1806 Success!

The FG Miniz crowd funding project surpassed the €10,000 stretch goal, so this means that the hussars will go into production along with the field artillery , grenadiers and musketeers.

Thanks to those of you who gave a financial assist to this project. I have connection with the company, I just like the look of their figures.

Your Help Is Needed for 1806 Prussian Hussars

The Indiegogo project to crowd fund an exquisite range of 28mm 1806 Prussians is in its final hours -- about 25 hours left at the time of this writing. The project has reached its initial target of €7,000 and also hit the first stretch goal of €9,000, which unlocks the Prussian artillery and gun crew. Now the next stretch goal of €10,000 is within sight -- we need less than €500 to hit this level.

What will happen? This would unlock the Prussian Hussars and make all three basic combat arms available to subscribers. The goal is within sight and your contributions are needed NOW. If you have any interest in the 1806 Prussian army, one that is greatly under served in the Wargame figure market, then now is the time to make the final push of €500. Any contribution will make a difference and you can get on the bandwagon with a minimum contribution of €25.

1806 Prussian Funding Site
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/28mm-1806-1807-prussian-army?c=home

Click on the link above if you wish to make a contribution. I have no ownership interest in this project, but having seen the initial infantry figures, I am a big believer in what the company, FG Miniz, is attempting to do. We are sooooo close to unlocking the hussars.

I thank you for indulging me on this project . The picture below is a bit distorted due to the limitations of posting this via my iPad rather than on my home computer. But if you go to the campaign site you can see better quality pictures. If the link provided above is not active, then copy and paste the URL to your search engine and that should do the job.

Fritz

AWI Game Setup

The British Are Coming!  Fife & Drum Miniatures

Terrain setup for Brown's Farm AWI scenario.

Here are several pictures of the table top setup for an AWI scenario that I have been tinkering with. I ran the game two times at the recent Seven Years War Association convention (for which it won the best of show game - The Mitchell Cup). I did not like the way some of the events unfolded during the game so I have tweaked the scenario a little bit in the hope that it will improve the game. I plan to run my next play test at Chez Protz on May 4th so I will have a chance to see how well the changes work.

Royal Artillery enters the town of Gloveton, escorted by the 16th Light Dragoons.

This weekend, I started painting a company of the 45th Regiment in Wellington's Peninsula army, but after doing a back of the envelope calculation of the forces that i need for my Historicon games, decided that I had better get back to painting AWI figures, and soon! So I completed six Perry 16th Light Dragoons to add to the vanguard of my British AWI army.





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Wow, just one comment?

I am rather shocked that after posting a lot of pictures over the weekend about the Seven Years War Association, that each posting received a grand total of ONE comment. I know that many of my readers prefer to remain in the background and "lurk", but come on guys, can't we do better than one comment (and a tip of the tricorn goes to the Duke of Tradgardland for his comments)?

I mean, how could anyone look at the pictures of Ed Phillips' scratch built models and not come to the conclusion that these are very impressive examples of modeling and handiwork, or that Jurgen's SYW in India game is not the most colorful game that they have ever seen? I think that you get my point.

(This is where I would insert a You Tube clip of Ben Stein droning on "Buehler? Buehler? Buehler? Anyone seen Buehler?" From the movie Ferris Buehlers Day Off" if I knew how to perform such technical marvels on Blogger :) ).

Coincidentally, while at the convention we were talking about the levels of participation at American Wargaming conventions. This was brought on by several people thanking me for running my game at its conclusion and one fellow saying that "all he does is participate in the game". To this I replied, "without your participation, there would be no game". A lot of different elements go into the execution of a good convention game. Obviously, the game judge has to prepare an interesting scenario and haul all of the troops and terrain to the convention site. This is no small task, especially if you are an old fool like me, who should know better, who designs a scenario involving figures that have yet to be painted. Kids, do not attempt to do this at home -- game with what you already have on hand.

Then, someone, or several someones, need to be the lions of the hobby who organize the convention and do all of the behind the scenes work that ake the convention happen at all. Along these lines, let us thank Randy Frye and Dean West for their great work in organizing the show this past weekend. Everything ran smoothly from a logistical stand point, including the providing of carts so that dealers and game judges could roll their equipment and stock from the garage to the convention hall. Let us also thank the dealers who bring their wares to the show and provide us gamers with the opportunity to look at the latest products and to buy those new figures or books that we have all looked forward to seeing.

And last, but not least, a great big thank you to all the people who attended the show, either as lookers or lurkers, or as participants in the games. There is nothing more demoralizing for a game judge than to go to all the trouble to host a game only to find nobody to play in his game. It has happened to me in the past and I've seen it happen to other game judges. So the fact of the matter is, that those who lurk and come forth to participate in any aspect of this hobby, are valued contributors to any Wargame convention or to any blog. Without your participation, we have nothing.

Saturday Day 2 at the SYWA convention

Ed Phillips' scratch built gun emplacements and cannon. These two now rest in the Randy F. collection, so I get to game with them from time to time in our group

Another one of Ed Phillips' miniature masterpieces. A portable flour mill being worked by some of the Minden Miniatures pioneer figures.

Here are some photos that I took of some of the games that took place on Saturday. Enjoy the pictures, and click on the pix to enlarge your view. There were many impressive looking games and I particularly liked the games that Jurgen hosted for the SYW in India. I have never seen such colorful looking armies.

SYW in India

SYW in India - John Company troops.

Tod Kershner's famous "Iroquois Terror" game in progress. There were scalps aplenty in the game.

Paper sailing ships from Jeff Knudsen's game. Wonderful stuff here!

French breach the walls of Quebec during the return match in 1760, when de Levis' French army marched from Montreal to Quebec to attack the new British garrison.

My Fife & Drum AWI game.

Another view of the Fife & Drum game showing the British attack of the American right flank.

Black Powder game using 10mm figures.

Jude Becker's Age of Reason Game. Paul and Brian seem to be having fun contemplating doom for the Prussians.

Burkersdorf in 28mm - Final Argument of Kings game hosted by Dean West and Pat LeBeau.

First Day at the SYWA convention

Siege gun emplacements made by Ed Phillips. The fascines were made from straw brooms.

I arrived in South Bend, Indiana around 4:30 Thursday afternoon and quickly set up my display booth for Fife & Drum Miniatures and unloaded the painted figures and terrain for my AWI game on Friday. This year, I packaged everything into bags of 3 to 6 figures and reduced the number of SKU's from 100 to about 30 product codes. This way, I was able to pack everything into seven moderate sized boxes which easily fit into the trunk of my small car, leaving room for all of my game paraphernalia. That's a big plus for me so I think I will reorganize the SKUs for F&D and start selling figures in bags going forward, rather than as single figures. It makes life easier for me as well as the customers at the booth as they can rummage thru the bins and pick out the figures that they want.

Convention organizer Randy F. told me that we had 83 visitors for Friday, which is a little bit ahead of our usual Friday numbers. Saturday is the big convention day, so we should surpass 100 tomorrow.

I ran my game twice, in the afternoon and again, downsized, in the evening. The British won the first game that features 4 brigades per side, while the American team came back to win the night cap game, in a 2 brigade per side game. I used my trusty old Fife & Drum rules on one side of one sheet of paper -- I always use these easy to learn rules at conventions. By turn 2 the players are almost running the game by themselves .

I will update my game report when I get home Sunday. I use a different version of Blogger for my iPad and it is a bit clunky and hard to place and size pictures, compared to my desktop version of blogger.

I did not have much time to do a lot of shopping, but I did see a lot of good looking figures at the Eureka USA booth. Their new Suvarov's Russians range for the 1790s is to die for as they are gorgeous figures. They may be sculptor Alan Marsh's best work to date. Eureka also had a range of cartoonish SYW Prussians that I was tempted to buy, but managed to resist the urge. For now at least. :). I bought some Eureka American dragoons for the AWI because I haven't added them to the Fife & Drum range yet. The two ranges look to be very compatible so I will gladly use them in my American army.

Ed Phillips had some terrific wagons, carts, vignettes and siege gun emplacements shown in the blog today. Wonderful craftsmanship and creativity on Ed's part. I put in an order for a few things from Ed and will collect them at Historicon this summer. Yes, we are going to Historicon with the Fife & Drum range and we will run a couple of games as well. I hope to have some special figures available only at the convention booth for Historicon. Stay tuned for more on this later.

Well, it's time to hit the hay and get ready for day two of the convention. Bill P. is running a BAR French & Indian War game of the second battle of Quebec in 1760. The roles are reversed as this time the British are in the city, sallying out to attack the French on the Plains of Abraham. Should be fun!

A view of my AWI game in progress. The British have to march the length of the table from the top of the picture to the bottom. Rebels launch an attack from the right hand table edge.

Hessian Jagers run into militia and some Continental line defending the town at the end of the road.

The American brigade commander on the right flank is not pleased at the trend of the battle.

Fight To The Last Man

I am reading Jac Weller's book, "Wellington in the Peninsula 1808-1814" at the present and came across an interesting statement regarding Marshal Massena's military acumen with regard to knowing when "enough is enough".

"Messena and his professional army now had almost a year's experience fighting Wellington, but had accomplished nothing. He had the good sense at both Bussaco and Fuentes de Onoro not to continue unsuccessful attacks indefinitely and expose his army to total defeat. both Marmont at Salamanca and Napoleon at Waterloo were to make this error." (Page 168).

Think about that for a minute and recall how many wargames you have been involved in when one or more players make some senseless, crazed attack because they either have nothing left to do, having destroyed their own command in attacks, or because of some artificial game deadline that looms, i.e. the "it's 4:30 and we've got one more turn syndrome".

A couple of weeks ago, when we opened up our Peninsula Campaign, we were nearing the end of the game when suddenly the French commander on their right wing called off his attack and pulled his troops back to the ridge. He later told me that he did not want to destroy his brigade and it was apparent to him that the battle would not be won or lost in his sector of the table. He was right, of course, and I tip my hat to him for playing the game straight rather than immolating his brigade for mom good purpose.

It is an interesting concept, don't you think? Feel free to leave your thoughts and comments in the comments section of today's blog posting.