Here are the first batch of Confederate Troops

Hi everyone!

Well I took my time this weekend and painted up the first four Brigades of Infantry that will represent the Infantry force that was part of General Johnston's Army of the Shenandoah at the Battle of Bull Run. 

I tried to be as random as possible with the uniforms without going over board with the Union pants or too many brown uniforms. I think the units look good. I also picked up a box of Citadel middenland tuffs that I added to the stands. I like how the new and improved stand look so I will go back and add some to the Union bases as well.

What do you think of the uniforms and the bases. Please give me some feedback.

From the 150th Reenactment of 2nd Bull Run.

Have a good week.

Union Army of Northern Virginia at 1st Bull Run

Hi all,

It has been a busy two weeks and I have had some time for painting. Below you will find the latest addition to my Union Army for the US Civil War games I am planning to run this coming year.

The four new Brigades in line

Column of Brigades

I was able to paint up four more Brigades of Union Infantry. This brings my total count of Infantry Brigades up to 12. I only need 11 for 1st Bull Run but I was painting and I figured I would paint them up as well. 

You will see in the pictures that two of the Brigades have Pennsylvania Regimental flags instead of the National Regimental Flags. I am trying to add a little flavor to the Union Army.  To add some color I will be painting up one brigade of Zouaves and one of Regular Union Army Infantry, which will have all hardee hats and can also be used as the Iron Brigade later in the war.  The Regulars started the war wearing the hardee hat but eventually switched to the standard kepi design hat.

The first Army complete

Close up of two of the four Divisions

A view of the other two Divisions

Ready for the table!

So I also took a picture of the completed Union Army as outlined in the Order of Battle for the battle of 1st bull run in the Scenario book from Alter of Freedom.

So in the above picture is the Federal Army of Northern Virginia.
The Divisions are labeled 1-4: 1 is Tyer's Division, 2 is Hunter's Division, 3 is Heintzelman's Division and number 4 is Miles' Division.

In Tyler's Division:
I: Keys BDE
II: Schenk BDE
III: Sherman BDE
IV: Richardson BDE
V: Carlisle Artillery BTY

In Hunter's Division:
I: Porters BDE
II: Burnside BDE
III: Palmer Cavalry BDE
IV: Griffin Artillery BTY

In Heintzelman's Division:
I: Franklin BDE
II: Wilcox BDE
III: Howard BDE
IV: Ricketts  Artillery BTY

In Miles' Division:
I: Blenker BDE
II: Davies BDE
III: Tidball Artillery BTY

Thank you for stopping by now I will get to work on the Confederate forces and some buildings for the battle of Bull Run!

Have a good weekend!

One reason I do not paint as much as I want.

So I have played Wargames in a number of forms. While I have not been able to play and or paint many of the Miniatures and Miniature wargames I would want I have been messing around with a few computer games.

One that I will talk about now is contently being updated and improved. Rule the Waves, is a great game and it allows you to chose a nation, or create a nation and be the Secretary of the Navy.

You design and deploy ships all around the world and you wage war against other nations while trying to work within a ever changing budget and political situations that are unique to each nation.

I tried out a custom nation, a hypothetical Sweden that consisted of Norway, Sweden, Finland, The Gold Coast and the Virgin Islands.  This custom nation was created by a person named Skold and his mod can be found on the Rule the Waves forum, along with other custom nations. The game started in 1900 with a small fleet of old ships and a small budget. I fought a short war against Italy and did not win any territory. I later fought a War against Austria and I did well. I was able to win Ireland as part of the terms to end the war.

The views are not very flashy but it is very deep and you can research a lot of different technical advances which allow you to build bigger and more powerful ships.

Here is the Swedish Fleet at the end of the Game. I started the game with a small fleet option which limits the number of ships you can make over time. Next time I will chose the large fleet option.

The game is a lot of fun, you can check out YouTube to see what the game looks like live as there are a number of videos to help people navigate this deep game.

Well if you have any questions or comments please leave me a message below.

Thanks for stopping by!

Mark

More 6mm Union Infantry for the American Civil War

Good afternoon all!

I have had a good weekend, we have snow so it was nice to spend some time yesterday painting up these four Brigades of Infantry for my upcoming Alter of Freedom games that I plan to run at the local club here in Stockholm. 

This unit will represent a full Division of Infantry at the Battle of Manassas.  The infantry Division will be Brigadier General Daniel Tyler's Division.

I will start with the first battle for the war and then work on other historic battles as well as paint up more miniatures for a ACW campaign.

I have completed a total of three of the four Divisions that I need to complete the Union Army. I only need to paint up the infantry for Heintzelman's Division, I have already completed all the artillery and cavalry needed of the Union Army of Northeastern Virginia.  Once I have them finished I will switch to painting the Confederate forces for the battle.

Have a good weekend!

First Miniatures Painted in 2016

Hi again!

I was able to do some painting on Sunday and I was able to paint up all three of these Warhansa 28mm Modern Adventures / Mercs. 

From left to right: Doctor Pitt, Igor Dolvich, and Private Ryan

The miniatures are well made and they are fun to paint up.  I hope you enjoy the first batch of these miniatures. I have 3 more to paint up. These remind me of the RPG game Twilight 2000 game  use to play back in the 1980's and early 1990's

box cover from when the game was published by GDW Games.

I liked being able to mix and match clothing and not having to stick to a uniform guide.

More to come later.

They all have packs and tools for survival

Have a good week!!!

Have gun will travel

First Game of 2016

Happy New Year!

I got to play my first Wargame of 2016 yesterday in a great part of Sweden. Black Powder (Soren) and I got together at his home in Uppsalla to play the first game of the year to help up prepare for the games we will be running at DFFCON 2016 in Copenhagen.

It was a snowy day in Uppsala

We played our favorite WW1 naval rules, Naval Thunder Clash of Dreadnoughts. I will not go into too many details about the scenario but the US Battleship squadron force was intercepted by a force of German Battle Cruisers and one Battleship.  BLUF: It did not go well for the US!

The Rules

The game was fun and Soren did very well. I had a hard time with my dice roles and twice during the game I rolled 20 on two D10 dice to resolve critical hits.  So needless to say the results were a magazine explosion on the USS New York and the ship the battleships were escorting.

The upside down ship will be a TBD ship that is being escorted by the US Battleship Squadron

The initial setup

The ships start to maneuver

The German battle line

The Germans had speed on there side and were able to force the US ships to maneuver where the Germans could do the most damage.

The beautiful ships that Soren has painted up for WW1

The US Battleships on the move

Disaster strikes the US Fleet early in the game when the USS New York blows up!

Yes I did roll those dice.....

More gun fire and damage to both sides stats to add up

The USS Florida had some issues with flooding....

Near the end of the battle

Disaster strikes again. The ship being escorted by the US Ships explodes after being hit one time by the German guns.

I obviously did not give the dice Gods a satisfactory sacrifice before the game as I rolled that 20 as well.

Well I hope my dice rolls improve as the year goes on!
Have a good week. I will have more posts this coming week.