Vistula Legion, casualties, and more from Murawski Miniatures

Lots of new stuff coming from Roger over at Murawski Miniatures.

First the Vistula Legion, and they are very pretty :

 

and then casualties (my favourites of the lot, they look fantastic!)

and finally some Duchy of Warsaw firing line (love the animation)

Paul Hicks did a fantastic job on the whole lot, and I'm very impressed by these new releases. I can't wait to get my hands on these beauties.

We expect these to be available late August or early September.

You can see more pictures on Roger's blog 

Leipzig refight at Roger's

In case you missed it, a few pictures of Roger and friends latest game, a massive game based on the second day of the Battle of Leipzig.

A lot more pics here and here  
It is quite impressive

Some Murawski Poles

More Canaanite Chariots

It has been a while since my last post. My goal was to feed this blog with at least a post every week or so, but last couple of weeks real life got in the way. Anyways, I did find some time to paint a little so...

Here are a few more chariots to add to my Canaanite army. I've been working on these and the Murawski Miniatures Line Infantry Poles the last couple of weeks.

I was able to use some of the lessons I learned while working on my first batch of Chariots, so I found these easier to paint and especially easier to assemble. Having said that, painting chariots is indeed a time consuming endeavor, although I think they are well worth the time spent as they look awesome in units. Still, I think working on chariots and something else at the same time is the way to go, for me at least, so that when I get tired of seeing those chariots half-finished I can do something else.

While my first chariot unit, meant to represent royal guards, was painted in a matching colour scheme of mostly purple, I wanted my other units to be colourful and varied. Historically, as each Maryannu would provide his own equipment and armement, it is to be expected that each chariots would be different. I think I could've been a bit more colourful on my first chariots, so that's something I took into consideration when painting these.

While the picture below shows the 3 chariot as a unit, actually the purple one will be part of my royal guard unit, and will fight alongside the 3 chariots I previously painted. I just think that painting 3 chariots at a time is more than enough for me! I was thinking of going 4 chariots to a unit, but in the end I might go with my 5 or even my original plan of 6. I recently created a 1600 pts mock army (the approx. size of John's upcoming Egyptian project) using War & Conquest army list and I ended up with 2 units of 5 chariots (including the army general). So at the very least I plan to paint 9 chariots plus one Canaanite prince riding in a chariot in order to play vs John's Egyptians. Looking at John's (usual) fast progress, I expect we should be able to play our first game this fall.

Chariots are Cutting Edge miniatures, crew are a mix of Foundry and Cutting Edge. 

This chariot will be part of my Royal Guards chariots unit

Next in line for my Canaanites: one unit of archers, and then probably some more chariots!

Blood in the forest, a FIW AAR

A little over a week ago I had a great wargaming week-end. It started off with a gentlemen's dinner at Moishes (one of the best steakhouse in Montreal) with John, Nicolas and Kawe (from Westfalia Miniatures). Kawe is back in Montreal, where we met a few years ago, for a little while on business. It was a very nice evening, the wine was fabulous, the coleslaw famous as usual and the steak perfectly cooked. Kawe was nice enough to bring along some examples of his Westfalia Miniatures, including some artillery equipment and a battalion of his new Saxons. Great figures. John got the Saxons as I'm already drowning in Poles! We of course talked wargaming and we plan on having a game in late June.

Then the next day we got to play a FIW game with John, Nico and newcomer Rusti, from Crossover Miniatures, who made the trip from Vermont. Blogs and Forums really are a fantastic resource for meeting new gamers and fellow enthusiasts!

It was a baptism of fire for Rusti's FIW figures, all Galloping Major's and nicely painted. Surprisingly, while they are notoriously bigger than Conquest, it is really not that apparent on the table. We had a fun game, Nico and I taking charge of the British against the French & Indians of John and Rusti. The game was played using This Very Ground and was meant to represent a standard skirmish of the time.

 It started really well for me and Nico, as we assumed a defensive position and repulsed the first few Indian attacks with ease, but it all crumbled towards the end as a desperate charge by the Indians combined with some awful melee dices from poor Nico meant doom for a complete British Regulars company. In the end of the game we basically had the same amount of casualties on each side and we called it a draw, although I think a few more turns would not have been good for the Brits!

A few pictures of the game. Not many. As usual I find it difficult to host, play and take pictures during a game. Another advantage of having a GM...

The original set-up

1st turn

Dastardly Indians advancing through the woods

 

Provincials advance to stop the Indians from flanking the regulars

The British put their defensive position into place; it almost worked perfectly!

A mix of my Conquest and Rusti's Galloping Major Indians