White Cossack reinforcements : Russian Civil War

Finally I have fully functioning iPad and can get back to blogging and I have a bit to catch up on. Have also been busy on a significant garden building project but that is now pretty much done. If the summer continues we might even have a game in the garden where social distancing will be easier. I have managed to keep some painting going. Here are the next Russian Civil War reinforcements.

Cossacks for the ‘Whites’

These are again Copplestone figures, they are actually reds but I have used the full extent of my sculpting powers to give them shoulder boards ! So they can play as a unit of Cossack Infantry, stand alone or when some cavalry dismount. The grey overcoats give them some uniformity but also provide some variation from the normal green. I am happy with the result. To get a full unit with fur hats I bought two units so the rest will be painted as Reds without shoulder boards and no doubt in Green unless I can find another, thinking about it I might do them in grey allowing me to mix and match ?

Thanks for looking I will definitely get some games blogged up this weekend 👍

Characters :RCW

Have been working on several units over the weekend as well as another virtual game. But finished these as a priority as I have needed some RCW standards for a while. I have tried several sources but not found what I wanted commercially so in the end opted for internet and self printing. They haven’t come out too bad .

This guy is from the White Russians in Chinese service set I just didn’t give him white socks

This chap will be playing from now on as a Cossack, the flag is I believe a rough approximation of the Terek Cossack Banner, it isn’t so shiny in real life that is just my poor photograph ☹️

In my last Copplestone order I picked up the female ‘Reds’ and here the first full of revolutionary zeal, we will have some special rules when she gets to the front line

Finally as well as cycling a bit each week I mashed another walk on Sunday...which stayed dry an atmospheric shot looking south from the northern fells.

More stuff on the way and still a couple of games to blog KBO 😀

Night raid at Stolinchnaya : RCW

Catching up again from a battle played a couple of weeks ago. This time a Russian Civil War encounter, I have found with these virtual games the addition of some slightly more complex objectives or scenario rules helps keep the enthusiasm. So I set this battle as a night raid, the Reds are seeking to break across the River at the small village of Stolinchnaya. The Whites have posted two units overnight the three potential crossing the river only being crossable at those designated points. The Reds do not know what forces or the quality of the forces on picket duty. The Reds will come on with designated tokens for each unit these will only be revealed, if they shoot or can be spotted. Spotting mechanism using a D6  under 6” automatic no body is that quiet !, under 9” a roll of 1 or 2 , up to  12” 1, 2 or 3 increasing at increments of 3” up to 21” where a 6 is needed. Simple but it seemed effective and worked. No units still in hiding can be shot at or assaulted. The overall objective for the reds is to get across the river an establish a legitimate legitimate Bridgehead. Initially we started with the idea of 6 or 7 turns but the slow cautious sneaky advance of the reds meant we extended to allow them to make best use of the cover they had from the darkness.

The two crossings and the pickets were randomly selected and as it happens the bridge in the centre was undefended !

The Reds advance, their commander has written down each unit on a piece paper (Old school !)

The White reserves are only allowed to come onto the battlefield when the first Red unit is spotted and the alarm raised, luckily this occurred turn two, the whites have brought a new weapon in the form of a Whippet Tank

The Whites advance at speed and include some Cossack cavalry

Oddly the first unit to be spotted in the Red Commander , but perhaps not surprising as he is carrying a great big red flag, other Red units have already made it under darkness to the bridge but still they have not been revealed

This means the whites have little idea where the push is going to come or which crossing is likely to be the focus of any assault

Finally an armoured car is revealed tracking along the river bank

On the right the Reds have finally decided to assault even though they don’t know what to expect over the river

Lucky for them it turns out to be a unit of local partisans , they do however catch the Reds in the river with a strong volley before being assaulted and driven off

In the centre the Reds are across the river still with out being spotted

......and are across the river and into the church yard on the left, not looking good for the whites

...however, the Reds on the right have been cut down by machine gun fire

And there is a chance the Cossacks might be able to clear the church yard

They charge in at full pelt driving the first unit away

But are then cut down themselves, the ‘white’ infantry charge in on the unit of Sailors

And after a hard struggle force them back in to the river..a glimmer of hope ?

But the whites have no answer to the armoured car which is hidden from the White artillery by the church until it is too late and onto the road

The only option is to try a speculative and highly dubious assault on the vehicle when this fails and the White Commander is killed the whites know the game is up and withdraw.

A victory to the reds, although we judged it only a minor victory as they had paid a very high price. As always a fun game. The night raid/spotting mechanism worked really well giving a different feel as the two side were very close together when the action kicked off. I am looking at getting some more RCW figures painted and have recently been adding shoulder boards to convert some Reds to Whites ! I also need more colourful banners and am working on these as well having finally found some decent flags on the internet.

One more game to catch up on....hope you are all keeping well :)

The Watchtower of Dol Guldur : LOTR

My iPad has been broken and the replacement has not arrived yet so limited blogging at the moment. This means I am behind and I have a couple of games to catch up on. So will try and get some blogging in over the next few days, first up a Lord of the Rings game, I had been re watching the Hobbit whilst painting so decided to run a scenario inspired on the film.

The Watchtower of Dol Guldur has a series ward spells protecting it, the Elves led by Elrond and the dark forces of the Necromancer have been despatched to capture the secrets held inside. The special rules for this scenario means that each side can only have one unit or character inside the protected area at one time and the force controlling the tower when one side hits 50% will be the victor.

The dark forces include Orcs, warg riders, a black knight and a troll

Elrond is supported by an elite force of Elven warriors and a small group of Dunedain 

Elrond also has Glorfindel, the spell protected area around the watchtower is marked by the obvious brown/grey board

Dark forces advance and spread out they heavily outnumber the elves but are much less resilient

The troll eyes up glorfindel

and wildly charges into crush him

The wargs are facing off with Elrond in the protected zone whilst the Necromancer fire spells and fire balls

The troll has pushed Glorfindel back but is then peppered by arrows

On the other flank the black knight has been seriously wounded and is repeatedly pushed back failing his morale check

The Eleven warriors make short work of the troll hacking him down

The archers prove very effective as you would expect

The final lone warg is soon despatched

But then more heavily armoured orcs charge forward......numbers are starting to count

Weakened Elrond has to withdraw in the face of the onslaught

But it is too late the Elf Lord is cut down by a fire ball spell

Seeking revenge the remaining elves charge towards the Necromancer

Whilst the Dunedain move in to capture the tower

At this point the dark forces reached 50% and the Necromancer evaporated into a dark cloud of dust drifting away on the wind, the good guys have won but it was a close run thing.

A fun scenario although the dark forces did seem to fail an awful lot of morale checks, the rules were Dragon Rampant and the magic cast by Elrond and the Necromancer gave just enough interest with out it becoming too powerful. I think perhaps another LOTR scenario not too far in the future....perhaps with Gandalf ?

Delaware Battalion : AWI

The scarcity in blogging recently has two causes, work has been busy and my iPad has had a melt down. A new one has had to be ordered so hopefully in a week or so I can catch up (we have played a couple of nice games) in the meantime I have managed to finish off my first proper American Unit. A Delaware Line Battalion formerly Haslett’s Regiment.

Pretty happy with the result, firstly I have found AWI are harder to paint than ACW, it’s the buttons. Secondly the choice of colour schemes is bewildering, the guide which comes with the Perry figures is excellent especially when cross referenced to other sources. I have given a little variety with the colour of their trousers. The flag was kindly supplied by Mr B although I trimmed it down a bit (it looks the part even if I have made a historical faux par).

I have many more units to go at both plastic and metal.

Hope you are all keeping well 😀

Weather has been a bit missed so recent cycling photos not quite so spectacular

Mark A Whippet for RCW

Seem to be slightly behind again on blogging. I have been looking for some tanks for the RCW for ages but as always I am reluctant to pay too much. Having kept an eye on eBay I came across a small manufacturer under the title thetankfactory.com who is producing a range of WW1 tanks as 3D prints. These are a very reasonable price. As we all know these can be a little variable in quality so I ordered a Whippet to see how good they are before ordering any others at £11.99 post free I kept my expectation fairly low I could always use it as a terrain piece.

Here it is without any fiddling as it arrived (well wrapped)

Fairly simple cast, as expected some printing lines, guns fairly rudimentary with very ‘sharp’ Corners

Some of the print lines at the front close up

And from the side ....

I undercoated the whole thing then painted the larger surfaces with liquid green stuff to take the lines down a little bit, then used a file to slightly round off the sharp corners. I wasn’t sure how far to go before it might effect the integrity of the printing ? I drilled the guns and added some plastic barrels then set to with a simple paint scheme...

Plenty of dry brushing to give that worn out appearance 

and a ‘White’ transfer....slightly too large but the only one I had.

Overall I am very happy with the end result, yes it has some print lines but they aren’t really noticeable on the table, only on close inspection. Don’t think I can argue at the price and will definitely be ordering something else.

I have a couple of games to blog so will try to get them up soon 👍