Little BigHorn Battlefield Visit - Reno in the Valley

Arriving at the LBH battlefield for the first time is odd...you're driving up I90 without realizing that you are in fact driving right through where Reno's dismounted skirmish line was deployed, and right in the vicinity of the huge pony herd and village area.

Reno's battalion swept down the valley from the left, dismounting at the area of the present red roofed buildings in the upper right of the photo.  The buildings are immediately to the east side of I90.  The photo is taken from the bluffs to the east of the river.

Another view of Reno's position from a slightly different position.  Trace along the line of I90 until you see the red roofed building, and that's Reno's dismounted skirmish line position.  The tree area to the east of that (closer to your viewing perspective) is the wooded area adjacent to the river that he fell back to as the pressure mounted from the Indian warrior's assault.

Another, wider angle, shot from a different angle.   Again - look for the red roof building to locate the skirmish line position.

A zoomed in photo of the red roofed buildings where the skirmish line was located.  Sorry for the slightly fuzzy focus....zoomed in and a windy day.

After "charging" down the valley, dismounting to a skirmish line, and then falling back into the woods, the next phase was a generally panic stricken rush to "get out of Dodge" and get over the river and up onto the bluffs....to perceived "safety".  Not one of Reno's finer moments....

You can see the flat area on this side of the river that Reno's fleeing troopers crossed over to, and the rugged ravines that they faced as they ascended to "safety".   

A closer look at the area.  

A closer view of the hills, folds, and ravines that the troopers fled up to get to the bluffs.   Hard to recreate this terrain on a wargame battlefield.

One can only imagine the sheer terror the troopers felt - a frontal assault gone bad, seemingly hordes of warriors boiling out of the village, the redeployment into the wooded area and then the panic stricken rout to the river.   If they managed to survive that far, they then had to get across the river and up to the top of the bluffs.    It's easy to see why Reno's battalion was effectively spent and ineffective after this experience.

More in the next post as I follow the battle flow through photos.

Plains Indian Wars Battlefield Visits

Just back from a long weekend visit to the Little Bighorn battlefield (aka "Custer's Last Stand"), the Fetterman fight (massacre?), Wagon Box Fight, and Ft. Phil Kearney, along with my trusty sidekick and wife - Lisa.

All I can say is "wow".  I regret that I haven't made it to these sites before.  Even with a lifelong interest in the Batle of the Little Bighorn, and fully aware in my mind of the distances involved, it was stunning to see the vast distances and space of the LBH battlefield.   I'll expand on my opinion of the battle in a future post, but all I can say is - if you haven't gone, you really need to go.

The Fetterman fight battlefield was similar.   Vast spaces, windswept hills.

In both cases, the slope of the hills and rugged nature of the ground was eye opening.

My wife and I decided we needed Native American ("Indian") names in honor of our visit, so we decided on:

Brent:    No Talk

Lisa:   Runs-Her-Man

Here are a couple of photos of No Talk and Runs-Her-Man at the Fetterman fight battlefield.

No Talk posing on the ridge at the Fetterman battlefield.  Monument in the right distance.

Runs-Her-Man on the ridge, with the valley and hills behind where the Lakota lay in wait for the Fetterman detail.

Lee's Lieutenants and More Cleanup!

During my sorting and sifting process, I came upon a first edition set of Lee's Lieutenants, by DS Freeman.  Unfortunately, its not a signed copy....but then if it was, I wouldn't be offering it for sale!   If anyone out there reading this is interested in a mint copy of a 3 volume, 1st edition of Lee's Lts, you can get in touch with me via this blog, or email me directly at brentoman@q.com .

I don't want to give the impression of a vast disorganized mess that I'm working through....rather its a compactly stored area of 15 years worth of various books, project materials, and miscellaneous "stuff" that a wargamer accumulates.   Which wargamer's then forget they have, and when they come across it they think "I'll do that someday".    Well, I've discovered from my half century on this planet, that "someday" never comes unless you make it so.

Hex terrain.....gone!    Various paperback novels, read and unread ....gone!   A couple of boxes of old wargame rules.....gone!    I'm investigating CD/pdf versions of my Wargames Illustrated and other magazines to save space.   I truly enjoy the feel of a magazine vs. reading on a monitor, but lets face it - its virtually impossible to find an old article, which then means that old magazines are little more than space taking objects.

I did find that I most likely have more ECW figures (Old Glory and Redoubt) than I could ever possibly use!  That, and enough 1/60th WW2 armor to field multiple armored divisions in FoB:WW2!  

The plan is to get all the unpainted lead neatly organized in plastic storage boxes under my game table (enclosed).  Finished terrain pieces and terrain project materials will be moved to my storage closet.  After that, time to work on adding more shelving in my figure cabinets, and time to build more figure storage trays.   Time flies when you're having fun!

In the meantime, I'm up at 4 AM every day, using the first 50 minutes of my day for uninterrupted and dedicated painting.  Since I started this around 100 days ago, my output has been startling - I LOVE knowing exactly when I'll be painting.   Hit the painting table, turn on ESPN2 and listen to Mike and Mike go over the previous night's sports results while laying on some new color.   Very cool, very relaxing, and for me - the perfect way to enjoy my hobby and make progress on my armies.

As part of the cleanup, I ran across some old Historicon and Cold Wars Photos, taken with my (now gone) trusty Sony Mavica - the height of digital camera technology at the time.   I think the two photos below were from a game at Cold Wars in 2003.   Recognize anyone?

I spy..one of Piquet Inc.'s owners!

Could that be Freddie?  Jeff?  Serf #1?

River Tiles - Next Step

Sorry for the delay...its been a busy week.   I'm currently hip deep in sorting out a storage room.  There's nothing quite as liberating, and depressing at the same time, as sorting through various boxes of stuff gathered over the years for projects yet done (or even started!).   Stuff like various bits of fake fur, welcome mats, turf, wood bits, box after box of lead waiting to see the light of day, more boardgames than I could play in a lifetime, various rolled up maps, craft christmas trees waiting for conversion to wargaming trees....and the odd discovery of stuff that I'd sworn I had but couldn't find.   For example - a while back I was bitten by the bug to paint some Churchill tanks for my 25mm WW2 collection.  I KNEW that I had previously bought 3, but could never find them.   After a while, I thought "maybe I imagined that I bought them....".    So, today while cleaning I found the 3 original Churchill tanks I bought, plus the 3 ADDITIONAL Churchill tanks I'd purchased because I'd convinced myself that I never bought the first 3.     Oops.    Onward and upward.

Next up on the river tiles was first to give a heavy spray of Dullcote to the caulking river bed.  This seals it and keeps sand from the next step sticking to it.   After that was allowed to dry, I applied a bead of yellow carpenter's glue to the bank areas and then covered that with my sand/ballast basing mixture.  This is the stage shown in the photo below.

Next, I'll paint the sand areas with a diluted earth brown, and drybrush with American Mississippi Mud and Driftwood.   The sand areas will be finished to match my figure basing style.   I'll post an update with that later this week.

Tomorrow is the first day of OTA's (organized team activities) for the Broncos.....with PEYTON MANNING!!!!!!   I am SOOOOO excited for the NFL season to get here this year since the Broncos will have their first legit QB since the big guy (that's John Elway) retired.

Making River Tiles - Part 2

Step 2 goes fast.  Put a bead of caulking in the center of the river bed.  Smooth that out with your finger.  You'll want to keep paper towels on hand as this is messy.

Take the handy dandy caulk river texture smoothing device (aka cheap paintbrush from Home Depot) and dip it in some water.  Run the brush over the caulking to get rid of the large ridges and rough areas from your finger smoothing.   You'll now have something that looks like the photos below.  

Why not just leave the tile surface and paint it as water?   Well....water has texture; it moves, it dips, it raises.  It's not flat like a sheet of steel.   Using caulking gives that movement texture to the river area.

Let this dry overnight, and give the caulk "water" areas a heavy spray of Dullcote or whatever your favorite spray fixative is.   Sealing the caulk will keep bank texture sand from sticking to the water area.

More in the next post as we move the river tile construction forward.

Making River Tiles

Battle 2 of our 1809 campaign uses a terrain layout that requires 2 different rivers on table.  This means that I have to build 2 new river terrain tiles for the game set up.   A good time to summarize the build process!

I use 1.5" wide rivers at the edge.  Measure from each corner so that the river edges line up evenly.  I use a pencil to sketch out the general river course and then score along that sketched line with the utility knife.  Starting at an edge, slowly bend the tile at the scored line...then go to the other edge and start there.  After a few bends, it will snap off cleanly.   Do the other side of the river line similarly.

You now have the two top edges of the tile.   Apply a bead of superglue irregularly around the bottom of the top pieces and place on the full bottom tile, aligning on the corner - using your fingers around the corners to make sure they line up.

There you go - you now have the basic river tile.   Next up is applying texture to the river.   More later.

Start of New 1809 Campaign

We played battle 1 (of 3) in our 1809 campaign season last night.  A close fought battle between the Austrians and Franco/Bavarian alliance, resulting in a slim win for the Austrians.  The Austrians had 3 Army Morale Points (in Field of Battle, 2nd Edition) remaining when the French force failed its army morale test.    After the game, 3 French units were downgraded to "Raw", along with their CiC who falls to "Poor" - undoubtedly its a reflection of his self worth shining through after the loss!

The Austrians fared much better, with 1 unit jumping from "Raw" to "Regular", and 1 line infantry unit going from "Regular" to "Crack"!

Bad things coming for the French!

Some photos from the game:

Bavarian John surveys the battlefield.  The large hill mass in the center of the battlefield was key to both army's deployments.

Genl. Chris' heavily Hungarian command moves under cover of the hill.

Bitter fight for the town ends with the French evicting the Hungarians.

Furious firefight between Tony's Austrians and John's Bavarians.

Austrians form square, because of.....

These guys!