Sharp Practice - AWI British Legion

Weekend summary

I just got in my version 2 of my 3d printed bases for AWI Sharp Practice. I received 2 movement trays and about 20+ bases. I will be using this to base my British Legion infantry/Dismounted British Legion Cavalry. I messed about with these in Tinkercad. The first version was a 9.5mm square base. These proved to be too small for the miniatures. I enlarged this to 11mm square. If the miniatures fit, the next step will be getting the movement tray correct. I have a milimeter gutter between each space. This may put the miniatures too close. Still, it will give a better close order look than the existing US penny basing (19.05mm diameter base).

I think I will still base the Big Men on US pennies to set them appart from their men. The cavalry basing is still not sorted. I have some bases on the existing British Legion Cavalry group. I may make a movement tray based on the existing base.

Tuesday 11/4

The first group is now mounted on the bases that I had printed. They fit and I am very happy about that. The bases are thin at just a single milimeter in height. The trays are 2mm deep and have holes that are 1.5mm deep. That leaves room to work with. Since the glue was still drying, I have not put them into the movement trays yet. I will still need to base the Big Men for this. The second group has started to receive some paint and is going well. The pants and jackets are done. The boots, belts and hats are next. For the crest of the helmets, it is supposed to be black. What I have done is used a dark gray speed paint on it to make them stand out a bit. Probably not correct but it looks good so far.I am thinking I have about 3 more hours of work to complete out the second group.

Wedneday 11/5

Besides the one in progress, I have two other infantry groups left. In addition, I have 4 horses and two horse holders that I undercoated last night. One of the groups will be used as skirmishers. I am trying to decide what a skirmish movement tray should look like for them. I will paint the group of 8, knowing I will likely not use two of them with the skirmish group. I also undercoated the mounted officer for the force. I have a standard bearer and a bugler for the force as well. I am trying to decide if the bugler and standard bearer should be part of the group of 8 cavalary or be separate figures. It will really depend on the miniatures I am waiting for from Old Glory 15s. The pack is labeled as 8 cavalry but it does not state if there is command elements or not. If there is command elements, I will end up using a standard bearer or a bugler to fill out the group. We will have to see. I am guessing that both the OG15 and Brookhurst orders will come over the weekend.

Planning

Once the British Legion is complete, I have 2 other forces to sort out. The priority will be my militia. Currently, I have a large swarm of militia troops painted up but on various basings. None of which I like. If the British Legion project goes well, and I like that basing, I will duplicate it here. The goal of the Militia is to have 9 groups of 10 militia. Two groups of 6 militia skirmishers and two groups of 8 Mounted Militia. I currently have one group of mounted militia. I have been looking at expanding that. While the rules for the Mounted Militia do not have them needing horse holders, I thought that the Scouts Pack from Peter Pig could work well as horse holders. For mounted leaders, I have a miniature of Francis Marion as he appeared in Hillsboro, NC when he presented himself to the Continentals following the fall of Charleston. He wore his SC Continental cap and had a red coat. He made quite the impression. I would like another mounted Big Man for the Mounted Militia. For skirmishers, I bought some skirmishing militia with rifles that never made it past getting a base coat. Those will need to be painted.

The second force is some Continentals. My plan is to base them off of the Georgia Continentals under Colonel Samuel Elbert. These would be in hunting shirts. I cannot find any reference to what the regimental colors would have looked like thus far. I will likely do some variant of a liberty flag for them. I purchased a pack from Old Glory 15s that I plan on using for them. The pack should give me two groups of 8 and some command elements. Once they are painted, I will look and see if there are any additions I want to add to these men. Keeping them at just 2 groups works as they would be working in conjunction with militia.

Next, I want to revisit my Provincial troops. I have plenty more on painting sticks in addition to the ones that are painted. Again, basing is the issue. I have one unit that is based in groups of three and a few individuals. Then another based on small washers. The ones on washers look better but I don't have any movement trays for them. The goal is to make them consistent. Their upgrade will be dependent on the British Legion project.

I will try to get some pictures tonight so the next post will be less boring.

Sharp Practice - Painting

I managed some work over the weekend. I managed to base coat all of my British Legion infantry, a group of militia rifle armed skirmishers and a militia artillery piece and crew. I also had three mounted figures that I undercoated that I have not figured out what I will do with. On Saturday, I had just a few minutes and started to paint the green jackets of a couple of the British Legion figures.

I also painted the horses of the mounted figures. Using the Army Painter speed paint on the horses is really working out for me. I like how the horses look and hate painting them much less. So much so, that I am looking forward to the Old Glory British Legion mounted figures that I have ordered.

I also managed to base coat a Caproni Ca.3 bomber and a another Italian aircraft. At least I am getting some progress here.

I also received my new hill material that I will use going forward. I purchased some exersize mats. There are four 6' x 4' mats. They come in 2' x 2' squares. My original ones were 1' x 1' squares. I should be able to mix and match them and have at least 3 large mats that can be cut up for different shapes. I am looking forward to using these.

There is some brand new resin that i need to try out as well and see if i can print the bases that I was working on. That is it for today.

Setup for Scenario 3 of Singling and other Things

I am finally finishing off the SIngling campaign. The third of the three scenarios is almost set up for a play test over the weekend. The last scenario is a fairly simple one with German armor attempting to move on the town center and the US armor on the outskirts trying to stop them. Hopefully, this will let me finish this and be able to release it soon.

Sharp Practice has started its pull on me again. I am looking at the January to May 1779 period in Georgia again and wondering if it would make for an interesting multi-player game similar to Thomas' Star of Bravery. I am looking at the possible factions and how to address them. There are so many groups operating there that it presents some colorful options. There is the recently victorious British Regulars in Savannah who took the city in December 1778. The Provincial Units that were raised locally and brought in as support as well as the loyalist Militias. The Militia units were from East Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina as well as Georgia locals. On the other side, there were the Continental Army stationed in South Carolina that operated across the Savannah River. The Georgia State Line troops had largely been absorbed by the Continental army. And the County Militias. Wilkes, Richmond and Burke Counties had very active militias that opperated up and down the Savannah River area and some times further south towards Sunbury, Georgia. Operating with part time troops, the militia of both sides struggled to keep their numbers up. Often men flocked to more popular leaders. When that didn't work, sometimes more coercive methods were used to build up the numbers. With men fighting on one side then another depending on whom had more power to force service in his local area.

This period of the war included some significant battles such as Kettle Creek and Briar Creek that could make for interesting conclusions to the campaign. However, I am not sure how to pull this off yet. I am looking at some form of map campaign based on the excellent Campbell Map of 1779. This map covers Georgia from Savannah to Augusta. It does not include Wikles County which lay just to the north. It will be interesting if I can pull this together.

War of Jenkin's Ear

I started to go back through what is left to complete. I have most of my miniatures painted that I need. I took pictures but they are mostly terrible.

First up is my Darien Scots. I have two groups of eight with four big men and a bag piper. I just need to base them and their movement trays.

I have a decent force of woodland indians for use by either side. Two big men and two groups of ten with some casualties. All are based and ready to go. I have at least one more group of ten on painting sticks the I could finish out, plus a number of casualties as well.

The Spanish Regulars and militia are complete and ready to go. they are based up for a pirate game I ran. They are a bit short of big men with three groups of eight for the militia and regulars and one regular big man and two militia big men. I do have an artillery crew on painting sticks that I never started. Come to think of it, I may have the same for Oglethorpe's men....

What I was really pleased to find is two groups of eight painted Spanish grenadiers. I have not painted their officers yet. And they all need basing. Hope to complete that this weekend.

Speaking of Oglethorpe's troops, I have three groups with officers all based up. I do not have movement trays completed for them. That is a task for the weekend.

Lastly is some terrain items. I have a bunch of pine trees to make and some fort sections to complete out. I hope to base coat the fort pieces at any rate.

War of Jenkin's Ear - Continued

I have been working on some models for the supplement. I have managed to make a 3d model of a Piragua and a South Carolina Scout Boat. Using the images of them in Larry Ivers book on the war, British Drums on the Southern Frontier, I think I have made a nice workable model of each boat. The piragua comes in a about 134mm in length in 1/100 scale and 45mm in 1/300 scale. This makes them handy little watercraft in relatively calm waters.

The first drafts of each were a little rough but I learned much in the attempt.

The squared stern vessel is the Piragua. Having a forward and an aft hold, the ships must have been cramped. Large numbers of troops and gear were hauled by the Spanish from Havana to St Simons Island, Georgia. I imagine it would be similar to driving to Orlando from Atlanta with my extended family in a subcompact car. Possible, but very uncomfortable. They could carry a swivel gun or two as defensive weapons but typically were unarmed.

The Scout Boat didn't have a hold area and was more heavily armed. Equipped with three swivel guns, these boats made up the bulk of Oglethorpe's naval contingent. It was made to navigate the rivers of Georgia and travel well inland to search for hostile Indian war parties.

I am currently printing the second iteration of both vessels. I still need to figure out how they will print in 1/300 scale. The side walls of the piragua was so thin in places, that it didn't print the first attempt. At a mere 4 1/2cm in size, the piragua is rather dainty in the small scale.

The next vessel that I will try to model will be a rowed Galley. Several were part of the naval force Spain unleashed against Georgia.With a little luck, I can make a working model.

If you are interested in helping me complete this project, I have opened an account at Ko-Fi.com. I will be giving away all of the models that I am making for the supplement to those that are willing to help me get this thing to completion. Thank you.

Update: Here is the first printing that I did with the new vessels.

I am redoing the models again to give them thicker walls to hopefully get them to print in both 1/100 and 1/300.

Edit, here are some I have been working on. The top two are Se Dog Miniatures hulls that I have shown before here. The two large vessels are Simon Mann models from Wargame 3d. The closest one is a row boat from Sea Dog Miniatures. The remaining two are my 1/300 models. I have one more update that I need to print and try.

A brief Rant, normal service will resume momentarily

First let me apologize. I do not want to use this space for politics, but this had me upset and bewildered this morning. So sorry for the change of topic.

Today is election day here in the US. I got up and after dropping my son off at school, I went to vote. So far so good. When I got to the point where I have to present ID to show I am who I am supposed to be, I looked at the sign that showed what was acceptable. The normal stuff was there: Drivers License, Passport and state id. But there was a new option that was available - the Marta Breeze Card. WTF! (sorry about that but I am too baffled to come up with anything but an explitive)

How is this a form of ID? They can be bought with cash at an automated kiosk at any Marta station. For those who are not familiar with the Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) it is the Atlanta bus and commuter train system that moves through most of the city and out into a couple of the suburbs.

For every step forward we seem to make, somebody inevitably finds a way to make a great leap backwards and has the audacity to call it progress.

Rant Over.

Thanks and Dabbling with Terrible Sharp Sword again

First I just want to pass on a thank you to Anibal Invictus for posting up a nice review of In the name of Roma on his blog: http://mylardiesgames.blogspot.com/2013/09/italians-in-russia-forgotten-army.html. Much appreciated.

While sifting though Google for tidbits on the Battle of Jug Tavern I found some really nice maps of Georgia circa 1864. I found a great map in 1:350,000 scale. The map in usable form is in a jp2 format. I tried to get the gimp plugin for it working but that is not working out. I found some other software to try out called IrfanView. I was able to open the file and save it as a regular JPG. The original map can be found at: http://www.history-map.com/picture/002/Northwestern-Georgia.htm.

But the area I am interested in is this particular chunk of the map. I copied the scale bar onto the chunk to give perspective.

Sorry if this is huge.

Now, this little plot of real estate shows where the Battle of Jug Tavern took place. If you find Lawrenceville and move west-southwest, you will find Beaver Ruin Creek. I actually live not far from there. Some Yankee labeled it Beaver Run on the map. Oh well. Also in this area is where another action took place. It seems that a home guard detachment from Athens fired a "rifled battery" at Adam's Brigade and more or less scared off 2 brigades of Union cavalry. The report of Adam's Brigade (you can get these from the book "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies" Series 1 - Volume XXXVIII, Part II - Reports from 1891) details that they were following the Oconee river to get to Athens. I am wondering if he ment the actual Oconee or the Middle Oconee River as the Middle Oconee River would have been infront of Athens while the actual Oconee passes through Athens.

Much of the landscape has changed. Names have changed as you can no longer find Jug Tavern on a map (its now Winder). Unfortunately King's Tanyard is nor pictured on the map. We do know it was about 3 miles from Jug's Tavern and there was a bridge present that collapsed under the weight of fleeing camp followers and Union soldiers. There are a couple of likely spots on this map for that. Too bad I have not found anything as detailed as I did for Northern Virginia.

Enough for now. Take care.