Gigabytes Historical Game Day - Part 2: Sharp Practice

Once the Kiss Me Hardy game wrapped up, I managed to get the table reset for a game of Sharp Practice. This one was a Napoleonic game based on the Dewey Lambdin Book, Troubled Waters.

In the book, Captain Alan Lewrie, RN, is in command of a small squadron. These include sloops, schooners and cutters below the rate. In the course of the book, he is dealing with spies as he operates off the coast of France. Near the town of Royan, there is a battery of guns guarding the mouth of an estuary that protects the river leading to the port of Bordeaux. A fort is being constructed at Royan but is not yet operational. Lewrie hatches a plan to take out the battery and then move on and destroy the fort that is under construction.

This is where the scenario picks up the action. Lewrie has commanded two of his vessels to land a force of marines and sailors to attack the battery. Guarding the battery is a small group of voltigeurs from a light battalion situated in the town of Royan. The battalion has sent out strong parties of men to search the coast for British sailors that have been getting water and firewood recently.

The sailors are from the a schooner and a sloop that are anchored off of the coast. The marines are from Lewrie's flagship.

The game had two British players and two French players. The British made good progress getting their men headed to the shore. They had three larger rowboats and two smaller ones. This enabled them to land their entire force without having to return to the ships. One group of marines, however, had some issues moving and remained stranded in the water with the one rowboat armed with a gun.

The French deployed their voltigeurs to block the British advance on the gun and opened ineffectual fire on the seamen on the shore. In return, Both the musket armed seamen and the schooner opened fire on these troops and basically neutralized them for the rest of the game.

The French sent out a runner to get reinforcements from the town this was accomplished quickly, but the reinforcements were distracted by the tavern in the village as they spent several turns there.

The next French reinforcement was in the form of three groups of chasseurs that arrived in the top left corner of the table. These troops deployed in a line and advanced through the woods. They lost formation and were picked apart by the marines and the guns from the the sloop.

By the time the second group of marines landed and the gunboat moved off, the French force morale was largely broken. The force from Royan barely played a part as their cards didn't show up before the Tiffin card until toward the end of the game. The French did have their own naval vessel arrive in the form of a single gun gunboat. This opened fire on the schooner and caused some damage but not enough to make a difference.

It was a fun game and played in 15mm. The ships were Sea Dog Studios models with three of the rowboats being Old Glory models. It was a fun game but probably needed some adjustments. Swapping the arrival order of the chasseurs and the gunboat may have helped. That would have distracted the ships from the infantry.

Originally the scenario was going to make the French vessel a small 4-gun sloop but I ran out of time to paint it. The gunboat, I think, proved to be a better help as it was equipped with a heavy gun.

Painting Update

There is nothing like the very last minute to get one in the mood to paint. I just finished four more oarsmen, three seated militia, three seated spanish regulars and three pirate gun crew. I now have the figures that I need for the game tomorrow.

I have also been busy working with my new 3d printer. I have a three piece shipwreck printed. That will be the prize for my game. The aft section took several reprints to get it right, but it looks great. I also have printed a pirate shack that I won't have time to paint for the game and a tudor style caribbean house. These really look good but since they are still the black PLA, they do not take pictures of well.

Another item I printed was a rowboat. It came out great. It has deeper seats and the crews I have painted ride in them much better than the other ones that I have. If I had the time, I would print more and used those instead. The one part it had trouble printing was the rudder handle. It snapped off immediately. But that can be replaced easy enough.

Also started work on an east front windmill. I have the blade finally glued in place. I also have it based and the base textured. I should start painting it next week. My goal is to get all the terrain I need for Second Kharkov done before year's end. The second battle of Kharkov was mainly fought in the small villages that surrounded the city rather than in the city itself. So my rural terrain if perfect for it. The Kickstarter that I participated in for the East Front has everything that I need to complete out the terrain requirements. Stay tuned. It should be fun.

More Fun with 3D Printing

I have the printer up and running well now. I had a few false starts that turned out to be a setup issue. A youTube video set me straight and off I went.

My first prints after the owls were failures. The print head got jammed on a big blob of PLA. Then after fixing the settings, I managed to print out a ship wreck. One slight issue was that the PLA broke part way through the print. That was a bummer. I fixed it rather quickly but it still looks like someone sliced up the ship with a laser at some point. The second attempt was flawless.

The next two prints were a three part Trading Post and a rowboat. Both came out great. The rowboat has a small issue in that the rudder handle did not print. For 15mm it was just too small of a part, I think.

This gives me some prizes for the game on November 11th at Gigabytes.

I have queued up several more items to print today. One is a palisade wall to use for my Romans. I found a nice one on Thingiverse that I am working with. More to come.

Painting Progress

Last week was weak in terms of painting. I managed to paint... rocks. Yep, two 3d printed rock formations that I bought from the fine folks at Sea Dog Studios. Honestly, they look great. Much better than my simple paint job.

To get ready for my Nov 11th Pirates game, I need to paint some more figures. Among them are a few gun crewmen, four oarsmen and two sets of seated troops. I can't get myself in gear to paint. Have been a little preoccupied with a book launch. I won't bore you with the details but if you are interested, check out my other blog.

Also, I am enamoured with my new 3d printer. I am thinking of making a few items for the game. In particular, I am thinking of making a prize for the game. I bought some appropriate model files online. They have an excellent ship wreck that I am going to make. I think that will be the give away.

Painting Progress

It has been a slow week. I managed to get three seated Spanish militia done and a chicken coop. The chickens are not painted that well but they will do. They are too small for me to see enough details on them to paint them any better. The picture of the seated militia is just horrible. But at arms distance, they look pretty good.

Anyway, I am left with just a few more figures to paint for my Pirate game on Nov 11th. I need to get at least two more gun crew done. Also, I'd like to get at least one more set of rowers done. That should be doable.

As for terrain, I have a smoke house on the table now. Also some dog houses and a rabbit hutch. After those, I have a small barn and a corn crib to work on. That should liven up the table a bit. Most of that will be used for either the ACW or Eastern Front.

Working on on Terrain

I picked up some railroad terrain pieces a while back and I started to work on them. The first up is a chicken coop. It is an interesting model. It seems like it could be useful for the East Front in 1941. It is more of a dilapidated shack than anything else. It has lots of character and a half tin, half wood roof. It comes with a number of chickens as well. However, the chickens are tiny compared to the 15mm chickens that I bought from Donnington miniatures. I am still trying to sort out in my mind what to do with them. At this point, the coop is primed and unassembled. I think I will have to paint it before assembly given how it goes together.

Next up is a piece I actually finished. It is a dock from 6 Squared in Canada. Mad Padre Mike recommended these guys a while back. They have a limited selection of 15mm offerings but they are great. The dock is a lovely piece that I actually like better than the 4 Ground piece I did earlier. However, it is not long enough for what I want. But it is too nice not to paint up.

I am very impressed with the scatter terrain that Warbases did in 28mm for Chain of Command. So I have been on the lookout for something similar in 15mm. So shopping around on eBay got me some rail road terrain that looks like it will fit the bill. A rabbit hutch, dog houses, a smoke house, a corn Crib and small barn will all be useful for the AWI, ACW and the eastern front. Some might see service on my table top for a Normandy campaign as well. Hopefully, I can work on these this week.

Terrain Expansion

I just received in my 4 Ground Corduroy Bridge. In looking at it online, I came to the conclusion that it would actually make a very nice warf or dock for my pirate game. Having just assembled it, I still think so. I bought the bridge and the expansion for it. It should do the job.

In addition, I have finished assembling the Star Fort Miniatures 15mm Russian Watermill. It is a really nice building. I had a few issues with the kit. The chimney was missing and the dowel that you mount the water wheel on was missing. The dowel has been replaced by a length of straw that fit perfectly. I need to fill the end in and paint. The chimney was not a big deal. The roof covering needed to be cut to accomodate it. I just did not cut it. So you can't tell that it was supposed to have one. The roof is removable. It is a really nice addition to my east front terrain.

Now I just need to get moving on painting this stuff. I did receive my Peter Pig order. I have more pirate gun crewmen to flesh out my three man crew I currently have. And I have my seated government troops for the ships boats. I figure I will paint two as militia and two as regulars. That should be enough to give the impression of what I want. In addition, some late war German WWII mine sweepers, US Engineers and some Soviets with SVT rifles made their way here. That should close a few gaps I have in my Chain of Command Supports.

UPDATE:

Here is the finished stuff.

Terrain Building

I managed to finish three deployment points for my Pirate forces. These are sound plywood bases textured with latex caulk and sand. The palm tree was one that was broken off of a piece of inherited Burma terrain that I had. The chest, boxes, barrels and bags were from an order I placed a while back to ... honestly, I can't remember. Donnington maybe? It came with an order that included chickens, pigs and goats. Not that description is particularly helpful. Anyway, I like them.

Then, I started on some terrain that I had forgotten about. Last year, I went on a buying binge and picked up a number of MDF terrain pieces. Reading the Vis Lardica blog about his recent purchase of the Red Vector terrain, I remembered that I had bought the Russian Village pack. I rooted around my cupboards and found them. They went together very easily. I did not even need the instructions. The houses are rather nice. I will be texturing the roofs to make them look like they are straw. I found some useful instructions on the Red Beard Baron's youtube site for that. The thatching would cover up the roof joins nicely. Paint will fix the wall joins. The nice part is, the way the buildings are constructed, the buildings have lift off roofs. Except for the livestock pen.

I also picked up some Starfort Miniature's building at that same time. The one I am eyeing to build next is the Russian Watermill. I will work on texturing the bases of these current buildings first. And getting them complete. I need to figure out what I will use for pirate tavern and some houses. I think I have some AWI shacks that could possibly fit the bill. We will see.

Painting Progress #8

I finished the basing for my latest sets of pirates. The more I look at the museum miniatures blunderbuss carrying troops, the more I dislike the figures. While their boarding pike wielding fellows were not bad. These look more like Orcs than Pirates to me. They might have been better if there was some variety in poses.

Anyway, here is what I have managed to finish up over the weekend.

I am starting on some deployment points. I have been struggling with what to do. For one, I am doing an "X" marks the spot with a palm tree. I have some terrain items to work on as well.

Painting Progress #7

Managed to finish the dead pirates this morning. Also finished off the Peter Pig Rowing Pirates pack. They came out pretty good.

I have my Eureka rowing crew do work on. I want to get the steersmen finished next. I placed the one figure on one of my Sea Dog large rowboats and he fits rather well. I have two more rowboats to work on from Old Glory. There are two other possible steersmen in the pack but neither seem to be good.

Then I have some terrain work ahead of me. I want to look through what I have. I know that a matt is needed. Just need to figure this out.

Painting Update #6

I have finished my third group of pirates for my game in November. I now have three groups of them and an artillery crew. I still have some dead pirates to paint up and some row boat crews from Eureka and Peter Pig. Those are all nice to have and not have to have. I also ordered some more figures from Peter Pig. Sme pirate gun crew and seated soldiers.

Here is the work so far. Just some basing to do and they are ready for action. my next step will be building a matt for the game. In the end, I want the table to look like this:

This is an island shore line with a pirate settlement built on it. I have the ships all painted up already. I should have enough row boats for it as well. I need to build a table as well. I have the materials for it but just need to finish. Hope to have more later.

Painting Progress #5

I finished up with the 8 Pirate Musketmen. That gives me two groups of 12 pirates completed. Three pirate officers and a three man gun crew also completed. I still have eight pirates with blunderbusses and eight with pistols left to do. That will give me another group of 12 pirates with four to spare.

In the picture are two groups of 8 Spanish Regulars that I finished a while back but have not based yet.

Time Passes as I forgot to hit post.

Well I finished off 24 pirates, 3 pirate gun crewmen, a gun, three pirate officers and 16 Spanish Regulars. They are all below.

Painting Progress #4?

OK, I have no idea how many painting progress posts I have made thus far and am too lazy to look it up.

I managed to get 8 more pirates painted up. They are awaiting an ink wash and varnish just like the pirate officers that I finished last post. I finished the Museum Miniatures pirates with boarding pikes. They are a bit boring in that they are all one pose. A guy holding a pike level. I tried to vary up the colors on their clothes and skin to make them different. They painted up pretty quick but they are boring minis to me. i will have to mis them with others to make the groups interesting.

Next up is a group of 8 pirates with muskets. This is the Peter Pig Pack and they come with three different sculpts. All are nice and should be fun to paint. If I hurry, I might yet knock these off tonight. We will see what happens.

Also received a pack of AB Miniatures Naval boat crews. Very nice miniatures. There are 12 oarsmen and two fellows that could be steering and a guy who is kneeling that may be a gun crewman for a bow mounted carronade. It also has the carronade. I needed the steersman figures. But given the number of rowboats that I have, I can probably use all of these. Oh, it also comes with a rather nice rudder for those ships without it molded on. I am looking forward to having these done.

Lastly, i got in my order from Gaming Models for my Second Kharkov project. Three Matilda IIs in Russian Green and three Valentine IIIs in Russian Green and a German PZ IV f2. All in all, very happy. I will repaint but that is just me. The PZ IV needs to be in early war gray anyway.

Painting Progress #3

I managed to get some painting in. Painted three Pirate officers and three pirate gun crew. I need to find two more crewmen to go along with the three that Rebel Miniatures provides in their set. May get the unarmed Peter Pig Pirates pack to supplement their numbers. Then use some of those to make steersmen for my rowboats.

I still need to give them an ink wash but I was going to wait until I have some more done and do a large bunch at once. At this point, I have 14 pirates ready with another 36 to go. Next on the desk is some Cold War US and Soviets again.

Painting Progress pt 2

I finished off three rowboats today. Also four sailors rowing. Below are some pictures of how they look.

The small boat is a Sea Dog Studios Dinghy. The middle one is an Old Glory Shipyard sailed rowboat. The large one is a Sea Dog Studios barge or whaleboat. I can't remember which. I am very pleased with how they have come out. Need to finish some more actual pirates but the crew were too tempting.

Painting update

I managed to get some stuff done last night and this morning. I have painted the last 8 of my Spanish Regulars. I also have found a lost movement tray that I was missing. Once the base from Litko arrive, I will be in business to wrap up my Spanish. So far the force is just three groups of militia and three groups of regulars. They are a rather static force. I have a suitably painted up priest to accompany the force and a few big men to run around with them.

In terms of pirates, I had 58 of them on the painting table this morning. I managed to knock out four fellows rowing that i plan on putting in some of the rowboats that I have finished. Now if I were the industrious sort, I would glue magnets to the boats and to the rowers so I could move them around. But alas, I just don't feel like doing it.

A quick trip to the cabinet showed that I have plenty of unpainted Row boats that need attention. I brought up two Sea Dog Studios ships. one a larger rowboat and another that is a tiny dinghy. I also grabbed up one of the sailed Old Glory boats. Once the ink dries on the sailors, i will test fit them on these ships and see how they look.

All of my pirates are at least base coated now. I need to figure out what I want to paint next. Probably some officer types and a gun crew. I was surprised that I really enjoyed painting the uniformed Spanish. I didn't enjoy painting the 8 pirates that I have finished so far. Trying to make them look unique was a chore and doubled the painting time. I need a way to speed this up and get these figures on a table soon.

I hope to post some pictures later today.

WIP Pictures

I managed to get some bad photos of my current works in progress. First up is the pirate project. All of these figures are from Peter Pig's Pirate range.

This is the second group of Spanish Militia that I have finished. They came out OK. The picture without the flash was way too dark. This one made them look shiny. Not sure why. They don't appear shiny when I look at them.

Once based, this will give me two complete groups for them. Only have 8 more of them to paint. Then it is on to the regulars.

Next up is two test pirates. I want them to look motley and unorganized so I am basically painting them as individuals. May change that if it becomes too annoying.

These two fellows need an ink wash and matt varnish before I am done with them. So far they are OK.

Then I finished a couple of Cold War Tanks. A T-55 and a T-72. They came out pretty good.

Experiments in Ink Washes

When it comes to paining miniatures, I know very little. But i recently decided to play around with two new ink washes from Vallejo. I bought the Black Model Wash and the Brown Model Wash to see what they would do to my miniatures. I had been using the Windsor & Newton Black india Ink but it was too dark even watered down. So I thought this could be a cool experiment.

So on the seven Spanish Militia I am currently painting for a Pirate SP campaign, I did two in the Brown Wash, Two in the undiluted black wash and the rest in a black wash with 50% water added. It is still drying but I think I like how the brown wash turned out. The white pants didn't come out well on any of them. But the Brown is my current favorite. I will keep this in mind going forward.

If I can get these based, I will be 2/3rds done with my Militia force. I still need to undercoat my remaining regulars. But the problem is, I have new Cold War minis that are distracting me from completing a project. Just picked up some really nice Soviet Infantry support elements that should go really nicely with my existing force. Also got some US support troops as well. I don't know of anyone that does engineer support elements in 15mm for the Cold War. Anyone have any ideas? Specifically mine clearance troops and the like.

Anyways, It feels good to be painting again. Even if I have to use reading glasses to do it. Getting Old sucks. Avoid it if possible.

Sorting Through My Pirate Hordes

In looking at setting up a Pirate campaign for Sharp Practice, I needed to figure out what figures I had bought and what were still needed. As my normal, I am making both a pirate force and a Spanish force. The Spaniards are the easiest to figure out. If you look at most of the base forces for SP you see them set up as a pyramid. Three groups of one type, two groups of another and one group of skirmishers. That is the base force.

So in looking at what a typical defensive force would be availible in the Caribbean, I made up the following base force. Three groups of 8 Militia. These are not the militia of the AWI that were called up with whatever they had availible. Instead these are the town guards who were uniformed and trained. From what I have found out, they were uniformed in a red coat. I will have three groups of eight of these fellows. The figures are all older Peter Pig miniatures that lack a bayonet on their musket. Interestingly, these figures are no longer availible on the Peter Pig Website. They have been replaced by some other fellows sporting bayonets. The Militia will be rated as Conscripts and Volunteers.

The next tier of troops will be Spanish Regulars. Again, I am using Peter Pig Miniatures, this time the government troops sporting bayonets. This made an easy distinction between the regulars and the Militia. Based on images that I have found on the internet, I am giving them white uniforms. Apparently there may be grenadiers availible as well as there were some present in West Florida for a couple of the battles they participated in during the American Revolution and the uniforms seemed to have changed very little. I will just use plain musketeers as that is the only troops I have. I have one group of eight so far. I need to place another order from Peter Pig. The other option is to grab the Pirate Hunters pack from Rebel Miniatures to add some more variety to them. I may go with that. The plan is to have two groups of 8 of this troop type.

But what about the final group? That is where I am stuck. I am thinking that this may be scenario dependent. For example, if it is pirates raiding a village or town, it could be a group of armed townsfolk. If it were an action at sea, it could be Spanish sailors. Or just another group of Militia or Regulars. The answer is, I don't know yet.

For basing, I have some small 20mm round bases that I plan on using along with some Sabot bases that I bought from Litko. This should get them looking all properly martial.

But for my pirate force, I am going with group sizes of 12 figures. As such, they will be very dangerous in hand to hand but should be outmatched in a firefight. At this point I have the following figures:

8 pirates with custlasses
8 pirates with muskets
8 pirates with pistols

These are the results of purchasing those corresponding Peter Pig packages. I did not have the variety that I was really looking for. I was disappointed that there are not improvised weapons availible from the Peter Pig Range. Love to see a fellow with a belaying pin or a boarding pike. But I did find in the Museum Miniatures Pirate range they have boarding pikes and coachguns! So an order has been sent out for a pack of each of those. They should show up at some point.

What I am aiming for is groups of mixed armament. Some of everything in each group. They will not be able to enter into formation so basing will all be individual. I have some thoughts on the number of pirate groups but I will save that for later as I hope to have it as an article in the Christmas TFL special.

Ever Expanding Fleet

Having some ships on my desk has been great. I managed to paint up one of the dinghy's and my tripoli gunboat. I am tempted to add the lanteen sail to the Tripoli gunboat. I think that might look pretty good. And it would still be removable with the main mast.

I am really happy with the deck of the tripoli gunboat. I used a buff paint and washed it with a Vallejo wash. Granted, it looks good to my color blind eyes and may be hideous to everyone else. I think the benches on the dinghy are too light. They received the same wash and still stand out too much, I think. But they are ready for some crew.

Interestingly, the dinghy from Sea Dog Miniatures is the PERFECt size for a ships boat for the Buccaneer Sloop! It fits perfectly behind the mast.

I have an armed pinnace on the desk as well as two Old Glory sailed rowboats. I am really appreciating the Sea Dog Miniatures ships. They are a joy to paint. They are simple to build and the guns for the armed pinnace and the tripoli gunboat are interchangeable! They look more robust than the Old Glory stuff I have to compare them with. Now if I only had time to paint my sailors rowing from Peter Pig, I could really get moving. But there are not enough hours in the day.

Just finished a couple more small boats.