Battle of Port Gibson, American Civil War

While on vacation I had a chance to play a game of Johnny Reb III, now not that bad of a rule set, but I still love Johnny Reb II more.  Alas I have no copy of thous rules any more, but here is how the battle went down, before I had to get back on the road and head for home.

Port Gibson: 1st of May, 1863; Mississippi

Here are the battle lines, I played the Yanks and my opponent took the Rebs.

One thing that made this engagement interesting is the fact that the only open ground was on the hill tops and all the ground in the valleys was ruff and slow going, 3" a turn compared to 6" on the hill tops.

The Battle Lines (Left Flank), Yanks on the Left & Rebs on the Right.

Battle Lines (Right Flank), over looking Yankee Artillery

That how we set up, we had not put the road down yet but there is a road that pass behind these hills and to my left flank.  The objective here was to capture the three crossroads on the left side of the board.  I had another Brigade that would come in on turn four and he had one that would be marching in on turn one opposite were I placed my artillery.

Here is a shot of my center and left flank and the crossroads that were the objective.

Looking over the hill, throe the fog of war, at the Rebel lines.

Brigade General prepared to lead a push up the center (it did not turn out well).

Turn One:

Yank Turn I, the left flank advance in to ruff ground.  The red cap mark they have not shot yet, which is a major plus to their opining volley.

The Center goes forth and the Right stand firm.  You can see the Rebs marching on far side of the board.

Another shot of the left flank.

Rebels Turn I: Turn from column and prepared to cross the field in the face of cannon fire.

Turn Two

The center closing to charge, white caps shows casualties.

His opening volley did already has me at a stand down, but I have more men then he does. 

With only 3" a turn in the ruff ground between the hills and the danger of charging to soon and  arriving in disorder, it would have took me a few turns to cross the ground.  I elected to move to normal range, and then stand and shoot.  While me extreme left flank advanced to charging distance.

The center still advancing.

Turn Three:

Still plugging away here, but ...

The Rebs are down more stands then me.

I still have not fired my opening shots, a bonus I wasted by not moving in closer and fire on the move (rather than standing and shooting)

Not much action on the Right, just a few casualties due to cannon fire. 

End of Turn Three, break for lunch.

Turn Four:

Disastrous charge, one unit bounced back in disorder, the other running for the hills.

I did not weaken his line enough before the charge, and the cannon did me in.  This was a big mistake for me but not game ending, I had fresh reserves that I could throw in to the fight down the Center.

Another failed charge, but combined fire force one of his units to run.

This time my unit only shook not routed, yellow cap, but my sustained fire down at the center of his line forced a morel check and he ran.

Turn Five:

My reinforcements.

This was unfortunately the end of the game, I had a plane to catch and we could not keep going.  On a bright side, a lot of these miniatures were ones I painted in High School and Jr. High.  It was nice to see them again, plus my opponent sent them up to me, so now I have a divisions of Yanks and division of Rebs to play with any time I want.

Well what do you think, is this an interest to you are is historical not your thing?

His name is mud!

Ok so when I got to the store this Sunday there was a mini-tournament underway.  Play two games, any two games.  Whoever has the best record for the day wins 40$ prize support. I brought Blood Bowl so that what I played for both games.  Well I won my first game, my elves are quick, and they were up at the half by in the second game.  This is where thing started to fall apart.  My open scored and the game was tied, one to one.  In the last rounds of play my opponent fumble the ball and I make a run for the end zone, one step away from the win, and a fifty - fifty chance at the prize.  Only one other person had won both his games.  Out of re-rolls and all I need to do was push one step and not roll a one. 

Guess what came up on the dice.

His name is now mud.

Mathhammer Links

I want to incorporate what Bringer of Victory Metrics in to how I crunch my numbers.  I want a system to compare units.  I think he has a good system, but there this voice in the back of my head that says he over looking something.  This is a familiar voice for me, that has severed me well in my math and science back ground.  I need to spend some time not reading but doing some pencil and paper work so I can fully understand what going on.  Any way here is the FAQ.

Also here a OK link as how to do mathhammering.

Off to play blood bowl tomorrow.  In addition I want to post some more probability sheets in the next week along with a battle report or two.  I have on American Civil War game to post and if I get a game in tomorrow I try to get that up too.  It would be nice to do a detail annalists of the game, see how reality stacks with the numbers, but not sure how to record the data I would need and still enjoy the game.

Blood Bowl (Elves)

My local FLGS is having a Blood Bowl League so I went and bought a team.  There is also a painting comption going on at the same time, so this is also my entery in to.

Here are the three test models that I finished tonight.  I spending a lot of time one each model before going on to the next, but still dabbing paint on the next model.  This sort of hybrid approach has been fun and I think I finish the whole lot (17 in total) in small batches.  Not as fast if I was doing it assemble style but have till the end of the month to finish.

 This is them cleaned and mounted, the flanges on the bottom were so small I used green stuff to mount them and fill in the slat on the base.

 The next part was putting down some basing material I picked up from a model train store.  My plan is to cover this with grass turf latter, but still have some the under gravel sticking out.

 Then tape down to a stick and primed gray, I now do all priming in gray, it between black (which I don't like) and white (very hard to get good results). 

 Here is the finish product, or at least what is done now.  Love how the cheerleader base came out. She also has by far the best face I have ever painted. Funny thing is she is the wrong model, I order a different on from my local FLGS, but I liked her so I keeped her.  I going to order the other on, so I have two cheerleaders. 

 As always let me know what you think!

Go to an Art Museum, no Seriously GO!

On vacation I had the opportunity to visit a small but wonderful exhibit on Venetian Renaissance painters The Houston Museum of Fine Arts. Which in two very famous paintings by Titian: Diana and Actaeon & Diana and Callisto.  If you are any sort of painter, it worth checking this exhibit out, it a traveling one (on loan from Scotland), but I’m not sure where it going after it leaves Houston. 

 Before I get to my point I want you to check out this link here.  You can read the text if you like but what I want you to pay attention to is robe of the Madonna and the Pink flag.   

Go look, I be here when you get back.

Back, no really look first then read on.

The whole exhibit was this excellent work of use of colour, light and dark, and lines to define clothing.  I cannot think of a single cape or article of clothing on a miniature that would not benefit form a little time studding how a master dealt with such subjects.

That was one of my favorite paintings in the collection, the other was one of Venus by Titian, while the two of Diana were nice, in this on of Venus, he masters how to paint flesh, and there a lot there to paint.

So here my point, get yourself to an art museum and take a time to look at what other people have done.  Get yourself inspired.  My one regret is I did not bring my camera in so I do not have pictures to study after wards.