Game Day -- Aspern Essling

Jon and Kevin joined me on Sunday for the grand reopening of my gaming palace.  My mother in law had emergency surgery in early July, and she stayed in the palace while she was recuperating.  Now that she is back at her own house, gaming can resume!  We played Aspern-Essling with Age of Eagles rules.

Kevin commanded the defending French: Aspern on top, Essling on the bottom.  We gave each village a defensive bonus of 2.

I commanded the Austrian forces converging on Aspern: seven infantry brigades, one cavalry brigade, and four batteries.

A French corps defended Aspern.  The paper buildings are from Roman Seas.

Jon commanded the Austrians closing on Essling.  He had eight infantry brigades, two cavalry brigades, and five batteries.  The reserve corps (2 brigades on grenadiers and two brigades of elite cavalry) was not immediately available.

We were a little rusty on the rules, but everything came back to us. Age of Eagles definitely has that big battle feel.

Kevin's French laughed off my almost completely ineffective musketry.  I brought up my batteries to point blank range, but they too had no effect.  Time for bayonets! 

Jon delayed his center's advance long enough to press the French right flank behind Essling.  Kevin moved up his cavalry reserve to cover the space between the towns.

With the help of incredibly high dice rolls, my Austrians were able to push Kevin's French out of Essling.  I would love to say it was my brilliant generalship, but I rolled something like 10, 9, 10, 8, 10, 9, and 10.  Ares smiled on the Austrians today.

Kevin's brigade of hussars charged the Austrian cuirassiers and hussars, pushed them back, and delayed the Austrian reserve corps for over an hour!  The hussars lost a few stands, but the survivors should be promoted to the guard!

After three hours of gaming (two and a half hours of game time), I had taken 3/4 of Aspern, and Jon had taken half of Essling.  Kevin was reeling, and he still had two more turns until his reinforcements would arrive.  We took a lunch break at a nearby pub, got sucked into a trivia game, and had to put of the conclusion until next weekend.

The Dreaded Dip!

Dreaded by me, at least.  I never feel like I get consistent results from the dip, although it has been a while since I have had a mishap.  I don't like the dip's look on anything horse and musket, but for ancients and WWII is works great.

Those are Glenn's 206 AB Miniatures Germans.  I painted them all hyper correct, so I really hope the dip works!

3mm WWII German Infantry

Watching Little Wars TV's excellent Normandy game inspired me to paint up some of my nano-scale miniatures. These 1/600 Germans are from Oddzial Osmy (available from Pico Armor in the US).

Those are 1" rounds, so you can see that the figures are tiny!  Each figure is smaller than a grain of rice.

A New Commission -- 20mm WW2

While I was in Chicago, Glenn played a world War II game, and I had a very entertaining car ride listening to him work through some ideas about what WW2 rules should model.  I have always enjoyed Glenn's game designs, so it was a real treat to see him at work!

Within a week of my return home, Glenn sent an email asking if I would paint up some WWII armies for him.  Of course!  Here are a couple hundred Germans, prepped and ready for priming!

40mm Commission -- Artillery

These three guns and 19 crew are the last pieces of the collection.  Tomorrow I start packing!

40mm Commission -- Complete

Here are the shots of the finished army: 256 foot figures and four mounted figures.  There will also be three guns, but I am waiting for some paint to dry before I photograph them.

I started on these figures back in February, but I was not able to start making good progress on them until May.  I found 40mm a bear to paint.  Maybe it's just me, but the figures are so large and heavy that I had to adjust my whole approach.  Still, they do look impressive, and I hope Carl gets many years of happy gaming with these fellows!