General Altzheimerski's Escape

[Wirelizard]

Another short and fairly goofy RCW game today, mostly to give us a chance to try out vehicles and cavalry in Through the Mud & the Blood. My new armoured car and my half-painted cavalry appeared, as did Corey's mostly-painted 1:48 DH4.

The basic scenario was that the Whites were trying to get the retired but still highly respected General Alzheimerski out of harm's way, while a Red Commisar had conceived of the idea of getting the old man back to Moscow to lend credibility to the Bolshevik cause. A White cavalry troop bundled the old man onto a horse and headed off cross-country to get him to an area large enough for the British to land in and get him safely the rest of the way to a White-held city.

A section of Red sailors learned the hard way that it is unwise, when you are regular unsupported infantry in the open, to try and stop cavalry. They got run over by speeding Cossacks, half their number sabered down, and did exactly nothing to stop or even delay the White's rendezvous with the RAF.

Meanwhile, the Red armoured car had rushed ahead of the sailors, met up with a unit of Red Guard and managed to intercept the pack train with the General's valuables. The White infantry guarding the pack animals learned that an armoured car with twin HMGs is bad news, even when only supported by Red Guard who are more than likely just bandits...

Corey got some pics but his computer is acting up, and the only photo I took that worked out is this one, from late in the game. The White infantry on the right is loaded down with shock; on the left the armoured car and Red Guard pour fire into them, and at the top of the hill the remaining few sailors advance to join the fun. The pack animals would wind up running straight uphill when their controlling infantry fled, right into the arms of the sailors.


More RCW by WireLizard, on Flickr

So the surviving sailors got rich (at least temporarily), Alzheimerski got away, and poor hapless Blotski got to slink back to Moscow and try to explain to the Party why his little scheme hadn't worked out very well...

[Gothic Line]

 Looks like a lot of fun!!!

[Marine0846]

O, the plans of mice and men, even Bolsheviks.
Would love to be a fly on the wall when what went wrong is told in Moscow.
Sounds like it was a fun game.

[Wirelizard]

It was a good game. Corey (my brother, who posts as Burgundavia here) finally got his computer issues fixed long enough to get some photos from that game posted, and given that he's at work today and I'm home, I'm going to steal his photos and put a few of them up here. (this is the difference between a $200 five year old basic camera [ie, my camera...] and $1000+ bucks of shiny, shiny DSLR goodness with a brand-new macro lens [ie, his camera]...)


The Red armoured car and infantry by burgundavia, on Flickr


The White cavalry runs down the Red Sailors by burgundavia, on Flickr


The Red armoured car by burgundavia, on Flickr

You can see the rest, and a bit more of a writeup, over on our shared gaming blog. Enjoy!

[Gothic Line]

 Fantastic pictures, just what color did you use on the Cavalary great coats?
 Great armored car too! very good weathering!

[Wirelizard]

Fantastic pictures, just what color did you use on the Cavalary great coats?

The base colour for all my Russians is Reaper Master Series Khaki Shadow, but I also use Bone Shadow and Polished Bone as alternate base colours for variety.

The cavalry are barely half painted, the horses are mostly done but the riders are really only block painted.

Great armored car too! very good weathering!

I had a lot of fun with the weathering and painting of the armoured car. The games we play are rarely going to have more than one or two armoured vehicles on the table at once, so extra care and attention seemed warranted.

Most of the weathering techniques were just simple highlighting and drybrushing; the dirt and dust is mostly pastel chalk dust. I used Sidney's awesome WW1 tank article (also seen here on LAF) and this great free PDF booklet for inspiration and some techniques. (which reminds me, next payday I must pick up some oil paints, I badly want to try that weathering technique for vehicles...)