Another Great Giveaway

The Palouse Wargaming Journal is offering a nice book giveaway for their one year blog-o-versary. There are some nice volumes that they are giving away there.

New ACW Journal has been released.

A few months ago, I was contacted by Steven Huckaby about submitting a scenario for a new ACW E-Zine journal that he was getting ready to publish. I Sent him a scenario that I had sitting around and gathering dust and did not think another thing about it. Well, the journal now exists.

The journal is ACW Gamer. Check out the website. The first issue was just released. The journal is quarterly. The cost is $12/year. Steven is taking orders for the journal through paypal at the following address: Ravenbannergames@yahoo.com.

I was given a copy of the first issue from my submission and I am very impressed. There is a wide variety of stuff in there. This is definitely a labor of love from Steven who is looking to help the hobby. The E-Zine is more than just scenarios. There are interviews with sculptors and other folks with in the hobby, information on battles, unit histories and ideas for adapting rule sets. In short, Steven has a wide range of articles that will be coming out.

More importantly, he is looking for articles. Break out the box of crayons boys and girls and support this effort. Steven has had a special miniature cast for the publication. It is a very nice diorama of a Confederate soldier giving water to a wounded soldier. As to scale of the mini, I will assume that it is 28mm by the look of it. It is a very nice one that I am looking forward to get my hands on even though I don't do 28mm. (No really, I don't!)

Please spread the word about the E-Zine. I think Steven is really on to something here. With the demise of Charge! (Scott Mingus' ACW publication devoted to the Johnny Reb rules), Steven is hoping to fill the niche left by this vacancy. If Steven can continue the pace and add to the content with each issue, he has a really nice magazine on his hands that will be well worth the price. That reminds me, I really should put something together for him.

If you want more information, give Steven a shout at: info@acwgamer.com.

And the Envelope Please.......

Ohhh this adds to the tension, right.... er.. anyway.

So for prize number 1, the Sharp and Harper figures, the winner is - Millsy! Congratulations. I just need an address to get them to you. Shoot it to me at chrisstoesen @ gmail dot com.

For prize number 2, the 15mm armor bonus box, the winner is - Johnathan Yuengling! Congrats. While Johnathan was actually the only one to follow all of the rules for this one (he posted the titles of the post where the info was found), I did give all of the others who wanted in at least a shot at it. johnathan, please send me your mailing address to chrisstoesen @ gmail dot com.

And for the third prize, the copies of my self published books, the winner is - Millsy! Not really sure how that happened. Congrats on picking up two of the prizes. Every one who commented on the giveaway post was entered in this one. Once I get you e-mail address for prize 1, I will send you prize three.

And last but not least, I am awarding a sportsmanship prize. Two gentlemen stepped up and offered their potential winnings to someone else. Granted that at least one of them was to stop Ray from winning. But I thought it was still a nice gesture. So Edwin King and Gary Amos will both receive a set of my self published stuff as well as another copy being sent to Ben Davy, the target of their kind gesture. I think I have some of your e-mails but to make sure, can you please e-mail me so I know I have your right addresses? Same e-mail address as referenced above.

Thank you to all who entered. It was more fun than my actual birthday. 42 was life the universe and everything. 43 turned out to be a badly bruised back and a case of poison ivy. Anyway, until next time, enjoy.

So Who Won?

Well, I don't know yet. I just got back home from a nice day out with my family. I will figure it out in the morning.

Preparations

Its the little things that can take a game from good to great. On November 2nd, 2013, we are having the Terry Haney memorial games day here in Atlanta. Several of us will be putting on games that Terry liked to play. He was a fan of the TooFatLardies rules and bought just about anything and everything that Rich produced. My contribution will be running a scenario of Chain of Command.

As I have been mentally putting together my to do list for the game. One item that I realized that I was missing was jump off points. I decided to attempt to make some signposts to use for it. I was thinking of using some that had things like "caution" on them in Italian or Russian. I might try to knock some up over the weekend.

The terrain is largely set. I have the village and fences and most important, the well. I still have Mark's snowy ground cloth (sorry Mark) as well. Beyond the Jump Off points, I need to make up some patrol markers but these should be straight forward and simple.

I have all of the infantry I could want plus some supports to choose from. Should be a good game.

Welcome
Please extend a warm welcome to Michael Awdry who runs the excellent blog 28mm Victorian Warfare. Its a great blog that I have been following for a while now. Welcome aboard.

An Interesting Book - Confederate Commerce Raider Shenandoah

I have been listening to the Audio Book of John Baldwin's "Last Flag Down" about the CSS Shenandoah. The Shenandoah was a commerce raider that was secretly launched in 1864 and was the last Confederate ship operating at the end of the war in 1865. The book is based off of the officer's log books and diaries of the men who served on her as well as corroborating evidence from outside sources.

The book has proved to be interesting to listen to but a bit dry. Much of it is direct quotations from Lieutenant Wittle's logs. Since the ship was a commerce raider and not a proper ship of war, the captures of Union flagged vessels, so far at least, has been a bit on the slow side - action wise. On the plus side, this has been a book that has not prompted me to rush out to buy figures in order to try to replicate it. :)

I am just over a third of the way through the book so far. I am mainly listening on the way too and from work so it is taking me longer to get through this than other books.

What the book does offer is an interesting insights into daily operations and maintenance of sailing ships. From caulking decks and other maintenance chores it paints a vivid picture of how hazardous sea duty really was. The description of passing Africa around the Cape of Good Hope and the violent seas that the ship encountered made me appreciate the toughness of the mariners of the days of sail.

Anyway, it is worth getting from the library and giving it a good listen/read once. This will not be one of those books I will go back to at a later date. But still worth reading.

Anglo-Zulu War: Random Thoughts

As the end of the Give Away draws near, I just want to thank all of those that entered and signed up to follow the blog.

I have been thinking on how to represent these actions of the Anglo-Zulu War. Part of me wants to do something at a lower level and feature just a company of British troops on the table at once. The other part of me wants to do something with a figure ratio that shows a larger part of the battle at once. I am thinking the second option will ultimately end up winning.

It is interesting to look at these battles and not get pulled into the near futility of the Zulus attempting to break British troops when they were entrenched. Such actions are less interesting to me as I cannot see how to model them any other way then a "Zap the Zulu" type game. What is more interesting is when the Zulus were implementing their tactics against the British when the British were on the move. Here it seems that the Zulus actually have a chance of achieving victory.

I am going to try to play around with this some before I order the figures. I think I will use my Napoleonic Brits as stand ins for the British and use my Dark Age Saxons as stand ins for the Zulus just to see how some things work out.

Lastly, I would like to extend a warm welcome to the newest followers on the blow: SA Roe and David. David runs the Lead Warrior Blog. Sa Roe runs the blog Fflumpfs in the Pantry if you have a blog, please let me know and I will update the post.

Last Night's Work and More Welcomes

Welcomes
The blog has been nearly exploding with new followers. Welcome to the newcomers:

First us is Brian Botzan. Welcome. i could not find in your profile if you had a blog or not. If you do, let me know. He runs the blog: RayGun Gothic Galaxy. Through this site I have learned quite a bit about Canadian B movies that I never knew existed.

Next up is Abikapi2. He is the author of Anonima Wargame Romagna. It seems that he has been up to some ACW gaming lately.

Our third contestant is The Kiwi. He is the author of The Gamer's Table which has recently featured some really nicely painted Normans.

Last up for this round is Thoran Braune. Again, I could not find a link to a blog that you host. If there is one, let me know and I will update it here.

American Civil War
Well along the theme of a recent post, I found some more figures. I was looking at the shape of my ACW forces and was fairly depressed. I have a large number of troops that are unbased and need some additional paint. Then I found a large bag that I had been gifted from the Mad Padre himself. When I received those, I was buried under the work for "In the Name of Roma" and completely ignored them. While the rest of the family slept, I went through the bag. WOW! There was a ton of great stuff in there.

First I had figures I can now use as my Cavalry commanders. They will fit in perfectly with my existing Old Glory Cavalry for both sides. Next was a large number of infantry. I pulled out enough infantry in Hardee hats to make two groups of 8. These also had a pair of drummers to go along with them. They will end up as a supporting unit for my main Union infantry. Then there was another two groups of infantry in slouch hats. These will promptly be drafted into Confederate service to begin the second company of Infantry in my Mississippi Rifles Regiment. Then there were a huge number of troops in kepis. These looked like the larger ones that the Union wore to me so they will complete out my Union infantry company. four groups of 8 of these have been mounted on popsicle sticks for base coating. There are several "character" casts in the mix. Fellows waiving a hat or with a bandaged head and the like. Including a couple that look like perfect NCOs. I have one of these fellows on the popsicle sticks as well. This will go a long way to finishing out my ACW troops for Terrible Sharp Sword.

Also I rediscovered that I have not taken care of the unit of Union Zouaves that I have. I have a group of 8 and another group of 7. I received from Mark a pair of zouaves with rifles to fill in the gap a couple of years ago and I have yet to paint them. Well on to the painting stick they went.

I have three groups of 8 Confederate cavalry. But only around half of that number in Union cavalry. Not sure how that happened. I thought I bought one OG bag each of them. I will have to buy some more at some point. Not sure when that will be.

Anglo-Zulu War
Ha! Bet you thought I was not going to have an update for this, right? Well, it is not much of one. I managed to get the four 28mm giants onto a painting stick and gave them a good flat black base coat last night. With the painting guide I found from Warlord games, I should be able to get some work on these. They really do look nice. But really, this is only a test.

Anyway, that is it for today. Hopefully I can drag myself away to get some reading done on the AZ War today to start framing the scenarios and the campaign I want to do.

Oops.

I just noticed that I had a typo in the ACW scenario that I had posted earlier. If you had downloaded it before, please grab the newer copy: Pohick Church

Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.

I noticed that the follower gadget had jumped up recently and I want to promptly extend a warm welcome the the latest to sign up.

First is TasminP aka Wargaming Girl. She has a blog of the same name, Wargaming Girl. Lots of fun stuff to follow there including her latest project involving pirates. I had been following Tasmin for a while now.

Next up is Monty. Monty is the owner of the blog Monty's Caravan. He has a number of interests including some Vikings that he has on the painting table. Good stuff. I just signed up to follow him.

Our most current new addition is Phyllion. This gentleman is keeping himself busy with two active blogs. The first, Diary of a Gaming Magpie, chronicles his wargaming interests. The first post I saw had me hooked. Great painting. The swordsman on the horse had me scrolling looking for the follow button. His second blog seems to be geared towards a set of ancients rules that he is working on. The blog, Aegeus: Age of Mythical Battles, looks very interesting. It seems to be still in the early stages but it is looking good so far.

Our next segment will be on either the ACW or the Anglo-Zulu War. Not sure which yet.