My Little Wars Convention Games Have Been Submitted

 

I recently submitted my games for this year's Little Wars game convention running April 18-21, 2024. The venue is the Westin Hotel in Lombard, Illinois. This year's game will be a 54mm version of Pickett's Charge on the third day of the battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War.

I have signed up three games, one on each day of the convention: Thursday - 7PM; Friday - 1PM; and Saturday - 10AM. Each game has 12 player slots so that adds up to 36 player slots over the course of the convention. Click on the link below for more information.

Little Wars Convention

A picture of the Confederate grand battery supporting Pickett's Charge.
54mm plastic and metal figures

Game will be played across three 6ft by 20ft tables, convention organizers willing, in much the same manner as last year's Khartoum game. This time, however, there will be more terrain than I had in the Khartoum game. I need lots of trees, 18ft of the Emmitsburg Road, and 36ft of post and rail fencing.

As of today I have painted approximately 900 figures and only have 210 more to go before the painting phase of the project is completed. The units are organized into 30-figure regiments using 54mm figures.

Catching Up With Minden/F&D Orders This Week

 I want to give an update to any customers who ordered Minden or Fife and Drum figures between New Years Day (January 1, 2024) and today (January 29, 2024). As some of you know, I was on vacation in Florida for most of January this year and returned late last week. I am packing some of the orders this evening and hope to have the remaining back orders out the door tomorrow or the following day at the latest.

I will have all orders in the mail by the end of this week. Thank you all for your patience in having to wait for your figure orders during this period.

If you have any questions about your order, please send me an email at altefritz1740@yahoo.com

Cheers,

Jim

Rolling Thunder: Confederate Artillery Barrage Prior to Pickett's Charge

 

Confederate artillery opens fire prior to Pickett's Charge

We are getting closer and closer to the Little Wars war game convention. The painting of figures is going well, having twelve regiments of 30 figures per side so far. Methinks it is time to shift my attention to building the necessary terrain items (largely the Emmitsburg Road and its post and rail fences).

Here are three pictures of the massive Confederate artillery grand battery that will support General Pickett's division during the assault on Cemetery Hill. Each side will have six batteries comprised of two cannon models each. The Confederate batteries will have one 12-pound Napoleon and one 3-inch ordnance rifle because the Confederates tended to mix up different types of guns in a battery of six guns. This could create some problems with the resupply of the guns during the battle.

Union artillery, on the other hand, was organized with their batteries all having the same kind of cannon. So I will have some batteries comprised of two Napoleons and others with two rifled artillery.

In the foreground, one Confederate battery with one rifle and one Napoleon.

Close up view of a 10-pound Parrot rifled cannon near the fence and a 12-pound Napoleon in the foreground.

A view of the entire Confederate artillery at Pickett's Charge.

My game table currently has the forces set out for a generic battle as this is an easy way to store the finished units (on the tabletop) and watch the armies grow. Over the next week or so I will remove all of the figures from the table (ugh!) and then place foam board hills underneath the Cigar Box Battle Mats that I am using for my games. The hills will represent Cemetery Ridge on the Union side of the table and Seminary Ridge on the Confederate side of the table. Appropriate trees, foliage and fences/wall will be added.

The next step is to create the Emmitsburg Road. The road sort of runs diagonally between the two ridges and I estimate that I will need 18 feet of road. This implies that I will need 36 feet of post and rail fences. Yikes!!!!! The road pieces will be fairly easy to make, but the post and rail fences are going to be a major terrain building project. I have some plastic fences made by Marx and some stone wall with wood cross and rail pieces above the stone wall. The latter are made by BMC or Americana. These may have to do for the Little Wars game as time is running short. I should be able to make all of the roadway fencing in time for Historicon in July.

Pickett’s Charge the war game trailer SD 480p

On My Way Home

 

The recently completed Union regiment with CTS figures.

Well, it’s time to wrap up my trip to Florida and put a bow on it. I’m heading home tomorrow and I’m sure that the house sitters/ dog sitters will be happy to turn the keys back over to me.

I have a few Minden / Fife and Drum orders that came in during my absence and I will be getting those picked and packed this coming week. My apologies go out to those customers who are having to wait a bit longer to get their orders. They will get my first priority attention.

I finished painting a third ACW Union regiment while on vacation and this brings the total up to 14 Union and 12 Confederate regiments of 30 figures each, or 780 total figures painted plus various other generals and artillery crewmen. My painting on this project started in August 2023. I still need 1 Union and 3. Confederate regiments to complete the infantry component, or 120 figures.

My Painting Kit for Vacation

 

My vacation painting kit.

I’m currently on vacay in Florida for several weeks this January and given the amount of time that I will be spending away from the painting table, I decided to create a traveling painting kit to use in Florida. The reason for this is that I still need to paint 200 to 300 more 54mm figures for my Pickett’s Charge convention game so I can’t afford to lose valuable time.

Little Wars convention is coming up fast ( April 18-21, 2024) and I’m planning on rolling out the game at that show.  Thus I will need the majority of the figures that I have planned for the game far earlier than my original May 2024 goal for the Historicon game.

At any rate, my painting kit consists of : 60 primed Union soldiers and 30 unprimed figures; cans of spray primer, gloss finish and Matt finish; assorted paint brushes; assorted paints needed for ACW figures; and assorted tools such as Exacto knives and files.

The first 30 figures are finished, all in a charging pose.

As of today I have completed 30 Union figures and have started to block in the colors for the next 30 figures. Mrs Fritz arrived in Florida yesterday so I had a few days to myself during which I had some painting time.

Here are some vacay pix of Dad and Daughter in Florida.