Indian platoon for Bolt Action - part 2.

Second batch of troops for my Indian Division got painted. There's Punjabi section. Still missing three men, but will be in full strength, when ready.

Young Lt. to act as second in command. Sniper team and signals man to joint FO team.

Then two new transports maybe for weapon teams or for some other purposes.

Pikeman's Lament - Finnish War battles of Pyhäjoki 1808

There has been quite a lot of talking about running a campaign of Finnish War 1808 -09. Quite interesting and eventful period of Finnish war history. Finland, or more precisely, eastern part of Swedish kingdom was a scene of one sideshows of Napoleonic wars. Related to peace treaty between Napoleonic France and Russia, Swedish part of Finland was attacked by Russian troops in order occupy it's territories and end Swedish rule in the area.  Swedes and Finns naturally resisted as much as they could resulting what we now know as the Finnish War. The war went from early 1808 until 1809, and there was quite many battles and skirmishes finally which give good base for campaigning the war. Despite heroic efforts of Finns and Swedes, more professional, bigger and better equipped Russian army won and annexed area of Finland into Russian empire.

Now roughly five Club members have started campaign aiming to go through the battles of this war, not all but fair amount of them. After some consideration I joined the team and took a role of Russian commander, since most player would like to play on Finnish side. But some one has be the "bad guy" also in order to have fights, so I'm went in for the Russians. Luckily I have quite good knowledge of Napoleonic Russian army from my previous painting project and our 1812 campaign.  The other good thing of "being a Russian" in this campaign, is there's no need to convert figures, there's some readily available in the market. The poor Fin players have to a lot of kit bashing, filing and sculpting in order to field a force.

So I only changed the scale of miniatures from 15 mm to 28 mm. Here's some first units I produced for this campaign.

The rules we use are fairly new set of rules called Pikeman's Lament from Osprey. It written by Daniel Mersey and Michael Leck. Very easy and straightforward set of rules created from Lion Rampart rules. The rule are quite simple (which I like)  and give good game play as well as smooth flow of action in the tabletop. The rules are set for Pike and shot period, but with some troops adaptation id can be easily used for black powder era too.

First encounter - The Battle of Yppäri April 1808

After enjoying appropriate beverages battle commenced.

When Russian started the attack in February 1808 Swedish - Finnish army decided to withdraw not giving a fight until Eastern time in April. The battle of yppäri was one of the first notable battles where Russian advance force intercepted withdrawing Swedes in Pyhäjoki Yppäri. Swedes decided to fight in order to cover their river crossing. And the fight erupted.

Russian started their assault along the road and the same time Swedes withdrew fighting trying their best to slow Russians. After a while another flanking force of Russian entered the frey and the Swedes were caught between two forces.

Finns are waiting for the Russian attack.

Securing forces at the crossing keep the keen eye around, there's nothing.

Russian line and hussars launch the attack.

Blocking force of Savolax infantry marching to secure the river crossing.

More Russians march on.

Hussars assault the gun, but are chased away.

Finnish jägers move to engage the enemy from the forest.

Stalwart Russian line marches on.

Russian light flanking force entering from the flank.

Light cavalry and jägers working together.

Some jäger action in snowy forest.

Russian win and after a hard fight Finns lose the fight.

Solid and strong Russian line firing salvos.

Flanking action on frozen riverbank.

Cossack advance into blocking position along the road.

Savolax infantry firing for their lives.

And Russian return with more muskets.

Flanking force is gradually closing the door behind withdrawing Finns.

Finns are now caught in crossfire.

Last remains of Finnish infantry trying to escape.

Chased hotly by Russian light cavalry.

Situation is desperate for the Finns.

Surrender you are surrounded.

Out of nowhere comes troops of Finish dragoons to relieve poor comrades.And are charged by the Cossack.

Dragoons are tougher and chase away Cossack.

Russian infantry advances steadily along the road.

The fight is over.

First fight goes clearly to Russians. Almost all Swedish-Finnish troops were killed in the fight and only some stragglers managed to escape by the help of lately arrived Dragoons.

Nice fight and very good test drive for the new rules. I liked the both. Next will be the battle of Viirret.

My year 2016 in miniature

It's once again time look at past year 2016 in terms on my beloved painting, modeling and gaming hobby. And maybe look forward into year 2017, what is to be come from there.

Last year has been quite buys and productive year. I've been painting a lot and have started few new eras of war gaming. Also have participated the usual local conventions with some nice demo/participation games. And one of the highlights of last year was once again trip to Hamburg Tactica.

The only thing I noticed is I've been lazy with my blog. There's not that many articles or battle reports published as previous years, and the reason is that I haven't had that many games last year. I have painted more and tinkered with all those nice models. Maybe I'm becoming more choosy in terms of games I want to spend my time.

Painting

As I said before, there has been fair amount of painting in year 2016. I have continued to build my ever growing collection of WWII miniatures for Bolt Action. During last year I started and completed British and German desert armies with good choice of support weapons. It was nice to paint loads of sand brown vehicles and those iconic adversaries in desert war, DAK and Desert rats.

And when we talk about iconic units I added also small but very powerful team of LRDG jeeps and lorries in my collection. More on these nice  models here.

Unfortunately I haven't had chance to field them but once, but where their firepower scary. Report of that desert incident can be found here. 

Desert wasn't the only new WWII project during last year since I also started Imperial Japanese army for pacific and kit bashed some US infantry for Pacific to fight along the Marines in island hopping. With these US reinforcements I also acquired some Higgins boats to ferry troops on shore. I'm planning to re-run the Tarawa mini campaign once again this year and now with proper equipment and enough troops. I kinda like Pacific theater.

Year 2016 also saw start of not one but two new war gaming periods and massive army building with that. First one was when I agreed to join in AWI starter army deal with my club mate and volunteered buy and paint Continental rebels. This was very intensive painting project when I painted some 130 + Continental miniatures on period of one month. I didn't painted anything else as you might guess. Sounds tedious, but was really quite interesting experiment of how much one can produce on certain period of time.

And if that wasn't enough I went in a another massive painting venture after summer. Some club mates started talking about ECW and TYW project and I was in. So from August I've been painting ECW parliament army for coming ECW campaign which is to start on early 2017 with Edgehill fight. Somehow ECW miniatures have been most joyful to paint. They are full of character and actually quite colorful too. Even the amount of painted ECW figures has been quite substantial I haven't reached the same numbers with that project than in AWI, maybe the year is taking it's toll.

Addition to these main painting projects, i tinkered little this and that, building mainly terrain
piecesand objectives. And yes had two very productive and good table projects with my club mate Kalle. First one was desert table which is featured in many of my Bolt Action AAR's in my blog. The second one was build of modular river table with interchangeable center piece. After having had some mishaps with water effect we realized one of the greatest tables so far.

The whole idea of concentrating on terrain and tables was brought home from last years Hamburger Tactica, where we decided our focus for the year to be a good quality terrain.

Wargames

If I've been quite busy on painting and building, gaming has been little bit slower. Not that many
games a month, maybe only one or two maximum, but that seems OK. Some years ago I decided to go for quality that quantity in gaming. Bolt Action has been on to my list in gaming as in previous years, its' just so good game and interesting theme. In Bolt Action I have had roughly a game in a month which is quite enough. With new V2 rulebook it saw some more gaming activities during autumn. In Bolt we have had traditional gaming days and demonstrations in our Club and in some conventions.

Black Powder was once again activated when we started the AWI gaming after summer holidays. We
started loose campaign and started playing games from Warlords Rebellion campaign book. we started with the first fight and went on until the size of the games exceeded our supply of miniatures. Now the campaign is on hold until more troops will be painted. The Rebellion book is very good campaign book and the scenarios give nice and relaxed games. I really have enjoyed playing them. We also had a participation game of AWI in local gaming convention Ropecon, where our new armies were on display and the game was introduced for interested. We had fun and people had fun, it was all fun.

And them at late last year we had our first ECW fight just to field new troops and take first tasters of the new period. We gathered figures from four gamers and had fairly nice looking fight where Parliament troops met the kings men on the field. The table was bit cramped but the provided quite intense game. And it was true eye candy with all those large blogs of units and flags flying. This we will go back in year 2017 big time with ECW campaign and then TYW battles.

For this I will definitely paint way more figures too since I really enjoy the look and feel of these men with feathers in their hats.

And yes, and one of my oldest gaming involvement continued also last year. Traditional WH 40K games during summer had some 40K games in the Club and then just before Christmas great day with my special War Head friends. Our Civil war inhouse tournament is new classic. Intense day of friendly but unforgiving gaming for bragging rights.

My hobby year saw also traditional weekend in Hamburger Tactica with friends. Tradition that will repeated also this year of 2017. Our Club also participated in PoroCon gaming convention in Helsinki. I promising new gaming con that combines nice all sorts of table top games. This also will be on my schedule for next spring.

Plans, plans... 

My painting plans are quite clear. More Bolt Action armies aiming to have them all! And then the previously mentioned ECW/TYW painting project. And then some more AWI Continentals. And off course something I haven't even noticed yet, but will most likely to venture in...

I have some plans and ideas of some Bolt Action events for next year. Maybe the first will be re-run of Tarawa campaign from two years back. Three game mini campaign of three fighting days in Tarawa. Now with reviewed scenario  rules.

Then on June Normandy D-Day mega game. Game set up I spotted in one of the British gaming blogs which I would like to repeat in some way. It will be D-Day landing on four joined tables spanning from airborne landing until first wave fights itself through the defenses. Involving some six players having the same game. This will test Bolt Actions limits, but would be great fun.

And maybe the year 2017 sees Napoleonic 1813 campaign start in the Club. Which I'll be participating.

and maybe something more...

Bolt Action - Germans of all sorts

I haven't been updating these pages much lately. I've been busy with other things and did some odd AWI painting for joint project I agreed with my club mate. I'll post something on that too in due time. But Bolt Action is still high on my list an I do paint figures for it too. Recently I've painted some late war germans and some late war tanks. This is part of Ardennes campaign I'm planning to play in autumn this year. I bought odd set of SS troopers from another friend, which gave me good opportunity to practice Waffen SS camo for the first time ever. So here's some new additions for my constantly growing WWII figure collection.

Tough SS men with distinctive camo.

Officer and HQ squad.

Scary MG42 firing over the shoulder.

Medium mortar.

Some early war too from Foundry line.

Objective markers.

Earlier LMG in good position.

Panzer grenadiers.

Workhorse Panzer IV.

And effective Panther.

Some pictures are bit off focus sorry, but mostly you they are OK.