New Orleans Washington Artillery

Here are some pics of a Washington Artillery piece and the newly remounted Confederate artillery.The Washington Artillery battery is the element with the flag and consists of a mixture of Foundry, Dixon and Redoubt miniatures. The gun is a Foundry 6-pounder. The other miniatures are mainly Old Glory. The guns are not attached to the elements so that any element can crew any gun.

Here is the Washington Artillery flag I created. It is copied from an original on display in a confederate museum.

Legends of Henderson

Ben loves to play the excellent "Legends of the Old West" rule set...and, as luck would have it, so do Matt and I. So, Matt picked out the vendetta scenario - which is great for three players and we went at it before having to leave for lunch and the airport.

My outlaws were defeated in the end, but tons of fun was had by all! But, having fun and having great gunfights is to be expected with these rules and these guys!

The Battle of Henderson

With Ben's visit, we threw together an ACW scenario using Black Powder. What follows are some images from that fun game. But first, a little commentary and then the order of battle that we used.

I really like Black Powder. The "issuing orders" mechanic has a lot going for it. And, offers the opportunity to have unexpected things happen in a game and wonderfully creates a lack of total control of your units. In this game, I gave a careless order that resulted in my troops being over exposed due to the distance they ended up moving. This actually cost me a regiment. If I had total control of my little lead minions, there is no way I'd see that happen. We'd all line things up perfectly and have everything go exactly according to plan.

Also, there was a classic event. Feeling his flank lost, Ben ordered the retreat of Company A of the 10th Louisiana Artillery. The order was issued by a "Headstrong" brigade commander ("Headstrong" is an attribute that allows better command actions but with a slightly increased chance of a "Blunder"). The command roll resulted in a "Blunder" for this order and the blunder resulted in the artillery battery moving into a position on the flank of the approaching Yankees! Marvelous! A player with complete control of their little lead minions would have calmly retreated to safety exactly according to plan. Instead, both Ben and Matt were in a small panic as the artillery moved exactly NOT in accordance with the plans of EITHER of them. The resulting shooting broke a Yankee regiment and contributed to the securing of that flank for the Rebels. There will be battle honors issued to that artillery company for sure, and an extra portion of green corn and hardtack at camp that night.

Here is the order of battle. I made it all up based on the miniatures available in my collection. Besides the "Skirmish" attribute, I gave each regiment a semi-random attribute to mix things up and to let those rules get exercised so that Ben could experience them. The unit and commander attributes are a very important element of Black Powder.


Confederate Forces 
Wright’s Division – Major General George G. Wright
•    Command Rating: 10
•    Aggressiveness: Typical
•    Decisiveness: Typical
•    Independence: Typical

Divisional Artillery
27th Georgia Artillery, Company F
•    Artillery Type: Smoothbores 24lb, Black Powder Type: Smoothbore Foot Artillery
•    Artillery Firepower (number of dice): 4-2-1
•    HtH: 1 – Morale Rating: 4+ - Stamina: 2
8th Virginia Artillery, Company B
•    Artillery Type: Smoothbores 12lb, Black Powder Type: Smoothbore Foot Artillery
•    Artillery Firepower (number of dice): 3-2-1
•    Hth: 1 - Morale Rating: 4+ - Stamina: 2
10th Louisiana Battery, Company A
•    Artillery Type: Smoothbores 12lb, Black Powder Type: Smoothbore Foot Artillery
•    Artillery Firepower (number of dice): 3-2-1
•    Hth: 1 - Morale Rating: 4+ - Stamina: 2

Atkinson’s Brigade, Brigadier General James Atkinson
•    Command Rating: 9
•    Aggressiveness: Typical
•    Decisiveness: Typical
•    Independence: Typical
23rd Georgia
•    6 stands (Normal) – Stamina: 3 – HtH: 6 – Shooting: 3 – Morale: 4+
•    Skirmish
•    Tough Fighters – Reroll one missed combat attack
17th Georgia
•    6 stands (Normal) – Stamina: 3 – HtH: 6 – Shooting: 3 – Morale: 4+
•    Skirmish
•    Steady – Passes first break test of battle
7th Alabama
•    6 stands (Normal) – Stamina: 3 – HtH: 6 – Shooting: 3 – Morale: 4+
•    Skirmish
•    First Fire – +1 on first shot of the battle

Sutton’s Brigade, Brigadier General Henry T. Sutton
•    Command Rating: 8
•    Aggressiveness: Typical
•    Decisiveness: Typical
•    Independence: Headstrong: +1 if 1sr commander/turn, 11 or 12 to Blunder
11th Mississippi
•    6 stands (Normal) – Stamina: 3 – HtH: 6 – Shooting: 3 – Morale: 4+
•    Skirmish
•    Crack – Reroll one failed morale save if has no casualties already
9th Mississippi
•    4 stands (Small) – Stamina: 2 – HtH: 4 – Shooting: 2 – Morale: 4+
•    Skirmish
•    Ferocious Charge – Reroll misses on combat following charge
6th Louisiana
•    6 stands (Normal) – Stamina: 3 – HtH: 6 – Shooting: 3 – Morale: 4+
•    Skirmish
•    Reliable – +1 to command
4th Louisiana "Fryer's" Zouaves
•    3 stands (Small) – Stamina: 2 – HtH: 4 – Shooting: 3 – Morale: 4+
•    Skirmish
•    Elite – Overcome disorder on 4+ at start of turn

Union Forces 
2nd Division, 3rd Corps – Major General Edward Crawley Hampton
•    Command Rating: 9
•    Aggressiveness: Typical
•    Decisiveness: Hesitant: If gives command of 3 order, must roll again
•    Independence: Typical

Divisional Artillery 
1st US Artillery, Company K
•    Artillery Type: Rifles 3in, Black Powder Type: Siege Howitzer
•    Artillery Firepower (number of dice): 3-2-1
•    HtH: 1 - Morale Rating: 4+ - Stamina: 2
1st US Artillery, Company D
•    Artillery Type: Rifles 3in, Black Powder Type: Siege Howitzer
•    Artillery Firepower (number of dice): 3-2-1
•    HtH: 1 - Morale Rating: 4+ - Stamina: 2
1st Indiana Volunteer Artillery, Company A
•    Artillery Type: Smoothbores 12lb, Black Powder Type: Smoothbore Foot Artillery
•    Artillery Firepower (number of dice): 3-2-1
•    Hth: 1 - Morale Rating: 4+ - Stamina: 2

Dorsey’s Brigade, Brigadier General Granville Dorsey
•    Command Rating: 9
•    Aggressiveness: Typical
•    Decisiveness: Typical
•    Independence: Typical
12th Wisconsin
•    6 stands (Normal) – Stamina: 3 – HtH: 6 – Shooting: 3 – Morale: 4+
•    Skirmish
•    Sharp Shooters – Reroll one missed shot
6th Illinois
•    6 stands (Normal) – Stamina: 3 – HtH: 6 – Shooting: 3 – Morale: 4+
•    Skirmish
•    Steady – Passes first break test of battle
11th Pennsylvania
•    6 stands (Normal) – Stamina: 3 – HtH: 6 – Shooting: 3 – Morale: 4+
•    Skirmish
•    Tough Fighters – Reroll one missed combat attack
9th Pennsylvania
•    4 stands (Small) – Stamina: 2 – HtH: 4 – Shooting: 2 – Morale: 4+
•    Skirmish
•    First Fire – +1 on first shot of the battle

Hardy’s Brigade, Brigadier General Edward Hardy
•    Command Rating: 9
•    Aggressiveness: Typical
•    Decisiveness: Typical
•    Independence: Typical
32nd Pennsylvania
•    6 stands (Normal) – Stamina: 3 – HtH: 6 – Shooting: 3 – Morale: 4+
•    Skirmish
•    Crack – Reroll one failed morale save if has no casualties already
22nd Pennsylvania
•    4 stands (Small) – Stamina: 2 – HtH: 4 – Shooting: 2 – Morale: 4+
•    Skirmish
•    Elite – Overcome disorder on 4+ at start of turn
19th Pennsylvania
•    6 stands (Normal) – Stamina: 3 – HtH: 6 – Shooting: 3 – Morale: 4+
•    Skirmish
•    Ferocious Charge – Reroll misses on combat following charge
29th Pennsylvania
•    4 stands (Small) – Stamina: 2 – HtH: 4 – Shooting: 2 – Morale: 4+
•    Skirmish
•    Elite – Overcome disorder on 4+ at start of turn

Eaton’s Brigade, Brigadier General William Spencer Eaton
•    Command Rating: 8
•    Aggressiveness: Typical
•    Decisiveness: Typical
•    Independence: Typical
12th Illinois
•    4 stands (Normal) – Stamina: 3 – HtH: 6 – Shooting: 3 – Morale: 4+
•    Skirmish
•    Elite – Overcome disorder on 4+ at start of turn
8th Illinois
•    4 stands (Small) – Stamina: 2 – HtH: 4 – Shooting: 2 – Morale: 4+
•    Skirmish
•    First Fire – +1 on first shot of the battle
12th Minnesota
•    6 stands (Normal) – Stamina: 3 – HtH: 6 – Shooting: 3 – Morale: 4+

•    Skirmish
•    First Fire – +1 on first shot of the battle
3rd Michigan
•    6 stands (Normal) – Stamina: 3 – HtH: 6 – Shooting: 3 – Morale: 4+
•    Skirmish
•    Reliable – +1 to command

Ben! Matt!

As you will be able to tell from the next couple of posts, my brother was able to be here this weekend for a short visit. Work unexpectedly brought him to Denver and we were able to take advantage of that fortune - as good generals do - and parlay it into Big Battle DBN on Friday night, Black Powder American Civil War on Saturday and a Legends of the Old West skirmish on Sunday.

Ben, I am soooo glad you were able to get here and stay a couple of extra days...and I am also grateful to your wife and new daughter for sanctioning the extra time too. I know how hard you work and how many hours are involved in that...and I miss you, man. So, being able to socialize with you and enjoy our hobby together was very special.

Also, Matt - a special buddy of mine - was able to spend the weekend here as well. He's a terrific friend and an even better person and dad. Thanks for being a part of this special weekend!

Gifts from Sri Lanka

So very excited today. last evening the package arrived from Sri Lanka full of painted miniatures! I sent off 50 28MM Confederates and 100 28MM Yankees and my brother sent off 120 15MM North Vietnamese and 140 15MM United States soldiers to be painted. The quantities were not huge, as this was a trial balloon order - never having sent miniatures off to Sri Lanka before. We used Phil-Greg Painters. So, here is our report:

What We Sent & Ordered

• 50 28MM Confederates, $1.50 painting cost per miniature, "Collector's Standard" grade. Agreed to be painted in various browns and grays.
• 100 28MM Yankees, $1.50 painting cost per miniature, "Collector's Standard" grade. Painted per the sample provided by me and with the two blue colors provided by me.
• 120 15MM North Vietnamese, .85 painting cost per miniature, "Collector's Standard" grade. Painted per the sample provided by me and with the colors provided by me.
• 140 15MM United States, .85 painting cost per miniature, "Collector's Standard" grade. Painted per the sample provided by me and with the colors provided by me.
• Total with shipping: $532.70 + another $50 or so to get the miniatures to Sri Lanka.

The Timeline

• May 21 - Package sent from Henderson, CO to Sri Lanka.
• June 14 - Confirmation from Phi-Greg that our package had arrived. This seemed to take longer than I supposed it would have, and was worried that the package may have been lost. But, it did arrive, I attribute it to slower shipping to Sri Lanka and perhaps even a backlog of work to be done at the painters. No worries, as long as it made it.
• June 16 - Confirmation from Phil-Greg of the miniature count in the package.
• July 23 - Images from Phil-Greg of some of the painted miniatures for our approval. From June 16 to July 23 seems long to me too...but what do I know of the amount of work they have to do for other customers, etc.?
• August 10 - Dispatch from Phil-Greg of the painted miniatures, via Aramex and with a tracking number. I was able to track the box from Sri Lanka, to Dubai, to Los Angeles to Denver!
• August 13 - Arrival in Henderson of the painted miniatures!

The box was apparently opened in Dubai for inspection as it arrived here with tape sealing it that had Arabic and English characters on it" "Opened for Inspection". No doubt that the carrier has some sort of contract with the U.S. Customs office for inspections or it may not have gotten here so quickly.

The box was packaged very well and each of the miniatures was in a small individual baggie. They got here in great shape. My wife and I were both happily surprised with the quality of the work on all of the miniatures. I have to state that "I love them"...they're very well painted and there is no way I could have painted them - my time is just too scarce for that.

The above image shows a miniature packaged in a baggie and also shows a couple of the ACW miniatures.

The above image shows all of the ACW miniatures received. The flash bulb makes the yankees look a little brighter than they really are in this image, as you can see by the first image, the colors are actually darker. For the Confederates, I think all I need to do is paint over several of the bedrolls to add some custom touches.

The above image shows a couple of the NVA and USA troopers for my brother's Vietnam collection. They even painted faces on these guys.

On a scale of 1 to 10, my happiness is about an 8. As mentioned above, there are some odd timeline gaps and I am not wild about the "shading lines" painted on many of the miniatures - my sample miniature that I provided was not painted with any such shading as I intended to "dip" them. I figure that at least they used the colors I provided and that the actual painter was painting as he or she always has, factory-style...and the factory always adds the shading lines. I can easily touch up anything I do not care for. The bottom line is that I did not paint 150 ACW miniatures! Yay! I did not paint 150 ACW miniatures! Yay me! Yay Sri Lanka!

We're definitely sending more miniatures to Sri Lanka, it was an overall good experience and that was the goal - see how it all worked. When you look at the above images, remember that when held in your hand or on the game table, the miniatures look really great. When viewed large-sized on the blog, 100X magnification, they look less great.

Now, I gotta get some men on their bases before my Brother arrives here for the weekend! We're gonna play a 28MM ACW game using "Black Powder". I have a very awesome and very expensive bourbon, Pappy Van Winkle, and we're going to enjoy that fine beverage as we enjoy a fine wargame. It is going to be fun and I cannot wait! I'll post pictures after he leaves on Sunday (and after I have sobered up).

DBN BUA

My friend Jeff saw my Black Powder town segments (see post: http://wargamebayou.blogspot.com/2010/05/does-this-look-ok.html) and asked if I would make him some BUA's for DBN using that style. I have created and printed three such BUA's, but have only assembled one. Jeff has a nice Russian army, so one of the BUA's is themed as a Russian steppe town. Hope he likes it! It is shown below...being sacked by my Frenchmen, of course.

Big Battle DBN - Austria 1809

My friend Matt and I played a big battle DBN game yesterday. Wow, what fun! We like the typical 12-point army game, but this was really so much better. We each played with a 36-point army and a long battlefield, and the difference was huge. The armies were constructed as follows:

Allied
Foot Artillery: 4 elements (1 as Elite)
Light Cavalry: 3 elements
Muskets: 15 elements
Musket/Light Infantry: 3 elements
Heavy Cavalry: 3 elements (1 as Elite)
"Average" Sub-commanders: 3 elements
"Good" C-in-C: 1 element

The French commander created three corps, each consisting of 1 artillery, 1 light horse, 1 light infantry and 5 musket elements. Under the direct command of the C-in-C was the elite artillery element and the three heavy cavalry elements. One corps was composed entirely of Italian troops, one of French troops and one mainly of Bavarians with a small French representation.

Austria
Foot Artillery: 5 elements
Light Cavalry: 5 elements
Muskets: 18 elements (2 as Elite and 6 as Militia)
Heavy Cavalry: 3 elements
"Average" Sub-commanders: 3 elements
"Good" C-in-C: 1 element

The Austrian commander created three corps. One corps consisted of all of the mounted elements. One corps consisted of all of the artillery elements and all of the militia musket elements. The third corps consisted of the remaining infantry. No elements were placed under the direct command of the C-in-C.

We set up a battlefield and rolled that the French would be the attacker. We then deployed our troops in the following manner - which we think is better than the prescribed method.

• Defender deploys 1/2 of his commands to the battlefield within 600 paces of his edge and no closer than 300 paces from a side edge. This number is rounded up if the C-in-C is "poor" and is rounded down if the C-in-C is "good". If the C-in-C is "average", then roll 1d6 to determine if it is rounded up or down. Defender then deploys any garrisons in BUAs (in addition to the commands already deployed).
• Attacker then deploys all of his commands to the battlefield within 600 paces of his edge and no closer than 300 paces from a side edge.
• Defender then deploys his remaining commands within 600 paces of his edge and no closer than 300 paces from a side edge.

We also played the "Victory Conditions" differently, as the DBN conditions do not account for the losses of a given command, only the entire army. So, here is how we played the victory conditions:

• When a command loses 1/3 of its original element count (rounded up) it is demoralized. 
• A demoralized command can only spend CAP to prevent fleeing and can no longer initiate close combat. Any element not help by CAP makes a flee movement each turn.
• A demoralized command cannot transfer out any elements to another command and cannot accept transferred elements from another command.

Regarding transferring elements, the following clarification were made by us:

• Transferring elements into a command DOES NOT change the "original" number of elements in that command for purposes of determining demoralization. For example, if 1 have 9 elements and I transfer in 3 more, I still can only lose 3 elements before being considered demoralized.
• Transferring elements out of a command DOES change the "original" number of elements in that command for purposes of determining demoralization. For example,if I have 6 elements and I transfer out 3 elements, the "original" size of the command is now considered to be "3", not "6". Otherwise, I could get cheesy with the demoralization rules - and we don't want that.

Here are some pictures (click to enlarge)!