Sergeant Major – Rifleman – Gladiator

Just a couple new ones…

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An odd Sergeant Major from Wargames Foundry that doesn’t currently belong to any particular unit… Oh, I painted him with green facings, so he’s ostensibly from the 24th (South Wales Borderers)… but I have all my units organized into units of 15 men of like manufacture… and this chap isn’t currently on strength with any of them…


A Riflemen from Old Glory. The figure is realy just a line infantryman I’ve painted in the colours of the Rifles… I think the only real (distinguishable) difference would be that he should have a sword bayonet… But, honestly, if I hadn’t just told you… how many would have known… I’m not sure there’s actually anyone out there that specifically MAKES riflemen for this conflict (with Sword bayonets), so…

I have two British units on the go – The rifles and another line regiment. Both are about half done – yesterday I realized I wasn’t going to be able to finish up either so I finished off this sole rifleman just to see what they’d look like. The rest of the unit shall follow shortly.

On the plus side; old glory supplies their units in bags of 30. This is really handy for me because as I mentioned, I am organizing my forces into units of 15. Within certain bags of certain units types of certain ranges – usually ones you wouldn’t be fielding multiple units of - they include some sort of command. Usually this includes two officers/musicians/standard bearers – if it’s of an era that would have such things – this is even MORE awesome – again because of my current organization I get two complete units – command and all…!? Unfortunately, I’m guessing they assume for the Zulu War, one would be wanting a whole lot of British regulars so the command stuff is sold in a separate bag… so from this bag I will have two units of 15… with no officer… At some point I’d like to track down and officer for the two units (though from a different line - I won’t be buying another whole bag of OG stuff… just to get a couple officers!?)… but then I end up with two extra dudes... You might think – “what’s the big deal?” but the drawers I store these in fit neat lines of 10 figures – thus making units of 15 take up exactly one and a half rows… yeah… I’m that A-R about these things…

Sigh…


..and another Gladiator for my own team. The figure is from Black Tree Design. I’ve read some disparaging things about BTDs service, and indeed a year or so ago my firend Gary ordered some stuff from them and I think it took more than three.. maybe even four or five months to get all his stuff… But I’ve ordered a number of things from them (the USA supplier) this year (starting off with very small orders to fill in some gaps in units I’d picked up off ebay) and have had no trouble at all. A couple times things have been back-ordered – but they’ve followed along a couple weeks later…

Our Savage Saturday Gladiator Campaign had been raging on for a couple weeks (two weeks “real world time”, four weeks of “campaign time”). I have yet to field any of my own team members (too busy running the show)… perhaps next week….

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

The Rifles!! Then probably a line regiment… Then Zulus or Martians!!

The Guns

Some artillery support for my British Imperial/colonial forces

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Royal Artillery 7 pounder from Black Tree Design.


Martian Colonial Field Artillery. The crew are from RAFM. The carriage is of unknown origin – I got it in a trade (without the actual gun barrels). The gun barrel is a spare from a Renegade Miniatures British Napoleonic artillery pack (the packs are supplied with THREE different barrels!?)

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Hmmmm… Zulus? British? Martians…? Hard to say – the workbench is mighty cluttered with all three at the moment (along with a few more gladiators!)

Royal Artillery Gatling Gun

…for a little rat-at-tat-tat!

Actually the sound effect would probably be more like “Chunk-chunk-chunk-chunk… Oooh boogger, she’s jammed!” … or something like that…

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This gun and crew is from Black Tree Design.

Nice to paint two guys and a gun and be able to say “Another unit: Done!”

Of course now I have to paint another two units of Zulus just to even the odds again…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Zulus… more maybe more British stuff… or Martians…

Probably British – it seems to have worked it’s way to the front of the workbench.

The plus side of the postal workers lock out (which otherwise is a sad situation all round!) is that the last couple orders currently inbound will be delayed and therefore unable to distract me from my current purpose!

Zulu War – Sword and the Flame

My friend Will was in town this past weekend and on Saturday we played a little game of The Sword and the Flame. For those of you who are unaware, TSATF is a set of rules for the wars of British imperialism that’s been around for, like, ever… and I’ve wanted to play it for nearly that long… but somehow never did. Anyhow, Will was kind enough to take me though a quick little game with some of my Zulu forces.

Zululand, March 1879

SCENARIO

Go get ‘em! The British have to go out and find the Zulus that are sneakily hiding in the grass somewhere.

FORCES

The British

Major Smythe-Brown - C-in-C
1 company British Infantry (15) Rifle
1 troop British Mounted Infantry (11) Carbine

The Zulus

lWil kaBallii - C-in-C
3 warbands Zulus Warriors (15-16 ea)
2 units Zulu Skirmishers (10 ea)


THE GAME

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Will’s fancy action deck.


The British Forces enter the lands of lWil kaBallii… Where could those dastardly Zulus be hiding.


The Infantry wheeled to the right in open order to go try and flush out the tall grass, while the mounted infantry peeled right and sent out outriders to scout ahead and to the sides.


The British infantry came under fire from Zulus concealed on a rocky outcrop.


The British wheeled around to bring fire to bear on the sniping Zulus – their fire was surprisingly devastating!?


In a turn or two of firing half the Zulus were dead or wounded!


Meanwhile, the one of the scouting/outrider parties of the mounted infantry started taking long range fire from another group of Zulus concealed on an outcropping.


As the mounted infantry advanced under fire the other group of outriders stumbled upon a great band of Zulus concealed in the tall grass nearby…


The Zulus charged the mounted infantry before they could gallop off!


A few Zulus were wounded by fire as they charged in, thining their ranks some, but not enough to ward them off.


On their way in the Zulus chucked spears causing some disruption and injuries.


The actual close combat was a rather lengthy and brutal affair….


I think some three separate rounds of combat were fought…


Before the shattered remains of the mounted infantry gave up and galloped off.


The rest of the Zulus appeared from their hiding places and advanced on the British infantry.


The Zulus move in.

The British mounted infantry did try to regroup, bringing in the outriders. Eventually, however, they failed morale and retired from the table.


Advancing under cover from the British infantryman’s deadly fire.


USUTHU!! In they go!


Again the British fire was withering. A few Infantrymen were lost to thrown spears.


In the melee a few more British were lost but the first charge of the Zulus was driven off.


The next nearest unit (which had been previously mauled in their attack on the mounted infantry) failed morale and scarpered.


The remaining Zulus made a headlong charge, leaving a few stragglers behind.


Again a few rounds of close combat were fought and they were brutal and bloody.


Fought nearly to the last man….


The Zulus overcame the British, but it was pyrrhic victory. The British had sold themselves dearly!

So… The Sword and the Flame….

Definitely a fun game. Thanks to Will for running the game for me!

The game seems somewhat limited in its scope, but could easily be adaptabled for other conflicts. In a much bigger game I could see it sort of bogging down – the whole drawing to determine the extent of injuries – unless one was playing a campaign why would you need to determine whether troops were wounded or dead…? Also the close combat, which was much like Contemptible Little Armies (in that it was fought figure to figure), I imagine could bog down with larger numbers of figures and units.

As will left his copy with me, I’ll probably give it another go. Perhaps I’ll end up incorporating some of the mechanisms (I know John would like the whole testing to see if you go into melee…) into the Ever (Modified) Victorious Armies… or whatever we end up playing…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I'm just finishing up a Gatling Gun and crew for the British. After that...? More Zulus (or British… or Martians...) and perhaps a few more GLADIATORS!!?

Speaking of Gladiators... If you haven't checked it out already our Gladiator campaign has started - you can check out the action over at Savage Timmy's Playhouse

Descent Minis for John

Just couldn’t get a decent picture of these…

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These are a few Descent miniatures for John. He’s apparently started a new campaign. I have not played it…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Zulu War action using Sword and the Flame! (hopefully get that game report finished up tonight!)

More Gladiators!

More Zulus, British, and Maritans!

Still More Gladiators

A few more for the arena…

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A few brutes from Crusader Miniatures. These are currently free agents, not claimed for any of the players teams in our Savage Saturday Gladiator Campaign.


A couple more for Amanda’s team from West Wind Productions or Old Glory?

The action begins tomorrow – check it out over at Savage Timmy’s Playhouse. (I’ll probably get to posting the after action reports on Sunday…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Same as always… Gladiators… Zulus… British… (John’s Descent figures… ) and hopefully an after action report of some more Colonial EVA!

More for the Arena

A couple more for our upcoming Savage Saturday Gladiator Campaign (action starts this Saturday)

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Most of these are from Crusader Miniatures, except the guy in the black mask who, I think, is from Wargames Foundry .

The gladiator is for my “team” – I’ve chosen to do them all with white loincloths and reddish shields. The guy with the mask is some sort of arena official. The other two I’m going to use as “motivators”. I’m not sure what they did historically, but if players aren’t closing I’m going to have them out there to start shooting arrows/chucking javelins at them – because I can see situations where we might have two guys with “first strike” (an edge that gives the character a free close combat attack against one opponent that moves into contact with them per round) not wanting to close with one another because… well… they’d give up that free attack. Also if people are spending to much time talking sh!t to each other (taunting and intimidating – tests of will - in an attempt to gain some edge over their opponent).

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Same as always… Gladiators… Zulus… British… (John’s Descent figures... maybe I better finish them off tonight… )