Pike & Shotte Campaign Battle - The Bridge

Even though I told the guys I wasn't going to blog about yesterday's game, I do have a few pics of the game, and thought it would be easy to do a quick post.

Mike had arrange for another round of the P&S campaign they've been running (even convinced me to roll up a mercenary command!). Mike and Troy supplied all the figures and set up the table for the The Bridge scenario out of the mini campaign in The Devils Playground book. Brett was also able to make it, so it turned into a two vs two game.

Troy and I set up on the left of the river, while Mike and Brett set up on the right. They won the initiative which allowed Mike to throw forward a pike block onto the bridge. Brett, Troy and I basically sat around for the next couple of turns (Brett and I searching for a ford in the river).

The Bridge

 The victory condition for the scenario is to control the bridge for three consecutive turns ... of course Troy and I spent the next two turns dawdling around our baseline! So before we lost, I had my commander take charge of a group of rabble and charge the bridge (passed a Follow Me order).

My lone unit of militia was all that stood between victory and defeat ... as it turned out only a few more turns before defeat took hold of our armies :) but we did manage to do a little damage to some shotte units.

Deciding enough was enough, Mike ordered his pike block to changed into column and charged across the bridge into my militia. Surprisingly it took a couple of turns (and misinterpreted rule) before the pikemen gained the advantage and drove off my militia. 

By now the bulk of Mike's and Brett's foot units were supporting the unit on the bridge and to top it off, Brett's cavalry finally found the ford and started crossing the river.

After being driven back from my now shaken militia broke my command. This was because earlier in the game, some musketry had drove off my other Militia unit (they actually ran away when I tried to rally them!) My unit of Cuirassier never were able to join the fray.

We called the game and rolled for experience and extra units as per the rules. It seems that my Cuirassiers were issued lances and learned how to use them (Lancer ability and +1 H-to-H), while a unit of militia pick up a few muskets (+1 shooting) and finally, the crew of the medium guns was issued some swords (+1 H-to-H). So after the game this is what my Mercenary Company looked liked (no extra units):

Captain Bruenig (Reliable, SR=7)

Unit	Type	Weapon	H-to-H	Shooting	Morale	Stamina	Special
Cuirassier	Heavy Horse	Lance, Sword & Pistol	7	-	4+	2	Mercenary, Caracole, Hvy Cav +1, Lancer
Militia	Foot Warband	Mixed Melee & Ranged	1	1	6	2	Mercenary, Militia, Rabble
Militia	Foot Warband	Mixed Melee	1	-	6	2	Mercenary, Militia, Rabble
Artillery	Ordnance	Light Gun (24")	1	3-2-1	6	1	Mercenary
Artillery	Ordnance	Medium Gun (36")	2	3-2-1	6	1	Mercenary

There is also talk about a reset and fiddling around with the campaign rules (Troy's leader now commands 13 units!).

Tirailleurs Algeriens in Mexico

As some of you may know, I was not very keen on the size of the Gringo40 28mm figures, and made plans to paint up some Perry figures as back up. Due to a generous donation from Doc, I was able to get a few Perry plastic zouaves from him to use as Tirailleurs.

Even though I will mostly use them as a skirmish unit of six figures, I opted once again to paint up eight figures in case I later decide to use them as a line unit.

Close up on a single figure. The blue is actually a lighter shade than what the picture shows. Though I could not force myself to do them in a pure sky blue color :)

I may see if i can get an officer figure and paint him up in the color scheme as well, but I already have enough leaders for any game, so not on the painting table at this point.

I also painted up a pack of perry ACW figures to flush out the Former Republican line units. Both units now have eight figures and one of them can be a ten figure militia unit if needed.

It had been a couple of months since I had painted up the Republican figures, but I think they came out well enough that most of you won't be able to tell them apart.

One on left recently finished, while the one on the right was done a couple of months ago.

And finally I finished a secondary deployment point for my command. It can also pass as a movable deployment point if needed but I do have an alternate idea for painting up one of those.

I think I'll take a break on painting figures for the MAW2 project and focus in on the scenarios and army lists for the campaign. That said I do have a pack of figures on hand that I am going to paint up as armed civilians ... at a later time.

French Army in MAW2

I recently received the French Legionnaire and Mexican Cavalry figures from Gringo40s. As I had finished everything else I quickly primed and painted the legionnaire figures. They came out fairly well and the detail on each figure was really good.

Though I was not keen on having to glue several of the weapons to  some of the figures and suspect they will "break" during gameplay. I probably should have pinned them but am to impatient for that! I painted up eight soldiers and a leader, so that I can use them as a skirmish unit (6 figures) or a line unit (8 figures) plus leader to command them.

While I had plans to paint them as a French Foreign Legion detachment left behind, I ended up painting them as French Line instead. Mostly because the FFL had white pants and I already had enough white in the army. The French line units had red pants and wanted them to stand out from the rest of the Mexican army. I based them the same as my previous figures (see Basing Figures in MAW)

Lt. Labossiere and his detachment from the 51st Line

However, I not sure I am even going to use them! They are simple too big (the cavalry are even more monstrous!) and think the size difference with the Perry figures may be to great for my tastes. I'll give them a go, but it is possible I'll be selling these figures off pretty soon.

Red line is eye level, even if the Perry figure was a little more "upright" the sheer bulk of the Gringo40 figure dwarfs him.

If I do ditch them, my new plan is to get some ACW zouaves (Perry perhaps) and paint them up as legionaries, maybe Algeria raised FFL units with the turbans.