Pocket Panzers

Moving through the forest while avoiding detection by man or beast is as much about sound as anything else. The city-bound think it's all about snapping twigs, but the rustle of underbrush, the clanking of a metal canteen or the squeak of a piece of leather equipment can be even more crucial. The men selected for the raiding party know this, be they Pelletier's milice  or Hardheart's Huron warriors. Moccasin-clad feet pick carefully through the undergrowth as they close on the dim glow of the camp ahead. A few of the men even shield their eyes or avert their gaze to keep from spoiling their night vision. In the camp, too, there are subtle sounds. The crackle of embers, the swish of liquor in the guard's bottle, the faint creak of the rope around a French officer's wrists. Out in the dark, the Canadiens shake out into line with as much care as they approached with. Tremblay is the first to shoulder his musket, drawing a bead. The next sound is not so subtle - the cli...

  Sergeant Gordon, the old highlander, leaned on his halberd as the British party got into order. The soldiers tried to remain quiet with the smoke from the French and Huron fires rising less than a mile away, but leather creaked and equipment clanked all the same. The highlanders were as much a culprit as the green militia, festooned with weaponry as the Scotsmen were. He and Abercrombie, one of his senior corporals, had bickered about whether the regulars should lead or not, and if they should form in line or adopt an open order. In the end, it hadn't mattered. The fancy Dutchman insisted on taking the militia on ahead. Gordan spat as he watched them form up, wrangled between the Dutch dandy and the so-called mayor of the half-burnt village nearby. At last they got underway, marching off toward the rising smoke where their Mohawk scouts had led them. Christ, he'd seen frothing targe-wielding Jacobites with better-dressed lines. As the militiaman got out in front, Gordon glanc...

As the sun rises over the vast forests of the valley, Florian Vanderventer sits by the fire in his shirt-sleeves and studies a hastily penned message. Despite the roving bands of hostile natives and Frenchmen in the area, a courier managed to arrive with the note, having been dispatched from Albany a few days before. The militia captain notes with annoyance that the letter is addressed to "Capt. F. Venderventer," — these English colonists never could spell the Dutch "Vandeventer" correctly, and his father usually dictated his business correspondence rather than penning the dispatches himself. And it was a message from his father, one about business, at that. Requesting his input in a pending transaction concerning the fair rate for fur trappers in his father's employ, as well as the relative market prices and how the fighting with the French had affected them. Florian's father expressed concern at the fighting north of Albany, without asking after his son...

"I'll never be one of those wargames bloggers that neglects the blog for months at a time, especially in the middle of a campaign series." - me, April 2023 Well, we saw how that worked out. Instead of boring you with the reasons for my absence, I'm going to just get on with the next entry in our French and Indian War campaign using Sharp Practice. I'll save the excuses for a hobby post somewhere down the road. I haven't been wholly unproductive, but very scatterbrained.

In the dim hours just before the sun rises high enough to illuminate the forest floor, the group of French colonial troops sit dejectedly in their camp, licking their wounds. A few of them gnaw at pieces of pork in the gunmetal light, cutting from the sow they'd hauled away from Little Eden the evening before and roasted. Their sergeant broods, honing his tomahawk impotently with a stone. Moccasined feet approach from where their Huron allies had been gathered smoking nearby. At their head, the French leader spies his native counterpart. The older indian looks big and beefy even draped in his red blanket. Hardheart tugs his knife from the sheath around his neck and hacks off a hunk of pork, biting it fiercely and swallowing. "Today. We take more from them," he says flatly. The Frenchman hardly hears him at first. "We should wait for new instructions, we've done our bit," the sergeant grouses, running his thumb along the blade of his hatchet. He doesn't t...

The pleasant early-summer temperatures have drawn the settlers of Stag's Head out of their cabins and into the sunshine. While the men and boys tend to the frontier outpost's crops or scout out the next patch of forest to be harvested for lumber, the womenfolk and children tote chairs and tables out onto the grass and have a meal of fresh bread and meat pies topped with mushroom catsup. Young Miss Charity Scroggins is something of a guest of honor at the get-together outside her cousins' cabin. Her father Ichabod is an uptight schoolteacher who came west from the Puritan settlements in New England and has managed to crowbar his way into a position of influence in the valley. The girl's kin are determined to show her a proper good time during her stay, and by all accounts things are going splendidly. One of the young men has just taken a break from the fields and struck up a lively tune on his fiddle when one of the village boys comes tearing out of the woods. "Indi...

One of the potential benefits of collecting figures to wargame the French and Indian War is that cavalry units are almost nonexistent in the forests of North America and artillery is really limited to large sieges which are mostly outside the scale of skirmish games like Sharp Practice. It makes it easier to collect and paint what feels like a full force. However, that doesn't mean that I didn't have a look at what was out there. Sharp Practice does  have rules for cavalry and artillery, after all. There's metal and even some plastic artillery kits out there, but most predate (War of Spanish Succession) or postdate (American War of Independence) the period I was interested in. As far as I can tell, the only readily available option that wouldn't involve some kitbashing or sculpting (something I wanted to avoid for a piece that will likely see limited use) is this metal set from AW Miniatures. They also carry an equivalent kit for British artillery, I believe. I could te...

In the predawn light, shadowy figures move from tree to tree, cradling their firelocks against their bodies to keep them free of underbrush and vine. Some wear capotes and blue wool forage caps, others are stripped to the waist and adorned with fierce red and black war paint. Marius watches the men under his charge from the rear of the file, while the imposing blanket-draped Huron war chief at his shoulder has his eyes on the French officer. Balancing the hot tempers of the political dissidents that gathered in Parisian cafés kept Marius at his wit's end, but working with the crown's native allies had proved an even worse headache. "We go now." Hardheart growls in French, a language he knows only a little better than Marius knows Wendat. What the sachem lacks in vocabulary he makes up for in tone. The words are a statement of fact, not a question. The young exile nods agreement, adjusting his forage cap and checking the pan of his musket before the two leaders steal t...

Well it's nearly Halloween, so seems fitting that I return from the dead with a new post, this time about the completion of the last major unit for my French and Indian War force. These figures were painted in late August, right before we finished playing out our FIW campaign and I took an abrupt and unplanned hiatus from wargaming and mini painting. My main wargaming partner in the area has left the country for two years on a Peace Corps assignment, and work has limited the time and energy I've had. Nevertheless, I do intend to make more posts here this fall, including battle reports from the FIW campaign. But, back to the miniatures. In Sharp Practice terms, this is three groups of regular French line infantry. I've got them painted as the Regiment Languedoc that served in North America, but I believe they could also stand in as campagnie franches de la marine troops in line formation. To that end, I've modeled flags for both units, since I shouldn't need two stan...

This week, I put the finishing touches on some more French compagnies franches de la marine, this time from Brigade Games, and finished up another Huron leader, also from Brigade Games. I wanted to add some variation to my French marine forces and include more troops that were in their issued uniform, not just frontiersman attire like most of the Conquest/Warlord Games figures are. These are from two packs of Brigade Games' French marines . I think these have been my favorite Brigade figures to paint so far. The Brigade rangers I did were well sculpted, but there was something about these figures that made getting good detail and shading almost effortless. Most are in the blue uniform coats, but there are a couple in the capote coats that give them more of a woodsman look. Here I've chosen to go with earthy colors, though I have read it was not uncommon to make these coats out of their issued uniforms. I painted up two officers or sergeants from the command pack because I...

I've wanted to add some unarmed civilians and other characters to add some flavor to our Sharp Practice games in the French and Indian War, and decided the best way to start would be with these Jesuit missionaries from Warlord Games. They'll also do nicely as a Holy Man support option for SP games, either for the Frenchmen or the so-called "praying indians" they've worked so hard to convert. I think these figures are fun and add a nice touch. They're not hard to paint up, although getting a good black with depth and shadows can be a little difficult. That being said, there's not a whole lot else to paint once you get that down. I added a little variation by changing the colors of their books. Hopefully this party of Huron will find their message - or at least their offer of a hot meal - convincing, otherwise these padres may end up as martyrs. I have a bigger batch of figures that's just about done, but I wasn't going to have time to finish them to...

Well, June's gone along so fast that now it's the middle of July. After the big move in May, work has picked up and the summer heat has arrived, making it difficult to get the motivation the paint and ensuring that my paints dry out almost instantly, even on my wet palette. That, combined with the recent distraction of getting back into Vietnam War collecting and reenacting, has made progress very slow. Gaming, however, has continued, and before long I'll start posting the narrative battle reports from our FIW campaign here. We're still in the thick of it, so I can't say too much. With that said, this week's completed project is this batch of rangers from Brigade Games, gifted to me by my opponent in the campaign and painted for his use. I've always liked the look and lore around the rangers, even if their exploits are probably greatly exaggerated. I believe this is three figures from the command pack and then one whole pack of rangers . Like the colonists ...

After putting together two cabins and some fences for wargames set in colonial North America, it seemed only right to paint up some settlers, in this case colonists who have armed themselves to defend their livelihood from marauding French and natives. These models are Brigade Games' frontier family , and like the other Brigade models I have, they're quite nice. Definitely on the slimmer side, but detailed. My biggest gripe with Brigade figures is that the weapons are thin and bendy and the faces are all oddly similar. The set includes two figures who fit the bill for a father and mother. I personally think the man is clearly modelled off of Mel Gibson's character in the Patriot. Then two sons, both springing to action to defend the farm. If the dad is Gibson, I suppose that makes green trousers there Heath Ledger. Finally, there is a younger son and daughter carrying muskets and powder. I think the set has some nice variety, fitting a specific niche between unarmed settler...

  It's been a minute since my last update — April and early May have been very busy, and even when I've had time, I've struggled to focus on and finish a single project. But with our French and Indian War campaign using Sharp Practice 2 set to kick off in about a week, I felt the need to get my act together and finish some more terrain. That's where this second log house comes in. This scratch-build uses largely all the same techniques as I used in my first cabin , but has a few other features, most notably the stacked-log chimney instead of a stone chimney and the bark-sheet roofing instead of shingles. The log chimney was a lot of hassle, but I think it looks relatively convincing, and it has that distinctive early colonial flair. I'm not all that eager to do another one, however. I guess that's the cost of detailed scratch building. The use of bark sheets as roofing is drawn from the excellent YouTube channel Townsends, where their group of living history ent...