X-Wing on a chilly night

Yes, when it's -3 outside and feels like your in the grip of the icy cold of space, it's time for a few rounds of X-Wing. My son and I painted a custom star field game mat last weekend and have been playing on it since then.  With the assistance of a Star Wars Machines sounding board app on the Galaxy Tab it's a great time. 

Oh, I also thought it was a good time to try some new brews before I get heavily into Irish beers for St. Patrick's Day preparations.  I picked Fat Head's Sunshine Daydream.  Fat Head is out of Middleburg Heights in Cleveland Ohio and consistently produces good beers.  This is a 4.9%, 60 IBU Session Ale advertising Peace, Love, and Happiness.  Groovy man.  It's got a crisp hoppy snap to it without a lot of bite.  A good beer but a little more hops than I prefer in a my Session Ale.

Flaming Pigs

Everybody needs a couple of these for the next time the Romans come around.

Gage's Light Infantry and 55th Lights

Just finished several stands of British lights to go with my 7YW rangers.  These are Blue Moon 15mm.  Really love the poses.  Check out some of the caps on the 55th.

Gage's Light Infantry

55th Lights

Napoleonic Naval

Tried a great naval scenario today designed to be a solo module for an attempt at running the blockade of Havana Harbor in 1806.  Figures are 1/2400 Figurehead by Mark Ritchie.

The scenario is a race against time for the Spanish attempting to offload military cargo and monetary assistance arriving from Vera Cruz in the Frigate Pomona, that has chosen to anchor off of El-Castillo del Morro-Havana Harbor, Cuba.  The Pomona deemed unloading to an ad hoc fleet of gunboats more prudent than running the blockade.

The British have dispatched Captain Charles Brisbane to maintain a blockade of the harbor with the 38 gun Arethusa and the 64 gun Anson.  His task is to prevent the Spanish from unloading 11 loads of  goods while dealing with fire from the land batteries and a small flotilla of gunboats.

The scenario played out close to the historical outcome, with the British stopping the Spanish after unloading 8 loads and putting almost all of the gunboats and part of the shore batteries out of action.

Rangers - French and Indian War, Revy War

These aren't great pics, need better lighting, but they are of the three groups of 15mm Friekorps Rangers I finished before the holidays.  I'm working on painting Gage's Light Infantry and the 55th Lights from a really nice pack of Blue Moon 15mm.

Generic British Ranger in really neat blue uniform.





 

                                   Rogers Rangers of course.

 

These are Butler's Rangers for Revy War, but I'm sure they'll make an appearance in some other scenarios as somebody else.









These are Old Glory 15's I test painted for Braddock's 44th Regiment from the FIW.  I'm going to need some practice to duplicate the Grenadiers.  Could be the nicest 15 I've ever painted.  Have that scenario targeted to play in this year.

Ultimate General: Gettysburg

I picked up Ultimate General: Gettysburg on Steam New Year's Eve in their year end sale for almost nothing.  This game is great.  It's created by the DarthMod guy who's made some great Mods to Napoleon: Total War and I feel it's actually better than Sid Meier's Gettysburg was.  Playing this has stolen several hours of what would have been painting time this weekend.  But, when I see a blast of canister stop a Reb charge in it's tracks it's hard not to try just one more scenario.

3mm Thin Red Line

Did a test batch of 3mm Napoleonic British.  It's hard to see but I was actually able to get white cross belts on these guys.  Left them in two ranks and it really has a nice look.  I'm really jazzed now about doing a 3mm Quatre Bras scenario.  Stay tuned.  Can't wait to do Belgians and Brunswickers.  Once again these are Pico Armor supplied Oddzial Osmy (O8). 

Painted a stand of Russians, shown on the left.  I was also really pleased with them.  In a side by side you can tell them from French at a pretty good distance.  I'm still trying different techniques with the bases and some of the figure details. It's much like the first time I painted 6mm. Let me tell you these guys have cartridge boxes and brims on their shakos.  Trying 3-4 colors turned into 9-10, but the results are worth it.