Wargaming the Sugar Islands Campaign is still available from myself, from Graham at CrannTara and now also from Caliver Books and from On Military Matters in the US.
You can find details on the their websites, and the post below or by contacting me using the form on the right hand side of the blog.
https://stuartinschwargames.blogspot.com/2018/11/now-available-wargaming-sugar-islands.html
Thanks to everyone who has already bought a copy and to those who have yet too, now it's even easier.
It's nice to be nice to yourself. If you can't look after you, then you can't do that for others.
Working from home and using my hobby room as an office is not ideal. It takes my fun place away. So I was chuffed when the doorbell rang and three packages arrived.
The first was some Gt.War Miniatures Crimean French Chasseurs. I need 9 of these to represent a battalion for my 19thC French. They are lovely sculpts and the command and skirmishing packs give plenty of movement. The uniform hardly changed between the 1850's and 1870 and and so they will serve equally well in The Crimea (or Baltic), Italy or France.
Next up was a book I've fancied for a while. Also scratching my 19th century itch this covers the Hungarian Uprising and specifically the Honved army. It's like a giant Osprey. English and Hungarian text, but little of either and plate after plate of gorgeous uniforms. No background but that's available elsewhere. A nice coffee table book for a wargamer.
The final package was also a book. Barry Hilton's Every Bullet has a Billet. Now this is an excellent book, well written, well illustrated and with the type of eye candy pics we expect from on of his publications. It's a potted history of the the wars of the late 17thC, the armies (and navies) involved, what they wore, how they fought and how to do it on the tabletop. Even if you know and love this period you will love this book. If you don't it's a perfect primer.I note that Helion, the publisher, has a similar guide on the Great Northern War due in summer. If that's half as good it will be worth getting.
Batteries recharged!
Last Tuesday I managed to have an online game of Rebels and Patriots using Tabletop Simulator along with the lads from the club. I drew up the map and made the lists and digital guru Ross transferred these to the vitualmtabletop. It was our first go at this online. Other TTS games have crashed or been too fiddly to work properly but this went very well. The scenario was the Lament Ridge game from the book. Surprisingly the Americans won, mainly because the Brits got some terrible movement activations but it was a good game and in my opinion, much better than shuffling counters.
We have another game on Tuesday.
It's a new dawn and a new day and a new year. So lets start with looking forward not back.
200th Post.
Well it's been a long time since I started the blog. Thank you to everyone who pops in to have a look and leave a comment. Huge thank you to everyone who bought the Sugar Islands Campaign. Against Spain is still being worked on but with covid and big changes in my workload I've not had the headspace to work on it as much as I'd like. This has been a year like no other that's for sure.
I have continued painting. Both 18thC and 16thC lately. An experimental game of Pikemans Lament with my Marian / Corrichie stuff and it worked well. Playing against my son the first game saw me take the rebels as clansmen and forlorn hope and thanks to a lucky die roll, gained some reinforcing shot. These fended off the royalist border horse trotters, whilst my clansmen and forlorn hope crashed into the shot.
We switched sides for game two and it was a closer run thing. This time I too, the royalists and pushed out my shot and trotters to wear down the approaching Rebels. This worked to a degree and gave me time to close ranks with my pike so I was ready to attack the rebel foot first. It was still touch and go but a more even fight and it came down to both sides being a couple of figures off 50% casualties when a good roll from me won the day.
Now that I know the rules work I will finish off the bases and paint the movement trays, ready for the battle proper. I still have some flags to do too.
I received some of the new Crann Tara figures on Friday. I will use these as militia for Cuba and the Philippines and for anywhere else that needs a locally raised levy. They'll do perfectly for the AWI and FIW too, even as Jacobite lowlanders and as always are cleanly cast and sculpted. Graham's figures got from strength to strength.
This post is dedicated to Danny. 2006-2020.
My furry bud.
I have just finished these off - Crann Tara's excellent Naval Landing Party.
As always these figures are very well sculpted and cleanly cast and are a joy to paint. Although sold as a landing party they could see service as civilians, militia or even pirates.
They will join my marines in landing on the beaches of Cuba and the Philippines.
That just about wraps up all the figures which I need for the former. I hope to have some black militia soon but will have to wait til these are finished being sculpted. Meantime I have some scenarios to playtest and will start painting figures which I intend using for the Filipino tribesmen which caused the British some bother.
