A Sunday at Dave's

Today me and James (http://themadtinhatter.blogspot.co.uk/)  met at Dave's (http://onemanhisbrushes.blogspot.co.uk/) to play Team Yankee and the 1st scenario in the Iron Maiden rules - Covering Force. James came and lunchtime and I arrived in the morning to play Death in the Dark Continent. This was our 2nd go at the rules and the 1st ended in bloody slaughter of the African natives at the hands of the French. This time Dave had set up an ambush scenario with Brits and Egyptians vs mahdists. I was the Brits and had to cross the table clearing Mahdists as I went.

The Egyptians - 3 units Egyptian Infantry, I unit Naval Brigade, Gardiner gun and medium artillery piece and a baggage train. 

I have to cross this with 2/3 of my force left

Immediately I am engaged on the left by Mahdists and an Egyptian unit turns to face them and they are disordered

On the right there is a large empty space behind the mesa and I wander off to investigate

The 2nd Mahdist unit on the left tries to charge home but fails and I butcher them and their mates

More Mahdists emerge from the wadi

Behind the mesa I form a line just as the Mahdists charge. Melee rules are very very brutal and even though I'm ready

This happens

THe Madhists on the left are in deep trouble and although I'm now disordered Dave must make saving rolls to survive

Which he fails

I'm ready for more action but the Mahdists retreat

In the face of hearts of oak

I start to advance

and cross the wadi

Glamour shot

On the other side is high grass and lots of Mahdists. If I wait then they will charge out of the grass and butcher me. So I advance the Egyptian infantry to get a clear shot. Dave rolls to charge and hits me

The Egyptians die and their mates run off leaving the Naval Brigade alone and defeated.

The game was great fun but we had too much long grass and I couldn't get a field of fire. Needs a set fire to the grass rule, or less grass. The artillery rules make it too weak and the melee is totally brutal

Team Yankee tomorrow, stay tuned

So it been a strange few weeks

General election on Thursday, to be honest it's a bit like the Iran / Iraq war - would be better if both sides lost. I've given money to 2 different political parties, 1 I support and one because a friend is standing and is being funded by crowd sourcing. He's not getting my support but I fundamentally agree with helping him to stand, he's in a proper party and not a lunatic.
We've had a couple of terrorist attacks. Much hand wringing and recrimination but this has been overwhelmed by love, bravery and a a general sense that we are all in this together. My country has been bombed every year of my life and we are still here.
I've finished the work for the big VBCW battle in a couple of weeks, there will be 5 or 6 sides which will either be brilliant or a chaotic mess. Can't wait. However the completion of this work left a hole in my painting list and I couldn't think what to paint. Luckily the Blogosphere has helped and Matt Crump has been painting up his ACW. I've got a lot of these painted, 6 regiments of each side plus artillery, cavalry etc. I still have 4 regiments to paint, some Perry plastics and a couple of regiments worth of old school Dixons that I picked up in an antiques shop a last year. So I painted up the 1st one

Rebel firing line

I bought a copy of Death in the Dark Continent rules and all the figures are based on 60x30mm stands. I base mine individually on 20x20mm so I needed some bases and some magnets.

the empty bases with squares of steel paper. The tall grass is made from a scrubbing brush with the fibres stuck together with hot melt glue

Magnetic tape on the base of the figs and the bases become interchangeable. I shall do a desert set, a jungle set and a temperate set, 4 bases together will make and impetus infantry stand, 2 a skirmish stand. All in all very versatile, although I have hundreds of figures to add magnetic bases to.

Death in the Dark Continent

So the postman finally came yesterday. I'd joined the Nickstarter for the release of the Death in the Dark Continent rules. These are a revamped version of the old Chris Peers rules and at 176 pages long it is a beautiful book full of eye candy, army lists and general background reading.

I've only had chance for a quick read but the rules are straight forward and all of colonial era massed battles. I will need to sort out basing but I have a cunning plan for that.

I also purchased the white hunter set, at £20(ish) it was a bargain

You get an elephant

While hunter and a couple of lions

Water buffalo

African villagers

If I wasn't snowed under with work this would have been my weekend sorted