When is terrain too much terrain?

I love a wargaming table that is well designed and surrounds you in the period of the game you are playing.  One persons table top that I admire is Bruce Weigle of 1870 fame.  His terrain boards are fantastic to look at and I would love some day to actually play a game on them.

You can see more of these terrain boards here: Bruce's Nice Terrain

When I saw this site I sent the url to my gaming buddies.  One of them came back with the question of how functional the boards are while actually gaming on them.  This started a little debate with him.  He claimed that, for example that the forest areas were to dense and unusable.  My counter to this was that maybe the woods are unusable and that it would depend on the army that you are gaming with that would dictate how you would use the woods.
We left it that we would agree to disagree but now I'm curious what others think about this.  So at what point is there too much terrain on the table?

Follow the Leader. 20 Questions

Okay, I know a bunch of people are doing this because of The Angry Lurker and why would I be any different and not do it too.  So here are my 20 Questions answered.

1. Favorite Wargaming Period and why?
This is tough because I have several that I really enjoy that I could list but in the spirit of the question I will pick The American Revolution.  I find watching the growth of the rebels into an army from a group of disorganized rabble a fascinating journey.  Each year the battles provide so much color, excellence and heartache that I can't turn away.

2. Next period, money no object?
WWI Turkish army vs. British and Russians.

3. Favorite 5 Films?
In no particular order:
1. The Princess Bride
2. Any Abbot and Costello Movie
3. Any Marx Brothers Movie
4. Casablanca
5. Once Upon a Time in the West

4. Favorite 5 TV shows?
1. Columbo
2. Big Bang Theory
3. MASH
4. Frasier
5. Cheers

5. Favorite book and author?
This one is very tough because I enjoy reading so many different styles of books.
On Her Majesty's Secret Service by Ian Flemming

6. Greatest General? Can't count yourself.
George Washington.  Refer back to my first answer.  This man had so much going against him and even though his win/loss record wasn't very good, he did a hell of job holding it all together.

7. Favorite Wargames rules?
Piquet and it's supplements Band of Brothers, Cartouche and Barrage!.

8, Favorite Sports Team?
New York Yankees

9. If you had a only use once, time machine, when and where would you go?
Saratoga 1777

10. Last meal on Death Row?
My grandma Josephine's Christmas dinner.

11. Fantasy relationship and why?
Sandra Bullock. Do you really need to ask why?

12. If your life were a movie, who would play you?
John Cleese

13. Favorite comic superhero?
The Hulk

14. Favorite Military Quote?
NUTS!

15. Historical Destination to visit?
All of Italy!

16. Biggest Wargaming regret?
Selling my first AWI army.

17. Favorite Fantasy job?
A director of a movie with my favorite actors.

18. Favorite Song, Top 5?
1. Any thing by the Beatles
2. White Room by Cream
3. Run to the Hills by Iron Maiden
4. Highway Star by Deep Purple
5. Standing on a Corner by Dean Martin

19. Favorite Wargaming Moment?
Playing in a 1960s era scenario with the British vs Iraq. For the most part it was a naval battle and I had three british tanks positioned on a spit of land overlooking a strait.  I decided to shot my tank at a on coming PT style boat the Iraqi player had.  With one shot I destroyed the PT boat with a direct hit from my tank.

20. The miserable Git question, what upsets you?
Dishonesty, liars and general trouble makers.

The Battle of Sale, 1859

Our third battle from our campaign happened this past Saturday.  The forces were pretty even strength wise for this one, unlike the first two battles where the Italians had been out numbered.  Let me introduce the generals for this campaign.
The Austrian Commander Benedek aka James plotting his opening moves.

 The Italian Commander Mollard, a manic depressive who drove his subordinate commander nuts, aka Garland.

The Italian Sub-Command Danti, wondering how he got roped into this battle, aka Shawn.

The two combatants blundered into each other in this little town of Sale.  The Italians placed the bulk of their army on the Austrian left.  Wishing to force the flank, while leaving the center and right lightly held.  The Austrian Commander must not have seen the concentration to his left and put the bulk of his forces in the center and on his right flank.

The opening went to the Italians and the General sent his cavalry out to find the edge of the massed Austrians in the center.

The Austrians start to react to the on coming Italians.

 On the Austrian right, the Jagers push towards the Italians.

 The Italian line waits patiently for the Austrians to reach rifle range.

The Italian cannons ready to fire on the Jagers.  First blood would be spilled on the Austrian right.

 The battle shifted from the Austrian right to the Austrian left as the Italians pushed on towards the Austrian center.  The Bersagileri lead the way, taking shots at the Austrians forming up in front of them.

 Another view of the Italians as the march towards the Austrians.

The Austrian center shifts to the left and angles itself to receive the on coming Italians.

 Another view of the Austrian line facing the Bersaglieri.

 The Austrian Center. A good view of their left flank being protecting by the line of Austrians.

In a bold move the Austrian Commander pushes his flank line out to meet the Italians.  The Italians answer with opportunity fire.

 The Austrian center with the bulk of the cavalry sitting, waiting for orders.  For most of the battle the flanks witnessed the most action.

Again the battle shifted to the Austrian right as the Italians and Austrians closed.  Both sides suffered major causalities during this engagement.  Both sides lost a total of a unit and a half before any close combat.

 Again the battle shifted to the left, with the Italians getting bloodied.

The impending close combat would turn into a prolonged melee that ate up impetus and morale chips.

 The engagement on the Austrian left sucked in more and more troops and resources as it dragged on.

Each side exchanged lots of fire, causing hits but never enough to kill of stands.

 As the blood bath on the left continued the right side saw both sides waver a little and then the Austrians blinked.  A full unit was destroyed and being out of morale chips the Austrian commander started to pull back his troops and save them for the rest of the campaign.

 The Italian artillery gets off a few last shots.

The Austrian Jagers down a full unit pull back.

 Overhead view looking from the Austrian Left.

 Again the left side heats up with the Italians taken more losses and soon they run out of morale chips.  But a well place shot by the Bersaglieri causes another stand loss to the Austrians and the Italians gain a morale chip.

The battle drew to a close with both sides bloody but the Italians pulling out a Marginal Victory.  After a series of losses for the Italians, this victory put some life back into their Commanding General.  We will have to see if he can carry that over to the next one.

This battle saw some of the longest phases we've experienced in playing Piquet.  Also of note the bulk of the initiative went to the Austrians in the game and they still ended up losing.  That's why we like Piquet. It's unpredictable and nail biting at times but the results never seem unrealistic.

Painting Italian Buildings

While I was attending Enfilade in May, I picked up (for the most part all of my purchases were terrain related) some Italian houses to cover my gaming from the 19th century through WWII and probably beyond.  The buildings are a mix from Monday Knight Productions and JR Miniatures.  I think I have enough to fill out a nice little village/town for my gaming needs.  All of the buildings are 15mm but will also work for my 10mm stuff.  There are 14 buildings in all.  They range from simple homes to small churches and clock towers.  I thought I would document my progress on painting them.  The buildings are a mix of stone with no plaster on them and the others have plaster walls.  So painting each type will be a little different.  In the above photo is a few of the plaster covered houses and they were primed grey.  The base color for the plaster is Dark Sand.  I've been searching the web for pictures of the Italian buildings for different schemes for the buildings.

So using images like this I will create some sort of randomness to my plaster buildings colors but also they all seem to blend at a certain level as well.

The stone buildings all got a base coat of German Grey and the highlighted with a dry brushing of Buff.  When I did the dry brushing I worked the brush from the top down so that the highlights would only reflect the direction of the sun hitting the tops of the stones.

I will go back over the highlight at the end and use a chalk pastel to add some dust to the stone work.

With the base coats done and the highlights done on the stone work, I decided to paint the tile roofs.
Taking a suggestion from TMP. I did a dark brown wash over the tiles first.  Only I made with the wash with oils instead of acrylics.

Granted that it will take about 24 hours for the paint to dry but the oil paint will take some of the other techniques that I want to use a little bit better.  So that's about where I stopped in the process for now as I wait for the tiles to dry.

April and May 1859

After the minor battle of Pieve del Cairo the month of April swiftly passed by with little action on either side.  The Austrian General Benedek, after failing to properly scout out the adjacent areas moved through Pieve del Cairo and smacked into General Perrie's little force again at Sale.  General Benedek waited and waited to see if the Italians would retreat before him.
The closing days of April were rainy and that halted the campaign for both sides.  Roads turned to mud and the armies rested for a few days waiting for the weather to clear.
As the first days of May rolled in the Italians sprang forth and starting moving towards the north in the hopes of catching the army or armies that had taken Novara. The area around Sale bristled with life as more Italian troops poured in to bolster Perrier's smaller force.  The advantage General Benedek had in numbers quickly vanished.  While the Italians busied themselves with probing for the Austrians, the Austrians too woke up and moved also looking for the extra Italian forces.  Frustrated with his Austrian Generals lack of drive, Field Marshall Gyulai sent orders for Benedek to attack the Italians to his front.  In the meantime, the town of Vercelli rang it's church bells as Italian forces moved into the town.
Accepting his orders, General Benedek called a war council with his sub commanders and the planning for the Battle of Sale began.



 Referee Report: The turn for April only last two phases with little to no action between the two commanders.  The month of May, in contrast, witnessed 4 phases with the impetus winner being the Austrians but the Italians doing the most moving.  At this point the Austrian commander is taking his time and not pushing all along his line.  The Italian commander seems willing to take a few more chances.  It will be interesting to see how this all plays out and if the two commanders continue with their style of play.  The Battle of Sale will happen on July 28th.  I'll post the AAR as soon as the battle ends.

La Guerra e Cominicata! (The War has Begun!)

Campaign Turn 1-March 1859

A cool day in March 1859 the King of Piedmont, Victor Emmanuel gave his orders to his generals.  The War had begun to push the Austrians out of Italy once and for all.  The Italians gained the upper hand early and pushed out into the countryside looking for the Austrians.  Slowly mustering his forces Field Marshal Gyulai sent out reluctant orders to his forces with the increasing reports flowing into his headquarters of the Italian forces moving through the countryside.
Both sides gingerly moved looking for some clue as to where the other was and what they were coming up against.
A undisclosed Austrian force moved into and took the city of Novara sending refugees steaming out of the city.
While waiting for scouts to report back, the Italian Commander Perrie rested his army near the town Pieve del Cairo.  Much to his surprise a large Austrian force under the command of Benedek appeared prompting a battle.

The Battle of Pieve del Cairo


In what should have worked out to a tactical advantage for Perrie, the Italian General assembled his units to strike the flank of the attacking Austrians.  Benedek sensing a trap maneuvered his troops to negate the flank advantage and turned the battle into a straight up fight where his numerical superiority, he hoped, would win the day.

Perrie grouped his small force around a large hill and spread out against the Austrian left.

This small force of 10 units clung to the terrain hoping to stall the Austrian army long enough to retreat.

Seizing the momentum from the outset, Benedek and his 21 unit army moved swiftly to catch the Italians and to grab the small town of Pieve del Cairo.  Failing to get his orders across the Italians sat waiting for the Austrians to cross the open ground.

The Bersaglieri proved their worth as their accurate fire wiped out 2 Austrian units before they fell to volumes of Austrian rifle fire.
In a dramatic shift General Perrie's troops reacted quickly while the Austrians waited to close up their lines before delivering the death blow.  The Italians pulled back and began retreating.  They swiftly made it out of the battle area with only a few units down and the lost of the heroic Bersaglieri unit.


Wrap Up:
Even though the Austrians claimed the field of battle they failed to take their victory conditions and I as the umpire awarded them only 1/2 of the total victory points.

As for our first campaign turn, things went fairly smoothly and the practice battles we had prior to this really paid off in how quickly and smoothly the actual battle played out.
Turn 2 of the campaign will hopefully be played out at the end of this week.

Back from Enfilade!

Well my friend James and I made our yearly trek up to Olympia, WA to the convention Enfilade. Unfortunately, our good friend Garland couldn't make it this year but despite his absence we had fun. :-)

We arrived early Friday afternoon, checked in and waited for the first session to start.  We bumped into friends we haven't seen since last year and got caught up with them and our friend Dean M. signed us up for his Black Powder game for that evening.  I was looking forward to trying this set out since there's been so much good chatter about them on the web.  During the first session I played in an Imperialism game which pitted me as one of the Zulu players against the British.  We did our best and slaughter a whole lot them brits!

That evening I took advantage of playing in Dean's Black Powder game which pitted the British against the French in Spain.  I was fairly surprised at how quick the game played and just how bloody the game was.  As usual Dean put on an excellent game.  Here's a few pictures from that game.

The game went so fast I was able to walk around and came across this rather nicely setup WWII game in 28mm.  I don't know what rules were being used but the terrain looked great.

Saturday morning I took part in a Ironclad game using 1/600 scale ships and the rules "Sail and Steam Navies" by Bay Area Yards.  The game was put on by Monday Knight Productions.  My group and I have been trying to find a playable set of rules for this period for years.  We have found it.  These rules allowed a great game and we finished the game in 4 hours.  Here are some pictures of the ships used and I believe they are either Peter Pig and Bay Area Yards.  This were all painted by the guys at Monday Knight.

Saturday afternoon, I participated in a Force on Force game, another set of rules I wanted to try, which took place in Africa from their supplement Bush Wars.  The game flowed very well and within a couple of turns we all had the basic mechanics down and were doing things on our own.  I am happy to say that I was the first player to get a win with a force that shouldn't have won.   Sorry but no pictures of this one.

Saturday night, I played in a Warhamer Historical battle using The Great War rules.  I was in command of a Turkish company and we were tasked to take 3 British trench lines.  The British players had some of the most accurate mortar fire, I've ever seen.  One of the players hit a bullseye 3 times in a row on my troops.  My attack faltered quite a lot.  I wan't impressed with the rules at all.  I will stick with Through the Mud and Blood.

Sunday morning I took over flying a jet in a Check your 6 Jet age game.  Within three turns I was shot down. :-)  Oh well no ace status for me today.

Over all I had a great time playing and I'm looking forward to going next year.  Maybe I will get up the nerve to run a battle or two as well.