Cheaphammer!!!: War of 1812

Showing posts with label War of 1812. Show all posts

Saturday, 12 November 2022

Status Quo Ante Bellum

The war of 1812 project is over*.

Back in 2017 I set about painting up a rather disorganised bunch of miniatures I'd amassed for a War of 1812 American force, and with these few miniatures I've now completed everything that I have for this project.

Those of a historical bent might notice a couple of things of interest.

Firstly, the War of 1812 lasted until 1815, and so completing this small project has actually taken two years longer than the war itself.

Secondly, the War of 1812 concluded with the Treaty of Ghent agreeing that everything should go back to how it was, "status quo ante bellum". At the beginning of this project these miniatures were sitting unused in the cupboard...and unless I can get really persuasive, it looks like that might be their fate.

At least they're painted.

I finished off the command for my Dragoons in the same was as the rest, except for the fact that as I was using parade uniforms (white breeches and not blue) the bugler is dressed in all white.

I dud realise that the silver helmets should have been black, so I took the time to fix that for the whole unit.

Finally I added a flag. I couldn't find out if the US Dragoons carried flags or guidons at this time (they would by the 1830s), and I'm pretty certain that this one is wrong. However, I did find a images on a blog of someone who'd done something similar, and so I figure that at least I'm not alone.

Additionally, given the amount of historical inaccuracies in this unit, I figured it didn't matter. They might as well have pointy ears and be riding unicorns.

The cannon and crew are the final part of the mismatched ebay bundle I picked up years ago and I left them until last as they are not part of the base army list I'm.planning to use for Sharp Practice.

The miniatures are from Wargames Foundry and are the least dynamic miniatures from that pack. I can see why they ended up on eBay as the crew look totally disinterested in firing the cannon.

The uniform is the 1812 pattern of the US Artillery and models with shakos would be more versatile for the war.

My small force already has somewhat mismatched uniforms which I'm handwaving away has supply problems in the outpost they are stationed at.

The uniforms are full of kit, braiding, turnbacks and other details that plague napoleonic uniforms and the Foundry sculpts are quite small and fiddly.

Added to this, the two with muskets have backpacks that took me pack to the frustration of having to paint an embroidered 'US' on each, as I had to with the line infantry.

The cannon (I'm not sure what size it is; I think it's a 9 pounder) was a fairly simple affair. I discovered from another blog that the Americans painted their artillery in a mid-blue (this might be a little dark) and they were usually made from cast iron rather than bronze, hence the fact it is black.

And so that's it. My Scouting Force for Sharp Practice is done. Technically I am short two models (one officer and one artillery crew) but my French & Indian War civilians can fill those gaps easily.

The base force is four officers, 16 line infantry, 8 cavalry, 6 riflemen and 6 woodsmen skirmishers. Depending on the scenario I can add in the artillery or use my Woodland Indians in a variety of roles (Warband, Skirmishers, Local Scouts).

So I'm finally ready for an actual game.

The Christmas bulwark continues to build and I have a healthy lead heading into the tail end of the year. Perhaps of more concern are the remaining boxes I need to tick off on the bingo card.

I might need to do something about that...

Acquired: 116

Painted: 192

* Is a project ever really over. I've noticed that North Star have a small War of 1812 range for Muskets & Tomahawks. They look nice...

Friday, 28 October 2022

Here Come The Cavalry

Long time readers of this blog (both of them) might remember the following details:

1) Periodically I am drawn back to an ongoing interest in gaming the War of 1812 and have slowly been assembling a force of Americans for eventual use in Sharp Practice.

2) I hate painting horses.

The second fact explains why it's been three years since I last returned to the first fact, because what I needed to paint was these guys...

When I started working on a Sharp Practice force, my hodgepodge collection of miniatures best suited the 'Scouting Force' list in the War of 1812 setting book.

As such, I'd painted Line Infantry, Riflemen, Woodsmen and a few officers, leaving me with just some Militia Cavalry a couple more officers to do.

However, I did not have any Militia Cavalry models and so I decided to use such miniatures as I had to create the 1st US Dragoons instead, sacrificing the versatility of muskets for the hope of a glorious charge or two.

Button counters may wish to stop reading right now for the sake of their blood pressure.

The models that I had were half a box of Perry Miniatures French Dragoons that Matt had given me. Although at arms length they might pass muster as US Dragoons, to those who know what they are looking at these are all kinds of wrong.

However, as long time readers of this blog will be aware, expense is always a good counter to accuracy in the world of Cheaphammer, and the rest of my force plays fast and loose with mixing appropriate headgear in the Line Infantry.

The Perry miniatures themselves are nice enough, although I must admit that their age is beginning to show against some of the more modern plastics I've been painting recently.

The standard of painting on these is tabletop quality at best, as I'm never too keen on batch painting and older plastic models don't really play with my lazy painting approaches too well.

I still have three more models to paint (an officer, musician and whatever the Napoleonic word is for cavalry standard bearer) before the unit is complete, but I'm happy enough with them.

In addition to the Dragoons, I've also painted this mounted officer who I think will end up leading my Line Infantry.

The model is actually a British officer from Warlord Games (the uniforms were actually remarkably similar) and I've painted him in keeping with this painting of the Battle of Chippewa.

I'm still not a fan of painting cavalry, and probably Napoleonic cavalry more than most, this are nowhere near my best work.

However, I am pleased to be finally getting this monkey off my back after really quite a long time.

All this means that I'm making more healthy headway on painting more than I acquire, and I'm tempted to keep my focus on some older and unfinished projects for the time being, although I did by another model this week.

Acquired: 115

Painted: 178

Sunday, 3 March 2019

New York State Militia

Yes, I’m as surprised by the appearance of Napoleonic troops on my blog as you are. I blame Wargames Illustrated.

I was all set to fill March with a series of apocalypse themed posts whilst wryly claiming that they were as unrelated to Brexit as the closure of a Honda factory, and then Wargames Illustrated give me some free Napoleonic cavalry. Even though I deftly palmed them off on Pete so quickly that I didn’t even count them in my tally, the seed was sown. Before long, I was flicking through Osprey books, sitting down in front of Sharpe and digging out a project I haven’t touched in over a year.

Fortunately, I had abandoned these five militia at the halfway stage, and getting them completed wasn’t as much of a pain as it could have been. However, I have been keenly reminded of the special part of hell reserved for whoever it was that designed Napoleonic uniforms.

Remember the patch on the packs?

Whose bloody idea was that? I need to freehand lettering on every single soldier!

The keen-eyed amongst you will notice that this says NY, for the New York militia, rather than US for the US army. New York was the most heavily involved state militia in the conflict (although Kentucky list more men due to several massacres by the natives they were fighting) and handily have a uniform that allows them to blend in with the US regulars.

The models are from Matchlock Miniatures and are single pose, chunky figures with a somewhat Frankenstein feel to them.

I’ve also painted this officer, which came in with a bundle of figures I bought off eBay. I’ve no idea of the manufacturer, although it’s noticeably smaller than the Matchlock sculpts, and I’ve no idea whether it is even a War of 1812 model.

However, the uniform is vaguely similar to an image I’ve found of an officer of engineers, and so he’s been co-opted as either that role or as a militia officer who’s designed his own uniform.

This leaves my rump force for Sharp Practice just two officers and a single unit away from completion, although I’d prefer to have a more suitable officer for either the Rifles or the Frontiersmen than the Engineer (I see him attached to artillery). Also, the remaining unit is cavalry, and you know how I feel about them...

My plan, should I ever actually play Sharp Practice, is to merge my infantry into one unit which in theory will look like an ad he scouting force, but will probably look more like a group of re-enactors than a realistic military unit. However, I’m trying to get by with what I have.

If Sharp Practice doesn’t materialise as gaming opportunity (I need someone to fight, after all), there is now an alternative in the form of A Song Of Drums & Shakos from Ganesha Games, which is a true skirmish game for around a dozen models per side.

This scale is handy because that is approximately how many Napoleonic British that Matt has painted, and so the opportunity arose for me to actually play a game with my Americans.

My force was as follows:

1 Infantry Officer

1 Infantry NCO

6 Line Infantrymen

3 Riflemen

Matt’s British were:

1 Infantry Officer

4 Centre Coy Infantrymen

5 Riflemen

The first game was about getting to know the rules, but after weathering a storm of rifle shots, my clump of line infantry met with Matt’s and came off better, even chasing down and killing his officer. This ultimately led to Matt’s force breaking, and so on the second game I decided to take some pictures to record my second glorious victory...

...well, that was the plan...

Taking advantage of leadership bonuses from the officer and NCO didn’t help much when I rolled double 1 and failed to active on my first turn.

I eventually got moving and the US riflemen proved how dangerous the marksman rule was by killing one of if the British line infantry.

However, not to be outdone, the 95th Rifles won the skirmish battle by killing two of their American counterparts.

With their skirmishers gone, the line infantry had to advance into the teeth of the enemy and took heavy fire.

Despite taking casualties, a presentable line was formed and lead flew in both directions, however, the Americans struggled to to more than force the British to recoil.

Although this looks fairly even, there were British riflemen sealing round both flanks.

Ultimately, the Americans were surrounded, hemmed in and forced to surrender by accurate British fire.

That’ll teach me to start taking photos.

The game is quick to learn and easy to remember, and there was very little rulebook flipping in the second game. The activation rules are cagey as you try to maximuse you chances of success. Matt’s higher quality Rifles has more freedom, but my officer and NCO giving bonuses and group orders to the line infantry was a deadly combination.

I think the game will really shine when we start playing scenarios with specific objectives, and I think the model count is accessible enough to encourage others into the period. Both Matt and I have found a bit of motivation to paint more models from the fact that even a couple of models are useable and can change the way the game plays.

I think this is something we are going to play more of.

That’s it for now, but for those who care, the tallies are as follows:

Acquired: 62

Painted: 27

It’s getting healthier, but the impending arrival of the 7TV: Apocalypse Kickstarter is not going to help at all. Looks like I need to build those cavalry.

Monday, 1 January 2018

A New Year, The New World

Happy New Year and wotnot!

For our first blog post of 2018 we’re off to the New World, which has just got a little more populated with the arrival of two 4Ground log cabins which I received from a certain fat, jolly, bearded fellow.

I really like 4Ground’s pre-painted terrain, as you get all the fun of the mdf jigsaw, but none of the hassle of painting. The cabins are also nicely detailed inside, which is somewhat different to my Perry plastic cabin - although now I have these, I’ll feel a bit more confident about trying to remedy that.

As ever with mdf builds, I’ve made a mistake. I’ve put the long walls of the upper story on the wrong sides, and so there is only one window at the front and two at the back. Rather than risk damaging the cabin, I’ve decided to leave it as it is. I’m not sure it matters that much as buildings such as this were made to suit their owner’s taste and as it happens, having an extra window on the back makes the cabin a bit more defensible from the rear, and the front still has plenty of firing points.

To go with the cabins, I’ve finish another unit for my Sharp Practice War of 1812 force.

These chaps are some Wargames Foundry miniatures that I got as part of an eBay lot. In an ideal world I wouldn’t have such an irregular be single pose models, I’m trying to make use of what I already had available, and the fact that they aren’t painted uniformly helps add a bit of variation.

In terms of painting, I based my colour choices on those group of re-enacters from Kentucky, as researching irregular ‘uniforms’ is a little tricky, and I figured these chaps had found out what there was to find.

In game, the Woodsmen aren’t as good as my US Rifles but they do open up the option of leading another unit through a mobile deployment point to create ambushes and flanking manoeuvres, an ability also available to the natives that my US detachment will end up fighting in their first few games.

Finally, this is a picture of everything I’ve assembled so far. In order to complete my base force, I need to paint five more infantrymen, a couple of officers and nine (nine!) cavalry.

It may be some weeks before these chaps take to a table in anger.

Sunday, 10 December 2017

War of 1812ish US Regulars

This week I’ve painted another half dozen War of 1812 US Regulars from Matchlock Miniatures. This time, however, they are in the 1814 uniform (yes, the ‘War of 1812’ wasn’t just confined to 1812...terrible name for a War) and accompanied by an officer. They’ve also been complemented by some appropriately Canadian weather.

I’ve always been aware of the fact that Napoleonic uniforms kept changing and have never really thought about why.

I know it won’t apply to every change of uniform, but whilst I was painting these guys it occurred to me that the US Army changed its uniform to make it easier to produce during the war as the later uniform lacked the facings and lace details of the earlier design. This made painting them much faster, and I can only assume it did the same for the manufacturing process.

Sadly, they kept the labelled backpacks...

I think the single epaulette on the left shoulder indicates that the officer is a lieutenant (I need to check that), which makes him perfectly appropriate to lead my small scouting force as he’ll only actually have 16 regulars directly under his command, along with a motley collection of other detachments.

Despite them being somewhat old fashioned in their style, I’m quite enjoying painting the Matchlock Miniatures. However, next up are some Woodsmen from Wargames Foundry.

Sunday, 3 December 2017

“A Mere Matter Of Marching”

In August 1812, former president Thomas Jefferson proclaimed that, “the acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching; & will give us experience for the attack of Halifax the next, & the final expulsion of England from the American continent.”

And so, as a follow up to my Rifles, here are some US Regulars in their 1812 uniforms, the sort of soldiers that Jefferson believed would simply march to victory. The fact that they’re in a marching pose is suitably fitting.

I feel like I’ve had a taste of the full Napoleonic experience with painting these: having to research uniform dates; bemusement at nineteenth century fashion choices; painting crossbelts, packs, collars and cuffs; repetitive poses; repainting bits I discover too late that I’ve got wrong. It’s been...fun.

My favourite moment was discovering that the US army embroidered ‘US’ on their packs for no apparent reason other than ‘bling’, this meaning that I’m going to need to freehand in every...single...model!

I’m happy enough with how I’ve done.

The models are Matchlock Miniatures from Miniature Figurines. They’re fairly stodgy miniatures with decent detail. Their proportions mean that they won’t mix in the same units with the Knuckleduster Miniatures, but they don’t look daft on the same table. The faces are also a bit ‘simian’ (this is worse in some of the other sculpts).

However, the most important detail is that I already have them, after picking up the occasional random pack at wargames shows a few years ago.

Currently I only have six 1812 US Regulars (an issue with getting random packs), which is only enough for a Flank Company skirmish group in Sharp Practice. I do have other infantry and so the initial force I’m putting together will have a fairly ‘cobbled together’ feel to it, at least until I can get to some more shows.

However, I now have two groups painted. With the addition of an officer or two, I should be able to have a small test game of Sharp Practice, putting my Americans against a Native force.

Sunday, 19 November 2017

The Forgotten War

I’m sure I’m not alone in having projects that I keep coming back to, but just never get off the ground. For me, the most prominent of these is the War of 1812.

Despite appearances to the contrary on this blog, I am, deep down at heart, a historical wargamer. My passion for the hobby was sparked by my dad’s collections of Romans and Carthaginians, both sides at Flodden, ECW Scots and his Black Brunswickers as they appeared at Waterloo.

If you were to look at my gaming history closely, you’ll see the influences these roots. I always preferred the rank and flank of WFB to the ‘modern’ warfare of 40k. My collection of armies include my own Carthaginian and Hoplite armies. I once began an ECW project but it lost steam and the miniatures were added to my dad’s collection. And every so often I will begin furiously reading up on the War of 1812, pondering the gaming possibilities and impulse buying a few miniatures.

Why the War of 1812? What is it that draws me to this obscure and largely forgotten little conflict - an addendum to both the Napoleonic Wars and the War of Independence?

Mainly, the manageable scale (small, certainly compared to Napoleon’s outings), the sheer variety of actions (small raids, ambushes, sieges, pitches battles), and the variety of combatants (British Redcoats, ragtag militia, and Indians!). Oh, and there’s a lack of cavalry - have I mentioned that I hate horses?

The trouble is, I never really got further than buying a few packs of miniatures from shows (and one rather random lot on eBay) because frankly, Napoleonic armies are quite intimidating. Most rulesets focus on the big battalions and even though the War of 1812 was small, the idea of painting even a couple of units of the same thing terrified me. Also there was the issue of who I’d play against.

What I needed was a combination of a few things:

A fun rule set that didn’t require me to paint a lot, but still felt appropriate.
An opponent who was doing something similar that could provide some motivation.
The Napoleonic urge to come round again.

The first point had been tricky. I have a copy of Muskets & Tomahawks, but that would need adapting. However, about a fortnight ago I stumbled on a Beasts of War video featuring Sharp Practice 2 from Too Fat Lardies. Not only did this look fun (focusing as it does on the exploits of individual commanders) and manageable (30-40 models per side initially), it also had a War of 1812 supplement to help with army building.

As for an opponent, I remembered that Matt has both an unpainted (well, apart from 8 Riflemen and a few Light Infantry) Napoleonic British army (which is frankly ideal as the 1812 models I have are American), he also has a penchant for trying to paint more than he buys - and so was open to the idea of working on them.

That left the Napoleonic urge. As you can probably tell, it’s back.

So, my first ever Napoleonic unit are a small group from the 1st US Rifle Regiment.

These models are from Knuckleduster miniatures, and although a little rough around the edges compared to what I’ve been painting in recent times, they’ve turned out okay. I’m always amused by Napoleonic uniforms - green coats with yellow fringe, over white trousers, topped off with a plumed stovepipe shako...and this is a fairly tame uniform!

Sharp Practice requires troops to operate in groups of 6 or 8 (depending on their type) and join up with similar group to create formations like lines, columns and squares. Therefore these guys are a complete unit, although they’re currently missing an officer (or ‘big man’) to command them.

A quick scan of my ad hoc collection of War of 1812 miniatures pointed me to the ‘Scouting Force’ army list as being the closest fit. For this I will be building 6 Rifles (done), 6 Woodsmen, 16 Regulars, 8 Cavalry (I know...), and 4 Officers. Later on I have the makings of an artillery group too, and if I wish I can add the Woodland Indians I painted some time ago, although the Indians were more typically on the British side.

So there you have it. A new army started. I’m not sure how quickly they’ll come together, and I’m probably going to upset some Napoleonic purists along the way (my cavalry will be all kinds of wrong). However, I’m hoping Matt an I can at least take few models out for a spin in some skirmish rules before long as further motivation.

Friday, 31 July 2015

Operation Unthinkable: Muskets & Tomahawks

Another month, another target met. I'm doing quite well with all this.

This month I set myself the target painting all of the Woodland Indians I'd originally bought to play Musket & Tomahawks, but later got co-opted into my perpetually stalled War of 1812 project. 20 Warriors, 2 Chiefs and 5 Villagers stood in my way.

At the beginning of the year, when I began Operation Unthinkable, I'd mentally earmarked these miniatures as destined for eBay, but the timely intervention of Dave, from the Spider Web of History blog, inspired me to save the tribe from this ignominious fate and get them done.

To celebrate this feat, I decided to do a little photo shoot of the tribe launching an attack on a small group of settlers in their farmstead. The settlers are putting up a fight, but are hopelessly outnumbered and regretting their decision to not bother with any fences (I need to make some of them). Their fate looks sealed.

I'm quite pleased with what I've done, and along with my settlers, I clearly have the makings of a scenario. However, what I don't have is an opponent for Muskets & Tomahawks. Matt has said he'd give it a go, but that would require him to add to his massive total of seven British infantry, whic have so far taken him four years.

What's more likely is that later in the year, I'll set myself the goal of painting up my War of 1812 Americans and use them for a couple of games.

I'm guessing that this qualifies for another Joker from 6MMRPC, but I've no plans to spend yet.

August is hopefully going to be a big month. As I'm not at work, I'm going to take the opportunity to take a chunk out of my Batman backlog (hereafter to be known at 'the Batlog'), which should include at least a dozen models, three buildings and numerous other pieces of scenery. As ever with the Batman stuff, nothing is being got rid of if I don't get it all done, but if I succeed, I might be burning a few of my Jokers restocking.