My 3D printed Cow blew up!

 

I started sorting out a few of my boxes of figures in my new Redoubt, when I came across this poor chap.

I mean what the hell has happened to him?

Its as though the figure has burst?

And what's even stranger is the figure and base are wet and sticky?

Has anyone else seen or heard of this worrying problem. Are we gonna see all 3D printed figures blow up like this?

Any ideas anyone?

The Battle of Soria - A 15mm Napoleonic Batrep

 

 Or The Battle of Why do the Dice Gods and Postie hate Ray & Lee!

When we entered the Shed o War the battlefield looked superb, loads of 15mm French and Spanish laid out on a 10x6 table. Then Postie announced a few rule changes........more on those a bit later!!!

Me and Lee were unlucky and picked out the French, now usually I don't mind playing the French, especially as we were up against the Spanish, who in Posties rules are a weaker force in both morale, numbers and melee.

Lee's command above had to cross the river, there was a ford between the red bushes.

The  French centre, mine on the left, while Lee, who was our CnC on the right, he had 4 units of Elite Legere!!! We faced a weak Spanish army, on the hill, with reserves behind.

On our left, there would be a big cavalry scrap. The Spanish had 5 units of Heavy Horse while my French were made up of 7 units, 1 Cuirassier, 2 Dragoons and 3 Chasseurs/Hussars.

First move I moved up my Horse.

We both moved up our infantry in the centre. Lee moved the Legere to push the gap between the marsh and mountains.

On our right we soon realised there was no chance in hell crossing the river. Steve's Spanish were aligned in an arc, meaning he would get multiple shots on any unit crossing. That includes 2 artillery pieces!!!

It was about now that Postie told us the rule changes, he had included opportunity fire, which we took out of the rules many years ago, because the French columns could never make it into contact, because any and every unit available would fire at it! This used to cause soooo many arguments in our old games

We weren't very happy about this news!!!!

The second change, which wasn't really a change, but something Postie does now and again. The winner would be decided by who killed most casualties, Now I don't like games like this, it makes people play a different way than they really should, but hey ho, lets see how we get on.

For the French to charge, to try and make sure you win you need to try and get 2 columns onto one enemy unit, now that would be difficult in the game as the Spanish only had 12 figures instead of 16. Which meant only a 6 man frontage. Now fairs fair, I didn't think that would be a problem, but the opportunity fire would be.

I manged to squeeze a third unit into my front line. My plan was to only charge the right most unit of Dragoons, to offer my flank to the Spanish, but Chris moved up as well, kinda blocking what could have been a flank attack.

Even though we outnumbered the Spanish, it was still going to be difficult to take the hill.

We won the first turn which meant we get the first choice of charging. So I tried to charge across the front line, unfortunately the middle unit didn't like the colour of the Spanish Dragoons and refused to charge!!!

So Chris got to charge me at the halt while the other 2 units met their Spanish foe in the middle of their moves. 

Now here's were it started to go tits up!

Meanwhile in Soria itself a mob of men appeared. I thought they were Guerrillas, but was told to guess again????

Surg started to move troops into the fields next to Soria, to threaten our left flank as we moved forward.

With the movement to our left, that made our main attack a bit less forceful.

I think the french can handle this problem.

But not this one, Lee was getting battered, Steve hit with every artillery shot!

Now back to the cavalry!!!!

I lost each of the 3 melees, only by 1 each time, but I lost 2 colours in the defeat and 2 units actually routed, well that's what you get for throwing 2 2's on a D10!. Not only that, but each of the routers disorganised the units behind.

At the start of the next turn I had one chance to save the 2 routing units, I threw 2 D6 for each unit needing a combined score of around 6 to save them, so a 50/50 chance. I threw Snake eyes on one and 3 on the other, so both units were removed from play counting as casualties. The third unit was caught in the rear and destroyed to the man!

So 4 melees down and I'd lost us 36 figures!!!!

Lee charges on the right of the hill, everything else is still to far away.

Hang on, where did they come from?

2 large units of Spanish Guerrillas appear on the mountain and rain down shots on Lee's columns.

Now this will make you laugh, you know what I said about dice gods earlier on?

Lee managed to get 2 units of French in column onto 1 unit of Spanish on the hill, Lee will smash the Spanish into the ground!!!!

Errrr, Surg threw 5 D6 needing 5's and 6's and scored a 1 hits. Lee had 20 D6 and needed 4's 5's and 6's......guess how many kills he got?

1.

The laughter and merriment from the Spanish was hard to swallow!!

Then as the melee was a draw they had to fight again, Surg remarkably hit with all 5 dice, Lee had 18 D6 and scored 2 bloody hits!!!!

The air was blue and the French morale plummeted to an all time low.

My cavalry capitulation was bad enough, but Lee's 38 dice and 3 hits just one us in.

I wanted to quite the game there and then, the dice gods not only left us, but took a massive dump on our heads!

But we carried on, trying to get something back, our luck would surly turn around???

After a turn reforming I moved up and charged in with one unit of Hussars.

This made us feel better, a massive charge across the hill.

We won some and lost some.

And I won the Cavalry fight as well, I wanted to carry on the charge but failed the test to do so.

We were nearing the end of the game as time was running out. We hadn't quite taken the hill, but would have done the next turn and the Spanish centre collapsed.

Lee's Elite Legere punched a hole between the marsh and mountain.

But Steve was immoveable on our right, we couldn't get near him.

So there the game ended, with a massive 31 points to 13 victory for the Spanish.

What a massive pile of steamy doggy doo's that was!!!

Conclusion

Why Postie added in the Opportunity fire I'll never know? Yes it gave the Spanish a chance, but really didn't work, just like in the first versions of Posties rules. Steve, Surj and Chris's dice were on fire......mine and Lee's weren't,  in fact if it wasn't for the crack and laugh we all had, most of it at my and Lee's expense, it wouldn't have been worth turning up!

I think we need a drastic look at the rules we use for Napoleonic's, just gotta try and bring that subject up with the Evil one?

 

Retreat from Moscow - 25mm Battle Honours Cantinieres or Vivandieres

 

Back in June, Keith over at Bydad blog posted up some pics of some luvvly painted ladies, from Battle Honours here. I thought they would fit in pretty well with my Retreat from Moscow French.

I was a little surprised when the figures arrived in the post looking like they'd been attacked by a giant spider, but I've ot bought a lot of printed figures before, so I guess this is the norm?

Now of course I needed to winterize these luvvly ladies, so out came the Greenstuff, but halfway through I ran out, so instead of waiting for more to arrive, I used some kitchen towel and smothered it in PVA glue, which worked a treat!

I've lost most of the fab detail that was on the figures, but thought they'd like to bit a little warmer?

If you look closely at the figure on the left you can make out the circular pattern on the kitchen towel, but I think it add to the effect?

I must say I'm pleased with my new ladies, so thanks must go to Keith for pointing them out!!!

Retreat from Moscow - 25mm More French Wagons!

Here are my next 2 French wagons for my Retreat from Moscow wagon train.

Both carts are from Warbases, the left is their Hay Cart, the right is their Turnip cart, the horses are from Redoubt Enterprises.

The wagons have nowhere for a driver to sit, so I bought some Redoubt Enterprises French wagons leaders. I chose not to winterize these poor freezing chaps. The reason why was quite simple.....I'd ran out of greenstuff!

I've bought more of the green gold so may add a cloak to the figures.....but probably won't!

Rejects Ray's Ops Room.

 

My Ops Room is finally finished, the walls, ceiling, Painting table and Gaming table are complete!!!

Here's the old room, which I filled with all my stuff after moving in a year ago.

My daughters old computer desk was my makeshift work bench.

While most of my figures, paints and terrain were stuffed into boxes.

The first thing that need to change was a new garage door. Originally it was one of the old up and over style doors, but as this was going to be the new entrance, (I was using the back door, but had to go through my daughters bedroom to do that). I wanted a 1/3 door, rather than opening the whole thing.

The garage was split in two, the back half was the previous owners office, while the front was the home of the bins and any crap that wouldn't fit anywhere else in the house!

So this stud wall had to go!

Now once upon a time in my youth I used to be a bricklayer/builder, but my body now says, "No". So I spoke to Reject Steve who has every handy tool you can ever imagine, to come and do some work.

First thing was a new stud wall, up against the 2/3's garage door.

I did help......I made the tea!

There we have the new stud wall, ceiling, lights and plugs

And my new painting desk too!

Then I started the decorating.

Also need to extend the flooring out to the new threashold.

That's all the decorating done, walls and ceiling all painted white, so its nice and bright!

To give us room to do all that work, I'd put, most of my collection in storage, so with a little help from Postie it all had to be put back in.

Then a month or so later it was was time for the table, as its a garage and I've got a hell of a lot of stuff, I could only really fit in a 6x4 table, but that will do me fine!!!

I wanted it quite high as well, so I can fit loads of boxes underneath, full of terrain and the like.

Its also on wheels, so I can pull it away from the wall.

So here's the table. Well done Steve!

And here it is all loaded with boxes underneath.

 And with a Geek Villian wargaming mat too!

The plan is, when I get around to putting a game on for the Rejects, I can wheel the table to the right, so we can fit in both sides, although it doesn't look like it it does fit.

Now all I need is a name for the new room, anyone think of a good name?