Thursday, September 22, 2016

The War of 1812 or Dipping My Toes in the Water Once Again

A few years ago I was working on a War of 1812 project, using the excellent Knuckleduster 28mm figures, and I had a dedicated blog.  Alas, space became a concern so a hard decision had to be made, so I sadly sold off my figures and closed the blog.  But the period does keep calling to me, and in looking at the fine range of Blue Moon 15/18mm figures, I may have a way to get back into this period.

I live in the old Northwest Territory, which saw a share of skirmishes, battles, and even sieges during the war.  There are also "massacres," raids, and naval battles.  Starting with Tippecanoe in 1811, the Northwest Territory offers a wide variety of troop types as one can game encounters with frontier militia, Indians, and regulars.  Whatever your cup of tea might be, one can find it in the old Northwest. 

I already have the naval aspect covered with the Battle of Lake Erie covered in two scales, and I even moderate a small Yahoo group that covers this battle.  So from a naval point of view, I am set.

For land engagements, there are numerous directions I could start.  Tippecanoe sees frontier militia and a regiment of U.S. Regulars against the Indian Confederation based along the Wabash in Indiana.  There is also Fort Meigs, which would involve a large fort to be assembled, and I really do not have the space for that.  Fort Stephenson would be a much smaller fort, with U.S. and British regulars as the primary players.  Hull's movements near Detroit offer a few ambushes by Indians against U.S. detachments.  Of course there are the actions near the Straights of Mackinac, and other affairs along the Mississippi.

Regardless of what action one wants to focus on, the forces are relatively small, which can translate to a smaller amount of figures to purchase and paint, depending on what rules one decides to use.

As always, more on this as I decide what battle to concentrate on and what rules I will use!

Monday, July 11, 2016

Plum Run Point - Part the Next: Confederates!

Picture from Pithead Miniatures' website
Thank you, Pithead Miniatures!  In such timely fashion they have released the Confederate Mississippi River Defense Fleet, in 1/1200.  These are of course, or maybe not of course for those who do not have knowledge of Plum Run Point, the ideal opponents for my burgeoning fleet of Thoroughbred's Cairo class river ironclads.  

I was tipped off by a post on The Wargames Website that these lovely resin castings had been released, so I immediately rushed to place an order, cost before shipping being about $50.00.  Phil Ireson, the owner, contacted me to let me know if I didn't mind a bit of a wait that he would send me a corrected version of the CSS General Bragg, as the first casting he offered was actually the Bragg that the Federals captured and modified and not the version used by the Confederates.  Of course I did not mind a wait for the correct model!
After a couple of weeks I received my order from the U.K.  While these Pithead castings might not quite on par with Thoroughbred's gorgeous models, they are darn close!  As mentioned, they are mostly resin, with metal guns, stacks, and masts, to go along with resin hulls and superstructures.  

I have started putting a few of them together.  Four of the smaller vessels have separate superstructures that need to be glued to the provided hulls.  The four separate hulls are identical  The guns are tiny and a bit fiddly to work with, but that is because I do not have quick setting superglue to hold the guns into place.  Once I pick up some different super glue mounting the guns by using tweezers should be a breeze.

In summary (for now, more as I build, paint, and rate up these vessels for Smoke on the Water), this range from Pithead is not only a nice addition to the 1/1200 scale offerings currently on the market, but they really fill in an often overlooked area of the Civil War, the early battles on the interior river, like Plum Run Point!


Monday, June 6, 2016

Plum Point Bend - Part I: The Union

A multi-part series for my first foray into 1/1200 Civil War naval gaming....

I have settled on the Battle of Plum Point Bend as the basis for for my Civil War naval gaming.  

While the new range of Thoroughbred 1/1200 scale American Civil War vessels is currently a scattered mix of brown water and coastal offerings at the moment, I do want to start focusing my efforts on the first project I will work on using these ships and Smoke on the Water rules.  I have already purchased seven Cairo class ironclad gunboats from Thoroughbred, and using these as the basis for scenarios, will start a Plum Point Bend project.  Plum Point Bend sees six Cairos in action (Mound City, Carondelet, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Cairo, and the St. Louis). Of course I am going to need a lot of other ships for this battle, and there are other companies offering some proxies for the various Confederate gunboats and the USS Benton, but I would hate buying other ships to only replace them in the future with further release from Thoroughbred.  I do have a few of the Titan resin ships, and they are rather inexpensive if I need to purchase more to fill in any holes until Thoroughbred releases the appropriate castings.  I would need to pick up their Benton, and that would complete the Union vessels needed for Plum Point Bend.
Titan's USS Benton

Thursday, April 7, 2016

New Thoroughbred 1/1200 ACW Naval Releases!

I just came across this on The Miniatures Page, and I am stoked!  I will be certainly picking up a CSS Arkansas and a USS Neosho to go against my USS Cairo classes I have already purchased!  All of these look great, but I am trying to focus on brown water operations.

Toby is also running a deal with 10% off of orders greater than $50.00 and 15% off orders greater than $100.00.

Pictures from Thoroughbred

left to right - CSS Virginia, USS Canonicus, CSS Arkansas

left to right - CSS Richmond, USS Neosho, CSS Neuse

Monday, February 15, 2016

Skill Level 0 Blog

My gaming buddy The G Dog has quite the 1/600 scale American Civil War collection, and has been busy building and painting ships, and then blogging about it, as he pushes into 2016 with great gusto.  Give his blog a look:

Skill Level 0

Sunday, February 7, 2016

Unboxing Day!

The opened box of goodness!
In yesterday's post I received a small box from one of my favorite manufacturers, Thoroughbred Figures.  I had placed an order for their newish line of 1/1200 American Civil War vessels.  Over the years I had purchased many of their 1/600 scale range, but having smaller space to game and to store gaming materials, plus the fact that my gaming friends, particularly The G Dog, has about every 1/600 scale vessel known to man, I thought heading towards 1/1200 would give me the scale that worked for my space limitations, while also allowing me to focus on specific projects without hopefully getting overboard (pun intended).  I have a few other 1/1200 scale resin vessels from Titan Military Miniature Products, but haven't really done anything with them, and when I saw that Thoroughbred had released 1/1200 scale ships, I knew they would be the premier range to own (nothing against Langton Miniatures but I have never purchased any of their 1/1200 ships).  So, I sent an email to Toby Barrett and placed my first order for his 1/1200 scale ships.

I decided that I would stick with the brown water navy, meaning mostly riverine actions.  Currently Thoroughbred only offers the USS Cairo for river battles, and seeing that the Cairo is probably my favorite class of ironclads from the war, I decided to go big and buy seven, one for each ship in the class, the main distinction being the colored bands painted on their smokestacks.  This will allow me to use the correctly painted ship for any of the actions I want to game.

After just a few days of placing my order with Thoroughbred, I received my goodies.  I eagerly opened the box to find not seven, but eight little boxes with ships! Toby has a history of providing me with excellent service and on occasion some extra goodies, and in this case added in a little something extra as he delayed shipping my box by one day!  Really, he was that concerned about not sending out the package one day sooner that he added a surprise for my "troubles."  Amazing service!

Here are a few pics for viewing to give you an idea of what to expect when ordering these little gems from Thoroughbred.  They are superbly cast, no mold lines or flash, perfectly scaled, and really should paint up nicely.


A stack of Cairos, anyone?

What's this?  An extra ship?

She's a beauty

Sizing up the Cairo

A "super" CSS Albemarle was included in my order

Monday, February 1, 2016

1/1200 American Civil War

I have always thought the 1/600 scale Civil War vessels from Thoroughbred Figures to be some of the nicest ship castings available, no matter what period and what scale.  But my gaming buddy The G Dog has about every 1/600 scale vessel known to man, and with living in a condo with limited and temporary gaming space (the dining room table) that scale is not just too large for me.  Toby Barrett from Thoroughbred has provided a potential solution...go small with great quality with his newish 1/1200 scale range.

Admittedly the offerings at this time are limited, but Mr. Barrett already has several more castings in the works, so this promises to be the epic range for 1/1200 scale Civil War naval gaming.  He also provided me a couple of pics of his current offerings.

CSS Albemarle, USS Cairo, CSS Atlanta, USS Passaic

USS Monitor (early), USS Monitor (late), CSS Tennessee, CSS Super Albemarle
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