Top posts of 2013 (Post 500)

This is my 500th post thank you all for reading and a specialty thank you to anyone who has faced me across the table win or lose you make these adventures possible.  Final number for the year and I have had 33,575 visitors over the course of the year thanks for dropping by.  Now 2013 (or most of it) in review, starting with the most popular page from each month.

January http://fencingfrog.blogspot.com/2013/01/french-armor.html

Somua-35 tanks these have yet to see action due to the lack of Early War Flames of War in my area but I still like them even if I have heard the light tan is actually supposed to be a gray blue (research is constant in any historic field)

February http://fencingfrog.blogspot.com/2013/02/maurice-with-jon.html

My First Game of Maurice Played with Jon of Wargaming Recon a very old school affair with minimal terrain because Jon's gaming table was not yet available.

March http://fencingfrog.blogspot.com/2013/03/vineyard-upgrade-and-civilians.html

Possibly my most popular painting project ever! and One of the top five most popular pages in the Blogs history as of this publication.

April http://fencingfrog.blogspot.com/2013/04/boxer-rebelion-game-at-bobs.html

My poor showing as commander of the French Legation the only bright spot was the Germans did even worse.

May http://fencingfrog.blogspot.com/2013/05/battle-of-mockern-leipzig-huzzah-battle.html

Adrian's Prussians face of against My French and Chris' Polish but its a Prussian defeat but French Forces do not fair well on the other tables of this massive battle and Napoleon goes down in defeat.

June http://fencingfrog.blogspot.com/2013/06/freemans-farm-at-jons-house.html

Britain reverses the historic fortunes in the fight winning out over the Revolutionary forces.

July http://fencingfrog.blogspot.com/2013/07/us-artillery-shameless-self-pomotion.html

Painted for sale and finally sold after much effort, they did look fine and I was tempted to keep them.

August http://fencingfrog.blogspot.com/2013/08/hobby-bunker-game-day-1-with-fire-and.html

Trying out With Fire and Sword game rules.  I liked them and wish I saw more games of this system.

September http://fencingfrog.blogspot.com/2013/09/first-game-of-lesalle-at-hobby-bunker.html

My first meeting with John and a great game of Lesalle I enjoyed this Napoleonic game but I enjoy all of Sam Mustafa's games so that is no great surprise.

 And http://fencingfrog.blogspot.com/2013/09/flodden-1513.html

September also saw the Battle of Floden gamed on almost the 500th anniversary to the day. 

October: http://fencingfrog.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-hard-evening-at-la-haie-sainte.html

Another Meeting with John and another great game of Lesalle a real hammer and tongs battle with in the battle of Waterloo

November http://fencingfrog.blogspot.com/2013/11/1st-game-of-longstreet.html

The last two games are Longstreet fast becoming my favorite current game.  I lost this first one to Ted and Dave...

December http://fencingfrog.blogspot.com/2013/12/longstreet-game-2.html
and the second to John who was very excited by the game as seen on his blog: New Era and Rule Set

Its been an eventful a busy gaming year. I finished my Grand Duchy of D'Argent' army for Maurice and have finished most of a Confederate army for Longstreet (still waiting on some parts on order at Hobby Bunker).  I have made a lot of progress on the Great Re-basing project though that still has some work to be done.  Task Force AC left the construction yard but has yet to see action at this time.  Looking forward I have a Medieval DBA army to paint and plans to start on a Union Brigade for Longstreet as well. I also am considering doing a Gods and Mortals army probably with a Tolkien theme.

Thanks for reading this year and I look forward to sharing more gaming adventures next year.

Battle of Swarkestonebridge (Game)

We gathered at Hobby Bunker  to try this what if scenario for the 1745 rebellion see my previous post for back ground and some information on forces.

 Above you can see the English Cavalry in the far left, regulars (2 stands) in the center and to the right and left of the village. Refugees are fleeing across the Swarkestone Causeway.

 The Scottish host advances and the Devonshire Blues score first blood with an excellent long range volley causing two casualties and a disorder.

On the English left the Cavalry clashes the battle swung back and for for a few turns in the end the English cavalry fled after routing one unit of Scottish horse The English fled more due to the devastating volleys from the Irish Piquetts.

 On the right the Scottish infantry pressed in and after a sharp fire fight...

 Charged! and thanks to the Ferocious Charge special rule they send several units routing off table or stumbling back without even the need for hand to hand combat. The Scots pressed in giving and taking damage but mostly things when the Scottish way.  4 Scottish units where broken but a similar number of English fled as well and then a daring Scottish leader pushed forward in a daring move....

 Risking pass through fire the daring Highlanders seize the bridge!

The British try to shoot them off the bridge but they are unsuccessful bad dice at exactly the wrong time for the English!  With more Scots coming on board the English are doomed having held for 5 turns.

Every one enjoyed the game though the Highlanders Ferocious Charge rule was too strong by all agreements.  When I do this game again at a minimum the English Regulars would be immune to this affect more likely I would drop it and make the Scots Tough fighters and weaken the Militia's hand to hand.

Didn't get the minatures you wanted maybe you would like these

Check our my Ebay "store" http://www.ebay.com/usr/fencingfrog1776

Sold!

Merry Christmas, a Gaming Gift.

My gift from Rob Burr my former roommate and the fellow who got me into this crazy wargaming hobby arrived Monday.

Its the Essex Knights of St John Army pack.   I'm looking forward to putting these together.  I did a paper on the Knights of St. John and the Templar's when I was in college and Rob and I both had St. John 'uniforms" made up when the school did a Medieval fair.  I have always liked the Black Cloak and White Cross look.  

This will be fun project and not too large I am happy to say so I hope to have it on the field some time in the first quarter/half of next year.

Merry Christmas to all.

I think these dogs are entirely in the right that elf gives me the creeps!

Battle of Swarkestonebridge (plan)

Coming this Saturday I shall have some employment for my Highland Army as I put on a game for Boston Trained Bands.  I am using one of the scenarios suggested in Wargames Illustrated 296.  Historically the one battalion of of British infantry in position at Swarkestonebridge decided it didn't want to fight the entire army Prince Charles all on its own so it fled the scene. The position with its single bridge and long banked causeway with a small town at each end is a good place for a small force to try and stop (or delay) a large one.

Taken from WI 296 Page 35

So I am casting William Cavendish 3rd Duke of Devonshire as an unlikely English Leonidas who has chosen to sell the lives of his 700 Derbyshire Blues as dearly as possible.   He'll have the support of some British Cavalry and a company or two of Regulars he picked up some place.  He will be facing Murray's entire  division. The Game will be played with each unit representing a "company" of about 100 men or so.  The British will have seven units for the Blues, two units of cavalry and two units of Regulars. The Highlanders will come on in waves about probably about eight units of infantry and two of cavalry  and a gun or two the first turn then similar numbers of infantry arriving until my Highland army is all on the board after that any broken brigades will be removed and replaced with fresh Highlanders.  The English want hold as long as possible, they cannot "win" in the traditional sense but if they can slow and bleed the Highland army they can affect the course of history.

The Game will be played next saturday December 28th at the Hobby Bunker .

Hunting Smugglers

So Rich had a wonderful set up for Skirmish game set in the late 18th Century in the south of England I had a Royal Navy press gang...

 and a Revenue enforcement squad.

I was there to get crew for the fleet(press gang) and find contra-band. One thing I noted looking around the board regarding my press gang... they had few weapons...

as compared to the smugglers or...

even the town folks! So grabbing men by force seems like a bad plan.  The Revenue men that seemed more clear grab smugglers!

I headed straight for the nearest group and called on them to surrender and be search in the name of the King!  I let two shots when they refused and killed one. I am called in by the militia but after an examination of documents and uniforms we are all ready to hunt those up to no good

And there are lots of smugglers up to no good

The militia takes a shot at the smugglers and cavalry comes to join the fun.

Meanwhile the smugglers are among the sheep!

The revenue me and smugglers are in a real brawl now with the militia doing their small part

The masters mate in charge of the press gang orders his men into the fray but to no avail I failed at least 4 times.

My revenue men and the smugglers are battling to mutual annihilation.

The other band of smugglers has made it away with the sheep, for the win.

Of interest one of our smuggling band was a French landing party!

Ugly French (1)

OK so normally having project were I paint French troops from the 18th century would be a pure joy to me, not this time.

Jon, Cortland and Adrian are running a Musket and Tomahawk game in February at Total Confusion.  they picked out figures from Armies in Plastic because they are cheep to provide troops for the event. I offered to help paint. 

 We agreed to do them like shiny toy soldiers of the old school variety.  I may have done too much was to really get the effect. As an economical choice these are fine.  Heck I will probably pick up a box or two for my Nephew at some point.  The poses range from the good to the bad to the ridiculous.

 The officer is one of the good ones though he looks more like a duelist than a man in a battle. I'm not sure what to do with the scroll so I did nothing just left it off white.

This is actually one of the best poses it close to how one stands in some drill books when ramming (not any French Drill books mind you) its a natural and practical stance.

 You won't find this in the maul of arms but its a natural pose lest call this one bad but not too bad.

 My second least favorite figure call this one ridiculous.  Real world tip if you hold a musket like this you will loose it when you fire and break the nose of the man behind you (and possibly your own color bone!)

Finally our high stepping man with a bayonet (my least favorite) he looks like a bare foot man trying to cross hot sand. I have six more of these to paint.  All and all I guess they came out reasonable good it has not been my favorite project. 

50,0000

Well Fencing Frog has hit another milestone: 50,000 page views thanks for dropping by and taking a look and reading my battle reports and occasional opinions. Its been an exciting year I launched and eBay store and a face book page https://www.facebook.com/FencingFrog which you should visit and liked I have been hovering at 29 likes for a while. (I do put additional content there in the form of full photo gallerias of miniatures and gaming events so it is worth your while)  I also took up my pen with with Table Top Wars and Warriors over at Troll in the Corner. I have not lent my efforts there in a while but I plan to keep contributing.

Gaming wise Longstreet has opened up the Civil War period and crafting the Texas Brigade was great fun they have had a rough time in battle so far but the game is quite exciting.  I have been making plans for a Yankee Brigade to battle them so Cortland can get his men back one of these days.  Flames of War has fall a bit by the wayside not because I am not interested but more because the guys at Game Castle have lost interest. 

I'm looking at some possible skirmish armies for Ronin and/or Gods and Mortals.  Maurice and Longstreet are my personal favorite games and I must say my intro to DBA has been fun and I have to think about getting an army or two and playing that game more.

I'm pulling up on 500 post so I need to think of something special to mark that anyway thanks again for reading.

DBA with Boston Trained Band (2)

Having had a good time playing DBA at the Boston Trained Bands ancient day this time we were doing Medieval armies. I got the Black prince and his colorful English army.

 My general in full Plantagenet heraldry

 Maureen painted all of these by hand in 15mm and that's just amazing, I don't have that sort of skill

Oh and she did each of them twice! As English Knights fought on foot as much as on horse back. Maureen and her Portuguese army was my first opponent.

 I was the aggressor and that forest in the middle put me on the horns of a dilemma I decided to try to hold on the right and swing left this turned out to be to complicated especially as my pips rolls were mostly on the low side

 I shouldn't have sent men through the woods.

 Maureen goes in on my right....

 As my left begins its swing.

 I got one quick victory as my Longbow men took out the Pistoli

 On the right the dismounted knights have crashed into my lines...

 and Auxillas are threatening the right flank! I lost the spearman and that turn and then bowmen and archers the following

I was in good shape on the left but one om my archer threw a 1 as it cam out of the woods against the Moorish archers and I lost my 4th stand and the game

While were playing a great battle from the Seven Years War was raging near by and it looked great!

The War-machine crew was also there running a tournament. I didn't get to see much play but it looked quite lively.

In my next game I faced Steve and his Army from Grenada (another of Maureen's excellent collection)

 I opted for the primitive cannon this time they on on the right to keep the light cavalry off that flank.  Steve set his Lt. Cavalry around the back of his army to the left but the gun gained me time for my simple go in and crush them plan.  After the last game I saw great virtue in a simple battle plan!

 I crashed into the Granada force It didn't all go my way but I got two of Steve' stands fairly quickly and then another one in a latter turn.  He had bad luck with his pips and couldn't take full advantage of his light Cavalry.

 I kept hammering the front line even as his men swept in on the left and one of my Long Bow stands got a lucky roll of 6 a the same time that Steve's Lt. Cavalry got a 1 doubling the unit and ending the game. Steve gave me a scare and played a good game but I got a clean win with this one.