Buffalo Calf Road Woman and other mounted warriors, plus Trumpeter Salute report.

 I was pleasantly surprised to learn that one of my mounted plains warriors is a woman.  She looks pretty similar to a Cheyenne warrior called Buffalo Calf Road Woman.  Read more about her at the link.

I tried to paint Buffalo Calf Road Woman to match this image of her.

Although you can see that I didn't match the sketch precisely.

For the other warriors, I went with a bit of creativity inspired by best guess.  Don't imagine that these are based on any proper research!

This warrior was packaged as Crazy Horse, but I got a bit creative with the warpaint on both the horse and rider.

Last weekend, Arthur and I went to Trumpeter Salute, our local wargame convention.  We managed three sessions.  By coincidence, they all were variations on a WWII theme.  Lots of Nazi bashing!  

Our first session was Kevin's Eat Hitler game.  In a vain attempt to escape the Fuhrerbunker in 1945, Hitler and his closest companions managed to escape into the past in a time machine.  Unfortunately, it dropped them in the time of the dinosaurs, resulting in a competition by several Tyrannosaurus Rexes to 'eat Hitler'.  Here is Adolph with Eva, Blondie and co, emerging from their time machine.

Ultimately, Arthur's Rex was the most successful in running down the Hitlerites.  He managed to chomp Hitler, Eva, Blondie and a few more, far more Nazis than any of his competitors.

On Saturday afternoon, Arthur and I hosted a WWII Special Operations game.  Using a heavily modified version of Osprey Games' Black Ops, the scenario saw several competing bands of Italian Partisans attempting to rescue a scientist from the Nazis.  Or possibly abduct him, depending on your perspective.  The partisans acting cooperatively until the German guards were defeated, then promptly turned on each other!  The scenario was based on the playtest game from a few months ago.  The scientist is being held at the villa.  The Top Secret cow was again made available, but again the players didn't take the bait.

Brothers Brian and Corey took the communist Brigate Garibaldi and the competing communist Bandiera Rossi.  Here the smoke markers represent noise that the partisans made attempting to sneak up on the villa.  Needless to say, the alarm was raised!

Here, the republican Brigate Giustizia e Libertà (Justice and Freedom) and the monarchist/catholic Brigate Fiamma Verdi partisans cooperate to defeat the Germans inside the barracks on the left.

Inside the villa, there is a bloodbath on the second floor as the two communist brigades battle the German guards and 'rescue' the scientist.

Bandiera Rossi escape the villa, as the German reinforcements arrive to eliminate the other partisan groups.

Our last game was Sam's Weird War Two game, where Arthur and I took the Germans, defending against a Red Army attack.  The Reds attacked ferociously, with their conventional forces of infantry, T-34 tanks and self propelled assault guns supported by microwave tanks and combat engineers with power armour.  Just as it looked like the Red Army was about to overwhelm the Nazi defenders, we activated our secret force, reanimating our dead as a zombie force. Sorry for no photos!  It was a near run thing, but the Germans were just barely able to stop the Soviet onslaught. 

To wrap up, Bella Caio, amici!

More Plains Warriors

 Here is the next group of First Nations warriors.

These ones were from the Crow Scouts codes.  I selected a couple of warriors on foot to match the mounted warriors.  I've tried to paint the pair on the right as if wearing Hudson's Bay Company blanket coats, although the coat is likely a bit shorter than was typical for a capote.   The horses are the same as the US Cavalry horses, rather than the Indian ponies ridden by the other mounted warriors, so come with full saddle, bridle, bits and other baggage.

 

The warriors on foot.

And finally, a group shot of all the figures painted to date.

Plains Indians Horsemen

And now here are the first of the FN warriors from the Brigade Games Plains War Kickstarter!  I signed up for the 'Warchief' deal, which included 18 horsemen, to which I added Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, for a total of 20.  So I'm 25% done the horsemen :)

Here are some close ups of the individual warriors.  

This is Sitting Bull!

Old West Wagon - Brigade Games

 I signed up for Brigade Games' Plains War Kickstarter, and received my new toys a few weeks ago.  Although I primarily focussed on Native Americans (Lakota, Crow, Cheyenne), I was unable to resist adding a cargo wagon to my order.  So naturally, this was the first model from the KS that I decided to assemble.

There was an option to get 2, 4 or 6 horses.  Based on previous experience building Napoleonic artillery limbers, I decided that 2 horses would be plenty - more horses means a larger footprint, which leaves the vehicle dominating the game table a bit too much.  There were also options of getting a covered wagon, a Gatling gun limber or a full on stage coach, so I am bravely claiming that I managed to show at least a little restraint by "only" getting the 2-horse wagon!

The crew are sculpted to be a US Army driver and guard.  As I'm not planning to build US Army for my wild west games, I painted them as civilians, so they can show up in any old west setting.  I also inserted magnets into their bums, with matching magnets in the bench seat.  This allows an unoccupied wagon to be on the table if needed.

I also got a bit carried away and built the harness and reins for the horses.  I'm sure no one would think of it at all if I'd left this out, but once I got the idea in my head I had to carry on and do it.  Naturally, this created a problem as the reins could not be connected to the driver if he was to be removable!  My compromise is to leave a gap of a few mm between the driver's feet and the front of the wagon.

Coming up next, First Nations horsemen!

Battle of Batoche (1st day) AAR

 Doug invited Arthur and me over to try out his 1885 Northwest Rebellion recreation of the first day of the Battle of Batoche.  Doug used a variation of The Men Who Would Be Kings.  He noted that the casualties in the campaign were quite low, but the amateurish Canadians had a hard time achieving their goals despite an overwhelming advantage in men and materiel.

What Doug did was count 'hits' as 'pins'.  Using the standard TMWWBK process for requiring a certain number of successes depending on circumstances like range and cover, each standard 'hit' is actually a 'pin'.  The unit must then pass a morale test modified by the number of pins.  Only after the morale test is made is there a test for actual casualties, by rolling dice equal to the number of pins, with only '1's counting as a casualty.  So there were many morale checks but only a few casualties.

Here is the table layout, typical aspen parkland.  The famous St-Antoine de Padoue church and rectory on the left, and the wagon representing the Canadian militia's 'zareba' or fortified campsite. 

90th Winnipeg Rifles advance, but take a pin from the Metis firing from the gunpit on the left.

The Winnipeg Rifles flee, with the log markers representing the pins that they've accumulated.  The puffs in front of the rifle pits are markers to show how often the Metis have fired - important to track as they are subject to limited ammunition!

The second squad of Rifles takes three casualties from some deadly Metis firing.

And now the Gatling gun opens on the Metis defenders!

The Bolton's Scouts patrol to locate the Metis rifle pits.  Rifle pits are hidden unless their occupants fire, or unless Canadian forces come within 6".

Metis defenders.  Note the Metis sash on the figure on the left.

Canadian artillery has fled the table, but the Rifles have rallied and resumed their advance.  10th Royal Grenadiers are visible to the right of the Gatling.

Metis riflemen keep up their fire.

2nd Lt Howard's Gatling keeps up fire.

10th Royal Grenadiers

Boulton's Scouts continue their ride, revealing the rifle pits, but getting a bit shot up in the process.

Out of ammo, Metis abandon one of their rifle pits.

Their morale weakened, but having revealed the Metis rifle pits, Boulton's Scouts fall back to their own lines.

Metis fall back from their rifle pits.

Winnipeg Rifles charge the withdrawing Metis.  Ironically, the Winnipeggers lost the skirmish, but both sides failed their morale checks and both fell back!

At this point, we had to wrap things up for the night.  The result was more or less similar to the first day of the real battle, with much inconclusive skirmishing, and the Canadian militia being easily spooked by relatively little or ineffective fire from the Metis rifle pits.

I enjoyed Doug's amendments to the rules - the Canadian militia spooking at each little bit of rifle fire from the Metis seemed very apt!  I feel that Doug has a winner here.  I'm looking forward to seeing more of this project.

Here are a few photos from our 'special correspondent' (aka Arthur playing with the camera settings!)