The Painting Table - January 2023

Although two 2mm artillery batteries were completed this month (as I needed them for 1st Manassas) most of what I have completed was the terrain making for that battlefield.  I did complete two more 28mm Wild West buildings too, but mostly it was terrain.

My lead pile grew, or at least the 2mm part of it did thanks to David Blair's gift.  I haven't done a full count yet but there are at least 500 castings ranging from terrain to skirmish order infantry castings.  I sorted and put to one side those I will need to complete the 2mm ACW project and that will be the next thing I work upon.  I also need to give the painting station and office a really good tidying!  That could take some time and involve sorting through some boxes I probably haven't looked through since we moved in here five or six years ago!  If blog posts dry up you may need to send search parties as some of those boxes could hold portals to Narnia.

The painting table currently holds some 28mm Wild West figures in various stages of completion, some Brigade Models 3mm buildings and a variety of 6mm Baccus stuff.  That latter 6mm goodness includes some Pictish cavalry, some Sassanid infantry proxying as Byzantine scutarii and a selection of dark age command figures.  Lurking at the very back are a few Brigade Model 3mm buildings.  By my standards of late that is a fairly clear table.

I'm also stunned to find that I have already hit one of this year's targets, I played a face to face game of Altar of Freedom and I'm closing in on two more.  Those being the wild west town where I have five completed buildings and the minimum to hit target was six, and the 2mm ACW army.  All those figures and bases are prepped and ready for paint!  It's almost like I'm efficient...almost!

No picture of the table this month as TBH it's pretty boring.

Building a better battlefield

For the recent ACW game I had to create a close approximation of an actual battlefield which I haven't needed to do before. American Civil War battlefields also have more terrain (yes I know that sounds stupid, but bear with me) than any previous battlefield set ups I have created which caused me to reconsider how I made terrain items. Previous DBA battlefields and those for my 2mm 17th Century games depict much smaller areas of ground than do those of the ACW and so you are looking at terrain features which are smaller than those I needed to make for the battlefield of 1st Manassas where the ground scale means that the six foot by four foot table is a scale six miles by four miles. Smaller armies need less space to deploy and historically tended to choose relatively open areas so other battlefields I have created needed less terrain features. That allowed me more freedom to create detailed terrain features and to try to make the table more diorama like. Don't get me wrong I could do that for the American battlefields of the 1860's but it would be time consuming. Which brings me back to the 'more terrain' comment. The battlefields of the ACW were more heavily wooded than those I have modelled before, the larger ground area includes more water ways and hills too, so more items need to be created and playability has to be considered.

In making the terrain for 1st Manassas I was under time (and cost) pressure as I had the game scheduled for only a couple or three weeks in the future.  I was going to need more and larger woods and hills and about nine linear feet of river.  No pressure then!  What I needed was something which looked reasonable, was quick to make, easy to play on and didn't cost the earth.  Ok so some pressure there maybe.  Here is what I came up with.

Hills

I wanted hills I could use in other games as well as with Altar of Freedom.  That meant step hills, the old tiered wedding cake approach. For AoF the contours seem to be about 25 feet apart, so with a ground scale of 25mm to 150 feet that equates to 5mm to 30 feet (and yes mixing metric and imperial units in the same calculation drives me nuts as well but needs must) so 5mm per 25 feet vertically is close enough for jazz.  I’m mixing metric and imperial because the building materials are in metric but US measurements are in Imperial, so as I said needs must and all that!  I already had polyurethane foam insulation sheets in 5mm thickness so in some (OK all) respects I knew the answer and was really only looking to show it was workable, 5mm contours it was going to be.  To make it an even better fudge for 2mm figures I usually work to a rule of thumb of 1mm equals six feet so five sixes are thirty…I’m happy with that.

The basic bare foam hill shapes

As a bonus the scenario map scales out to 1mm to 1cm on the table so establishing the rough size of terrain foot prints is straightforward.  For each hill I measured the size of a rectangle that the feature could sit within and set to with a pair of kitchen scissors.  The foam cuts well and only needs a light sanding to smooth the edges.  I gave the foam a coat of green house paint and then a couple of coats of acrylic spray paint after some further trimming to ensure everything sat properly on the table in relation to other terrain (more on that later).

Woods

My normal system is to make canopy woods by gluing chunks of foam foliage to a base.  For ACW battlefields there are a LOT of woods, and I didn’t have time to make that number of canopies.  So what to do?  Enter a grass effect carpet from the local Lidl store Mrs E bought me a couple of years ago.  I simply cut the shapes with the trusty kitchen scissors.  Again the carpet cut easily and as a bonus I could cut it in layers to sit on the steps of those hills which were wooded.  Again after a trial fit to the table and some judicious trimming it was job done.  In due course I can either add a scatter of trees or use the shapes as the bases for canopy woods.

The woods, a little flat but a nice colour

Rivers

I had a good head start here as I already had a lot of river sections made.  I only needed to create the tight bend in the North West section of Bull Run and to create a link piece to ensure the sections connected up.  My existing rivers are made in a couple of different ways.  The best system uses a rubber base and sand glued to the edges to create the banks.  A fast dry brush with a olive green over the sand gives a grass effect.  Confession time; I didn’t have time to paint the new sections but they didn’t look too bad.

Rivers and canopy woods under construction 

Buildings

These are a mixture of Brigade Models, Irregular Models and home made buildings from very old monopoly houses.  So old in fact that they are wooden!

Roads and minor streams

These were simply drawn on with chalk.  The playing surface is felt fabric sprayed with acrylic paint and it takes chalk well and it brushes off without too much trouble.  So that's fairly quick and cheap!

Finishing touches

My table is made from MDF sheets and they (of course) are cut in metric sizes, imperial would be too easy.  So the table is not exactly 6 x 4 feet but the map I scaled the terrain from was converted as if my table was exactly 6 x 4, or to put it another way the area terrain items were over sized.  Which is why everything was test fitted to the table.  The important point being that distances between features needed to be as close to the map as possible while still fitting everything on to the playing area.  Cue some more minor scissor action to reduce some footprints and hey presto there before me was a reasonable representation of the battlefield of 1st Manassas.

Test fitting - some adjustments were needed

The final version some smaller hills and woods and the river rerouted

The whole set up cost under £50 excluding the base board and tables and I already had all the materials  in the resources pile so that £50 was actually spent a couple of years ago rather than from this years wargaming budget.  It is great to play on, it is clear what each item is and it looks OK for 2mm use.  Plus I can tart it up as required and everything is reusable.  

2mm ACW - Refighting 1st Manassas

Or Bull Run depending if you go by Confederate or Federal naming conventions. On Tuesday Paul Dawson came over from York for an ACW game using Altar of Freedom. The scenario for 1st Manassas runs to eight turns and we played to a conclusion in around four hours. If we had been used to the rules it would probably have taken a little less time as it was we had a few occasions of double checking the rules to be sure we were doing things correctly, but not many. I played the Federals as McDowell, Paul had to split his attention between Beauregard and Joe Johnson as the Confederates.

1. The map from the scenario book

Altar of Freedom has two scenario books one for the eastern theatre and one for the west.  These are well worth having as they provide the maps order of battle and most importantly the commander's traits for each of the major battles.  First Manassas is fought on a six foot by four foot table but with far fewer units than any of the other engagements in the books.  In fact Greg Wagman the author actually states that "Altar of Freedom was not designed to handle engagements with so few divisions".  However the lack of manoeuvre elements does pose the same questions faced by the two commanders of how to cover all the crossings while maintaining an adequate strike force. 

2. Overview of the game table looking South East

 

In the picture above Bull Run is running diagonally across the table from Sudley Springs (nearest to the camera) to Union Mills. The nearest long edge of the table is the north edge.  Centreville is on the ridge at the North East of the table.  South of Bull Run running right to left are an unnamed two level hill (lets call it Sudley Springs ridge), Matthew's Hill, Henry Hill south of which is Mt Pone none of the other hills appear to have names.  Oh, and the troop positions in picture 2 are not the initial deployments, just where I plonked them down pregame.

Historically the Confederates knew what McDowell's strategic plan was through their spy ring in Washington.  This gave them the chance to have Johnson move his army from the Shenandoah valley to join with Beauregard north of Richmond using the rail junction at Manassas  Junction.  Two days before the battle there was a clash between one of McDowell’s divisions and Beauregard’s covering force at the fords crossing Bull Run south of Centreville. The Federals were pushed back from the crossings.  On the day of the battle McDowell decided against repeating that attack.  Instead he covered the approaches to his supply lines back to Washington which ran via Centreville with Mile’s division and sent Hunter and Heinztelman’s divisions west to cross Bull Run at Sudley Springs to turn the Confederate left flank.  Tyler was to demonstrate before the Stone Bridge to distract the Rebels.  

Overall it wasn't a bad plan but it didn't take into account the poor levels of training and lack of experience in the Federal army (to be fair the Confederates were no better).  Despite that the flanking move was successful but Beauregard was warned that his flank was turned by an observation post to the south who was able to send a message by semaphore.  The main fighting took place on Beauregard’s left flank on Matthew’s and Henry Hill.  Although the Federal’s had the early advantage in the fight there, Confederate troops were quickly able to move to block their advance due to the semaphore warning.  Throughout the afternoon the fighting continued on Henry Hill until the Federals exhausted themselves and were forced to retreat.

In our refight the Federals started deployed around Centreville with Confederate forces able to deploy anywhere south of Bull Run.  My plan was to push Hunter’s Division south from Centreville to threaten the crossings north of Manassas Junction.  Heintzelman’s and Miles’ Divisions would advance towards the crossings around the Stone Bridge with Tyler’s moving towards the fords at Sudley Springs.  Paul covered the crossings from the Stone Bridge South-Eastwards towards Union Mills but only placed one brigade on Matthew’s Hill to cover the approaches from Sudley Springs.

3. The starting deployments.  Federals nearest the camera

Command and control in AoF is interesting.  Each general has a number of priority points to spend; these are split between gaining control of the turn clock, bidding to determine the order that divisions are activated and end of turn actions.  Although McDowell has more priority points than Beauregard and Johnson combined he has restraints on how he can use them.  He is not allowed to bid the same amount for any of his divisions which means that he cannot coordinate his divisions actions.  That also means that he needs the turn clock to allow at least four activations a turn if all of his divisions are to be activated.  On average the turn clock for this scenario would run out after three activations which gives the Federals problems.  If you want a fuller description of the mechanics of Altar of Freedom take a look at my earlier post which is here: Small but Perfectly Formed: Altar of freedom - I done seen the Elephant (elenderilsblog.blogspot.com) 

From the get go Tyler had problems firstly I didn’t deploy his troops as far to the West as I could have done (entirely my fault I misread the deployment locations). Secondly the approaches to his objectives are heavily wooded which slows his troops dramatically.  Lastly (and due to Paul's good generalship) McDowell struggled to allocate enough priority points to Tyler to keep his troops moving.  After the game ended I also realised the the scenario set up rules (even when read correctly) make it impossible to get troops around Beauregard’s left and ready to attack as quickly as happened historically!  

4. The end of the first hour

While Tyler was slogging through the woods, Hunter was moving his division south from Centreville. However, Johnson wasn’t sitting idly by.  Instead Paul had him cross Bull Run with his troops to threaten Centreville (which is a Confederate game objective).  He pushed Stuart’s cavalry brigade forward on the far left of Hunter’s division while the rest of of Johnson’s wing advanced frontally on them.  I had to respond to this and for the rest of the game I had to prioritise the action on my left more than I had intended and that of course meant that I had less points to bid for my flanking movement.  

I pushed Heintzelman’s brigades towards the Stone Bridge as fast as I could and the first fighting erupted there.  This was skirmishing across the Stone Bridge that fight see-sawed back and forth for two or three hours.  One reason for this was Paul’s siting of his artillery, he placed batteries on the hills overlooking the crossings around the Stone Bridge.  Two were sited on the North Edge of Henry Hill and a third on the rise to the west of there which placed any Federals advancing on the bridge in the centre of interlocking fields of fire.  Artillery has an ability to use interrupting fire against activated enemy divisions which can drive a brigade backwards stopping them completing their movement.  Paul made maximum use of this to prevent Federal troops from crossing Bull Run in this area.

5. Fighting around the Bridge

In photo five you can see how Paul's artillery dominates the approach to the Stone Bridge and Farm Ford.  The tokens denote fatigue blue for one, green for two etc.  Any unit accruing a fifth fatigue marker is broken!  We didn't get any units past two fatigue all day, clearly we were not pushing things hard enough.

Meanwhile to the east Johnson’s attempt to advance towards Centreville forced me to give high priority bids to Hunter’s Division to guarantee they could deploy into a defensive line before Johnson could launch an assault.  I also turned Miles’ Division back to support him.   I managed to block Stuart’s route with Palmer’s cavalry brigade and put a defence together and despite Confederate close attacks this stabilised the position on that flank.  The worst moment was when Burnside’s brigade broke leaving a hole in the line.  I was lucky though as McDowell had moved across to that flank and was able to rally them and get them back into the line.  I had to bid high for Hunter’s and Mile’s activations to stabilise that end of the battle field though, which left Tyler stalled in the woods northeast of Sudley Springs.

6.  Fighting south of Centreville as Johnson pushes through the woods

7. After the end of turn five

By turn five Paul had crossed Bull Run at two points and although Heintzelman had his division in a defensive line facing the Stone Bridge his left flank was under threat from Confederate brigades who has crossed down stream of the bridge.   Tyler by this point was as close as he was going to get to crossing Bull Run having been allocated zero priority points to allow Hunter to keep the initiative over Johnson.

8.  Paul surveys the field at the end of turn 6 *

9.  McDowell holds the line at Centreville (Turn 7)

The battle was drawing to a close by this point and Paul was looking for the win.  He silenced my artillery facing the Stone Bridge and pushed troops over the Bridge and also the fords either side.  In reply I formed a defensive line with Heintzelman’s Division.  Paul launched close assaults against the line and despite my best efforts was able to break an infantry brigade and push another back.

9. Confederates attacking around the Stone Bridge in turn 7

Those attacks opened a route through to McDowell’s second HQ unit which Paul pounced upon giving him a second destroyed unit.  This was at the end of the last turn.  Paul gained the win with two of his required five Destroyed Federal units achieved v none of his own destroyed.  He was also able to remove fatigue markers from his troops so only had three fatigue markers against his units compared to the Federals who had seven markers.  

10. Can McDowell hold the line until night?

17. At the day's end -red line shows the Confederate front line

The overall result clearly favoured the Confederacy and I would call it a tactical win for Beauregard and Johnson.  The Federals have not lost  as many brigades as they did historically which is probably because both Paul and I were a little tentative in pushing troops forward to close combat.

What did we learn?

Artillery interrupt fire is useful for breaking up attacks but can’t create fatigue on enemy units and they can’t use canister in interrupt fire.  Also interrupt fire is a special case of defensive fire, so if you use it you cannot also shoot after the enemy movement phase.  If artillery holds it’s fire until the defensive fire phase it can use canister at short range which gives a huge firing bonus and almost certainly creates fatigue in the target if not outright breaking them.  

It’s hard to get troops into close combat but when you do the results are devastating.  Attacks need to form up in depth so that if the leading brigade is pushed back by artillery fire the supporting brigade can continue the attack.  Oh and we learned that we didn’t know the rules as well as we should.

It was a great day's gaming and both of us enjoyed the rules.  We will be revisiting the ACW and Alter of Freedom again in the near future.

* You may notice that Paul commanding the grey clad Confederates is dressed in Blue, bizarrely I was commanding the blue coated Federals and was dressed in grey! 

The De Lancy Development Corporation brings you...

 ... exciting new business premises ripe for those with the proper entrepreneurial bent*.  Or in other words I added some more buildings to De Lancy.  

Trump's Office before pressing out.

The Liquor Store (under construction). Poker in the rear anyone?

First up is the Land Office where land grants under the Homestead Act are registered.  This also doubles up as a Post Office.  I have seen period photos from Colorado with this arrangement so I stole it!  Now we have a target for attempts to destroy evidence of land grants or outgoing information and a location mail coaches will visit.

The Land Office - it still needs a little tidying up 

Second is a building under construction.  It serves no particular purpose in creating scenarios other than to be a location and some additional scenery.  I’m in the process of adding extra clutter to the basic building in the form of some stacks of building materials such as planks for cladding the frame.

WIP photo.  You can see why a bit of further set dressing is needed

Both buildings are from the Cactus Creek range from Warbases.  I quite like the price but they are a tad on the small size.  I’d really like the buildings to be deeper in comparison to their frontage to match the historical buildings found on the sandborn insurance maps from the period.  Still I’m not going to make a major issue of it as I’m sure some original buildings varied in size.  I will just fill up the building lot’s footprint with other clutter.

* If you don't have a proper entrepreneurial bent fear not; the De Lancy Development Corporation is to build a state of the art medical facility for the county in the near future.  We will soon have that improper bent straightened right out.  With a range of cushioned rubber mallets for all your anaesthetic needs, we are sure most patients will survive treatment.

The 2mm ACW project update

Of course it was bound to happen I complain about the poor service from EVRI and bingo the parcel finally arrived.  Only a fortnight late.  Better late than never I suppose.  

The 2mm ACW project.

Has hit a snag!  Things were progressing nicely towards finishing this project.  Thanks to the '2mm and small scale wargaming' Facebook page I had an offer of all of the castings I needed from a fellow 2mm fan, the very generous David Blair.  Then I interacted with EVRI, or rather I didn't.  At the time of writing EVRI has managed to loose the parcel David sent.  It is somewhere between Sheffield and here the tracking app shows it reaching the delivery hub at Sheffield and being manifested for delivery and then the next tracking entry shows that the courier didn't receive the parcel!  You really couldn't make it it up, if EVRI tried to be useless they probably couldn't achieve the levels of uselessness they currently seem to be achieving.  It isn't an isolated case either the community Facebook page for Barton upon Humber is currently full of complaints about EVRI and they don't seem to be able to keep couriers in the job.  I suppose I will have to chalk it up to experience.

There should be a parcel but it is conspicuous by it's absence

In the meantime I ordered more bases from Warbases as when I checked I realised that I was short of a few of the 60 x 30mm ones needed for Altar of Freedom. Seeing that I was on that site I also ordered a couple of 28mm western buildings as well, it would have been rude not too and it spreads the postage cost out as well. As always with Warbases those came via the normal post with no problems at all, ordered on a Friday delivered the following Wednesday.

As for Altar of Freedom I have invited Paul Dawson across for a game, probably playing the 1st Manassas scenario, so I'm currently trying out different methods of making woodland.  American Civil War battles seem to need a lot of woods, forests and orchards and I'm also going to need about eight linear feet of river as well.

  

Bath mat forest (not really to my liking and over exposed)

So it looks like terrain building is the order of the day for the next week or so.  The bobbly bath mat technique for making woods looked promising but the mat I bought has the bobbles (i.e. the trees) in a grid which would be great for the Peach Orchard but doesn't really look right for wild woods.  So it's back to the drawing board again or alternatively I'm going to be making a lot of canopy woods.  In the worst case I can always mark them out on the cloth with chalk.

More rivers and woods are under construction

Say hello to Mina

I almost adopted another Brittany between Christmas and New Year but it fell through in really rather tragic circumstances.  On sober reflection we decided that having another Brittany after loosing George would probably be too much like trying to replace him.  In any event a different Brittany's personality would not have been like George’s and it was his personality that we loved.  That I thought was that until Mrs E spotted a dog in a local shelter that had just arrived from Romania.  A ten year old bitch of (lets be honest here) uncertain parentage, what my dad would have called a 'Heinz'  as in 57 varieties in there, but with a very laid back personality.  Good with other dogs and in need of a foster home.  So last Wednesday we drove over to the shelter and long story short came home with a new dog, on fostering with a view to adopting terms. Two days later we rang the shelter to make it an adoption!   Its a kind of doggy inertia selling I swear it is.

Mina is nearest the camera

Mina, as that is her name, was a bit nervous of me to start with and preferred Mrs E's company and has been following her around like a shadow.  She has now overcome those nerves , it's amazing how far a goodly portion of roast chicken goes to earn a dog's trust, and has settled in rather well.  So we are once again a two dog family.  Happy days.  

The Painting Table -December 2022 and the 2022 Review.

I'm merging the December Painting table update and the annual review into a single post this month, so eyes down here we go!

HQ's and Generals for Altar of Freedom

The headline news is that the Huns have finally left the table.  Fully painted and based as of 27 December.  To quote the late great Douglas Adams "I love deadlines.  I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by!"  Although the deadline for getting the Huns off the table has passed so many times this year it no longer had the energy to go woosh.  I also got all of the 2mm castings I purchased in November done so I have finished the year without increasing the size of the lead pile, for I think, the third year in a row.  I even found time to finish a single 28mm figure as well.

15 completed cavalry brigades for AoF

It’s also time to take stock of 2022. No matter what else I remember about this year, first and foremost it will always be the year we lost George.  However, sad as that was there are other things to recall too so let’s look at some of them.  This was the year when we started to put Covid-19 behind us.  As a result Sealed Knot re-enactment returned to something like normal.  I made it to the August Bank Holiday event, although Mrs E arranged matters to prevent my taking the field.  She did this by the simple expedient of going off site in the car with all my kit inside!  Probably for the best as the display field was a very steep hill side.  I’m more hopeful of taking part in events in 2023.

I managed some actual wargaming during the year too.  Both the solo games I blogged about and latterly some remote gaming via Zoom with Trebian’s Monday Night Gamers, you know the ones who meet on a Tuesday evening.  I also played my first games of ADLG version 4 following an invite to spend a day in York getting to know the rules from Paul Dawson.  By my count I managed one western shootout, four Tuesday night games (spread across history from Alexandrian by way of the Reconquista to Normandy in 1944 via the French Wars of Religion), and two games of ADLG.  I even won one of the ADLG games albeit with some substantial mentoring. 

In the autumn I began attending a modelling club, which had started recently, here in town.  It has an interesting mix of attendees ranging from GW Warhammer kit builders through diorama makers, model truck and train makers to me with my Wild West town builds.  Most of the Warhammer fans have never actually played a game and were unaware of historical wargaming as a hobby (The GW blinker effect as I have taken to calling it) they were stunned that you could by figures without needing a mortgage too.  My Wild West shootout stuff has created some interest in trying a game though and there is talk of them even playing  some actual Warhammer.

My painting has taken a bit of a backseat to modelling this year and I have made my first 1/56 scale scratch built buildings as well as my first MDF kit in that scale.  In fact the uncovering of the 28mm old west figures in my lead pile earlier in the year has triggered a return to skirmish gaming for the first time in nearly half a century!  The 2mm ACW project will be complete soon I only need the models for the outstanding artillery units to be done.  

I suppose I should look back on the objectives I set for the last year if no other reason than I don't actually recall what they were!  So I'm guessing I may not have done particularly well in meeting them.  (Brief intermission while Elenderil changes screens to check the 2022 spreadsheets).

BBC test card F - This takes me back

Intermission over we now return to our program.

My objectives for 2022 were adjusted mid year to remove the War of the roses DBA armies and the armies and enemies of EL Cid DBA armies.  What was left was this:

• Complete the 2mm ACW armies
• Create a base line Hunnic army
• Reduce the lead pile
• Recount all the figures |(for ego and insurance purposes)
• Play some actual wargames!

As mentioned above I haven't quite finished the 2mm ACW armies so that's a narrow miss.  Rolled over to 2023 ready for some games with real life opponents.

Base line Hunnic Army I'm calling done as I have sufficient light cavalry and need to add some heavy cavalry and subject allies.  New objective required for 2023 of complete the Hunnic Army.

I have played some actual games - so objective met there.

In terms of the lead pile I have 84 less 6mm castings than I started the year with.  So only the odd 1,200 6mm figures left to deal with!  2mm/3mm is down by 25 3mm vehicles although I have painted way more 2mm ACW than that but these were the November purchases so in strictness those 882 figures balance out (maybe I should count castings rather than the figures they represent in future?).  Lastly the 20mm plus lead pile is down by 7 foot figures.  So The lead pile has shrunk -objective met.

And I recounted the completed figures - another objective met.

All in all I did better than I thought, and as an aside creating and publishing objectives has actually kept me close to being on track over the year.

So without further ado here are some objectives for 2023:

• Finish the 2mm ACW armies
• Play some face to face games of Altar of Freedom using those armies
• Complete the DBA Hunnic Army (probably going for the army of Attila)
• Complete a DBA Gothic army
• Reduce the lead pile
• Attend some wargames shows (Vapnartak and one of the Newark shows?)
• Finish painting the 28mm Wild West figures
• Build at least a small main street for 28mm gunfights (lets call that a minimum of six buildings/corrals)
• Finish Painting the 6mm WW1 aeroplanes

That should keep me going for a while.  So that's 2022 all wrapped up onwards we go for another trip around the sun.