Surprise assault : Russian Civil War

I had set up a scenario for our next Russian Civil War game. Is was sadly blown out by the virus so having left the set up on the gaming table for a while I thought I would amend slightly the scenario and play it through solo.

Setup - Colonel Alexandrov the local commander of Royalist Forces has spent the night in a small farm house. Having had inside information on this the Reds have sent an elite force to attempt to capture the Colonel.

The farm house, Alexandrov is hidden inside, his troops have been sent on patrol in a range of directions at this stage they do not know where the assault may take place. The scenario is very close to one in the Warlord Operation Sealion book.

The White forces must be outside of the farm fence at step up and do not know where the enemy will come from as an added random feature a unit of white officers corp infantry will be randomly placed in one of the two other buildings.

The Red Forces up against it will come on randomly from each of the four sides they must capture the White Commander and get him to the edge of the table

Straight into the action the Red field gun is wheeled on only to be charged first turn by the eager Cossack cavalry

Red infantry are ordered to charge straight towards the farm house hoping their rush forward will surprise the field gun

The ‘elite’ reds are supported by some local irregulars

More ‘Reds’ advance along the road, only to find out the wooden barn building is where the white elite infantry are hiding !

They have made the gun and easily knock it out

...but the Cossacks are charging about the fields and are looking to wipe out the peasantry 

An urgent shout from the farm draws some of the defenders back to support

Despite losing a couple of men the Cossacks easily take out the peasants 

The officers Regiment are also now rushing to the north sensing their commander is in danger

The reds are in a pretty hopeless position now but the residue of one unit has made the building, automatically capturing Alexandrov, but they are just about to be swamped

Somehow though the survive the attack and the Cossacks galloping pell mel are ambushed from the woods

Even the Red standard bearer is in on the action assaulting the final member of the defenders machine gun crew

But there are simply too many white defenders surely...........

By some excellent dice rolling the red infantry survives not one but two attacks, and with only three remaining comrades are able to get away with Alexandrov for questioning, torture and death !

A pleasant diversion played over a couple of evenings, not quite the result I expected as all looked lost after 3 turns, whilst the reds captured the objective they paid dearly in terms of manpower. Nice to get the newLy painted Reds on the table, the good thing with solo games is you can’t really lose.

Seven Years War : Kaiser Regiment

Just a quick update as I have finished another diminutive Seven Years War Regiment, this time the Austrian Kaiser Regiment.

Once again these are Pendraken figures and the last of my Austrian starter army pack infantry. I have a couple of cavalry units to do, and the little artillery I have. I will push on with this project in the background but a restock is in going to be needed soon.

It goes without saying these are strange times for nearly all of us, personally I find the virtual network of contacts an important way to keep in touch so will do my best to keep up with the blogging. I have some plans developing to do some gaming as well as painting. Keep safe everybody and keep painting.

Matt😷

In the Navy : Operation Sealion

Despite or perhaps because of the apocalyptic sense of things at the moment I have a real mojo for painting. Again a couple of bits I have been working on for a while which got finished off yesterday.

 Some Warlord British sailors from their Sealion range.

An officers transport car for the RCW, the driver a converted English gunner.....really he just needed the fuzzy hat 🙂 for those interested it is a 1914 Stutz so perhaps imported before the war and then brought into service

9th Foot : American War Independence

This week I have been busy getting this next regiment finished. Some of the figures had been part painted but to match them in i have almost completely re done them. I needed to botch one of the standard pole tops and purists will note they have a replacement officer, perhaps promoted from another regiment ? But happy with the overall regiment, again Perry plastics. I have purchased some standards which are better. These are again a 24 man unit but the plan is to mix them up with slightly smaller 20 man Regiments.

 The 9th Foot

I also finished this guy for the Russian Civil War we will have some special rules for commissars when we finally get back to gaming.

That’s it for this week although I have some other stuff nearly finished 🙂 hope everybody is keeping well and safe.

Confederate command bases : ACW

Following on from the Union command bases I have dug in and completed the remaining Confederate bases. In hindsight I had prepped too many in one go which meant they were a little tiresome to paint en mass. So they have taken quite a while.....but done now

Another 40mm squared based mounted officer to slot into a unit

Same again.........mounted figures are all Perry metals with the foot figures spare plastics I had left over 

A 50mm based confederate army general (assume this is a Lee figure)

Then just to show how the slot in command bases work, one of my standard Rebel infantry units with their normal command stand

With one alternative officer

With the second officer

I can then split the unit into two to give two smaller under strength units depending on the scenario

Finally as I was putting them into box I took a gratuitous picture of all my ACW command bases together.....I probably have enough for now 🙂

AWI SYW & RCW ..............

I have had a number of projects being painted in the last few weeks. This can be frustrating but I find it fine to swop from one thing to another as the mood takes me. What it does mean is when I sit  down and concentrate on getting some painting done I can finish off  lots of projects in a  short amount of time.

First up 10 mm SYW Austrian Hussars, these are the Hadik Hussars, these figures are Old Glory and at least the cavalry fit together better than their Cuirassiers, I’ve done a bit more work on the banner since this photo, in 10 mm it is a little less obvious in real life

My second unit of British Infantry for AWI these were again purchased from a friend required a little extra painting to match them with my other figures and then base them etc. Theoretically they are the 4th Foot us the drummer may be in the wrong colour ?

The flag is straight form the Perry box, but I have ordered some more for the next few units, these are 24 man units but I think I will flex between 24 and 20 man units

Finally Zadok the priest who will find himself supporting the imperial forces during the RCW. He is actually a catholic priest picked up at a Bring and buy and then cleverly converted....beard and hat ! This might just possibly be the easiest figure I have ever painted. The plan is he will add certain bonuses and support to the ‘white’ forces.

Regimental and Brigade Commanders : ACW

I have had a few of these figures on the go for a while, so nice to get some finished.

Another Union Commander, in fact I now have three levels of commander in the ACW collection this guy (probably meant to be burnside I think) is on the larger 50 mm base, and with multiple figures he will likely play as a Corps commander in our largest battles.

This Rebel commander also on a 50 mm base would play as a Divisional commander as a single figure. I then have Brigade Commanders on 40 mm round bases (photo colour is poor and they look better in real life honest)

I also had the idea to make some mounted command figures which could fit into the normal Regimental units to add variety and give the option to split my 6 base Regs into two smaller units, again for larger battles. 

These are the two Union versions (Rebels in the queue) they all Perry figures I think

and here they are slotted into a unit.....

Very happy with these as they allow some nice visual variety 👍