Defeat for Imperial Japanese Army (Not glorious either)

Had a great day yesterday playing my first game of GASLIGHT with some of the chaps from LAF. I remembered to take my camera tripod, it would have been a lot better had I remembered my camera too!
I took a few pics with my iphone but Im sure a battle report will be up on LAF soon and I will post a link.

Here is a picture looking down the table

My forces started at the far end on the left hand side opposed by the British , the nearer side in the picture were ither forces including Americans, Khosindan Pirates Sanwar. The centre of the table was occupied by an Atlantean Temple which was the main objective of the game , however I completely ignored that.

Thanks to Bullshott for lending me some of his Japanese army (and for helping me sort my army list) some of which can be seen here http://www.displacedminiatures.com/Bullshott/gallery/1952/

My force consisted of my stalkers, line infantry , imperial guard, tank, walker and tatsuhiro suit led bt KK Taro ( General Yugo was a onlooker). To these forces were added 3 small tankettes , a steam samurai , a unit of line infantry,a unit of mecha (stalkers) , a unit of Japanese sailors made by Pulp Figures  and various characters.

Japanese start positions

Looking across the table towards the British positions.

American forces.

The central Temple

I will not comment to much upon what happened during the game, suffice to say after some early successes in particularly against the The Black Watch and the BRAS ( balloon cavalry)  it all went pear shaped after a beer break.Some of my units including my crack Imperial Guard got involved with some Atlantean units defending the temple and didnt move more than 6 inches all game until they got wiped out, to make matters worse I had a steam tank in the jungle nearby and forgot to move it a couple of times. The Japanese Naval unit performed particularly badly and  at one point ran away , however I will be ordering a unit of these for my force soon!

On my other flank the steam tanks did well but were eventually put out of action , although the crew after exiting the smoking remains of there vehicles carried on the fight and in fact had some remakable success before succumbing. My central forces moved forward to within range of the British and basically got shot to pieces. General KK Taro spent the game runnning around like a headless chicken. The steam tank I had forgotten about a couple of times eventually got involved but incurred a damaged gun barrel in its first engagement and proceded to ram any vehicle it came into range of, with limited suceess.

My thanks to the other players for a enjoyable day, thankfully I knew neither the England rugby result nor Chelsea footy result till I got home.

EDIT- A far more complete report is available here

http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic=16828.0

Atlantis Campaign

The nice chaps from the VSF message board at Lead Adventure Forum are in the early stages of a campaign based on the Lost Continent of Atlantis, set circa 1890 . I was quite keen to take part when it was first mooted last year, in fact its been the major spur to get some painting done. I have been allocated a small island just off Atlantis to game on rather than the main Island. This suits me as I hope to get Mors Junior and even Mors Minor involved, I have created a map so that we can see how the exploration of the island develops. The Imperial Japanese Army under the command of General Yugo are the first expedition to land. They will soon be involved in a skirmish with a  so far unknown quasi military force. Later other forces will be involved, including most of my DA miniatures. This coming saturday I have been invited to game for a day at a pub in Twickenham by the other members of the board so I have been trying to finish off as many Japanese as possible. Here are my finished units so far.

C-in C General Yugo

Kinokaruta Taro

Eagle Eye Sakamoto

Imperial Guard Infantry

Line Infantry

Smoke Stalkers

Major Nori of the Imperial Guard

Tatsuhiro Mechanified Infantry Suit

Bishi Steam Walker

Mitsu Scout Steam Armoured Car

We will be playing Battles by G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T rules , which I have been reading through this week. I will try and post some pics of the game next week .

First DA Battle

As usual I did not achieve what I wanted to during the week ,I am just too tired to get the enthusiasm up to paint when I get home from work. Both orders of Abyssinians are here now and I have based them today , hopefully will start painting them soon but I need to do a few things to my Japanese VSF force first , this will take priority for the next couple of weeks.
This afternoon I finished the 3 white men each for my FP and for the Karl Peters expedition -

Karl Peters

German Officer?

FP

Belgian Sergeant

This afternoon I had a quick game of HoDA with Mors Junior using my lightweight movable board , I controlled the German force and Mors Jun the FP, Mors Minor was involved with a randomly moving lion and helping with the dice throws!

We only had the time for three turns  and simplified the rules as it was our first time although the rules are fairly simple anyway.Here is the table with all my figures that are  painted on it.

There are too many figures for for our first game and the size of the board (4'x4') , so we cut them down to

this-

The FP consisted of two 9 man soldier units , 2 white man units , standard bearer , scout and c-in-c.

The german expedition was a 9 man soldier unit , a 10 man heavily armed askari unit , 15 man musketeer unit, 2 white man units  , standard bearer scout and c-in-c. Roughly about 640 points each, as HoDA has a reccomendation of 720 points as a max it was a bit ambitious, especially starting the game at about 7pm on a sunday night!The soldier units are very very expensive points wise.

Here is a picture of Mors Minors lion getting his din din during turn 2-

Thats it for now, hopefully more to report next week!!

First Abyssinians Arrive

The order from Irregular arrived today and Ive had a email to say the Bicorne order has been dispatched. From reading the forums I know the quality of these two ranges is not as high as Askari and a long way behind Empress offerings , however Im not disappointed so far, these had a bit of flash and the sculpt quality is what I would call old school but with a reasonable paint job I think they will be ok, service from both companies is meant to be excellent and so far I can confirm that.Here are a few pics of the Irregular order that I have cleaned up so far.

Here are a few charcters, at the front from left to right is a std bearer, MenelikII , coptic priest with 2 parasol bearers behind.

Here are the infantry with small variants, I ordered 5 of the same code and they are all slightly different. There outfit is a bit fancy for standard tribal troops so they may have to be a chiefs retinue.

Galla heavy cavalry. These Im not too sure about , the riders have mail shirts which is fine but I have no reference for the quilted armour on the horses , I did order some Savannah cavalry too but these are definately the Galla. If anyone knows how these should be painted I would appreciate it!!

The order also contained 5 musketeers and 3 light cavalry as well as some Savannah heavy and light cavalry and Savannah infantry.

Elements of a new force on the way.

I recently decided the unpainted lead mountain was out of control and that I would not buy anything more till Salute in April. I have failed. I was contemplating a Western Sudan force but have opted instead for Abyssinia ,  I am reading The Barefoot Emperor by Philip Marsden.

This is the story of Emperor Tewodros II , known as Theodore in the UK, who decided to take on the British Empire because Queen Victoria (gawd bless her) omitted to write back to him. Obviously a bit more than that was involved , here is a good link for the history of Ethiopia http://www.angelfire.com/ny/ethiocrown/

I am planning on a force based on a later Emperor, Menelik II , who took on the Italians and gave them a good thumping at Adowa , the biggest defeat of a European nation in Africa during colonial times.

There are suitable figures available from Irregular, Bicorne,Empress , Askari and Castaway . I have ordered a small quantity from Irregular and Bicorne to start off with, hopefully get some of Empresses at Salute , heres what they look like when painted by a master

Im not sure how all the ranges will scale up against each other , hopefully not too badly. Some of the ranges are actually for the the 1935-36 Italian invasion of Abyssinia but the tribal levies were pretty much unchanged from the latter years of the 19c.

Thats it for now. My plans this week are to finish off the 6 DA Europeans and a few Japanese VSF items and to actually have a game next sunday of HoDA with Karl Peters force up against the Force Publique.