3rd Analogue Painting Challenge; A (Brief) Game Report; Painting Update

Last year, I followed the progress of some of the painters in Curt's 2nd Analogue Painting Challenge and was impressed by the legend....wait for it....ary output of certain people who were taking part. Anyway, Curt has announced the 3rd Analogue Painting Challenge and I have opted in. I have no hopes of getting anywhere near the output levels of Kent and Ray, even if my fatigue levels improve but the challenge will (I hope) provide a spur to getting some painting done.

Unfortunately, as only historical minis are counted towards the challenge it does mean that my massive leadpile of 15mm SciFi figures will have to wait until after the challenge. I do have plenty of historical figures to paint though:

15mm
Medieval Swiss pikemen, halberdiers and command groups (depending on how things go, I may add more figures to complete the army)
30YW - 24 "Croat" light horse, 24 late war horse (Swedes?), casualty markers, 6 artillery limbers. I might add some more figures later on, eg Scottish mercenary foot

28mm
I've got plenty of 28mm plastics to assemble and paint up as well
Saxons (Gripping Beast and Wargames Factory)
Vikings (Gripping Beast and Wargames Factory)
Normans - foot and cavalry (Conquest)
Late medieval mercenary foot (Perry)

6mm
I've still got the bulk of the Baccus ACW start box to paint up. Given that next year is the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg campaign, maybe it would be a good use of the time I spend on the Challenge to get enough units painted up to game some of the battles? Not to mention that the scoring system looks very skewed in favour of 6mm  with each foot figure scoring 1 point (for comparison, foot figures for 15 and 28mm score 2 and 5 points). Maybe it's to compensate for the risk of eye strain?

The entry fee for the challenge is to paint up a "47 Ronin" figure for Curt. Luckily I have some mid/late 1980s Citadel Samurai figures kicking around, so I just need to choose which one to paint up for him.



Game Report

On Monday I had my 2nd game in the club's ECW tournament, my New Model Army against Mike's Parliamentarian Northern Association. I used the same list as I used against Gordon a couple of weeks ago. Unluckily I'd forgotten to check my camera's battery and it ran out after just 1 shot:

I guessed correctly that Mike would have opted for the very shooty version of his army, so I was glad to win the initiative as it would let me see his deployment and deploy my own troops accordingly. As expected, his right wing and centre were a long line of foot, with a couple of units in reserve and dragoons covering the right flank. His left wing had his artillery, a pike and shot unit and his cavalry - 2 units of average horse and 1 unit of average cuirassiers.

I opted for what could be a risky strategy and split my forces with a left wing of infantry (left flank covered by dragoons) and a cavalry right wing with the artillery covered by "firelocks". The main reason for putting my artillery on the right was to make use of the hill down there which would allow me to fire over my own troops.

The photo was taken at the end of the 2nd turn. My battle plan was to engage and hold Mike's right wing with my foot, whilst my cavalry would engage his cavalry and then turn in on his left flank and rear.

My artillery did quite well at first and managed to break Mike's cuirassiers through base losses. My superior determined horse were then able to get into position to engage his average horse. However, Mike had moved one of them up into a position that forced me to charge his pike and shot at the same time, which would put me at a disadvantage. The impact and first melee were tied, and dragged out to the end of the game. My other superior determined horse weren't quite in range to charge at the same time, so I had to wait  2 turns before I could destroy his other horse unit, leaving me free to engage in the other melee.

Meanwhile over on my left flank, the two opposing dragoons engaged in a phoney war of threatening each other while my foot advanced to engage Mike's right wing. My superior foot succeeded in fragmenting their opponents through shooting and declared a charge - Mike failed the cohesion test to stand and the unit broke, upsetting a couple of units around them. The next unit down the line was charge by my foot and rapidly broke as well and I managed to kill one of his generals - revenge for me as on the other flank Mike had fluked a kill on my cavalry general. This disturbed Mike's right wing even more. In the pursuit phase the foot who had won their melee managed to charge into another foot unit. This was to prove disastrous for them as it left them open to a flank charge which I couldn't prevent.

Back on my right wing, my artillery couldn't engage any targets within arc as my cavalry were in the way. Stupidly I forgot for a couple of turns that I could pivot them onto a new arc. When I eventually did remember, I got in one shot against the unengaged end of Mike's foot in the melee but Mike decided to use his artillery for counter-battery fire and managed to hit with both dice (a 1 in 9 chance). If I rolled a 1 on my death dice my artillery would autobreak. Guess what I rolled - yup, a 1. Artillery gone, my first losses (apart from a general and a couple of bases) of the game.

In the cavalry fight, the SDH who had only charge cavalry won their fight and made a token effort at pursuing the routers. That was good for me as it allowed me to turn them and move them to a position where they could join in on the other melee. Things got even better as my other SDH unit broke their cavalry opponents, allowing them to spill round and concentrate their dice on the pike and shot unit, now disrupted from seeing the cavalry break.

Back on my left, Mike had managed to manoeuvre a few of his shot-only units into position to fire en masse against one of my foot units, which had already lost 2 bases from shooting. He managed to score 6 hits which meant an automatic base loss and my foot broke.

And then it was the last turn of the game. My unengaged SDH charged in on the flank of Mike's pike and shot, dropping them to fragmented. unfortunately the impact was a draw so it would all come down to the melee phase - if I could break the foot, my pursuit would take my SDH into his (undefended) artillery and I would have achieved a rout. So, the melee phase was on - Mike rolled his 3 dice, scoring no hits even with a re-roll. I rolled my 8 dice, scoring 5 hits and 3 re-rolls. The re-rolls were all hits. Automatic base loss (taking him to 4 bases) and with Mike needing to roll a 3 or more to avoid losing a 2nd base which would cause him to auto-break. He rolled a 4. Damn! Still, there was only a 1 in 6 chance of him passing his cohesion test (needing a 10, 11 or 12) - he rolled a 10! Damn and curse and damn and curse!

Oh well, it was still a convincing (13:7) win for me:
Mike's losses - 11 APs from 13 BGs
My losses - 6 APs from 11 BGs

I've got my 3rd game lined up for this Thursday against Brian's Confederate Irish. Having taken a look at his list I will probably need to revise my own army list for this game.



Painting Update

FSE Ships - no progress
Norman knight - horse finished and some work done on the rider. The technique I use for 15mm horses does seem to work for 28mm as well.
30YW cuirassiers - almost finished, just gloves and sashes to do, then Klear/ink coat, basing, matt varnish and flocking/tufting.

I should be able to get the cuirassiers done to at least the Klear/ink stage today and might do a bit of work on the Norman knight. Once they are done I'll finish the FSE ships and then it will be a case of finishing as many of the started-painting-bit-got-sidetracked figures as I can before the Analogue Painting Challenge starts on the 20th.