Waterloo (ala Italian Wars), ACW and painting progress!

Hi folks,

Busy times gaming wise this week, so I thought I'd do a quick wrap up of what I've been up to.

Starting with gaming, on Sunday I was at the Old Guards club day in Northallerton. The guys had put on a big game of my 'favourite' gaming system - Impetus.

I've previously had a not very good experience with this system, so you can imagine my joy to turn up half an hour into the club day (Sunday mornings are not meant to exist!) to find I was playing Impetus. And not only playing Impetus, but taking command of a French force i hadn't deployed... and who were about to be attacked in the flank by two massive German armies.

To be fair to Stu's, the German armies had not been present at the time of his deployment.

The figures were from Johns collection and he's had them for a long time. A very colourful and bright collection, with lots of flags!

One of John's photos, used with permission. My force is in the top right, below the onrushing German hordes. 

Pete's command - the immediate threat to my flank. Three massive pike blocks, a load of handgunners and skirmishers as well as some German Cavalry. 

A couple of turns of hasty redeployment saw me in a better position to counter Pete's force. This a lot lot later in the game, where I'm dealing with his Cavalry and have reduced one Pike block down to one stand and started hitting the others. You can see some of John and Martins troops closing in on me as well. 

Martins command, holding the ridge line (his Viennese troops being the 'British' in this scenario).

Stu's Swiss Pike advancing on Martins defences!

Stu's Swiss pike blocks, slowly eroding Martins defences. Eventually they crumbled and martins force fled the field before his German allies could reach him. 

My French Cavalry (best on the table) defeating the German cavalry. It took me two units to do this, but the first unit killed half his cavalry and wiped out most of a pike block. 

Pete's stalled advance. I had fallen back behind the fence lines as I knew these would be an issue for his troops to cross. He also struggled to lift the disorders I was managing to inflict every turn. 

Being in line of my cannon didn't help him!

Johns Germans were getting closer, with only my elite Swiss pikes (best on the table, apparently) in a position to protect my flank. I'd moved some of that great French cavalry up to support as well. 

Fighting continues, but the end is near! Martins troops, after a very dogged defence, eventually rout. 

End of the game. Stu's forces would have taken a while to get to me and support, so things may have gotten dicey. But I'd held the Germans off long enough!

A decent game that looked great on the table, just still not a fan of that system!

On Tuesday, I went to Dave's for a trial game with our 10mm ACW figures. This was really just to test out the Regimental Fire and Fury rules. We set up a simple table with me defending and ran through a couple of turns. It seems like a decent system and we picked up the basics pretty quickly. 

Dave's setup looked fantastic, and it was good to get a run through. Not a huge lot happened in the couple of turns we played - I lost a gun battery to an infantry charge (only one gun was active) and I hit a couple of the union regiments hard. A useful game to help frame the rule book when we read through it properly. 

Painting wise, I've been making progress with a British infantry platoon and some pioneers/engineers. This platoon will be the first of my 2nd company. I'll need them - and a lot more - for the big game I'm planning at the club in October. 

The next two platoons are about to get prepped while I varnish the first one. A few early shots here show off my attempts at suitably Scottish headgear - in the form of the Argyles Tam O'Shanters. 

I've used a mix of British infantry figures - the beret guys are from the 7th Armoured infantry packs, mixed with some newer and older standard infantry. I've also included two tank crew (one of which was getting an updated paint job), who will form another 'bailed out' marker.

Planning wise - long term, I am going to have the Argyles A, B and D rifle Companies along with the S Company. I've already got the S Company and A Company. C company was temporarily disbanded prior to Operation Totalize in order to provide the manpower to bring the other companies up to 7 men per squad. 

This will give me the full 7th Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders! I've already got the Defrocked Priest models for transporting them, just need to paint the damn things...