Re-learning the rules...

Starting learning Volley & Bayonet rtg again. Much of it I had all ready but it's always nice to go trough the rules and move some troops around the board and roll some dice.

On turn two of the scenario Stonewall Jackson comes on to the board with one brigade and even the odds a bit.

At the begining of turn four another southern brigade enters the board. By this time the union have moved up the rear most brigade but it is evenly match. Eight federal regiments agains 5 rebel regiments of infantry and 1 rebel cavalry regiment.

By this time I had to put the table away. As all of you wargame dads know, when then children want the space you have to give it to them...

This is my storage solution for my troops. And I have re-painted one more Dixon 25mm cavalry miniature from my past.

Until next time, keep rolling them sixes!

/Conny

Taking shape

Well the battlefield is almost done. I still need to make a road that goes from the Valley turnpike up to the Glass Farm but I ran out of cloth.

On the whole not a beutiful field but highly functional and easy to make.

I will try and find a cloth of a different colour for the woods since I don't like how much the dark green stands out.

I have started placing troops on the table to see how it looks.

It's interesting with a battle were one side has such a huge advantage in numbers from the start. Hopefully I will managde to find out how it goes next week.

Until next time keep rolling those sixes!

/Conny

Preparation has begun

For all my wargaming years I have always had a problem with terrain. You see all the fantastic tables people put up and you want it like that. But you find you don't have the skill or the time to build it. This leads to fewer games since I plan and plan to try to find the best solution to make a nice looking table. Well this time I have set my mind up to get more games done. So I went back to some basic materials to get the battlefields done.

The rivers, roads and forests will be marked with fabric and the hills I will build up on the table with cardboard and put a blanket over it. The idea is to be able to make diffrent battlefields in a relativly short time.

I may buy a darker blue cloth in the future but what I have will do for now.

The battle rosters and all labels are done for the Battle of Kernstown. I will return with pictures of the completed table once it is done.

Until then keep them sixes coming!

/Conny

A Humble beginning

After a time away from ACW and miniatures gaming for some years I'm now trying to start it up again.

I got hold of an excellent book "A Storm in the Valley 1862". This is a book with 10 scenarios focusing on Jacksons campaign in the Shenandoah Valley.

This book has got me going at it again. I'm planing on creating all the scenarios in the order writen in this book and maybe even try the campaign that is the 10th scenario.

But to make this happen I have to do some terrain. But I will go for simple fast constructions and materials to get started and get some games going. I have started to make labels for my units, a humble start...

O well thats all for now and hopefully I will soon return with some progress.

Until then keep rolling those sixes!

/Conny

Can't see the wood for all the trees

The work to make some wood for my battlefields has begun. The idea is to make a canopy that is raised from the table to simulate a wood and not single trees. I am trying to follow the guide on the Alter of Freedom homepage. I have made some slight changes but on the whole it is the same. Now I must find a store were I can buy material for the canopy and a hot glue gun. At last some pictures of the work in progress.

I will cut the tree trunks shorter when the glue has dried.

Until next time, keep those sixes coming!

/Conny

Hopefully a comeback

Hello to you all

The last six to eight months I have had a hard time to find motivation and inspiration to get anything done that had to do with miniatures and wargaming. I have dabbled with Deadzone, Frostgrave and started up a project regarding the tv-show Strike Back. I have stod and glared at my painting table and the thought to remove it all crossed my mind. 

Today I am trying to kickstart it all up again by returning to my beloved American Civil War! Today I am to test the rules Altar of Freedom for the first time. The battle is Corinth since I have made a board to that battle a year ago for Volley & Bayonet. 

Wish me luck!

Until next time (hopefully not to long) keep rolling those sixes!

/Conny

Alter of Freedom

Now I have moved back in to the Bunker. I have started to paint some more miniatures again and that was real nice. I have missed it a lot. I have also started to read thrue the rules Alter of Freedom again and also set up the Corinth scenario for named rule set. Me and a friend will try to have a go this week at the scenario and rules. I will then make a AAR of the event. So here are some pictures of the bunker and the set up.

My painting space. Here I try to spend at least 30 min a day.

The shelves with my games. I have sortef out some of the games I own for the sake of space. 

The rest of the room. At the moment I am looking for a new table. 

The Corinth scenario...

The union force and...

... The rebels!

 Now I only need to learn the rules and have a go at it, wish me luck ;)

Until next time keep rolling...

Sixes!

/Conny

Keep the cows in the corral

Well now I have seven soldiers a side for my little skirmish project. Plus one rider for the south and a special character. On the painting table I have started one more rider for the South and a cannon with crew for the union. The cannon mostly fot the fun off it. But I will be able to use it in a game to if I want. So now that the troops are getting ready I need something to fight over and so the project goes in to another stage, the terrain. I started out with some simple wooden worm fence. My thought here is to make all the terrain myself and only buy the trees if I don´t find a good, simple way to do them to. I will make fences, stone walls and hedges. Then I will also make two to three buildings of varying size. Roads and small streams always piff upp the table a bit. Some hills or more elevations also needs to be done so the table wont be all flat. So you can imagine I have a lot to do but I won´t stress this and work on it to much since there are more things to do in life…

A standard worm fence.

I have now made six of them and it took about one hour to do them. Now I only need to base and paint them... I plan on make four more. I think ten will be enough to work with for now. I will make some picked fences and some rail fences to.

Here you have a enclosured field and some fences lining a road. They take up a fair bit of space on a table. But it is better to have to much terrain then to little.

Two more soldiers are done, one for each side. The confederate soldier are supposed to have a uniform in butternut. I think it works rather well but will try to not get that hard change in color from the base to the highlight.

The union soldier are a sharpshooter so I gave him the green uniform to make him stand out a bit from the ordinary union soldiers. He has a sharps rifle that are classified as a good rifle in the rules and don´t misfire as easy as a springfield or an older rifle.

I have also made some more cards for my the skirmish games. More soldiers are added and some reference cards for the players.

Soon the HQ:s for the confederates will be done for Alter of Freedom so soon I will be able to test the rules out. But HEY you scream only write HQ on a pice of paper and have a go at it! True, true I could do that but I don´t want to ;). I want to do it right whit all the components there so I get a nice experience when I test them. But I will make some rule amendment to the rules. The first one is to change the scale from inches to cm. This because my bases to Volley & Bayonet RtG are on bases that are 3x3cm. The base for a brigade in Alter of Freedom are 6x3cm so since my bases are nearly half the size I think I can do this without damage the rule system to much.

I hope that the rules will appeal to me. I like Volley & Bayonet a lot but the rules are poorly backed up by the author or anyone else for that matter so if you want to play ACW with the rules you need to do a lot of research by you're selfs since the rulebook don´t have any scenarios for ACW just for Napoleonic. There is a scenario book for ACW for the first edition of Volley & Bayonet. Old Glory in the US have the book for 18$ wich seems like a fair price to me. So I went there and put the book in the cart and pressed checkout. Then There were 3$ extra for handling. Ok 21$ I´m fine with that, no problem. Continued true the system and wrote the destination for the book, Sweden. And then I saw it… shipping 59.95$. So for a book that cost 18$ I would be made to pay 80.95$ for, nope I did not finish the buy… And I can´t find the book anywhere else either so I leave it at that.

A rather expensive book…

I leave it at this for now and I hope you all will...

Roll sixes!

/Conny

Sail on the horizon

At the beginning of last week I got a small box in my mail box. I had ordered some boats from Peter Pig and hoped that it was this order that had arrived, and it was :).

In the box there was four ships, USS Hartford, USS Cairo, CSS Drewry and CSS Selma. 

I have also begun to read the rules, River Wars in earnest to get a grip of what I needed. If I had been an organised person I would have read the rules first and chosen ships that there was stats for in the rules. But no... I had to buy ships that there was no data cards for in the rules. O well, I will figure it out some day. USS Cairo at least was in the rules. At the moment I have contacted a Scott Mingus that has a blog were he writes a lot about the rules and I hope he may have some advice for me, http://scottmingus.wordpress.com/category/civil-war-wargaming/acw-naval-gaming/ .

I have started to assemble the USS Hartford since it was such a nice model. No bigger problems to put together but I have 6 guns, 2 large and 4 small that I don´t really know were to put on the model.

I have also, like so many of us in this trade, started a bit to many project at once. But I am slowly working my way trough them. On my painting desk there are at the moment three confederate Dixon miniatures and four bases that are supposed to be HQ bases for Alter of Freedom so I can play test it with style.

That was all for now but I will return, soon I hope, with more pictures of soldiers and ships that are done. But until then keep on...

...rolling sixes!

/Conny