Project: Siege of Vicksburg Update #3

This project is really starting to pickup some steam. A lot of progress of several fronts.

But first, Happy Thanksgiving to my US friends! Remember to bring up politics at Thanksgiving dinner to save on Christmas gifts ;-) lol

Fresh new units are starting to roll off the painting table from the excellent Steve Dake ... and basing is in progress ...

Louisiana Zouaves

Yeah, I know they didn't carry the state flag with them ... but it is just so colourful I couldn't resist!

Ohio Volunteer Infantry

The rest of the first batch ...

Union artillery crew for the 24 pdr guns

Union and Confederate commanders

More casualties to add to my current pile

The Union observation balloon, ironclads, gunboat and river boat are all just about finished. Michael from Golden Candle Studio (same who did my Star Wars stuff) is packing them up to ship them to me. The observation balloon is an old plastic kit from the 1960's or something ... found it at an antique store online ... but the perfect scale (even says 1/56 on the box).

I need to paint the guy that goes in the balloon, and then all the ground crew, including to wagons I'm converting as the pumps, etc. for the balloon.  I'll have 4 copper wires (ropes) that go up to the four corners of the basket to hold it up in the air.

Boats and Balloon

A closer look at the main part of the balloon

Here comes the navy!  The boats that will make up the side action for the game are also done.  I need to add the cannon barrels and do flags, but that is minor work.  Michael did a great job on these, really great work here.

Confederate Ironclad

Confederate Ironclad

Progress with the added Union Monitor class

The riverboat and gunship join the ironclads

Ready for action!

My new fur mats are also complete and have arrived from David Skibicki - looking forward to starting to stage this all. I've started painting the buildings and will be jumping between basing units and painting buildings for a little while now.

More to come, stay tuned.

Project: Siege of Vicksburg Update #2

Just a quick update today on my ACW Siege of Vicksburg scenario that I'm hard at work on for the upcoming convention season.  I scanned in an updated map of the battlefield and plan.  This time I needed to figure out more extra scaling/sizing of the various battlefield elements.

Siege of Vicksburg Map

For the field positions around Vicksburg I've decided to use the Gabions from Ironclad Miniatures (https://www.ironcladminiatures.co.uk/ourshop/cat_302099-Gabions-28mm.html).  I figured out using the map how many of each section I would need to complete the positions for Vicksburg and the Union artillery positions.

I have WW2 trenches from Ironclad that I used for my Pegasus Bridge game many years ago and their products are absolutely top notch.

90 Degree

45 degree

Ends
(50mm each or ~2")

Straight with Opening
(100mm or ~4")

Straight
(100mm or ~4")

Printing of the ACW buildings for the edge of Vicksburg is nearing completion.  I set out to print 11 buildings and the final building is printing now and after that there is just a couple of odds and ends to print for a couple of the other builds (e.g. stairs/veranda's).

These 11 buildings will add to my existing (finished) buildings to provide 14 buildings for the "edge of Vicksburg" and the host of civilians I have now to populate the town.

11'ish of my 3D Printed Buildings
(Printing in progress on #11)

I've started cleaning up these buildings, gluing them together and priming them to prepare for painting.  I have taken the US Thanksgiving week off to start into the painting of these buildings.

My ACW collection is expanding significantly as well with 20+ infantry units, tons of casualties, new battlefield extras (camps, HQ, wagons, field forge, etc.), picket lines (skirmishers), civilians, artillery, cavalry, and ironclads.  This is mark the end of my ACW collection - I will have everything I could possibly want for any scenario I'd ever want to do.  The collection will be in excess of 2,000 miniatures.

This Hallowed Ground v4.2

Just a quick update today.  While the rules really haven't changes much, I've refreshed the This Hallowed Ground rules to version 4.2.

The changes are primarily around cleaning up some of the wording and clarifying the order of things.  Additionally shooting and melee are on 1 of the double-sided pages and orders, movement and morale are contained to the other double-sided page which makes things a little more practical when playing the game.  Screenshots below of the pages.

You can download the updated rules here.

Design: ACW Siege of Vicksburg

My next project I'm working on now is for the Siege of Vicksburg during the American Civil War.

This scenario is a bit tricky because I want to achieve the following:

• Represent a part of the town of Vicksburg.
• Represent the Confederate defenses surrounding the city.
• Include a naval component for both sides (Ironclads).
• Represent some of the Union artillery positions.
• Include lots of large siege guns of different types.
• Include a US observation balloon.
• Include Confederate signal towers.

I want to achieve all of the above in an 8 foot by 6 foot layout.  Very aggressive!

I've found some very inspiring pictures from a museum located in Vicksburg ...

The historical challenges are many.  Firstly, the Confederate defense line was not very close to the city.  The US assault was primarily against the middle and north positions - also not very close to the city or the water technically speaking.  Additionally, the naval component was very much one-sided.  All of these things were very spread out not only physically, but from a timing perspective.

With all this in mind, my only choice is to condense many aspects of the siege into a reasonably achievable and playable 28mm scenario.  Below is my rough sketch of how I'm going to make all this work within the desired physical footprint ...

Rough sketch of the scenario map

As you can see, there is a lot jammed into the table, but I believe this will work and provide me all the various aspects of the game I'm looking for - along with some very nice wargaming eye candy for terrain.

I see the battle as primarily being US assaults on the Confederate positions - which while they may (likely will) ultimately fail, there will be opportunities to achieve significant VPs for any breakthroughs or even temporarily holding parts of the Confederate position.

I've purchased a large amount of gabions from Perry Miniatures (https://www.perry-miniatures.com/product_info.php?cPath=22_63&products_id=3029).  I'm going to need 100's of these.  I'll be using a fur mat and will be reaching out to the excellent David S. for that aspect of the table.  I'll be focused on building out the siege positions and painting all the buildings.

I'll be scratch building the US observation balloon ... should be fun - I already know how I'm going to do this ... picture below for inspiration.  My current thinking for the observation balloon is it will give the US side a bonus when firing the siege mortars.

A couple of signal towers from the Confederate side will also be scratch built by me.  These two towers (not an LOTR reference) will provide some bonus to the Confederate siege batteries or perhaps help with the entry points of Confederate reinforcements.

The edge of Vicksburg will be populated with a good number of new buildings I'm adding to my collection.  The first of which is from Sarissa Percision (https://sarissa-precision.com/collections/north-american-28mm/products/plantation-mansion) - their Plantation Mansion ...

I'm in the process of 3D printing the buildings from the *EXCELLENT* Kickstarter named American Civil War Printable Terrain (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/3d-print-terrain/american-civil-war-printable-terrain-tabletop-and-modeling/description) ...

There are some really awesome buildings from this Kickstarter.  I'll be adding in my already finished resin buildings (from Hovel's) as well so the edge of the city should be really well represented.

For the naval component I'm looking to Sarissa Precision again.  For the US I will use the "Monitor" ironclad model and the gunboat.  The Confederate side will have an ironclad as well.  I'll be using a river boat as a scenic part of the docks for the edge of the city.

I'm using the AWESOME siege guns from TA Miniatures (http://taminiatures.com/shop/index.php?route=common/home) for all the siege artillery ...

Everything has been ordered, is printing, or is already in hand.  I'll be getting additional troops completed - especially for the US who will need the troops, along with a bunch of battlefield extras and casualties.

My current plan is to run this game in February at our "CabinCon" weekend (US President's Day weekend).  So, there you have it ... off I go!