Saturday 5 February 2011

Just a quick one...

Only a short post for now; hopefully a bigger update will be coming on Sunday.

Anyway, life has been a bit hectic since the last update. My grandmother died suddenly, and so there's been a lot going on and the whole family has been a bit out of sorts, naturally.

Napoleonics

As a sort of pick-me-up, my uncle, cousin and myself organised a Napoleonics game during the week to take our minds off things. Austrians vs. French 15mm, with myself commanding the French and my uncle and cousin splitting the Austrians between them (my cousin still hasn't painted his own Russian army...). The game objective was to "Seize the Pass" by controlling a pair of villages along the centre line of the table, each seperated by a stream running the length of the table. It ended up as a losing draw for me; things started off well, as the Austrians bottlenecked on their way to the far village and their cavalry were slowed by marshland on the way to the near village. My light infantry battalion made it to the near village unmolested and held it against all comers (about three strong Austrian infantry battalions and a medium artillery battery) while the Austrian cavalry tried to circle round to my artillery and were held off (and destroyed) by two infantry squares.

The turning point of the battle came when my heavy cavalry charged the loitering Austrian Hussars guarding the far village. I outnumbered the Hussars and had better quality troops. Naturally, I lost the fight and my cavalry retired. The following turn, they charged again (still outnumbering and still better quality) and lost again. As they were already Unsteady, this time they Routed. It was at this point that my three infantry battalions contesting the far village decided to pack up and retire as well; the weight of Austrian numbers was beginning to tell, and the French were gradually pushed back towards the stream.

When we ended the game (due to time), the Austrians held one village and my light infantry held the other. If we'd have carried on, my light infantry would likely have been overwhelmed (although I did have two infantry battalions rushing to support them; the two battalions that had seen off the Austrian cavalry). Still, ending on a draw (even if it would eventually have turned to a defeat) was a fair result.

Other stuff

I managed to complete the entry for Animosity 5's Conversion Contest; photos will follow as soon as the results of the contest are announced.

Da Warpath are currently running a "Crazy Community Unit Project"; the idea is that members sign up to contribute a painted Orc Boy until we've constructed a whole unit! Definitely crazy...

Anyway, I've volunteered to contribute a boy to the project. The bonus is that each member who contributes a painted boy will be entered into a raffle, and the winner wins the whole unit! I'll be starting work on my Boy on Sunday, so will provide (semi-) regular updates of my progress.

In other news, I've started putting together a unit of Giant Rats for my Skaven. The purchase of a sprue of Giant Rats with Packmasters from eBay (all of about £3) in addition to the numerous rats provided on the Doomwheel kit mean I have enough for a unit of 20. Hopefully, they'll be pretty quick to paint - then I suppose I should get started on the mass of Clanrats.

Finally, I'm still plugging away at the Tilean pikemen. Warhammer-Empire.com are planning on running another campaign, set a few years after Treachery & Greed, so perhaps Alessandro Vinta's son Alessio will make an appearance (if I can get the army ready in time!)

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Well, after all that, it wasn't really quick at all! Still, a "proper" update (with pics!) will arrive on Sunday

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