Bridal Party (8) Steven and Dana

OK lets be clear these two are not a couple!  I should probably have photographed them separately.  Steven is my other co-best man and had I know how busy his spring was going to be I would probably have asked Dana to take on the job.  Years ago I gave Steven the nickname "Marquies Doestomuch" and it generally holds True.  I've Painted Steven as a French General of the AWI Period a role he and Dana have both played at re-enactments.

Dana was done as French officer as he is Captain of Regiment Saintonge (most rev war groups portray company level units).  Dana is the guy (with help form his lady Jess) who keeps not just Saintonge running smoothly but at least one other unit (Sudbury minutemen) on track as well. Hi did his best to help keep my groomsmen in line too.  So my tribute to Dana is an officer of Regiment Saintonge.  I dropped out of reneacting for a few years mostly because of my weight and I cannot tell you how great the way Dana and Steven both welcomed me back was. Its been said with true friends you can pass years with out seeing each other and pick up right where you left off.  We never lost touch true but returning to the field with them was a bit like a home coming and in many ways its like I never left.

Both Figures are from Front Rank

Bridal Party (7) Jason and Angela

Our Second couple Jason and Angela(recently engaged) were harder for me to pin down after a lot of searching I piked these two pulp figures from Reaper. Our wedding colors are much easier to work into modern (or near modern) dress.  Ariana really liked both of these especially Janson coat and Angela's shoes.

I really can't say these are representative of them but I felt they were figures they would find "cool" and for non-gamers that's enough.

Bridal Party (6) Ryan and Sarah

We have two pairs of couples in our wedding so they were painted to match each other.  Ryan and Sarah were Married a three (?) years ago in a back yard ceremony that was one the best wedding I ever attended. There were no costumes but they did incorporate a viking theme in their wedding.  Sarah gave Ryan a sword Symbolizing his role as defender of the home, he gave her a key symbolizing that all he had was now hers.

It was therefor obvious that their figures should be Vikings.  Ryan's figure is from Artizan while Sarah's is one of Anne, Badd Squiddo,  fine Shield maidens.  I'm not entirely pleased with how that pink dress works but its probably simply that I wouldn't use that color on a dark age figure for my own use.

Bridal Party (5) William and Kevin

I did these for my brother and co-best man Kevin.  After some thought I settled on this Reaper gun slinger and having made him a cowboy it made sense to make his son William, our ring bearer, one of Reaper's wild west kids.  I like that the kid looks ready to back dad up if he needs it (hope that cut down shotgun doesn't knock him over) .  I'm pleased with how I was able to work the wedding colors onto the figure, ties and hat bands are great places to work in colors like teal and coral.

A part of me wishes, I had done Bilbo or Frodo for William but as he's only 4 he doesn't know those stories yet so he wouldn't get the joke.  All in all Its better he match dad and hopefully I don't get in trouble because the figure is holding a gun.

Bridal Party (3) Melissa

Brides Maid number three is Melissa, she's an old friend of Ariana and the mothe of three boys (one born since we started planning the wedding).  I didn't have anything specific in mind for her untill I though of the Pirate theme birthday party she hosted for her son.

This figure is from Brigade Games and seemed to fit Melissa's apearence and personality.  Clearly this lady pirate is about to restore order to her crazy crew of boys.

Bridal Party (4): Catherine

Flower Girl #2 is my Niece Cathrine.  She's a big fan of the Disney princesses (is there a 3 year old girl who isn't?) so Reaper's Cinderella figure was a slam dunk in her case.

I used some of the shading techniques I learned at the Huzzah! painting class to really make her dress pop.  I just couldn't do wedding colors this time I wanted it look like the Disney Princess.

Bridal Party (2): Katie

Next up is another Reaper piece The Wicked Witch of the (old) West.  Katie is Ariana's other Co-Maid of Honor and another of those sisters by choice she's so lucky to have. Blue and Purple are the main colors, gave her a pink/coral skirt and hat band 

 Katie is a huge Wizard of Oz fan. That made this choice one of the easist selections on the girls side. Katie is "Wicked" in the Massachustes sence, meaning Awsome, so its a great piece and I hope she likes it.

Bridal Party Minatures (1) Jackie and Ella

As mentioned previously I painted a minature for each member of our wedding party each was picked for a reason.  Our colors were Navy Blue, Coral and Teal. Today is the actual wedding day so Wish us luck as we start this new chapter.

First up is gunfighting western angle painted for the first of Ariana Co-Maids of Honor, Jackie.  I could call each of the women in our party "sisters" to Ariana but Jackie is special (they all are, lets say she's the eliete of the eliete) .  She's helped up us out a number of times over the last year as we been doing our planning.

The wedding colors come in in her navy, jean coral sirt and a teal head band.

Jackie's Daughter Ela is Ariana unofficial Niece.  Ella is a huge fan of Tinkerbell and the Disney farries so I decided to give her one of her own.

Colors are similar to those of Tinker Bell but I gave her butterfly type wings in our wedding colors. I did the base as a sparkling magical pond since I figured Ella might like that.  Both are Reaper minatures.

Gifts for my Groomsmen

When Looking around for gifts for my groomsmen I just didn't find anything I realy liked.  Actualy it would be more acurate to say I didn't see anything I liked that I trusted the quality of, when I give a gift I want to be sure its somethign the recipient will like and will be able to use for many years.

So a turned to my reenacting Collegue Dean Rantz of Rock Village Forge

He made these fine Bottle openers for me and then I had them engraveda at Lowell Makes by Castro of GiveWave Studios.

The Guys are alos geting a mason jar full of nips and each member of the wedding party is getting a minature I have painted personaly for them. Those will be scheduled for posting while I am out on my Honeymoon.

Huzzah! Spearman

This will probably be my last post of a painted miniature before the wedding.  This Fellow is from Fireforge and I got him as part of my participation in advanced painting class.

 My goal was to get better at painting faces and to improve my shading techniques generally.  I'm fairly happy with the result.

 I decided a Burgundian cross seemed right and the blue and red gives some color to a fairly drab soldier.

 Since he's a single figure I based him for Frostgrave he'll make an excellent Man At Arms or even Thug.

I picked up several good tips in the class and would definitely take it again.

Honors of War: Suprise at Spittelwitz

Dave and I took command of the attacking forces of the Grand Duchy of D'Argent attacking a dug in force belonging to the Austrians.

Dave and I started across quickly to the front ...

and with the flanking attack. (note in the book this is a Bridge but I made it ford. I also made this section of river unfordable except for the marked ford.

Regiment Marini has rushed between the redoubt perhaps not the best move.

Regiment Taskovics takes fire from the front and flank and Breaks! (so much for a Superior unit!)

After their first move the flanking legion became the reluctant legion rolls a "poor" performance two turns in a row.

Turn three we are across the river but the light troops are holding their own against us..

The cavalry is coming up to counter attack for the Austrians.

Austrian Artillery is hitting us (sending two of our regiment reeling back) and the Austrian Grenadiers are now on our flanks.  The Light troops are also doing their damage.

With the hour getting late we had to call it.  Our Flank attack 3 units of cavalry and two infantry is getting into position but we've already lost 3 units...   Thinking on it Dave and I should have let the Artillery soften up the Light troops before crossing and maybe sent even more support to the Flank attack.   I really though we would blitz the light troops but they proved surprisingly effective at slowing us down.

Batchlor Party

Last Sunday my Brother picked me up my Batchlor party.   We toured two micro-breweries and a mirco-distilery followed by dinner.

Here is the team 

Back row: Brian Mixter, Dana Rock(Groomsman),Phillip Hudson

Center Row: Steven Taskovic(Co-Bestman), Me, Ryan Hamel(Groomsman)

Front Row: Michele Fortino(My Brother in Law) Kevin Carriere (Brother/Co-Bestman) Jason Caroll (Groomsman)

First stop was Night Shift Brewing where my favorite drink was a Coffee Porter callee Awake

Short Path Distillery were they make the only Gin I have every enjoyed and a very nice White Rum the Ancient Stormy (their take on a dark and stormy).

Finally we visited Sommerville Brewery- Slum Brew  all the beers I had here were very nice but I wasn't able to keep track of them by this point.  All Three locations have nice little bar areas in addition to the brewery if your local to Boston you should check them out.

We wrapped up the day with a visit to the Union Oyster House one of the oldest resturnts in the country and the Lazyman's Lobser was great!

Live Shoot

That's Exciting isn't it.  Its vidieo of a live shoot Regiment Saintonge Conducted on June 4th 2016 (Hopefuly it works)

Here you can see me getting some last minute instructions on the live shoot process Steven and Dana.

And the main event

Given the last time I fired anything live was .22 back at the Camp Squanto Range in 1996(or so)  and that I have never live fired a musket I didn't do badly.  7 of 9 shots hit home on a man sized targe (and one of the misses was the first shot) and the last Three wer in a pretty good grouping (in that cluster were a lot os shots landed) one of the misses would have probably gotten a let or somthing more delicate ;).  Range was 25 Yards so I'm hardly going to call my self a crack shot.

My Friend Dwight on the other hand can lay sme claim as those three near center mass were his first three shots!  You can check out some more vidieos on my face book page French shoot

Albuera: General Bonapart and the Chain of Comand.

This Game was played Thursday June 2nd and thanks to a very busy weekend I'm only just getting to it.

John arranged the Scenario based on Soults initial attack on the British Column at Albuera a very hard fought action. Above you can see the front line positions after the grand tactical (patrol in CoC) phase.  I suggested to John that if he removed the right most base of woods and shifted the ground it would provide more options for maneuver.  In GBCoC woods are effectively dead ground.

French Cavalry played a key role in the real battle but John didn't get enough on his movement roll to make an attack the first turn. 

This gave me the chance to get my some of my Spanish troops in Square... 

and to advance my forward brigade of British troops up to start sniping at is right most cavalry regiment. 

My Spanish cavalry battled John's Huzzars to a draw... 

and both sides fell back in some confusion, sowing disruption on units behind them. 

I've now gotten my troops in to a nice checker board of Squares. 

John begins launches his first cavalry attacks and fails to break the square.

John has his infantry following in to come up... with skirmishers in the front. 

The formidable French columns are advancing... my guns are about to fire when John interrupts and goes in.  I roll badly and once again the lack of any closing fire in this game strikes me as an odd omission.  I would have like to use my own interrupt to counter John's interrupt but this is not allows (though not to my knowledge forbid in these rules even if they are in CoC).  On top of this my command dice on this unit is effectively wasted. 

In any event the attack goes well for John... not only is my battery badly damage (and would be out of action the rest of the game) and my army commander suffered two wounds. 

I move up two British units in Column to protect the guns, the fight is inclusive and turns into a fire fight. 

John launches a cavalry charge at a Spanish battalion, we roll randomly to find its quality and its "untested"... 

John breaks the square and the next Spanish unit is struck after watching its comrades run around and through it.  These roll up as regulars however and they have support form the flanking square... John's cavalry are also a little battered from their victory and we drive them off. 

I manage a flank attack on one of John's infantry columns... breaking the unit... 

But John's cavalry unit is in better shape than anticipated and manages its own charge (not on the flank but infantry caught in line is in trouble).  The English unit breaks... 

But the Square holds... 

The fire fight in the center continues... one of my units is driven off but that allows the other to shake out in line. My Command and control is in tatters do to the English command structure and the wounds to my commanding general but I am holding... In fact the flanks look reasonable sound... it the center however is looking battered 

The Cavalry try to break the square again while battered we still hold. 

I bring another unit into the fire fight charging home with Bayonets... 

and the French are driven off. 

Fire and a charge by John’s men drive off one of my squares... Both armies are still in fighting shape but the night is getting late... 

John tries on last desperate charge but it come up short.  My army is still able to fight but I've got a lot of point that need shoring up the damage to my general really hurts me.  John has several fresh battalions of infantry though I'm not sure he would be able to get them into action.  Over all I would say the odds favor the French though it’s a hard call as the game could go many more turns.  I'll call it a draw though I wouldn't argue with John if he wanted to call it a probable French Victory.