More Austrians

 I have been painting Napoleonic Austrians. I plan to play the battle of Raab from 1809 and need to add some specific units. The first is a stand of Hungarian Insurrection infantry. In an army of white, these guys in their blue will break up the landscape. Each large, 3"x3" base in Volley and Bayonet is either a brigade or large regiment. I need three of these Insurrection brigades.
I added some landscaping to this base. The plowed field is one of my wife's blouses that she no longer wanted. I looked at it as I put it into the charity pile and decided it would look good on the tabletop as terrain. I'm working on larger plowed fields in my spare time. The stone wall was created with air dry clay. I still need to put the flag on this unit and ink their faces.

 Next is a stand of Hungarian Insurrection cavalry. This specific base is a one strength point "skirmish" stand. Normal cavalry stands in my armies have 6-8 figures on them. The skirmish bases have only three figures. I need to paint one more of these bases.

Finally there are three infantry skirmisher bases. In Volley and Bayonet, these 1.5"x1.5" bases represent detachments of light infantry or small units of other infantry. There are two jager bases and one landwehr detachment.

Time for more painting.

Christmas Day Attack Command Decision AAR

At the February gathering of the IU Conflict Simulations Club we played the Christmas Day Attack from the Command Decision Bastogne scenario booklet. It's a big game and needed more time than we had available, but we are concentrating on Command Decision so we can learn the latest version.This was the last attack on Bastogne before Patton's army relieved the city. Vehicles, figures, and terrain provided by Jeff, my ground cloth.

Bob, Richard and I played the Germans while Jeff, Big Mike, and Jim T were the US defenders.

Bob and I split a regiment of Volksgrenadiers and attacked the US right flank. We were supported by a company of Panzer IV's. Bob's battalion attacked Champs, while I moved through the woods toward Chateau de Rolle.




The US left is held by two batteries of artillery.

 Richard rolled panzergrenadiers and armor down the road in a bold flanking maneuver.


The German attacks go in...

 

 

 

 

 

Champs at the top, Chateau de Rolle below

The German attacks captured Champs, overran the artillery, and threatened Chateau de Rolle. The US reinforcements were sent to deal with Richard's attack and temporarily stopped him. He pulled back to organize for another attack.

After taking Champs, Bob turned his armor to support my attack.

US Reinforcements

US defenses behind Chateau de Rolle

German reinforcements rolled on. I was confident that one more turn of fighting would have give my control of Chateau de Rolle. Richard was ready to attack again supported by our reinforcements. We were celebrating our victory.

The US players were just as positive that they could hold against anything we could throw against them.

And of course, time ran out. A fun game. We are getting confident with the rules. If the US players had just given up, it would have been a perfect day.

Next month we will play the Mokre scenario from Bob Mackenzie's excellant website. It is a smaller game and we believe we can finish it.

Hordes of the Things!

Last night, my son and I stopped by the local game store to watch some games of Warmachine. My friend Bob told me about it on Sunday and I wanted to see how the system played. It's an interesting setting and system, but I don't plan to get involved.
However, after the first round of games was finished, they brought out the HOTT armies. I estimate that I have played over 1000 games of DBA or HOTT in the past. I haven't played either for years. Brady and I played a game and my son beat me in his very first game of HOTT. I'm looking for my old figures and will post more on this entertaining rule set.
It's fun to show up and then not only play a game, but teach it to the youth.