Little Odo's Library

All things gaming have taken a bit of a ride on the back seat over the last couple of weekends. Apologies for that. The reason being is that I have bought some new shelves to replace the creaking old ones that housed my reference books. This rearranging and rehousing work should be completed by the weekend, when I hope to get a paintbrush back in hand.

Some paint has gone onto a few minis but I have literally only had time to put a few colours onto those Broo. Hopefully this weekend will see that last Brytenwalda unit completed, as well as those Runequest minis.

Weirdy ridey thing

I managed to finish this horse/bird hybrid mount. It seems to be a reverse depiction of a hippogriff. I think there was a rider for this beast, but I am not sure which figure it was. I have another chaos riding beast to paint too, again with a rider, but this may be a while before it gets to the paint station.

I also managed to get some paint onto the Brytenwalda infantry unit for Alex; hopefully these will be finished by the next update. I also started on the Broo and Runequest miniaturestoday, I will be painting them with bronze weapons as opposed to the usual iron/steel ones I usually paint.

I will be looking through my old miniatures backlog again this week and trying to find some more to paint. I may also try to get that final unit of EIR auxiliary archers onto the paint desk, or maybe that last unit of auxiliary spearmen. I also have 36 Warriors of Rohan needing a quick finish so I can get to use them in anger with the 24 Riders of Rohan painted last year. There's loads to be done still, and so far this year there have been no new 28mm miniatures purchased. I am going to try to keep it that way until I need to get some to finalise those last few stands for HotT dwarfs or orcs/goblins.

Goblin Tusker Riders

These minis are some old Citadel Goblin Tusker Riders. I have painted one up for RPG and the rest for a couple of HotT bases. Whilst trying to complete my Brytenwalda armies, I thought I'd do a bit more work on one of my part completed HotT armies. My barbarian army is completed, but my dwarfs and orcs/goblins still need some work. As I have the minis to complete the orcs/goblins, I thought I'd hit some of those first.

First up is the one I am going to use for fantasy RPG - a goblin riding an old silver mane. The colour scheme for my orcs/goblins is not the usual 'greenskin' one. I wanted to move away from the Games Workshop standard and create my own, albeit probably not really original, scheme. So far, the colour scheme gets lighter as the beasties get smaller...

Trolls, ogres etc - brown

Orcs - Tanned Flesh

Goblins - Elf Flesh

Night Goblins - Rotting Flesh

Svarts - not decided but some kind of white/blue or white/green shade

The second picture is of two stands of either riders or cavalry for HotT. I have decided that these minis will represent (like the one above) Night Goblins. They were a doddle to paint, being only three colours plus wash. The tuskers took a lot more work in comparison.

Here's a picture of all five riders together.

Finally, here's a photo of the battle scene from last week, taken from a slightly different angle. I find it very Tolkienesque in that goblin beast riders take on some horselords with a bit of magical backup. The Battle of Druid's Hill is a battle that still needs to be fought - I wonder what the outcaome will be?



Coming next:

I have a strange chaos riding horse/beast that I have almost completed

Hopefully I can finish the last of the Brytenwalda foot unit for Alex

I may make a start on those Runequest Broo - some for fantasy RPG, some to make up a mercenary base for HotT

Brytenwalda Marca 2

Four posts in one day! It must be a record for me. I have been busy with quite a bit of real life stuff lately, so I haven't had much time to post or paint recently. So, like London buses, you wait for ages and then there are four arriving together.

Alex and I managed to finish off a few miniatures this weekend for our Brytenwalda armies. Going has been a little slow on these this month, but at least some progress has been made. First up is a cavalryman, or marca, with a full face helmet.



Second up is a standard trooper, painted up with a very Rohan Royal guard theme. I thought about doing the shield designs with a horse motif, but decided against it in the end. I may revisit that idea at a later stage when I do more LotR minis.

Here's another standard cavalry trooper.

This final shot is of a mini skirmish scene I set up. You can just make out who their enemy is in the bottom left of the picture. It is very much on a LotR theme.

All miniatures are from Gripping Beast's Arthurian collection.

To come in the next few weeks...
More Brytenwalda troops to fill out our armies.
A few fantasy minis for RPG and HotT
I also dug out some old Runequest minis this weekend, which I have cleaned up, rebased and undercoated. They needed a complete repaint though as my old paint job on them was awful, but should be fun to do - I have a small selection of adventurers and the old Citadel Broo box set

Alex's Brytenwalda Command

Alex managed to finish off three of his Arthurians this weekend. Two of them are a part of his Brytenwalda army. First up is the Pendragon.

Here's a musician; not part of his Brytenwalda army, but as it was painted I thought I'd photograph it and put it up on the blog.

Finally, here's his Merlin figure. This will be a Scholar in the game. It will be good to see how these different troop types perform on the battlefield.

Next up for Alex should be some more Bretonnian Knights and a few more Arthurian types.

Lithuania Battle Report

LITHUANIA - Spring 1740

As part of a general westward push, a Russian army under General Peter Saltykov invaded Lithuania. Despite being a Polish territory, the King of Poland (the Duke of Saxony) took no action. The King of Prussia however anticipated the invasion and sent an army under General Count Kurt Christoph von Schwerin to support the small Lithuanian army. The two armies met and deployed for battle.

THE ARMIES

Russian

General Saltykov (+1)
3 x battalions of musketeers
1 x regiment of dragoons
1 x regiment of hussars
1 x battery of heavy artillery
1 x battery of medium artillery

Prussian
General von Schwerin (+1)
1 x battalion of grenadiers
2 x battalions of musketeers
2 x regiments of dragoons
1 x regiment of cuirassiers
1 x battery of medium artillery

Lithuanian

1 x battalion of musketeers

THE BATTLEFIELD

Map number 3.

Russians on the right, Prussians & Lithuanian allies on the left.

Both supply roads the bottom most roads.

The centre of the battlefield was dominated by a gentle hill running from east to west, covering approximately half the area of the battlefield.

To the north of the hill a road ran from east to west. Almost at the east end of the road was a village.

To the south of the hill, also running from east to west was another road, along which both armies traced their lines of supply. At the east end of the road was a village. At the west end was the large house of a Polish noble.

The Russians approached from the East.

DEPLOYMENT

As the armies caught sight of each other the Russian dragoons were riding in column along the northern-most road, east of the village. To the south of the hill the infantry and artillery had drawn themselves up just in front of the village. The hussars, led by Saltykov in person, had drawn themselves up on the infantry brigade’s left flank, facing southwest.

The Prussian dragoons had drawn themselves in one brigade opposite the Russian Dragoons, with the Lithuanian musketeers behind them.

The Prussian grenadiers were drawn up in line on the southern-most road. To their left were the rest of the Prussian infantry & the artillery. To their right were the Prussian cuirassiers, personally led by General von Schwerin.

THE BATTLE

Both armies advanced, the Russian dragoons in the north taking the village ahead of them and forming up in line at on the other side. The Prussian dragoons formed up side by side and then charged, unfortunately colliding with each other and grinding to a confused halt before reaching their objective. The Russian dragoons had by this time however already turned tail and fled to the east side of the village.

Meanwhile to the south, the Russian heavy artillery had started pounding the Prussian grenadiers, who stood firm.

As the pounding in the south continued, the Prussian dragoons managed to untangle themselves (amid multiple recriminations and arrangements of duels) and advance to through the village in line, one regiment behind the other. They then charged the disorganised Russian Dragoons, whom this time held their ground long enough for the Prussians to carve into them. After a brief fight the Russian dragoons fled the field with one regiment of Prussian dragoons hot on their heels.

To the south the Prussian infantry withdrew out of range of the Russian guns, which were promptly turned onto the cuirassiers. A relatively few number of Prussian cavalrymen fell. Those that did however included General von Schwerin himself, truncated by a 12lb ball of solid iron. His horse, obviously startled, fled the field, carrying the headless body and the general’s alarmed staff with it. Seeing this, Saltykov, at the head of his hussars, gave the order to charge. The Prussian cuirassiers, left out on a limb without the support of their general and faced with the charging Russians, fell into confusion as officers and sergeants struggled to keep the men from fleeing. The Prussian cuirassiers faced the Russian hussars standing. They fared poorly in the ensuing melee and left the field in a broken state.

The Russian hussars then faced the musketry of the Prussian grenadiers before being able to advance to safety and moving to threaten the Prussian lines of supply. Meanwhile to the north, the remaining regiment of Prussian Dragoons was racing south to cut the Russian’s own supply road. Time was however against them both and darkness fell.

AFTERMATH

The battle was a draw.

The Prussians (having mounted a defensive invasion) withdrew to East Prussia having lost a general & 1 SP. A new +1 general will appear in Prussia next turn.

As the Lithuanians survived unscathed, Lithuania & Russia co-occupy Lithuania. Russia has gained no victory points and has lost 1 SP.

6mm 18th Century (part 2)

Colin managed to get some more of his photos (and text) off to me during the week...

This is the final one of the Russians vs. Prussians game. It shows Russia's Moldavian "Yellow" Hussars before their charge. The photo shows some of the detail including the frogging on their pelisses. I'm sure however that I can take a photo that will better show the paint jobs on my figures.



"British Grenadiers" - Shows some obsessive detail on the mitres.

"British in North America" - Shows a closer shot of some of the figures I sent you before, but also includes some Colonial Militia in blue and some Regular Light Infantry. The Light Infantry are actually ACW dismounted cavalry with a dob of glue on their heads to round their kepis and make them look like the correct headwear.

"Canadiens and Allies" - The trees are all metal, of various makes, mostly Irregular Miniatures. I thought I'd mention that as they seem to feature as prominently as the soldiers.

The Habitants and Woodland Indians (probably Mingoes) are entering into combat with the Rangers The Indians are Heroics & Ros. They are led by a Prussian Jaeger painted as a French officer, mostly for identification purposes.

The Coureurs de Bois are a mixture of Heroics & Ros and Irregular Miniatures. The Heroics are mostly Woodland Indians and Jaegers, the latter being subject to more alteration, cutting away equipment. I have left some with tricorns, but others I have styled toques (long wooly hats) from trailing blobs of glue, which I found easier than moulding Milliput at that size.
 

"Rangers" - Shows some colonial rangers. They are made up of a variety of Heroics & Ros figures, including American Woodland Indians, ECW Lowland Scots, and a Prussian Jaeger (he's the one reloading). The musician is an ACW dismounted cavalryman. They have mostly been altered slightly, mostly cutting, but in the case of the Jaeger, by swapping his head with a lowland Scot.

We used to play quite a few 18th Century style games, mostly Sport of Kings, Warfare in the Age of Reason and Wolfe et Montcalme back in the day.

Colin also sent through some write-ups for a few of our old games. I'll try to get them up on the blog after this post too. These pictures and write-ups have brought it all flooding back. We used to play several times a month when we were a lot younger, but as work and other life commitments started to get in the way, along with many people moving away or leaving us entirely, our gaming group slowly reduced from a couple of dozen (inlcuding both the casual and hard-core gamers) to just the half-dozen or so that play PBeMs nowadays. Face-to-face gaming is almost non-existent although we constantly talk about it and always want to get to play. One day, probably when we are all retired, we'll get back to it!