Skirmish at Jackson's Tavern: Texas Revolution Battle Report

Mexican Cavalry column flanks the town, but not without taking fire from

Crockett's Tennesseeans.

                What's the best thing a historical wargamer can hear?  "Dad, can we play that game with the soldiers and the buildings?"  The answer, "Thank you God, they want to do something that doesn't involve the Wii!"  Enter the fictitious battle of Jackson's Tavern: 1835.   Small engagements took place across the border throughout the life span of the Republic, but...my son loves to play with his Davy Crockett figure (Probably has to do with the fact that his modifiers make him almost god-like).  This game was based off a watered down (for 7 and 11 year olds) version of a set of rules I had been writing...but actually, the watered down rules play far better. (With simple morale checks, such as if you lose 25% of a unit it must fall back by one movement (5 inches for Infantry).

Mexican standoff at Jackson's Tavern.

       The Texian forces consisted of a company of Tenneseeans under Col Crockett, Texian milita, two 6 pdr cannon and one General.  Points would be awarded for the capturing of standards, Generals and Cannon.  The Mexicans consisted of two companies of infantry, a squadron of light dragoons and one General.

Mexican advance on the hamlet of  Jackson's Tavern

        My sons each commanded a wing of the Texian army and my plan was to attack their front with my infantry, while the cavalry squadron rolled up the flank and seized the artillery.  Sadly, my 7-year old made excellent initiative rolls and I made poor troop quality rolls (roll 1d6 to determine troop reliability:  militia, regular, or veteran).

Mexican center company takes fire, but assault's Jackson's Tavern, where

Crockett's Tenneseeans are barricaded.

    The center company assaulted the tavern, where Crockett's Tenneseeans were barricaded.  Four Mexicans were dropped by rifle fire outside the tavern, but still managed to make it inside.  Having killed him a bear at the age of three, David and his comrades were able to push the Mexicans back outside and the had to hand combat resulted in the rout of my center company.

Interior of Jackson's Tavern.  The soldados enter, but only one comes out.

            Meanwhile, my right flank moved on the Texian left, avoiding any serious hits from the 6 pdr battery, for the moment.  The shifted from company into line and assaulted the Texians at the stone wall.

Mexican Company in column.

         They quickly pushed back the militia from the wall to the dog trot cabin and took up a firing position at the stone wall. 

The Mexican company looking into the muzzles of two 6 pdrs of Los Piratas.

 
      We traded shots between the Dog Trot and the stone wall and then my dragoons appeared on the right flank of the Texian battery.  While their ranks were thinned by acurate rifle fire, courtesy of the "Gentlemen from the Cane Break", they still posed a problem for the exposed battery.   Unfortunately, the Tavern was no longer threatened by the Mexican infantry and my eldest son had the presence of mind to pivot his gun towards the squadron and deploy his Tennesseeans on their flank.

All that remains of the Mexican Dragoons after grape shot and flanking

fire from Crockett's company.

         The dragoons disappeared in a cloud of grapeshot and rifle balls and only four emerged to charge into the guns.  This, not before the left gun belched flame into my company at the stone wall, and the Texian Militia charged from the dog trot cabin.  The result was yet another broken unit.

         

The broken company retreats with the colors.

           My ragged dragoons and decimated companies were forced to straggle back, having lost and infantry standard and a cavalry pennant, not to mention my general with the Mexican reserve (who was unhorsed on an abortive counter-attack.  So, simpler is better regarding the rules.  The boys get bored if there are too many morale checks or modifiers.  We kept it simple with modifiers based on troop quality and "heroic characters", like Colonel Crockett.  All in all, a great game, I like losing as long as I'm playing with my boys.

Completed: War of 1812 Ship's Company, frontier tavern

Boarding party

     My 1812/Napoleonic ships company is finally complete. These were great figures, but they've been sitting on the bench for so long that I can't remember the manufacturer.  I did get most of them from Brigade Games and a few at Historicon last summer.

        The bases are wood disks covered with yellow and blue sculpting putty, then scored to give the appearance of a ship's deck.  

Lieutenant and Midshipmen

            I do need to find a captain figure and another lieutenant to round out the wardroom.

Gun crews

          A few more gun crews would be nice as well, unless I'm only manning a two-gun sloop.

          All in all, these were fun to paint, although I don't know what I will do with them yet.  Perhaps an Aubrey-Maturin game?

         The tavern took me forever to complete, mostly because its a pain to chink in between the logs with wood putty.  I used Elmer's, which contains wood pulp.  Once its dry and set (1-2 days), it gets a coat of primer and is painted.  The building made its debut as part of a town, defended by Texian rebels against a Mexican force, more on that later.

The chinking completed, awaiting primer.

         The "stone" foundation and chimney are just blue 1 in. foam insulation sheeting, scored, and melted to give the impression of rough hewn stone blocks.

The competed tavern...minus a signboard.

            The roof is just mat board cut and glued.  Perhaps a bit out of scale, but it gives the impression of wood or slate depending on the paint.  At least its less expensive than an embossed styrene sheet.

Cog Wars: A short naval battle off the Flemish coast

   

Opening action.  The Burgundian Caravel is fast and maneuverable, but the
French Cog carries more men.  I need to keep my distance and pick them off one by one.

        Its the day after Thanksgiving and my son had finally finished painting his cog that he won at Historicon this past summer.  My caravel has been finished for a while, with the exception of the sails and rigging.  We kept it simple with square sails and a spanker for my caravel.  The sails are just linen scraps from a hunting shirt project (18th c AWI) that I whipped together on the machine and made fast to the booms and yards with some hemp cord.  Easy day.

      The engagement opened with the two vessels on opposite ends of the estuary amid some islands and rocks.  This would give us something interesting to maneuver around and, perhaps, run aground upon (1d4 roll if within 2 in. of shoals).   The rules we used were some house rules I whipped up in consultation with my resident 11 year old French knight. 

The Caravel  comes about to rake the fo'csle of the French Cog.

      The initial turn was all maneuvering around a central island, although lucky French arrow dispatched my lone musician.   This is important, since musicians impact a unit's coordination and help in ungraqppling during fighting.  The caravel's two swivels (large shot gun) were not accurate beyond 10 in, but as my agile caravel came about, it was able to pepper the French fo'csle twice in the space of two turns.  My decision to take hand gunners rather than archers was not good for a ship that relies upon long distance firepower and led to the demise of many men aboard my ship.  The handgunners, while lethal at close range, required me to allow the French cog to maneuver to closely.  This restricted my ability to maneuver to bring my swivels to bear and brought on the boarding below.  While, my maneuvering allowed me to dispatch all of the heavily armored Genoese crossbowmen on the French Cog, I was taking a beating from the French archers and did not have the men to spare on such a small ship, especially if I ran out of searoom and the Cog forced a boarding action, before I could thin his ranks.

The French grapple onto the caravel.

        Pinned against the "edge of the world", my mainsail became fouled (1d4 roll) and then the French grappled on to add insult to injury.   My hangunners and a well-timed close range blast from the port swivel gun (1d6+2 roll for all figures within the teardrop template, hits scored for a roll of 4-6, kills for all armor saves not resulting in 9,10 on 1d10) made quick work of the initial assault.

The gunners wipe out the first wave of French boarders.

 Only a knight and halberdier stood left of the original eight in the boarding party.  Unfortunately these were reinforced and crossed onto my aft deck, which was quickly a shambles with the remains of a knight, sergeant, and several halberdiers. 

Repel boarders!

        Despite the swivels and handgunners, the Burgundians were outnumbered and no match for heavily armored French men-at-arms.  After the second French boarding only four handgunners, sailors, and a man-at-arms remained.  After a valiant counter attack by the man-at-arms and the handgunners in the ship's waist, the French were pushed back onto the cog and the caravel wisely ungrappeled and sailed away.

Disengagement is the better part of valor.

       Within one turn I was well on my way out of range of the French archers.  Due to the wind direction and the ponderous handling of the cog, the French were unable to come about to give chase to the Burgundians.



The French watch as the faster and more maneuverable caravel

flees with the wind.

          While my caravel escaped, the French were clearly the victors.  They had killed a two knights and taken an infantry standard, though their losses were heavy, they could still fight their ship.  The Burgundians, on the other hand, would be sailing back to their den and licking their wounds.  It was a fun game, although we realized several changes needed to be made in the house rules.  Knights are too strong, virtually unkillable, unless by another knight.  We needed some additional rules for ship damage, the effects of grounding, and cannon-fire on hulls and rigging.  I also didn't bring my petardiers in the fighting tops into play...updated rules to follow accordingly!  I will also remember to leave the halberdiers at home for this ship and embark archers with which to pelt my son's ship at longer ranges.

Rainy Day 28mm Raid on Bouches-du-Rhone

Burgundian privateers wade ashore to strike a Provencal village.

           A rainy Sunday afternoon and my son asked to play a game.  He's been painting medieval-era 28mm since Historicon this summer.  So I set up a scenario and wrote some quick-play rules.  The scenario is set in the 1400s.  A Burgundian kogge sails into the Rhone estuary and anchors close to shore near the village of Bouches-du-Rhone in the region of Provence.  The Burgundians consist of the kogge, a section of mercenary English longbowmen, Burgundian handgunners, and infantry, led by a knight and two sergeants.

           The Burgundians must come ashore, destroy the crops and buildings and return to the ship.  The townspeople, armed with bows, must hold off the raiders until reinforcements from a local noble arrive.  My quick-play rules (written down in 10 minutes) were as follows:

          Since one of my son's objectives was to destroy more than 2/3 of the raid force, I left one sergeant, some sailors, and two longbowmen in the kogge to cover my retreat.  That worked out well, in the end.

The townsmen are alerted to the raiders' advance and move to the rooftops.

Archers and handgunners cover the infantry advance and destroy

the village fields.

The townsmen wreak havoc on the English mercenaries, 

but the fields are destroyed, nonetheless.

The Provencal forces of the Baron du Bouches arrive in the village 

to push back the raiders.

The handgunners are engaged and routed by the Provencal left wing.

With my archers destroyed, the Burgundian infantry take cover behind the 

stone walls.

The Burgundians hold against the Provencal charge, with the help of the wall.  

The Provencal right wing is routed, but the Burgundians fall back to the kogge.

A foot-race to cut off the fleeing raiders.

The Provencal soldiers arrive before their heavy infantry counterparts and

a melee develops on the strand.  The longbowmen come in handy, evening
the odds and leaving a few corpses in the surf.

The Burgundians force the Provencals into the surf and reembark.  

All the surviving raidersfrom the fight on the beach make it on board, except...

...my knight, who, with an unluckily poor armor save roll, is killed by a 

 Genoese crossbow bolt.

The Genoese crossbowmen advance with the knights and add insult to injury.

     So in the end, I scored 10 pts for the destruction of the fields.  Although I killed all the archers in one building, the Provencal infantry arrived before I could torch it.  My son was able to destroy my handgunner unit: 10 pts and kill my knight: 10 pts.  A fun game that took about ninety minutes to play eight turns.  In retrospect, the longbows were too powerful, so I changed them to the 1d6 to hit you see here.  Additionally its darn near impossible to defeat infantry behind a stone wall...but then, that's realistic.  All in all a good afternoon.

Green Wargaming on a Budget: Making Trees from Repurposed Junk

Burgundian handgunners take cover in the treeline.

      When you're a kid, table-top gaming can be cost prohibitive...let's face it.  As an adult its still cost prohibitive.  Spending $20-40 dollars to get a pack of ten dubious-looking railroad scenic trees is something I don't really want to do.  Rather spend my doubloons on lead.  Thankfully, trees are an easy project with some time, household junk, and a few bucks from the local craft store.

You will need:

Cardboard

Coathangers

Painters or masking tape

Sand

Pebbles

Paints

White glue

Superglue

Floral Moss (1 bag is $5)

Blue insulation foam (4x8 sheet is about $16 at a DIY store)

Bases are ready for priming and sanding.

      To start:  Cut your bases and about thirty lengths of coathangers.  Sections of 3-8 inches are good for our scales.  Bind dissimilar wire lengths together with tape, leaving two inches exposed at each end.  The exposed areas will be your branches and roots.  Bend the branches and roots in various directions to achieve a natural look and tape down to the cardboard base.  Now you can sculpt that blue foam into rocks or other terrain features (knolls) under or around your tree.

Primed and ready for painting,

 Cover the base with white school glue and sand.  Add in pebbles or other debris as desired.  The whole must be painted.  I have a 5 gal bucket of nasty oyster latex I found in the basement of my house when I bought it.  Two years later, I'm still using it as a primer for my trees, buildings, and other terrain.

With a base coat, highlights and an ink wash, the trees are ready for foliage.

       Once primed, you can add your base colors, highlights, and inking.  I use acrylic paints from a craft store.  I get similar results to more pricey modelling paints and on this amount of area, thrift is a must.  I used a dark brown for the tree, clay color for the earth.  these were touched up with grey and dry brushed with a flesh base color (light khaki).  The whole was ink-washed with a mixture of brown and black.

Moss on the branches, coarse turf on the ground.

       For adding the foliage, a dab on small amounts of superglue and then thread the moss onto the branches.  Hold the moss in place as the glue dries.  If you use the glue sparingly, the moss will hold, but your fingers won't.

The last piece of moss.

       The moss is on and I will complete the forest floor with white glue and coarse turf (ground up foam).

The Burgundian infantry emerge from the completed "budget"  forest.

The completed forest.  The trees are based in groups of one, two, or three.  Three evenings of work, while watching baseball makes me a forest of fourteen trees.  Easy day-and I still have enough materials to make 140, should the scenario require.  In any event, I think these look a lot more realistic than whats on the market.  

The Saxon Fyrd: Complete...and waiting for Danes

Saxon shieldwall:  Axes, swords, and the saxe-knife.

I originally bought these Hammer of the Gods:  Wargames Factory models during a business trip to Hawaii, but never painted them.  I build them for a Saga game at Historicon, but never got around to playing them...oh well.  I suppose I'll have to give my Viking Huscarls to my son to paint an opposing army.

Based and ready for priming.

Spearmen on the painting table.

Archers among the paint pots.

Completed Command unit, armored, unlike their poorer comrades.

 My commands unit includes a noble, axeman, Saxon banner and musician.  The mail-shirted figures are actually from the Huscarl box, but I thought it would look good to have the command unit (nobles and retainers) armored, as they are the wealthier leaders of the fyrd warband.

Fyrd archers:  Basically farmers straight from the fields.

Some of the spearmen boast helms and leather armor, but most simply wore what
they had on to work the fields or fishing boats.

    The Wargames Factory models were very detailed and the sprues gave you many choices for poses, weapons, and heads.  I would come them to the quality of Perry Bros.  They went together easily, with some pinning required.  Now, I just need to make some dark ages houses and a knarr or two!