Little Bighorn Battle Report!

This is the culmination of a yearlong painting project - finally we refought Custer's last stand at the Battle of the Little Bighorn! We actually fought the battle twice - once on my birthday (that was the Sunday of the Thanksgiving long weekend here in Canada) and a couple weeks ago when Conscript Greg popped in for a visit from Toronto. Most of the pictures are from the latter runthrough.

We used the Warhammer Historical ruleset "Legends of the Old West" and its supplement "Blood on the Plains". These rules are based on Games Workshop's classic skirmish rules developed for the Lord of the Rings. We've used these rules for LotR of course but I've drawn up variants for everything from Dark Ages, to the Great War, to modern zombies, to battles on the Moon!

 

Anyway the orders of battle I drew up were a bit different between the two scenarios. LotOW counts points in "dollars", and the relative points values of the forces were about 1,000 for the warriors and 750 for the cavalry. For the first runthrough I think I'd forgotten to add in some of the cost of equipment for the cavalry, it is significant as each trooper has a carbine and heavy pistol, which are expensive. So the first battle had a lot more cavalry troopers than the second one.

 

Anyway here are Custer and some of the "Custer clan" on top of Last Stand Hill. The scenario specifies that George and his brother Tom are there, and I added Lt. Cooke, Custer's adjutant, to the group as well, along with a bugler, guidon bearer, and a couple troopers. They're taking cover behind some dead cavalry mounts. Conscript Greg took command, standing in for the General :-)

 

There's a bunch of Plains warriors attacking from a table corner. This is Lame White Man leading many Cheyenne and Sioux warriors into the fight.

Crazy Horse has the main mob of warriors coming from the village across a ford on the Greasy Grass. They initially made for Custer on Last Stand Hill but...

There was a relief force of cavalry that arrived on a random turn. These were led by Custer's brother-in-law Lt. James Calhoun (aka "the Adonis of the 7th Cavalry"), and actually came on the table in Turn 2. The LotOW rules give formed regular cavalry a bonus for charging in a line and Conscript Mike F arranged his men accordingly.

Conscript Bill sent some of his mounted warriors from the corner to intercept the cavalry reinforcements.

 

While Brian had initially also sent some of his mounted warriors against the approaching cavalry, he saw Bill's mounted warriors coming and wheeled his warriors back towards Last Stand Hill!

   

The warriors smashed into the troopers on the hill and this was never going to end well for the Seventh...

...especially as Bill's dismounted warriors were also approaching.

The troopers exacted a toll with carbine fire but as it happened, Crazy Horse ended up base-to-base with George Custer himself and a hand-to-hand fight ensued!

Fame and Fortune points were used on both sides to influence the fight...

... but at the end, it was Crazy Horse left standing and Custer died for your sins. We played a couple more turns to resolve the combats between Mike's cavalry reinforcements and Bill and Brian's mounted and dismounted warriors. Long story short, the cavalry troopers bottled out and fled the table, presumably to be killed and scalped elsewhere.

My thanks to the Conscripts for coming over. Left to right - Kevin, Dave, Brian, Greg, Bill and Mike.

Here's the end on Last Stand Hill. Custer's adjutant, Lt. Cooke (at centre with rifle), was the last man standing. 
 

Here's a pic of the table from the birthday weekend game. That game was fun too and ended a bit differently, Custer was alive and things were looking much better for the 7th Cavalry, likely because of my miscalculation of points as noted above!

Anyway the next thing to do will be to figure out the next encounter between the warriors of the Plains and the 7th Cavalry. We can of course do a scenario based on Reno's "Valley Battle" which would be fun, and will involve some slightly different terrain and of course the Crow scouts! There's also the Rosebud battle which preceded LBH by about a week, plus all of the other Plains Wars encounters about which much has been written. I'm also quite looking forward to "Bugles to the West", a forthcoming set of rules from Osprey covering the period. I understand that this is pretty much a "port" of The Men Who Would be Kings by the same author, but it'll be interesting to try the LBH battles with different (and possibly faster moving?) rules as well.

So for now... hoka hey! 

Catching Up - More 15mm 30k

Recent (mostly) additions to my 15mm 30k project - all 3D prints.

One of the trademark aspects of my own specific hobby nuttiness is the tendency - let's call it what it is, an absolute clear drive - to paint/collect my favourite periods/settings in multiple scales. Is it an unhelpful diffusion of efforts? I suppose so, if you take a project-management style view of the hobby. But I have to do that kind of thing for my day job, so when it comes to the hobby, fun rules. I tend to see the pursuit of multiple scales as a way to really enjoy a given period, setting or game even more. Hence the Franco-Prussian, Napoleonics, Warhammer (Old World), Cold War Gone Hot etc. all in multiple scales. 

And this madness continues with more recent 30k painting to share. As you can see, they are in the bright, fun-and-yet-somehow-still-grim yellow of the VII Legion Astartes, the Imperial Fists. These are all 3D prints courtesy of Byron.

Disclaimer: While most of the figures to be shown here have been painted over the past summer, I have been so utterly negligent in blog posting, that a few of these figures were painted longer-time-ago...like last spring? I was sure I had already posted them....and I couldn't find them? If I somehow doubled up, I apologize in advance...

There is a big pile of stuff in the photo above, so in this post, I'll focus on some of the infantry. 

Breacher Squad

Safety first!

I love the pseudo-medieval look of the "breacher" space marines in the 30k/Age of Darkness setting. The "space pavisse" style shields are just bonkers. 

All set to, er, punch by example....

This is a pretty standard 10-man unit. Two of the marines are equipped with melta guns, while the sergeant has a power fist. The rest have standard bolt guns, and of course the whole lot of them are parked behind huge pavisse-style shields.  In theory these would be used for boarding actions on ships in the void, but come on...given the nature of Rogal Dorn and his Marines, you can absolutely see these guys just carrying the shields everywhere because reasons. 

Melta gunner on the right, regular bolt gun on the left.

Leg armour seen from the rear...almost like a terminator style leg-plate.

There is one other interesting aspect to these guys - they look to be wearing helmets in the style of the elusive "Mark V" armour (really a melange of bits - some Mark III, but the knee plates are reminiscent of Terminator-style armour). The combo of the different bits was great work by whoever did the STL and It's fun to have a bit of it in 15mm. I find it does suit the "breacher" look nicely. 

Assault Squad

Jump in there lads!

And here we get to some classic, Mark VI "Beakie" armour goodness, with a 10-man assault squad. 

The sergeant is waving "hello" - just before he shoots you...

Two-handed chainsword!!

The officer has some power claws. And one of the marines is carrying a two-handed chainsword, which is awesome, because it makes the chainsword concept even more grim-dark hilarious. 

Two of the standard assault marines.

Step carefully!

The STLs for these fellows are just LOVELY. I don't even hate the "tactical terrain"...they have great motion, they are ready to jump into battle and start whacking heretics with chainswords and other fun bits of kit from the grim, dark future. 

That's it for the infantry in this lot...I'll focus on the vehicles (previewed in the group photo at the top) in a later post. Thanks for reading!

More Mounted Plains Warriors and the Adonis of the 7th Cavalry

I know I haven't posted a battle report from the Little Bighorn game I hosted on my birthday but Conscript Greg visited this week and we played the battle again, so you'll get a twofer here on the blog eventually. In preparation for "Part Two" I painted some more mounted warriors and a mounted Lt. James Calhoun.

Warriors painted in the usual style. These are Goes Walking, Running Rabbit, and Yellow Thunder.

Warpaint on the horses too!

Goes Walking with a different shield, Crow in Rain, Striped Dog.

Goes Through the Camp, Swift White Raven, Plenty Coups.

Some more views of the horse paint.

James Calhoun was one of the "Custer Clan" in the Seventh Cavalry, in fact he was Custer's brother-in-law, being married to George and Tom's sister Margaret Custer. He was known as the "Adonis of the Seventh" - he was that good-looking. 

The model is painted in my familiar Seventh Cavalry style with flowers on the base to denote a leader.

Well that's it for new models for the second run at the game. The next post you'll see from me is the battle report, I promise!

Hoka hey!

Thunderhawk and Rapier Battery for Legions Imperialis

Legions Imperialis reinforcements!

Hey, look at this! A second post within one month! Efforts to get back into the regular posting routine continue here with some kit for GW's "Legions Imperialis" game (a.k.a Epic 30k), the small-scale tabletop game rules for the Horus Heresy. We have a battery of Rapier support weapons for the XV Legion Astartes, the Thousand Sons, and, the real star of the show, a Thunderhawk gunship in the colours of the XVI Legion Astartes, the Warmaster's own Sons of Horus!

Rapier Support Battery

"Quad launchers" - the current version of the old "Thudd Guns" - great for knocking enemy infantry around.

"Rapier" support carriers go WAY back into the Rogue Trader times. Take some kind of scary weapon, mount in on a tracked carrier and give up a couple of support crew, and you had a Rapier. They were available back in the day both as 28mm metal kits, and were also among the first metal support options for the early "Space Marine" game - you could get tiny little batteries of these guns to support your 6mm sized Space Marines in the earliest version of the "Epic" game.

The designs have changed over the years, but the concept of the weapon is still the same - some scary weapon on a tracked platform, accompanied by a pair of minders/crew. In the scale of Epic 30k, where super-heavy tanks and Titans stalk the battlefield, these weapons are not large, but they can pack a surprising punch.

Rapiers - anti-tank fire support that will come in handy for the sons of Magnus!

These are great little kits - the only real downside is that they are part of a larger sprue, sharing space with heavy dreadnoughts and other support bits - and so it is not really easy to acquire a decent-sized batter of the guns without accumulating a bunch of other stuff you don't necessarily need. But even the small battery is useful - two laser destroyers designed to pack an anti-tank punch, while the quad launchers take out rival infantry. They don't move very fast, but they do move, and so are good to support an infantry detachment. 

Thunderhawk Gunship

Let's fly the friendly skies of 30k!

On to the star of this post! Here we have a classic Space Marine vehicle, the Thunderhawk gunship. I have been painting Thousand Sons for Legions Imperialis, but there was no way the Warmaster was going to miss out on this bird, so it got the green for the Sons of Horus! 

The original! Who remembers these little metal guys zooming over games of "Epic"?

Remember the original Thunderhawk from the days of "Epic"? The modelling has come a long way!

The Thunderhawk is the all-around, go-to gunship for the Space Marines. While not as large as the venerable Stormbirds, the vehicle fills a similar role, meant as much for action in the void as it is for ground support (hence the main weapon mounted on the top) while it carries Space Marines in for combat landings. It has quite a few weapons to provide fire support for them after they have been dropped off! 

This is a model that GW originally released for their excellent 2nd edition of "Aeronautica Imperialis", the 40k-setting air combat game. The company leaned into the dark humour of its fanbase by touting that a plastic Thunderhawk model was here at long last! I think most of us appreciated the humour :)

Anyway, this thing just looks cool. Here are more photos. 

View from the top.

Side/rear view.

View of the bottom detail.

The model is easy to detach from its flying base, so you can represent it on the ground during the game if the need arises.

There are a lot of parts to this kit...you need to pay attention, because the components are small! But wow, is it ever a wonderful little kit. I painted it sub-assemblies...not a whole lot of them, but I did the tiny heavy bolter currents and missiles separately, as well as the secondary wing assemblies (the smaller "wings" over the top of the engine). I glued those secondary wings into place, but if you wish you can build it so they move! I loved painting all of the details on this model (to the extent I could manage it). I can't wait to use it in a game of Epic 30k at some point. 

That's all for today, but stay tuned for another post, hopefully soon!

"Saturnine" Dreadnought for 30k Thousand Sons

"Saturnine" Dreadnought for the Thousand Sons. Big guns on a big dreadnought.

Well, at long last...a blog post! I have been utterly delinquent when it comes to posting on the Blog. I actually have been painting a fair bit through the summer, and have been meaning to share some photos, because that is fun! But...I just keep getting delayed on the whole "take photos and post" part of the process. Oh well. Let's try to get one post going, and we'll see if we can build on it...and for said post here we will highlight a new addition to the ranks of my XV Legion Astartes - a great big "Saturnine" Dreadnought. This is a 28mm multi-part plastic kit from GW's "Age of Darkness" range.

Big sucker...

"Saturnine"-type kit is the new "latest thing" for the Horus Heresy, central to the box set of the 3.0 edition of the rules released in the summer of 2025. Considering that the Black Library had 50 or 60 so novels covering the story of the Horus Heresy, as well as a 10-book series on the Siege of Terra itself, and that "Saturnine" kit is not mentioned the whole time, this amounted to quite the ret-con, even by GW standards! 

Low emissions...I think? 

The Saturnine-equipped chaps are pretty large. The Saturnine terminators are essentially "they're terminators, but bigger!", and the same thinking lies behind the Saturnine dreadnought - "it's a dreadnought, but bigger!". This thing is mounted on a 100mm round base and is much larger than the Contemptor and Leviathan dreadnought models found in the Space Marine Legion collections. 

"Heavy Plasma Bombard" on one arm.

It is still not as big as the Imperial Knight kits, but in terms assembling and painting, there are a lot of similarities to the approach. There is a significant amount of metal/machine, covered with armoured plates, and the best way to tackle the painting is via a sub-assembly process. This allows you to get a base of metal colours down on the interior components, get those washed and dry-brushed, before focusing on the external armoured covers. 

"Disintegrator cannon" - surely this is totally safe to use...

This is particularly important with the giant, turtle-style armour plates which dominate the top assembly on the model - they cover MOST of what is underneath, but NOT all, so it's worth taking some time to paint the plates separately. It's also a lot easier to apply the transfers to them before they are affixed to the main body.

Secondary weapons, mounted on the chest of the dreadnought. The pair at the top are "concussive resonators", while there are a pair of "photonic incinerators" on the bottom. These are designed to accommodate magnets, which is great.

The designers of this kit anticipated small magnets, which is great, and so magnetizing the weapons was easy. The kit comes with two different options for the (relatively) smaller short-range weapons mounted on the torso, and those are easily magnetized so you can swap them out. The main weapons on the "arms" can also have magnets fitted to them, allowing them to be changed out should I even acquire some of the other weapon options which have been released in the months following the introduction of these new kits.

Close up the the "sarcophagus" on the Saturnine dreadnought...

I've played very little of the 3.0 Horus Heresy rules, so I can't tell you how this thing performs in games. But I have come up against Saturnine Terminators, and find they are just broken, so I expect this thing would deliver similar results. I cannot remember what the main weapons are called, but they seem pretty devastating to infantry and to vehicles, while this version of the dreadnought armour is likely to be unbelievably resilient. These are among the game's newest models, after all, and as the "40k style" is sadly continuing to creep into 30k gaming, it's not shocking that these new kits would be powerful in the game. 

It's hard to spot, but you can see the alternate weapons mounted on the torso.

But I should be fair - these things are not solely a power gaming exercise. First, this is a very nice model kit, something GW can still do very well. And whatever I think of "Saturnine" stuff, it sure seems popular with gamers, and in a genuine way. Many players seem to have a soft spot for those distant images of the original goofy-looking "Saturnine" armour of the Rogue Trader times, and are pleased to have the chance to bring the updated kits to their 30k collections.

No doubt the Thousand Sons of my own collection are surely pleased to be enjoying the boost. They have the "Axehole 2.0" to lead them in battle. They have a Saturnine Terminator squad to bring further support. They also have a new Spartan APC to carry the troops into battle!  Watch for further reinforcements to come to this legion through the fall...anyway, that is all for now, hopefully I'll be back with another post before too long!