A Close Run Thing - Maurice AAR

Under a setting sun, the infidel invaders withdraw from the battlefield.  The carnage and cries of the wounded are terrible to behold.  Black tempered, the Sultan has retired to his tent and few are of a mind to recount the Battle of Alt Hahnfeld.

Lord Abercrombie of Brittanica is a great commander, of that, there is no doubt.  He caught our Anatolian army as it was making its way inland.  The Sultan was eager to give battle and send the infidels fleeing but Abercrombie chose the battlefield well. Our left flank was crowded by a swollen stream. Our center was dominated by forest to the left and right. Plowed fields choked our right. Because of the disrupting terrain, the Sultan was limited to attacking through narrow channels in the center, right or left. The Sultan chose to deploy most the army in march column and wait for his irregulars to seize the woods and drive the enemy back.

It seemed like a good plan on the drawing board. 

The morning hours were dominated by the sound of sporadic gunfire as the Anatolian irregulars harassed and pressed the enemy irregulars.  Despite a 2 to 1 advantage, we had great difficulty driving the enemy back or opening up the center.  They would give no ground and soon, Nazim's sharpshooters came streaming to the rear.  Neither shouts nor swords could stem their shameful rout.  Seeing an opportunity, the enemy cavalry put their stirrups in and rushed our stalled columns.  In confusion, our Mad Head irregular cavalry prematurely charged out of the woods into the path of the enemy. To protect the Sultan's columns of foot, they chose to stand their ground rather than flee.

Dead men walking!

It took the enemy two charges to run them down and slay them to the man.  In that time, the Sultan moved his infantry columns out of the path of the enemy charge.  Well, most of his infantry.  The Sultan was shocked to see the 24th Blues stuck in column formation in the path of the enemy charge. They'd gotten into a bit of terrain and were no longer a part of the main force.  As a result they never received the order to advance. The redcoats made short work of them as well. Finally, our cavalry mustered into a battle line and countercharged. They sent the winded enemy flying.  But not before losses were inflicted and the Sultan's battle plans upset.  

Columns just before changing formation to lines.

It fell to the Sultan's Red Guards to save the day. After moving up in column, they fell into a battle line and went straight at the enemy.  At the point of attack, they swept all before them. With both armies nearing the breaking point, an enemy officer cried "All in boys, all in!" and bravely charged our Red Guards. The Sultan's best were able to stand firm against two consecutive charges.  Failing to break our lines, the enemy lost heart and began to flee. Lord Abercrombie asked for terms and the Sultan quickly granted them.

The redcoats charge the Sultan's Red Guards

After two charges, only the Red Guards remain standing.

As the Sultan, I did a poor job of maintaining force integrity and had units tripping over one another trying to advance through a narrow clearing in the center of the board.  One of my favorite things about Maurice is how you're generally limited to activating a single force in a turn.  If you split up your forces, you'll find you can't worry about the single unit of infantry or cavalry left behind.  Fortunately, this was a problem for my opponent Mark as well since we're both rusty at Maurice. Maison du Roi was a key National Advantage as my 2 Guard units did the heavy lifting in the game.

Mark did a great job with terrain deployment.  Dropping terrain in the middle to jam me out the gate was a trick I've not seen before. Sending cavalry in is always a risk in this game but with my foot strung out in march column, it was a great call.  The heroics of my irregular cavalry slowed him down for 2 turns and also nicked him up a bit so it was as they say, a close run thing.

Too late for Sofie's Paint Blog and her Saturday Paint Table post, I've got a shot at what's on my table.  It's a SAGA/Dux Brit commish with the always wonderful Gripping Beast figures. After a long run of 15mm, it's good to be back to 28s.  

Here's hoping Santa puts a few new warbands in my stocking for Christmas, and yours too if that's what you want.  If I paint 10 SAGA factions, I believe the 11th is free!  Perhaps I should go back and read the fine print at the Gripping Beast website. 

Bottom's up! Naked Gauls and a burst of 15mm madness...

With my Welsh warband sidelined by a lost parcel of shield transfers, I jumped back into 15mm with both of my size 11 1/2 feet.  First up, 96 Naked Gauls. I've paint 2 Gallic armies in the last 2 years. Each army was a bit of a trial or chore, depending on how fondly I remember it  Under Field of Glory v2, Gauls are slightly less rubbish than before so I thought, three times a charm?  The question I sought to answer in painting this bunch was, can I gut my way through painting Gauls a 3rd time? The lead photo is a bit of a spoiler!

Before every charge, the Gauls were heard to scream "PANTS!"

Gaesati warriors will be the core of my Gallic army v3.  Gaesati are rated as Superior, Impact heavy foot, and naked as the day they were born. Nakedness does not provide a combat bonus but it is a +10 bonus on the painting table.  These fellows started with Army Painter's Barbarian Flesh primer.  2 coats of GW flesh wash later, the actual painting started with flesh highlighs.  The time saved by their nakedness was quickly lost in the shield stage.  There isn't much room to work with on these shields.  Still, it went down well and I'll order up the rest of the army from Old Glory.  I might grab my 12 stands of chariots from Splintered Light as they are spectacular to paint and look at.

I also finished up the Russian SYW cannons. We're firing up another Maurice campaign in the weeks ahead and one of our Field of Glory regulars has left the ancient world to join us in the 17th century.  Klay, I hope these cannons give good service in support of your new cause!  The best thing about painting these Old Glory figures was, no shields!  2nd best thing was they're all wearing trousers.

I sold my 15mm Carthaginian army last week and in the process, created a few holes in my ancient Spanish army. To fix one of them, I  just finished up these Old Glory Spanish light horse.  I clipped the plumes off their heads so they'd fit in better with my Xyston Spanish light horse.  These lads are poor and rough, so I went for a loose painting style.  I did sneak in some bright colors to keep them from disappearing off the tabletop!

I sold off the slingers I was using in my ancient Spanish list so here's a few more in a bit of an experiment. I'm going to see what I can do with inking in 15mm.  If I paint neatly, I should be able to use the ink for shadows.

Lastly, 96 Dailami warriors in the paint pan in case the Welsh shield transfers don't make an appearance. So, enough about me.  How was your weekend?

The Sultan Smiles! A Maurice AAR...

Maurice is a big hit in our group, so much so that we're into our 2nd campaign since August.  There are many things to love about the game but the campaign rules are genius. The campaign allows a player to:

• Write a back story for your army, leader and war if you like.  
• Choose the kind of army you run by purchasing National Advantages.  
• Deliver smack between battles and change up sides frequently. 
• Write clever AARs in character to share with the rest of the players.  

The campaign also gives a narrative, energy and game to game results that are absent from a one off match.  Our group is so hooked that we've managed a game every 2-3 weeks.  Being a family man, it's no easy task to sneak out the door for my games.  When my wife pointed out I was gaming two weekends in a row, I replied "but this is a campaign game" and it worked!

I was playing Hugh in this match and by the way, Hugh had never lost a campaign game.  To prepare for my big showdown,  I read the rules cover to cover and filled up a notebook with tips and ideas.  I also got practice games in and brainstormed with my sparring partners.  So, how did my training and  hard work pay out?

The game had a promising start when I won the scouting role and was able to choose to defend.  6 pieces of terrain went down and Hugh made a point to drop his terrain in my deployment zone to mess me up.  The village, marsh and woods cut my deployment zone in half so I shoehorned my army into the right half of the board.

In addition to being a stone cold killer, Hugh has a spectacular Coalition army made up of French and British troops.  A 00 or 000 brush was burned up painting these handsome lads and all of their piping.

 

My Ottomans wedged themselves into a double line between the two villages while my cavalry held in reserve.  The boys in red are my Guard units, The Sultan's Own.

In the early game, Hugh swung his army out in parade formation and formed up just outside of musket range.  I declined to bombard with  my cannons in order to load up on cards.  That turned out to be a wise decision indeed!

If you're going to knock off the Big Dog, you need some luck and luck was with me in the early game.  I pulled 3 Event cards that I quickly put to use.  First, I played "That's Not on the Map!" to drop a marsh in his line of attack on the village. Then I played "Confusion" to march one of his Guard units out of line and into the marsh in canister range of my cannon.  Then I played "Heat of the Battle" to charge his weakened Guard unit into two units of The Sultan's Own, destroying the flower of his army.    

These 3 event cards put Hugh back on his heels.  He pulled his infantry back to reorder and realign.  At this point, I was tempted to come out of my defensive position and try to grab a decisive victory but I resisted.  

Hugh made a valiant attempt attempt to work my flank but the woods and my reserves on the other side made sure his push came to naught.

In the spirit of a gentlemen soldier, I offered Hugh terms near the game's end.  In perfect character, Hugh replied sharply that he had no interest in terms but he was willing to accept my surrender! 

Night fell and with it came a a minor Ottoman victory with an epic point for the carnage inflicted on the infidels!  Two games into the campaign, the village bells rang to celebrate the amazing fact that Sultan al-Adin is undefeated! !  

Terrain for Maurice

I recently took a look at my terrain collection and realized I need to buff up my choices for Maurice. I made a trip to a big box hardware store and bought a 4' by 2' board of mdf (aka hardboard).  I'd been buying it from a local Blicks art store and paying dearly for it.  The cheaper stuff works just as well as the high priced product so unless you're loaded, grab your mdf from a hardware store.  The only downside is I don't have a table saw and it's a bit of work to chop up a large sheet with a circular saw. Going into this, I had 3 goals for my terrain:

1.  It must look better than a piece of felt.  Some people shoot for the stars.  I aim for the ground because I can hardly miss!

2.  It must be light.  Since I rarely host a game in my house, I have to drag my 6' x4' canvass terrain mat, a box full of terrain and my armies on the road.  It's quite a load and the more terrain I make, the heavier my terrain box becomes.  So this time, I'm not putting loads of water putty onto the mdf. 

3.  It must be versatile.  My current collection of terrain was bought or made for Field of Glory.  The terrain I'm making here is for Maurice.  As time goes by, there'll be more rules and systems to play so ideally, I want this to work under multiple rulesets.

First up was a marsh. You're thinking that right away, I violated Rule #3.  It's hard to pretend a marsh is anything other than a marsh but I made so it's sized to work under both Maurice and Field of Glory (if I push all 3 pieces together).

I mixed up a thick batch of water putty, smeared it on the mdf and dropped bark in to give it visual interest.  Then I covered it with a dark brown basecoat with dark green in the low spots where the  Woodland Scenics Water Effects will go. After it dried, I put a wash of diluted brown ink over it to muddy up the water.  Then some flocking and I've got marshes.  

British Dragoons for Maurice

I've been thinking of painting up a 2nd Maurice army to serve as a loaner for my friends who game only Ancients.  I'm thinking this might tempt them to game in the Era of Gentlemen and Philosophers, even though these fellows can hardly be mistaken for gentlemen.They're hard-pressed to put on a pair of pants before venturing into public, such is their love for the Gauls. Coarse as they are, my ancients-loving friends might one day be persuaded to serve as bayonet holders for my Ottoman army.

As I was looking at the options for Seven Years War armies, it dawned on me that I'd never painted a tricorn hat.  And wasn't that #22 on my bucket list?  Good lord, time to stop procrastinating and get my lace on! My friend Mark was working on his British-inspired ImagiNation army so I asked if he had any units I could train on, er, paint up.  As luck would have it, he had a dandy SYW British Dragoon unit in the wings.

The beauty of painting outside your comfort zone is that, well, it's outside your comfort zone. The downside is that there are probably ten good reasons why it's outside your comfort zone.  For me, I haven't read much on the Seven Years War and I had no reference material for the armies or era.  I sent Mark a text asking if he had any inspirational material for his British Hussars.  Oooops. Wrong word.  I learned that Hussars and Dragoons don't mix, unless it's on a battlefield.  After a bit of bumbling out of the gate, here are the results:

These Old Glory figs are crisp and loaded of detail. To my surprise, I discovered that each Dragoon carried more gear into battle than paratroopers took into Normandy.  A brace of pistols, a musket, a sword, three separate ammo packs and a bed roll.  They were Death on Hooves. If I do paint up a SYW  army, I'll be ordering it from OG.

Next week, I'll try to turn this mdf board into terrain for Maurice.

Maurice Ottoman Army finished!

I wanted to do Janissary in black.  Of course, black by itself would have left the figures looking like I'd primed them and put them on the tabletop. So it was black, dark grey highlight and a lighter grey highlight after that.  In other words, not too black when you're finished!  Here and now, grey is my new black.

And the inspiration.

No matter the continent, century or cut of cloth, combatants always look crisp in crimson.  I think it holds true here.

Inspiration:

9 foot, 4 cavalry, 3 irregular foot and 5 cannons-the Maurice Ottomans massed up.

That's enough to give me plenty of options in my campaigns so I'm calling the Ottoman Project bitirdim (if you guessed finished, you are a clever lad or lass).  In retrospect, I could have build this army to more closely parallel its 18th century counterpart.  I'm embarrassed to admit this didn't cross my mind when I started out down this road. I didn't realize OG carries a Seven Years War Ottoman line or that the SYW figs are in marching order.  What I've done is painted up an army and at the finish, realized that technically, I'm on the Imagi-Nation road.  It was a short drive and I rather like the view.  I'm now ready to get a campaign going so all is good.

As is my habit, we'll exit the brief Ottoman Project with The Pogues "Turkish Song of the Damned."  Here's hoping Mark's British army will be doing the two step off the table's edge when they meet my Ottomans in Maurice!

Ottoman Janissary for Maurice

This weekend, I had the pleasure of playing my second game of Maurice.  It was a nail-biter with the game going down to the wire. The deciding rolls were preceded by good-natured hooting, hollering and high fives.  Before you deduce that we're a bunch of hooligans, let me just say Maurice is flat out fun to play.  It's so much fun that it's pushed everything else we play off the plate.

The game is driven by action cards used to activate forces and modify actions on the field.  I grew up in the era of wargaming without cards and as a result, I sometimes view card driven games with a bit of suspicion. No more.  The  action cards are where Maurice shines.  Each player has a hand of cards and actions/activations on the field cause you to use your cards.  As the active player, you are limited in which forces you can activate and use.  During your turn, your opponent can play a card that interrupts an action or activity.  This means that every turn unfolds with surprises, a punch and often a counterpunch. At the same time, you have to pace yourself because you don't want to run out of cards and have your attack or decisive action thwarted.  No cards means no actions for a turn.

Maurice also incorporate a system where you can choose the national attributes for your army, meaning that one army can  have a different style of play in each campaign.  This is in contrast to Field of Glory and other systems where you have to paint up a whole new army if you're looking for a different style of play.

After our first game in June, my friends Mark and Brent agreed to paint up Maurice armies in 15mm to run in an Imagi-Nation campaign.  I realized that I could use much of my 15mm Later Ottoman Turkish army in Maurice including:

• 5 wicked looking pieces of Ottoman heavy artillery  
• 4 units Ottoman cavalry
• 4 Ottoman command stands
• 2 Irregular units

With these units in hand, I only needed 9 units of infantry to complete my Ottomans for Maurice.  I put in an order for 160 Old Glory Janissary and out came the brushes! For my first batch of 5 units, I painted the base color in a dark blue, then a wash shadows, a mid tone and a highlight over the mid tone.  I generally don't do triads in 15mm as it's a bit of work for a smallish payout.  I think the results here are decent if subtle. The highlight does help them pop a bit and in 15mm, that's an effect I like. You can judge for yourself.    

For the sake of the photos, I put them in column but most of the time, they'll be fighting in a single line of 4 bases.  For the hard core Maurice folks, you'll notice that my Janissary are in a single line per base.  I did try to base them in a double line but I didn't account for the fact that 50% of the Old Glory figures are in firing poses.  As such, you can't properly mount a double line of figures on a single 40mm x 30mm base.  In the 17th century, the Ottomans were a throwback army so I'll attribute their odd appearance to that fact.  If you want to build an Ottoman army with a double line per base, pass on these Old Glory 15s and find a line that does Janissary in march order.

Edit:  Its been pointed out that there is in fact an OG line with marching Janissary.  You have to do a word search for "Janissaries" and it'll turn up the SYW Ottomans.  No photos available on the website so I'm taking this on the word of someone who told me on TMP.  Thanks for the correction!

Here was my inspiration for these units.

In the Pan

I'm fairly methodical in my painting habits.  I usually finish one project before moving to the next.  I work like this because of a genetic disorder that causes me to obsess unnecessarily over order and disorder.  My clothes are organized by season, style and color so why not use those same techniques with my painting?

Right now, I'm getting a little wild and crazy. I've got 200+ figures cluttering my workspace in various states of done.  24 Numidian lights just need shields to be finished and then they're ready to be based.  But nooo, I had to go off and start painting loads of Janissary musketmen for a Maurice army.  Ancients and gunpower era side by side on the painting table-this madness has got to stop!

Next week, I'll post  the second and final installment of the College Roadtrip.  Then it's back to the projects!

A broiler pan from our stove doubles as a painting queue.  Don't tell the Mrs! 

Wild wild horses, we'll ride them some day.

Hey, its not like we can paint ourselves.  Get cracking!