Peter Pig 15mm Marines for Britton Publishers' SOF Warrior

All,

Well, if you're looking at (one of) my blog(s), you probably realize I'm a huge fan of Ivan Sorensen's 5Core series of rulesets; at last count I've played almost 200 fights using them.  But recently I wanted to play some games of elite troops against waves of low quality bad guys, and so I looked in on Ben Lacy's "SOF Warrior" set of rules, and I'm loving them.  They're a bit grittier than my normal style, but I've streamlined some of the various modifiers and, more importantly, with a few games under my belt it's all getting pretty familiar to me.  In any case, the activation system works really well for the type of fight I'm looking for, so I plan to keep going with them.  I'm so committed to continuing with these that I bought some new troops just to play these rules.

Now you're probably wondering, 'Jack, what the hell are you talking about, new troops just to play these rules?'  Well, I'm glad you asked ;)  In this game 'posture' is important to the game: your troops can be prone, kneeling, standing, moving, crouching, etc...  Now, there are other rules that do this as well, and whether playing these or those, most sane folks will choose to use chits/markers to show their figures' postures.  But me, I wanted to go a bit further, so I went and bought some more Peter Pig modern US Marines suited to the task.  I have a total of eight troops, and each 'man' has five separate figures to represent him on the tabletop: each man has a standing and moving guy, a standing and shooting guy, a kneeling and shooting guy, a prone guy, and a casualty figure.

Again, you don't have to do this to play these rules, and even so, I still don't have everything (I could use a crouching and moving figure, and a prone crawling figure for everyone), but it will have to do.

Here's the whole mess, a total of forty figures to put eight dudes on the board ;)

There are two four-man fireteams, each with a team leader with M-16, an automatic rifleman with SAW, a scout with M-16 an ACOG, and an assistant automatic rifleman with M-16.  1st team has black helmets, 2nd team has tan, and everyone is wearing black baklavas and yellow boots and gloves, which makes them look a lot more uniform than my intent.  Every guy in each team has a different base uniform color, and two of each four-man team is wearing a camo uniform, but there the uniqueness ends.  I tried my usual three-different skin tones, but it really didn't work with the black baklavas, so everyone's looking a bit pink.

I suppose I didn't have to do up a specific casualty figure for each man, but, as you probably know, I like playing campaigns where I follow a certain, specific group of guys from fight to fight, and so having the unique casualty figures helps me track who got hit and what happened to him.

Another look at the group.  I did them up with a tan basing to be used in temperate and desert climates.

This is the first time I actually didn't base everyone; I never base my casualty figures, but previously I've always based prone guys.  I didn't here, we'll see how it works out.

Last group shot, then we get to a bunch of random closeups.

Team 2's leader, the moving figure.

Same guy, his prone figure.  I actually didn't make the team leader (or anyone else) a grenadier as I wasn't sure if there were prone grenadier figures or not.  There are, and, since I didn't include any grenadiers on my teams, I actually had the pleasure of snipping the tubes off...

Team 2's SAW gunner, standing and firing pose.

Team 2's Scout, kneeling pose.

Same dude, other side.

Team 2's assistant gunner, kneeling pose.

Team 1's leader, standing and firing.

Team 1's automatic rifleman, kneeling.

Team 1's Scout, standing and firing.

Team 1's Scout, moving up.  Can't really see it, but I put a cool tiger stripe camo on him.

Team 1's Scout, casualty figure.

Team 1's assistant gunner, standing and moving.

Team 1's assistant gunner, prone.

Again, where you can see I had to cut the M-203 tube off his rifle...

Again.

Team 1's leader, prone.  A cool pose, up on an elbow.

Again.

Team 2's leader, casualty figure.

Team 2's SAW gunner, standing and moving.

Team 1's leader, kneeling.

The whole group, along with the vehicles I painted up this past weekend.

That's it for now, we'll see if I can't get some gaming in this weekend.

V/R,
Jack

La Petite Armee 10mm Napoleonics For Sale

All,

Here is a catalog of what I have:

British and Dutch completed (12 man infantry brigades, 3 figure cavalry brigades):
7 British Line
2 British Rifles
2 British Lights
2 Scottish Highlanders
3 British Guards
2 Dutch Line
2 British Dragoons
2 British Light Dragoons
1 British Hussar (Busby)
1 Scots Greys
1 British Blues
1 Dutch Hussars
2 British Horse Artillery
1 British Foot Artillery
1 Dutch Foot Artillery

Coalition completed:
4 Prussian (one Grenadier, three Line)
2 Prussian Hussars
1 Prussian Cuirassiers
1 Prussian Horse Artillery
4 Austrian (one Grenadier, three Line)
2 Austrian Hussars
1 Austrian Cuirassiers
2 Austrian Foot Artillery
4 Russian (one Grenadier, three Line)
2 Russian Hussars/Mounted Jaegers
2 Russian Foot Artillery

**Incomplete, meaning not based:
1 12-figure brigade of Light Infantry each for Prussians, Austrians, and Russians
Enough for another 11 3-figure cavalry brigades (1 Dutch, the rest Prussian, Austrian, and Russian)
Some extra guns and various command stands and Lieutenants, and I think there is a Prussian Foot Artillery stand floating around, just need to find it.

French and Allies completed:
9 French Line infantry
2 French Legere
2 French Young Guard
2 French Middle Guard
2 French Old Guard
2 French Cuirrassiers
2 French Guard Grenadier a Cheval
2 French Hussars
2 French Chasseurs a Cheval
2 French Dragoons
2 French Horse Artillery
3 French Foot Artillery
2 Bavarian Line infantry
1 Bavarian Chevauxleger
2 Italian Line infantry
1 Italian Chasseurs a Cheval
2 Saxon Line infantry
1 Saxon Cuirassiers
2 Polish Line infantry
2 Polish Lancers

**Incomplete, meaning not based:
1 12-figure Bavarian Light Infantry brigade
2 French Cuirassiers
2 French Dragoons
2 French Hussars
2 French Chasseurs a Cheval
1 Italian Chasseurs a Cheval
1 Bavarian Chevauxleger
1 Saxon Cuirassiers
A bunch of extra guns and command stands and Lieutenants

Now for some pics and links:
British/Coalition: http://blackhawkhet.blogspot.com/2013/12/napoleonic-coalition-forces.html

All the British and Coalition stuff.

Closeup of some British Guards to show detail, but they ARE NOT based like this anymore, they are based 12-men per stand.

Brit Horse Artillery, but they ARE NOT based like this anymore.  Now it's two guns and one horse-mounted figure (or two infantry figures for Foot Artillery) on one base.

Prussian Hussars, but they ARE NOT based like this anymore, they are now 3 figures and a flag on a single base.

The French and their allies (Polish, Italians, Bavarians, and Saxons).

French Old Guard, which are now 12-man and a flag per base.

Polish Lancers, now three figures and a flag per base.

Here's what they look like now (re-based), with 12 infantry, 3 cavalry, or two guns per base.

A closer look, with some Polish Lancers charging some Dutch Line Infantry supported by the British commander.

Well, that's everything.  I'm open to offers to offload this stuff as I've moved on; staying with 10mm, but I want troops based up as battalions I can change formations with, rather than 'brigade' basing.  I'd be ashamed to tell you how much I paid for all this, being that I bought them pre-painted from Gunner at La Petite Armee, and I'm not really yet ready put out an asking price.  I'd like to sell everything at once, and, as always, the more you buy the deeper the discount; I will sell out parcel pieces, but it's got to be somewhat proportionate, meaning you can't buy all my French, leaving me with no one to oppose my British/Coalition, or you can't buy only my Austrian cavalry, but leave me with the infantry.  If I'm left with stuff, I need to be able to play a game with it.

You can contact me below, in the comments section, via PM at TMP, or via e-mail (big jack mac -a t- hot mail -d o t- com).  Thanks for looking.

V/R,
Jack

First Two Old Glory 10mm Napoleonic Battalions

All,

As I mentioned, no gaming this past weekend, but I was pretty productive in terms of cleaning stuff up, painting, and basing, and other than the completed stuff I'm posting, I also moved down the road a ways in terms of getting a lot of other stuff done as well.  I keep dreaming of Napoleons; I bought a slew in 10mm, painted by someone else, based for brigade-level games (like Blucher, Volley and Bayonet, Grand Armee, etc...), then determined that really wasn't the type of game I was looking for (if anyone is interested in these Napoleonics: http://blackhawkhet.blogspot.com/2013/12/10mm-napoleonic-french.html and http://blackhawkhet.blogspot.com/2013/12/napoleonic-coalition-forces.html , please let me know.  Note, these have almost entirely been re-based for 12 infantry  and three cavalry per stand).  Then I bought a slew of Baccus 6mm Napoleonics, painted some, but ultimately bogged down and sold them off.  Well, I hopped in again, of course.  Next month will be a full year ago that I bought a slew in 10mm Napoleonics from Connie and Russ over at OG 25s.

Well, suffice to say, I'd gotten some stuff done, but not a whole lot...  But, having seen Steve on his "Sound Officers Call" blog cavorting about, having a good time playing some Black Powder (http://soundofficerscall.blogspot.com/2017/03/friday-night-naps.html) has spurred me to action, and so I got busy to painting and basing.  I painted up a total of six French and one Austrian battalions, and decided to base one of each up to see how they'd look; that was actually part of the problem.  Part of my sluggishness was regarding the issue of basing.  I had planned on going with big, 80-man battalions, but I saw Steve's basing up of 40-man battalions and figured that would work just fine.  So let's take a look.

One battalion each of French (left) and Austrians (right).  I love the Old Glory five-man strips, they're perfect for Napoleonics (for what I'm wanting to do).  But I hate painting the flags...  So, each battalion is four stands of ten men, with my stands being 30mm squares.

Looking from the right flank.

From behind.

The left flank.

And from the port quarter.  So, the point of four-base battalions is to be able to change formation...

Like this.  The Austrian battalion is in line, as the French close in attack column.

Another look at that same setup.

The French are pushing forward under heavy musket fire.

Will they make it?

Probably not.

French cavalry come up on the flank (off camera, of course, since I don't have any painted up).  The French shake out into line (top) as the Austrians are forced into square.  So, with four bases, I need to figure out how to form square.  Here's one look (all four bases facing a different direction).

Again.

In this photo I've got the Austrians in square using a different representation.  The front two bases face the enemy, the rear two bases face opposite.  I kinda like it, but could see not paying attention and confusing it for attack column, not noticing the two rear bases are facing to the rear.

Again.

And the last representation of square, where they're kind of in a star pattern, each base touching others only at the corners.  Looks a little goofy, I suppose, but there's no confusing what it is, and it finally has a hollow center.  I think I like this one best, actually.  What do you think?

And one more shot.

I need to start knocking these infantry out, then move on to cavalry, then artillery (to include limbers), then command.  Damn, plenty of work to do, but I've got to get to it if I ever hope to actually play a damn game!  My plan it to do small chunks: six French infantry battalions, then six Austrian, followed by a couple cavalry regiments each, a couple artillery batteries each, and a couple command stands each.  That way I can at least MAYBE get a game in this decade.  The danger there is that I get enough done for a game and say hell with finishing up the rest!  Anyway, thanks for looking, and next up is some more modern troops.

V/R,
Jack