Seven Years War battle Saxe-Bearstein vs Stagonia

 The vague plan was to have some sort of battle including some part of the collection of Jeff Bluebear about once a year.  The COVID issue messed with that, along with some moving houses along the way.

It has been a few years since the Seven Years War era "imagi-nation" of Bluebear's Saxe-Bearstein took to the fields of Mars.

Cod and I managed to get them into action in a meeting-engagement, that was super interesting, in that maneuver was also part of the action - something that gets missed often in the 'big battle' line-em-up and shoot.

a key moment in the battle for a hilltop

We had the venue of AJ's Games for this event and it worked out well.

the game space formed our backdrop
as patrons came and went exploring the
game shelves next to our setup

we were using the same scenario as
the ECW game from the last tabletop
action at my home (see previous post)

time-lapse camera was set-up
after we had built up the tabletop terrain

I brought along a couple of guest observers
from the Alpian Wars set by Jeff
partly for discussion about the
BloodAxe miniatures we were using

The time-lapse covers the marching action well.

Essentially Stagonian forces managed to snag a hilltop, seen center right, and from there poured fire into the advancing Saxe-Bearstein columns.

With 2/3 brigades broken the Saxe-Bearstein army withdrew.

as usual dice rolls were critical
in Black Powder rules
you need a mix of low and high
rolls ... 

sadly for Cod, running the
Saxe-Bearstein forces
he rolled opposite many times

This opposite rolling made for a very stop-start affair for the Saxe-Bearstein force getting into the battlefield, or worse caused one infantry force to be left alone facing three times their numbers with artillery against them.

seen in the bottom right corner of the
time-lapse, this was the only
ground that Saxe-Bearstein was
to take this battle

Forced into the small 1/6th of the battle area, with little room to deploy, it was good effort that caused the Saxe forces to take down 1/3 of the Stagonians, who started with slightly more cavalry and less infantry than the Saxe forces had.

One of the neat parts of the random forces for the tabletop is that you get the more nuanced uneven engagements that happened in real life.

Again a great game from Jeff's troops!

Victory Without Quarter, ECW set - the Scots take the field for the first time!

 With the coming game of 7YW with Jeff's minis, the plan was to use Scenario 11 in "Programmed Wargames Scenarios" by Charles Stewart Grant.  So I decided that the likely last tabletop game here (move still in a limbo) would be to learn about the scenario before doing it in front of folks at the AJs game store.

panorama of the field

one of the Scots arrival road

the other

mostly a straight forward sort of scenario

set up as two advance guards
'meeting engagement'

I did up a Royalist force

and a Scots force

Fun time to share with my eldest son, he commanded the Scots and won a straight forward victory!

 

Scots Command stand

Royalist Command stand

again the 'clip 2 comic' feature is fun to use

Next up will be the much anticipated return of Jeff's Seven Years Wars game set.  Then likely a final painting project completion from this location, another few space ships for my middle son's collection.

Star Wars painting project

 A little project for my middle son, to fill out his model collection.

There were three in the group, an AT-M6, the Razor Crest and an Imperial Star Destroyer

 All came as basic grey plastic models, and I dressed them up with a base coat, a few layers of dark blue/grey.  Then did detailing.

Razor Crest was an interesting challenge
as I wanted to finish with a gun-metal
'slightly shiny' look

 

I found this neat pattern for the AT-M6 on 

a

 

 

 

Japanese website, they used water transfers for the logos

I did them free hand with a brush
and included more metallic finish on these
back parts

the detail on the models made using a
dry-brush technique effective

I even managed to do an engine pattern
that I liked

the finished product looks good in any light

I have now four more models, mostly from Rogue One, now on the painting desk and will have them done very soon.  It looks like a move of home residence is very much in the offering.

Really great image resource for Antietam

 This blog post has a load of really great photos of the Antietam battlefield in Autumn.

Autumn in Antietam

 

Confederate forces ready for BF&F

 

Border Horse - red caps

 The border horse for ECW forces has begun, this is the final stretch for my expected ECW troops.

Closing in on the completion of the ECW project for the tabletop minis.  I have begun to put more thought and assemble the materials for an ECW campaign system (beyond a simple digital mapping tool).

I only had enough piano wire for two units, this was the first of them, then an opportunity to search for wire in Victoria came and I found some that will work, the store clerk said that getting the wire in was getting harder and the exact thickness I wanted was not in the store, nor had they had any for more than a year.  The hobby world is having supply issues also...

Again I used the fast paint method, though the troops got to the ink stage in only three days, (painting for about 30 minutes at a time) - it was more than a week later that I got the time to put into getting the later stages done.  They have been finished for a week now, and I was only able to get them out for a few photos and assemble this blog post as the 'life' workload has suddenly jumped up.

no shots of bare metal this time
as I had the shots of them bare in an earlier post

after the base coat, comes the dark chocolate under layer

then a 'damp brush' white light tan highlights layer

earth tones under color
(you can see how wet it is as it just went on before the photo)

ink stage
then they all sat for a few days
which was probably for the best
in letting the ink dry completely

first of the colour layers
I did dark blue to go under the
brown inked silver chain-mail I was planning

the red goes on, with some orange highlights

the riders are all then mounted to the horses
before getting the matte coat spray

all matte coated, and flocked, awaiting their use in battle
or at least one more photo shoot on the base stands

the unit assembled on the metal base stands
with teddy bear fur and flocking

the beauty shot, featuring the commander
with a crown on the St George cross on their shields

forward, reverse view, showing the armor a bit better

Now I have some space ships as a project for my middle son to do up - before returning the the ECW forces.

House changes are still looming as the family seeks changes, there's a big game in November now (see previous post here) and I'm still on call for the tones dropping with the volunteer fire rescue along with regular and possible extra training in the coming months.

GAME PLAN! Saxe-Bearstien will march again vs. Vile Stagonia

 Once again the forces of Saxe-Bearstien will take to the field.

the elite Von Becks

Just as we did four years ago in 2021, at the evacuation of Kaallais, the troops of Bluebear Jeff from Saxe-Bearstein will take to the field this November 16, 2025.

These troops were entrusted to the Cod Sticker, and as before he shall be designing up the scenario, likely using black powder rules.

As always there will be an after action report AAR here and possibly on Cod's blog as well.

If you find yourself in Campbell River area, look up AJ's Games on 11th Avenue in Campbell River, where we expect to arrive at 11 am, begin moving metal by noon and finish game action by 4:30 pm.