A Great Game!

I just come back from the local Wargames club, where I've just a had a fantastic game of Bonnie Blue Flag. After all these years of following it with a great passion, I can finally say I have learnt how to play them.

Above can be seen the dreaded roll that took a veteran unit off the board.

They really do give a very good, atmospheric game to which you could easily write a narrative around. For the odd swings and roundabouts seem to make sense from a historical story point of view.

In this larger 'Port Republic' game, I got to see loads of really interesting developments and twists in the game play. The 10% rule reared it's ugly head, but even this made sense as a unit was cut down by a withering fire at close range.

I won the game with the Southern forces and the star of the game was the Confederate artillery by a mile. Their accurate fire destroyed the opposing Federal battery very early on, allowing my troops to advance unmolested by shot or shell.

In this game I also got to try out melee for the first time. It was pretty brutal with my veterans charging through a regiment of raw troops. The green blue bellys promptly surrendered and throw down their arms.

Just before leaving for the club, I had the quick idea of making some simple tents to mark out the Union camp. These were just pieces of folded card with grey felt tip marker on. I also gave them a quick wash of brown paint. As it was really hot, this had dried by the time I walked to the club.

I will have a go at covering these with dry wet wipes and painting them up with PVA glue. I should be able to mold the creases into the fabric as it dries. Then spray and dry brush them so it brings out the texture. Using bigger pieces of wet wipes should allow me to create the closed ends of the tents too.

The counting stick was great and seemed made for the job.

 What a great night, I'm still on a bit of a high from it.

 Unlike before, there were just two of us playing tonight, so it really allowed me to get into the actual game play. Great stuff!

Gundabad orcs

The latest batch of orcs shuffle onto the plain. 

My Gundabad legions wear the white stripes on their heads. This goes with their striped tattered banners.

 Medbury lead figures help to boost the ranks of plastic.

UPDATE: Another batch of orcs get their first bit of dry brushing. Onto this metal layer is added various browns and verdigris to weather it down.

Here are the verdigris paints I used, the Vallejo one is very good for an all over grot layer.

The new chieftain gathers his warband and gets them ready for basing.

Another new technique I've been trying on this latest set of orcs is covering them with a watered down layer of this dirt from Green stuff world. It looks good on capes and cloaks and just seems to scream orc filth. 

The striped tape on the lid is so I can find it really easy in the sea of paints. I have now ordered the whole box of different shades, I was so impressed with it.

It's great for building up layers of filth on cloaks and clothes...well everything really. Even armour gets a coat with these foul folk.

Creating a simple dice tray

I bought some felt for £1.70 off eBay and stuck it into an old coin tray from a car we had long since parted with.

 

I used PVA glue so there wouldn't be any lumps or bumps in the felt. I smoothed it down with a bottle of glue to make it super flat and level.

Then tried it out with glee. Simple things please simple minds.

Bonnie Blue Flag Rules

Some of the kind people at the Wargames club have been running a couple of BBF games to teach me the rules. I have read the rules a number of times but had only played it once. After finding out they played the game there, it wasn't long before I had arranged a game. We're going to play again next week too, I'll be an expert by the end of all this.

So, it's been a real treat playing with people who know the rules back to front. I even managed to add my input into a couple of the rules they were getting slightly wrong. After doing years of research has given me a slight advantage and to be honest, I too used to get the 10% rule wrong. It's 10% of the number needed not just 10 and under on a D100. I used to get this wrong too until I read other blogs discussing these rules.

The players use Wufun figures to keep the weight down on transporting armies to the club. I think my heavy 28mm metals would probably give them the cold sweats.

A really good idea that I gleened from one of the players, was to use some sort of counting tool to help with the adding and subtracting. I looked on eBay and managed to find this counting slider which is actually a score counter for table football.

I've added a dot in-between the numbers to count as fives. This little tool really helps to take all of the mathematics out of your head and put it down on the table.

A simple set up with club scenery.

50% needed to roll over...quite a tricky roll.

I did take my D100 this week for a laugh. The other team borrowed it and thus ended the game for themselves with a failed roll. The Union retreated after loosing their centre regiments, leaving the cross roads for the Confederates to take.

 Another good night and I'm really grateful I've found people willing to show me the ropes.

Here are some shots of our first game where I took some simple terrain along. Teddy bear fur wheat fields are a classic for ACW games.

For me it was nice to use a lot of my collected bits and bobs from over the years.

The Wufun figures look very effective and after a while you stop noticing they're 2D.

Cardolan soldiers

while I had the plastic kits out, I took the opportunity to put together a few more Fighters for the Cardolan force. This is a slow burning project that is just ticking along in the background.

I wanted to see what the cultist arms would look like on the Oathmark humans. Very nice is the answer.

The heads are Victrix  late Roman ones I believe. They have the perfect look I was going for with this noble, yet doomed troops.
 

More cultist arms on an Oathmark heavy infantry torso. The resin shield is from eBay.  It's a early Gondorian one from the movies and should help with the Middle earth feel to the warbands.

These Oathmark heavy infantry figures make for great Cardolan soldiers. The other set does too, lots of chain mail and leather.

The cultist knight archer arms are really nice, far too good to use on orcs.

The cultist belt packs are really useful bits too, I thought of my Dwarves when I saw them. They are nearly all gone now, I may need to buy another box.

Long swords of good quality to turn the tide against the foul folk of Angband. More late Roman heads from Vitrix.