Yanks Advance Over The Niagara Frontier In A Bid To Stop The Blue Jays Winning The ALCS

Well they will be on Monday night (Cleveland have a 2 game advantage unfortunately). Until then here's the starting line up for my 1814 U.S. line infantry: some grey jackets from Scott's brigade. The pitcher needs his base finishing.

I have another 2 groups and an officer to do and I can then start to get to grips with Sharp Practice 2. These are Blue moon figures and I hope I can get the next 16 painted up faster than these which were a bit of a pain. I don't know if it's just  my eyesight going, but there were areas of flash and "burriness" that only became evident after priming (especially under the cartridge pouch). I still like them though.

For those who would expect black cross belts, I came across an eyewitness account quoted in Donald E Graves "Where Right And Glory Lead" that mentions the Americans advancing at Lundy's Lane in grey coats with  white cross belts, so that's what I've given them. I've left their backpack straps black though.

Back to reality.............

So we've just got back from

Where we mainly watched

(we're on here somewhere - 10feet from a Josh Donaldson Home Run ball!)

And drank...

But we also visited Fort York

Note the blockhouses inside the fort aren't the shape of most wargame model blockhouses. You can judge the height of them from the extremely good looking bloke in the picture below:

I've forgotten what this is, but it's also from 1813 so a mix of materials within the fort.

[Edit: It's the magazine of course, which is why it's made of brick and not wood. Sorry!!!! Still trying to deal with making up 5 hrs!!]

I just took this because it seems like it appears in every book on the War of 1812 ever published!

This is a model of an 18th century fort

And these had to be bought!

At the Canadian National Exhibition (which is bloody brilliant!)  there was a display of sand sculptures. This is "Jose and the Dragon"by Peter Vogelaar.

It celebrates the "Bat Flip" episode from the decider in the Jays/Rangers Divisional Series last year. It caused some angst in baseball circles (especially in Texas!)  but for those who know about what happened in the game it is totally understandable (well it is if you're a Jays fan) and it has become iconic.

So that's all folks..............

Paragraph from Toronto

Went to Fort York yesterday - very impressed with the staff and those who did the music and musket drills. The blockhouses and buildings date from 1813 and have some great exhibits. I'm posting this from my phone and cant access the pics.
Current haul consists of 3 of Donald Graves books on the war of   1812 which probs takes us over our baggage allowance 😄

To The Strongest - Middle Imperial Romans

With only a few days left before we go on holiday, I was looking around for something to finish quickly so I decided to finish the bases of my Romans. Whilst I was on I made some labels for the units which can either be attached to the back or put underneath and some pilum and lance tokens. I found a couple of pictures of pila and lances on the internet and used Micosoft Paint and LibreOffice Draw to reduce them to 1 1/4" x 1/2". Thes were then printed out and stuck onto some mdf bases of the same size - I can't remember what I bought the bases for so they've found a use after all.

American Rifles 1812 Blue Moon

Really easy to paint - they have to be now! An oficer to finish these next and then a choise of either American militia or regulars.

Stuff

Here's some recently completed stuff:

Sharp Practice V2 (so far)

For the War of 1812: Two groups of 8 regular infantry, one group of 6 Voltigeurs Canadiens, two officer and a drummer

Another shot of the regular infantry and command

When we were playing the last campaign game with LaSalle, I thought that the British infantry brigade should probably have one battalion that could be deployed in an irregular fashion due to their skirmish  factor. I didn't really want to add to the painting pile, but then I realised that I already had some Brunswick Oels skirmishers painted and I could use the flank companies from some British battalions and all I would have to do would be to paint some plumes green and rebase them - so here they are:-

I don't really see the need for flank companies with Lasalle, and in truth if you are using scaled down actual orbats for General de Brigade you don't really need them either.

Campaign Game 2 Pt 2

Narrative to follow:

Campaign Game 2 Pt 1

So here we go with game two of the campaign pitting the Allied Light Division against a French rearguard force somewhere in the north of Spain / south of France in 1813'ish

Dave's Light Division  was attacking and gained the benefit of an extra general and two additional battalions for being so. CONFESSION TIME: Sorry Dave, but when I was putting the figures away after the game I was bemused by the fact that there were no French units left in the box. - I had added the two extra battalions  and general for attacking when I was defending!!!!

The Light Division had a brigade of line infantry and a foot battery in support.

Here is the Allied deployment. Line brigade in column of attack on the left flank. Rifles and 43rd  to the left of the road , Ross' battery on it and the 52nd to the right of it.  On the far right are the Portuguese consisting of two battalions of cacadores and two of line infantry.

French deployment: Three veteran battalions on the right flank (1 too many), a brigadier (1 too many) a battery of medium artillery and a regiment of dragoons. In the centre, four battalions of conscript infantry (1 too many) . On the far flank, a brigade of elite infantry with a heavy battery.

Both sides at deployment:

As the allied advance began they started taking damage from the French artillery. Seeing the attack developing on the right flank, the French dragoons were ordered to the flank. In order to get to the desired position they had to cross a ploughed field and mask their own artillery which gave the rifles some respite from the bombardment

Yes we took the walls off - most of them weren't based and looked pretty awful..

Ross' battery wasn't able to sustain a viable presence in the centre, being forced to limber up by French artillery fire.

On the French left flank the heavy battery deployed with a filed of fire directly across the line of defence.

On the Allied right the Portuguese and 52nd advanced.

In the centre the 43rd advanced to occupy the farm.

To be continued..................................

Meanwhile, in Canada....................................

I've always liked the idea of the Sharpe Practice rule set by the Toofatlardies, but as Len Goodman from "Strictly" would say; "there seemed to be too much faffing about" involved. Admittedly I didn't play many games with them but they didn't really grab me and I put them on Ebay.

Chain of Command was the first set of Lardies' rules that I actually liked rather than really wanted to like. The command dice and deployment system work really well and give a challenging, but fun game.

So when I found out that Sharpe Practice V2 was due for release on St George's day, and that it incorporated some aspects of the CoC rules (not the command dice) and was playable without cards using (I hate to say it) a system akin to Bolt Action with knobs on, I was interested. I listened to the interview with Richard Clarke on the latest Meeples and Miniatures podcast, and read the articles on the Lardies' website. In addition I looked at Mike Hobbs' blog as he is doing the War of 1812 supplement. To be honest that was the clincher.

At present I am in the process of consolidating my wargaming "stuff". Lead that will never be painted is going on Ebay, together with units that are surplus to requirements and anything else that will fund the hobby. I've given up on the idea of creating actual Peninsular War  brigades and divisions and am just concentrating on creating the units per the lists in Sam Mustafa's "LaSalle" rules because it provides a project with an end. I'm past the idea of "if I buy another six packets of this I can add them to the part painted bits of that to make something else". But what to do with the excess British units I have painted for the Pensinsular War?

Putting all of the above together the obvious answer was to use them for Sharpe Practice 2 and the War of 1812, a period I've wanted to do for a while but wasn't sure how to. These rules are set at a level which makes it doable and, if I want to add to it, it wouldn't take much. Additionally I can use the same figures for Peninsular War scenarios and that part-finished Spanish army I have can be converted for Sharpe Practice and the surplus figures sold off.

So here is the 50th Foot from my Peninsular War army, now no longer needed and rebased for SP2. It is shown here in 2 groups of 10 figures representing the 3rd battalion of the Quebec Militia which also had black facings, with one group of six skirmishers. They are AB figures.

There is another group of 10 figures to base. I'll finish the bases when I get the movement trays that I've ordered.

And here's the first  of two groups of "Voltigeurs Canadiens" from Blue Moon:

For the US troops I've got one packet of infantry, one of infantry command and Andy at Old Glory will be sending the US riflemen I've ordered when the next restock arrives from the US of A.

I'm really looking forward to this.......

Links relating to Sharpe Practice 2:

Meeples and Miniatures Podcast - interview with Richard Clarke

The Lardies - A look at Sharpe Practice 2

The Lardies - an actual game with explanations

Mike Hobbs' blog with some articles on SP2

To The Strongest - or in this case To The Fastest!!!

So yesterday I ordered a 4'x3' 100mm grid mat from Simon (Big Red Bat), and it arrived at half past one today!!!! Bloody hell Simon, that's service.

So here's some pics of my Palmyrans set out on it.:

The bases need tuftage, but to be honest I'm not going to bust a gut to do it because they match in pretty well as it is.