treasure over 50 pounds.  We don't want any back injuries.

View from the other side

Fuddland Cossacks return home following a successful trading mission to S'Gottland.  Not shown was a half a flock of sheep, the other half having been traded for the services of a popular minstrel group to perform for Czar Elmer.

Guard Cossacks watch over the Cossack 'merchant' caravan as it travels home.

One more post and the painting table clean up project is pretty much done.  Now, on to the more challenging lead pile clean up - or at least clean up enough that I'm not literally tripping over figures that have fallen from the pile onto the floor of the gaming room.

So much lead, so little time.