Foundry Grenadiers and Happy Civilians for Old Fritz

 Recently finished and mustered into service with the Prussian army are these 28mm Foundry sculpts, grenadiers painted in the uniforms of the Anhalt Desau regiment as per Kronoskaf.   They will eventually represent the 3/6 Kleist converged grenadier battalion once I get the grenadiers from the Von Retzow regiment finished.

I had a terrible moment when I was spraying these figures with Windsor and Newton matte varnish, I was working too quickly and picked up the black primer can by mistake.   It took a split second to realize my mistake but by then I'd done enough damage that I had to essentially repaint the exposed side of three figures.   I will never do that again!

According to Kronoskaf these fellows had yellow piping on the cloth backs of their mitres, I opted for an ochre-ish colour which isn't that visible in this photo but which looks good enough for me.

The new troops are inspected by Der Alte Fritz and found to be satisfactory.

Two finished Foundry SYW civilians also done in this batch.  Magda the camp follower has big natural apples, and Johann would give his other leg for the king if he could.

Hurrah boys!

I should get these fellows on the table and give them their baptism of fire.   Thanks for looking and blessings to your brushes!

MP+

Quick Thoughts on MMP's Storm Over Jerusalem

 

I've now finished two solo plays of Storm Over Jerusalem, MMP's game of Titus' siege of Jerusalem in AD 70.  It's a winner.   It has fairly simple mechanics (a very slim and well written rulebook) that are reminiscent of those old area movement games of the past, most famously Avalon Hill's Storm Over Arnhem.  

It's a fairly short game (eight turns) in which the Romans have a daunting task of getting over the walls of Jerusalem (so many walls!).  There are two vital areas, the Second Temple and Herod's Palace, and if the Romans can take both in the same turn they win automatically, but that's easier said than done.

The new town (top of the map) is easier to take because the defensive bonuses are slightly less than they are in the old town and the terrain around the new town areas is conducive to siege engines and siege towers which can partially negate the wall defensive bonuses.   So the Romans can make initial headway taking these areas but they aren't vital to the Jewish defenders and they can chew up valuable time.

The Romans have a lot of troops but they don't all start on the map oat once and can only be brought on from four specific reinforcement zones.  The Roman stacking limit is five units per zone, so the Roman player has to develop attacks carefully and plan to reinforce them.

The game is card driven, in that each player gets a hand of cards with fresh draws per turn and the cards convey certain bonuses and allow strategems, such as gradually cutting off Jewish supplies, upgrading Jewish units with captured Roman weapons, onager and ballista attacks, siege ramps, and such.   Some cards can negate others, so if the Roman plays the battering ram card and if the Jewish player has the flaming brand card, it cancels the battering rams.    If you like the flavour that cards bring, you'll like this game.

Here's the situation at the end of the second of two play throughs.    The Romans have thrown their full might at Herod's Palace (left) and the Temple (right) and in both case the Jewish defenders hung on grimly.  The game ended a turn early because of card play, and it was a tie simply because the Romans inflicted massive casualties on the Jewish garrison.

Siege games have a lot appeal for me.  For the attacker they can be interesting problems to solve, and for the defenders while there may not be lots of maneuvre choices, the tension of hanging on is always fun.   And the advantage of a paper game like this one is that I don't have to build a model of Jerusalem and to paint both armies, the game's all in the box.   

Physically the counters are oversize, colourful and well printed.  While mounted mapboards seem to be a thing of the past, it's a lovely and educational map and the cards are well done.  Full marks for the game's components.

This is a game I would definitely play again.

Cheers and blessings to your die rolls,

MP+

Scurvy Scruffy Steppe Soldiers: Foundry Seven Years War Cossacks

Galloping in from the east are these two Cossacks, badly needed light horse for my Seven Years War Russian army.   I have ten more to paint, but these two were the first off the painting bench.   They're part of Foundry's Cossack range of figures.  

 

And some Cossacks on foot, based individually for kleine krieg games, probably using Sharp Practice rules.  The cottage is a Warbases kit, with some of my own touches.

Consorting with the enemy, a friendly Prussian.  Prost!

The whole Cossack crew pose at their rented vacation cottage.  They gave it a bad review,  five torches, as in they each took a torch and burned it down - said that the towels were scratchy and the WiFi was bad.

Thanks for looking, and blessings to your brushes!

MP+

The Kids Are Alright, the Monsters, Not So Much

This Monday was the first day of spring break here, so we had grandkids Ollie and Evie over for their first sleepover in our new house.   Of course, HeroQuest was on the menu.

Five years ago the church I worked for at the time had a big garage sale, and one of the items was the basic HeroQuest set with an expansion pack (something Skeleton King).  They were asking $10 for it.  I knew enough about the game's value on Ebay that I gave them $20 and I still got a good deal.  Saved it for the day when the grandkids might want to play it. 

A year ago when I first introduced it, HeroQuest was a hit even when Ollie and Evie had to include little sister Lucy (age 4 at the time).  A year later, I noticed a huge uptick in the older kids' understanding of the rules and an astonishing memory for details in their previous games.  Evie for example regularly reminded her brother that because he had a staff he could attack monsters on the diagonal.  Clever girl.

This time to make it more interesting I replaced the players' tokens with mins from my fantasy collection, which was a big hit.   We played the third level in the basic set, the lair of Ulag the Ork, with Ollie playing his wizard and Evie her Elf (they both like spells).  We ran the Barbarian and the Dwarf as NPCs.  It was a near run thing, thanks in part to Ollie favouring Leroy Jenkins tactics and thinking his wizard could also be an assaulter.   Before the final boss fight I let them recharge their spells and "found" them a healing spell in a chest to top them up.   Ulag never had a chance.  

It was absolutely fascinating to see them be so engrossed by a totally material game, with physical tokens, when they are so accustomed to playing video games.  The kids went home demanding another game in the near future.  We might also try a very basic game of a fantasy game like Dragon Rampant, because I think they're ready for it.  I hope that decades from now, days like this one will give them happy memories and maybe some play ideas with their own kids.

Foundry 28mm Imperial Roman Legionaires

 And this post is pretty much what it says in the header.

Catching up on this blog after all the WW1 naval business which has dominated this blog in the past year  to show some recently completed work now that I'm fully moved into the new house and the painting desk is up and running.   The Ides of March seems like a good time to show off another eight metal 28mm Foundry Romans.

The shields are handpainted, matching a previous design from some figures I did a year (!) ago.  At this rate I might have a century if I live to be a century.  I like the resting pose of these figures, suggesting that they are being held in reserve or just waiting for the Germanii to come charging out of the treeline.

They are based individually but I have an abundant supply of eight figure rectangular movement trays for ease of handling.

Thank you for looking and blessings to your brushes!

MP+