Thirty Years War at Annandale

We met at Annandale yesterday for a great game of Baroque with some lovely Thirty Years War figures painted by Maurice, Bob and Grant.

Maurice and I were opposing a nasty looking bunch of Swedes.  Managed to play to a conclusion in about 4 hours of game time.

Most of the villages / hamlets are from Total Battle Miniatures 10mm range.

My pike and musket regiments in line before the battle.

Part of the Swedish line opposing me.  Unfortunately out of shot to the right of the Swedish infantry was a large number (five regiments) of Swedish horse.  Against them I only had three regiments.  Pretty obvious that this flank was going to be the result of the battle.

It didn't take long for the horse to come to grips with each other.  My first unit of Cuirassiers below didn't earn their horse feed on the day.  These guys lasted one round and with the followup they routed. 

Action pretty quickly turned to my massed Reiters taking on another unit of Swedish horse.  These Reiters has inserted themselves into a gap between villages and were protecting the flank of my infantry as they slowly advanced towards the Swedes.  On the day, they fought as gallantly as anyone could hope.  This melee lasted in the vicinity of five or six turns.  In the end they broke but only once they were contacted on the flank by another fresh unit of Swedish horse.  

While the horse battle was going on the infantry ground their way towards each other.  As we advanced, my artillery slowly took chips off two of the Swedish units to the extent that when we finally met both Swedish units did not last long at all.  

Unfortunately my two units of infantry in the foreground of the photos took a few rounds of fire from the more powerful Swedish units before we could get into melee with thee.  This resulted in both being thrown back and then quickly overwhelmed by the Swedes.  

The end results was that both our armies broke on the same turn - a very enjoyable draw on the day.

And some Romans

These are the first Romans for my Punic armies and my first ones ever.  They are the lovely Aventine Miniatures figures - a real joy to paint and so well animated.  Shield designs are from the equally good LBMS.

The photos are shocking - taken with the phone and flash in a dark room.  Shades are much harsher than in reality and yet some are not visible (the red). As I do more I will try and take better photos - but at the moment just blogging something is an improvement for me on the past 18 months :)

Numidian Cavalry

Finally managed to get some of the backlog on my desk finished.  I've been working on it in fits and starts for most of this year and really don't have too much to show for the time.  But in any case I will share the stuff finished over the next few posts.

First up are three bases of Numidian Cavalry for the growing Punic Wars collection.  This is one bag of plastic Victrix minis.  I already have seven bases of metals and in look I cannot tell them apart.  Obviously the weight is a give away.  I have one more bag to go of these and that will be enough cavalry to make any army feel like a pin cushion.

Basic Impetus Samurai bash

As we were unable to get accommodation in Goulburn for the November weekend of gaming, Richard, Ralph and I got together for the day at Richard's place and had a great game of Basic Impetus using their 15mm Samurai collections.

Ralph had taken delivery of a large number of new shiny lead castings which he very quickly turned into wonderfully painted figures and units and he was keen to get them onto the table. 

Ralph's figures on the left and Richard's on the right

My opposition

My guys on the left of the army

A close up of Ralph's baggage element

The baggage in Impetus allows wonderful little dioramas

Baroque Thirty Years War

The November game at the Cumberland Club saw a very large Baroque game using a range of figures but mainly Ottomans and lots of Poles with their Famous Winged Hussars.  We used the great Baroque rules and the figures were 15mm.

I was on the left flank with a mixed unit of Ottomans.  After some hard going initially, my cavalry saw of all comers and even managed to sweep around and attack the flank of the units to my right.

Looking over my Ottomans to the Poles

A close up of a number of his Poles - especially the winged hussars

The saga of photo storage

It has taken me a long time to find an alternative to Photobucket and in the end I have given up on all options that I have tried.  So tonight I am adding a few games played over the last few months by uploading photos directly to Blogger.

So hopefully over the next few hours you will see two or three of the very enjoyable games that we have played recently.