I had the opportunity to get Jeff's poker chips out for an actual game of poker.
my first big win
My youngest son was home from University (!) for the reading break, so we took the opportunity to have a game day at the house. Other friends came out and the boys all had games go on during the day.
In the evening I was invited to set up the felt and deal poker.
This first big pot for me was a straight over straight, I had the Ace.
Youngest son is in computer sciences and arts, so no surprise he was way out calculating me on the 'odds'.
We ended up the last two players.
Heads up was close, as he had a chip advantage at one point, then we flipped back and forth a couple of time.
Then came the showdown.
I won with a pair of 3's
I have done more painting, there was a Shako II game run, though I have not been able to get into editing due to my bride having broken a wing. Then the power went out for a full day ... so we have been busy catching up on things not done for a few days.
The cleaning and sorting progress has been done for 'day 1' forces of Gettysburg.
I will need to make more artillery - particularly the bigger Union guns, and I have enough to do day 1 in hand now.
Same with the horses, likely more will be needed for Division and "E" brigade commands.
For now, I can get on with the painting.
I have decided to start with the Union Cavalry, as they were busy right away on the field. This will also give me something interesting to start with the painting as I will need to be ready to shut down quickly if the house move becomes highest priority.
horse casualties, made from miscasts of horses and kepi wearing casualties
In the meantime, I may also look into doing a tabletop solo encounter.
There's a saying of "slow and steady wins the race".
Certainly most of my activities around here could be summed up as slow.
Save perhaps for any of the fire or rescue calls that I need to respond to.
The ACW project has been inventoried, with the bulk of the cleaning from the castings now done.
the flow channels and some unusable broken minis in the pile for re-melting
I have most of what was needed, likely I will need another dozen artillery pieces (or even more wheels for the 48 total guns) and possibly another dozen or so horses for Union Cavalry (depending on the cleaning progress on the horses I do have).
The itch to get some game activity in has been continuing, especially with all the packing and moving to storage some of our items and boxes as we continue to prepare for a move.
I am still working out another ACW campaign setup, likely for the Shenandoah Valley campaign of 1862, so if there is interest in connecting to this game, log into the DISCORD SERVER.
I still may have to generate some more draft horse teams, wagons, artillery or certain officers; possibly a few more slouch hat or kepi infantry (due to breakage in the cleaning process and preparation for painting) and I have used up all the metal I had here along with some casting metal I was gifted at the Wagram game in August.
there they are! molds on the casting table
I decided to take a photo of the casting works this time as this may be the last mass grouping of castings that I make at our current home - yes moving is in the discussions again.
it was also the end of an era for a tool that has likely cleaned off 1000s of my miniatures this flush cutter is a favorite tool for the bulk work on early stages of the metal miniatures the handle guards have failed and started causing pain when used - so a replacement is in hand and this old veteran was moved on.
Onward and upward in the Gettysburg process, more cleaning/organizing and counting out for the formations of brigades, batteries and commands to come before the painting starts in earnest. Though if the current move progress holds (needing a contract to get set up before we can be sure) then I'll not likely get into any of that until next year as a move will activate and all my 'free time' vanishes again.
Hope you all had a great summer and can get into some games over the autumn and winter.
On Sunday August 25, 2024 the Nanaimo Historical Wargamers put on the third day of a WAGRAM game.
Nate had the hosting location, Rob did up some fantastic terrain, and there were miniatures from at least four collections brought together to mount this huge battle.
I arrived to the battle in full swing:
I shot this just as the lights came on.
I'm getting ahead of myself though ... I have already shared some of the data from the Friday and Saturday game sessions ... I was surprised to learn that on Friday just after I had some little chats about the setup, there was a FIRE ALARM!
this photo was sent to me likely only moments before the alarms sounded
This messed up the first night game action ...
Saturday was more sedate, with loads of movement from the French arriving.
They drove towards Aderklaa, which became the site of breaking the Austrian line.
Now I arrive seeing that Aderklaa was broken, the west wing of the Austrian army was going to be isolated and defeated in detail ... Bonaparte only had to decide if he would press hard on Deutches-Wagram or not ...
the model on the table representing Bonaparte
Seeing that the major battle was lost, I was determined to at least make a good show of the left flank and 'hem in' the French or maybe even make a dash for the bridgehead - even if only for the political value of having a squadron or two of Austrian cavalry show up in Vienna and send a shitty message to Paris.
Some good shots of the gaming crew, there were two of us added to the Austrian command, it appeared as though these two players doing Bonaparte and Charles had run a game of Aspern-Essling more than a decade ago, and this was the culmination of their plans to have a go at the second half of the 1809 campaign battles.
Enough chit chat, now the time-lapse of my part of the battle:
So I was on the Austrian left (east flank) and was given over command of much of the reserve heavy horse ... and its 6 horse batteries!
I was determined to push this force to the far left and use the guns to hurt Davout as much as possible while also screening for the 'eventual' arrival of Archduke John.
Sadly John would not arrive in time to do anything much (just like in history) and the commands I had were not of the A list category, indeed the heavy horse commander was a 4 rating with 4" range, I had failed at least once during the game to move him.
Beyond that "Charles" decided to countermand my orders and had me push all forces across the river into the face of the French - including a heavy cavalry force that could not reach its target in one move.
It was to be a suicide.
At least we had a few laughs.
I'll dump a few more other photos, then comment on the amazing terrain done by Rob.
Archduke John
Napoleon
Davout
panorama of the battlefield from the north, Austrian, side
Rob did a great job wit the terrain, as I have shared in a couple of earlier posts, here also is the custom storage system that he built to bring the terrain to the game location.
After the cleanup, there was some discussion about doing some more 'campaign' like events, where I suggested having a multi-column game setup similar to the ones I did back in 2020.
In a uniform from the age of 13 to 30, learned much of 'military life' and after a decade of travel have settled down to start a family. Started with boardgames and RPG's in the 1970's and added tabletop miniatures in the 1990's. Now with a family of three boys, seeking to turn this sometime hobby into more of a lifestyle.
