Merry Christmas!

Well, it is Christmas Eve.

I've finished off all the painting I intend to do in 2019, and I have to say that it has been a pretty good year, even though I never managed to get those twelve crossbowmen for my Condottiere band done. My priority for January will be the Portuguese Napoleonic Fuzileiros which I need for the beginning of February.

So, I'll take this opportunity to wish all my followers a very Merry Christmas and leave you all with this wonderful piece of music, the "Fantasia on Christmas Carols" by Ralph Vaughan Williams;

My Condottiere (plus a few more Swiss)

At long last, I have finally finished off the commander of my Renaissance Papal band, the condottiere himself, accompanied by his gonfaloniere, or standard bearer with the Papal banner, blessed by His Holiness himself, no doubt.

I've also got around to finishing off six handgunners for the band, who are wearing the livery of the Canton of Uri, as are some of the band's pikemen and halberdiers.

If I deploy these guys in Lion Rampant, I will just use them as bidowers, because that will keep things nice and simple. I have six more handgunner bodies that aren't made up yet, so this also gives me the opportunity of filling their number out to make a larger 12-man unit, which means I could use them are firearm levies for a Great Kingdoms warband for Saga: Age of Magic.

I am still looking at the 12 undercoated crossbowmen, thinking that I really should get working on them, but I also have a load of 28mm Napoleonic Portuguese line infantry to get done before hte beginning of February. I cannot decide on the colour scheme for the crossbowmen, though, but I think they need to be red and white really.

Seize the crossroads - a 15mm ACW AAR

Here is another Sharp Practice game played at the club yesterday.

I took the job of commanding the Confederate forces against Kev's Union troops. Both of us were using 15mm Peter Pig figures. The buildings were my Peter Pig resin ones and all the scenery was the club's, apart from my 15mm snake fences. Here is the table from the Union side. I would be entering from the road on the upper edge of the table.

To add visual interest, I placed various civilians around the hamlet, together with some livestock.

Kev had a strong force from the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, an Afro-American unit, while I fielded a larger, but less well-trained force from the imaginary Hazzard County Volunteers and Militia, commanded (of course) by Major J.D. Hogg.

Both forces were soon advancing across the table towards the strategically-important crossroads. 

The main body of Rebel infantry moved towards the large farm, while the Militia, under Sgt. Roscoe P. Coltrane marched along the road towards the crossroads. If they could get there first, the idea was that they could resist the Union advance, even though they were only equipped with smoothbore muskets. Both sides deployed skirmish troops, with the Union side proving to be better shots.

The 54th Massachusetts got into the hamlet in good time, with all their infantry taking up a commanding position pretty quickly. This would prove decisive.

The Hazzard County Militia, a poorly-trained bunch, came under sustained fire from the well-drilled Union troops, who were firing controlled volleys to good effect. The Confederate skirmishers on the left also took casualties, limiting their usefulness.

Although Rebel fire was causing some damage to the Union infantry, the superior musket drill of the Union side took a heavy toll on the hapless militia, forcing them to withdraw with many casualties and a lot of shock. Before long their formation would break and the group led by Sgt. Coltrane would flee the field. This cause a rapid fall in Rebel morale.

Maj. Hogg managed to get the main body of Hazzard County Volunteers into a firing line and musketry was exchanged with the Union troops. The local civilian population was by now fleeing in panic from the battle (they were activated whenever a blank chip was drawn from the bag, moving in the direction indicated by a scatter dice, with distance being decided by rolling 1D6)

With depleted ranks, it was only a matter of time before the Confederate defenders were defeated. The only question of whether they would be forced to flee or their morale would drop to nothing.

In the end, the battle was decided by morale. Maj. Hogg was struck by a Union ball and on the roll of 1, he was killed. 

So, a pretty comfortable victory for Kev's Union Infantry, a clearly superior force, which even though it was outnumbered by the Rebels was better drilled and capable of sustained accurate musketry. The Militia were unable to make any impact, being subjected to volley after volley before they were even able to fire a shot. It was their loss which really decided the outcome. 

LBWS Alien Squad Leader tournament 2019

Every year, the club holds an internal Alien Squad Leader tournament, and the 2019 edition was held on Sunday 1st December.

There were eight entrants this year, and four tables over which our 150pt armies would battle. The first one was nasty. The river was impassable and troops could only cross on the roads.

Non-human forces dominated proceedings, with only one human force being fielded. Here is a gallery of battle pictures. I seem to have taken more photos of the games I played than others, but I suppose that is natural.

Overall, there were a lot of drawn games, so getting a win was a real success. I drew two games with my Alien Imperial force, and was heading for a draw in my final game but ended up with a loss on points due to losing a combat against Nick's Alien Enslaver flyer in the very last minute of the third game.

The final standings were;

So, congratulations to Richard who ended up as the overall Champion, with his army of Alien Tribal Mercenary mushrooms.